Bright Lights

Posted on July 15, 2009 by Trish and Rob


Some of you might remember a fascinating post, Jack the Ripper, by Australian therapist-futurist Marcus Anthony. The following post is one that many traditional psychologists certainly would hesitate telling anyone, much less posting on the Internet. But then the story is part of the reason the Marcus Anthony has moved beyond the status of traditional therapist. Enjoy!
***

Some people ask me how I got interested in knowledge that might be considered “alternative” in some circles. Here is a little story about an extraordinary experience that certainly helped me along my way! So here goes my story, and 100% true.

In 1996 I was living in Coffs Harbour, New South Wales, Australia, a small coastal town. One day I was walking along the street downtown, and I saw a sign which read: “Psychic readings, $10″. I had never had a psychic reading up till that time, and curiosity got the better of me. So I went inside and met a woman named Leslie who gave me a “reading.” The reading itself was nothing particularly special. But what followed certainly was.

To cut a long story short, I ended up going to one of Leslie’s talk/meditation evenings a few weeks later. At the end of the talk she told everyone present that she had had lots of dreams about UFOs the previous night.

“Whenever I have these dreams there are lots of UFO sightings around,” she said. “So if you go out tonight you may see something. I feel that about two in the morning would be the right time.”

Now, being the gullible fool that I am, I decided to take up the offer. I went to bed at about 11 p.m., but set my alarm for 1.45.

When the alarm rang, I managed to drag myself out of bed. I stumbled around my house for 15 minutes, and then headed outside at 2.00 a.m. sharp.

My eyes almost popped out of my head when I swung the door open and looked up at the sky. For flying right in front of me in the clear night sky was something I had never seen before. I can only describe it as a large ball of luminous white light, about a third the size of a full moon. The thing was probably a few hundred metres in the air, and was floating eastwards at about 90 degrees above the horizon. There was absolutely no sound, and it seemed to be gliding on air. I can only describe it as eerily unearthly. I ran out onto the road, and watched it disappear over the neighbours’ houses. In total it was in view about 30 seconds.

The ball of light was heading east, out over the ocean, and since I was in an excitable state, I ran down to the beach, which was only a few hundred metres from where I lived. I walked up and down the beach for an hour, but the ball of light was nowhere to be seen.

Finally I gave up, and decided to head back to bed. I walked back down the short street to my home, and trudged up the driveway. Then, as I was about to duck under the doorway (I’m rather tall) I looked up one last time. Once again my eyes nearly jumped out of my head. I saw something equally as amazing as the ball of light. For, moving directly over my head there was a group of about twenty red, circular lights, flying in a double-V formation, one “V” inside the other. Again there was no sound, just eerie silence. The objects flew in a southerly direction, parallel the coast. They appeared to be a few hundred metres in the air, and within half a minute disappeared behind some trees at the end of the road.

I have had quite a few “interesting” experiences since that day, but probably nothing quite so extraordinary as that night. Of all the things that set me on a path of questioning dominant knowledge structures of western society, and the road to exploring human intelligence and human futures, this experience was probably the most significant.

What were those things I saw that night? How on earth did Leslie know that they were going to be there at that precise time, merely from a dream? Why are these kinds of phenomena still a taboo topic in modern science and academia? I’m still asking these questions today.

–Marcus Anthony has a new book coming out, Sage of Synchronicity.

Posted in dreams, sightings, UFOs | 6 Comments

Sad Celebrity Synchronicity

Posted on July 13, 2009 by Trish and Rob


Here’s one of those historical synchronicities that we happened to come upon. This one parallels the Christopher Reeves synchronicity, even those though it doesn’t directly involve either well known actor.

***

In 1973 British actress Julie Christie starred in the compelling movie Don’t Look Now that was dramatized from a story by Daphne du Maurier. In the film, Julie Christie and Donald Sutherland played the parents of a child who is tragically drowned in a shallow pond in the garden of their country house.

Six years later, Jonathan and Leslie Heale were renting their friend Julie Christie’s farmhouse in the Welsh countryside. The movie star had just left after a visit when Leslie suddenly noticed that her 22-month-old son was missing. She found him dead, as in the movie, floating face down in the duck pond in front of the house.

–That’s from the 1992 Reader’s Digest book Bizarre Phenomena,in their Quest for the Unknown.
***
Although many people already are aware of the Reeves story, mentioned above, it’s worth including here.

In Christopher Reeves last role, he was wheelchair-bound as if preparing for the rest of his life. On the evening news, Wednesday, May 31, 1995, five days after Christopher Reeves was injured in an equestrian accident, Dr. John Jane of the University of Virginia Medical Center confirmed for the first time in a news conference that Reeves was indeed paralyzed from the neck down and unable to breathe without the aid of a ventilator.

A few hours later HBO aired, as previously scheduled, a film starring Reeve that had debuted only a week earlier: Above Suspicion. By unbelievably tragic coincidence, Reeves played in that film – his last role before he was injured – a police officer who was paralyzed after being shot in the line of duty. Obviously Above Suspicion is a film burdened with heavy emotional baggage, but how does it rate as entertainment? For those who can bear to watch Christopher Reeves say lines like: “I want to die. I can’t live my life as half a man…”, it is a taut, beautifully acted drama.

In 2004, John Kerry on the campaign trail mentioned Reeves as a candidate for stem cell treatment on a Friday, and Reeves died on the following Monday.


Posted in celebrity, creativity, death, movies, parallels | 11 Comments

Undying love

Posted on July 12, 2009 by Trish and Rob

When this story arrived in our e-mail box, we were struck not only by the emotional power of the story, but the immediacy. Rather than a dramatic, heart-wrenching tale from her past, it is very recent. We contacted the writer, Mary S. and she agreed to let us post it.
***
Until 5 weeks ago I never thought of myself as psychic or intuitive. I have been an academic for more than 30 years with a PhD in Literary Theory and always thought I was objective with my feet firmly based on Mother Earth. I can see that when I tell my story, my colleagues think: “Shame, she lost contact with life … let her dream her own reality.”

Four years ago I met a psychologist – I will call him Danny. We had a wonderful love affair, but because we live 200 kilometres apart, it was hard to see each other on a regular basis. Therefore Danny asked me if we could shift the focus of the relationship to a more spiritual one. He wanted us to be soul mates and to mainly “resonate” with each other. He actually called me “La gloriosa donna della mia mente”. Being a normal woman, I was a bit skeptical about just resonating. I wanted more and didn’t put my heart into the “resonating” part. We e-mailed and sms’ed on a daily basis and constantly sent each other poems and literary quotations.

At the beginning of this year (2009) I kept feeling that everything wasn’t OK with Danny. I could clearly feel his life force ebbing away, although I was far away and saw him seldom. In the middle of February I e-mailed him and asked if I could send him positive energy every morning at 7. He agreed and for about 2 months I sent him energy every day, although I have never before done something like that. It was no big deal, no flashing lights, just an “umbilical cord” between us, with sometimes the effect of dim light around his heart.

I always knew that Danny would commit suicide someday, because he said so on more than one occasion. When I received an e-mail 5 weeks ago in which he said that his electric cables had been dug up the 4th time in a row by thieves who sell the copper as scrap metal, and that it was going to cost a lot of money, I just knew that something terrible was going to happen. He also said that he thought of breaking away for a few days to rest. We were never in the habit of phoning each other, but when I got that message, I phoned immediately. He was on his way home. I asked him where he was going to rest, and he replied that he didn’t know – he just wanted to get his head clear. I pleaded with him to come and stay with me for some days, because he needed to be spoiled.He answered: “I might just do that …”

That evening at seven I sent him a sms: “Do you survive the cold darkness?” It didn’t go through – his cell was switched off. I went to bed at 10:00, but 20 minutes later, when I was nearly asleep, I suddenly sat bold upright in my bed. I felt that Danny needed me, and sent another sms: “I am concerned about you, Love!” It never went through. The next morning, Friday, I sat down to meditate. I hadn’t sent energy for some time, but felt that I should do so now. At first I couldn’t find him. Then I visualized his heart in my hands and suddenly I saw the most beautiful light. It was a pale pink shell colour in the centre with bits of soft green. Then a big mass of golden cream with a clear golden halo around it. It was so peaceful and serene, it felt holy, like total freedom and bliss, pure calm and rest … I have no words to describe it. I sat there just immersing myself in the soft energy of that light. It was as if the light was giving to me – I did not have to concentrate at all to produce it. Instinctively I knew that Danny did not need anything. He was calm and happy. I thought maybe he went to the Buddhist centre to meditate – hence the light. Then a thought came to me that such a light cannot belong to any living being, but I chided myself and thought that these thoughts could indeed be harmful.

Saturday morning the same happened, only that I sat in the presence of the light for more than an hour while being fed and comforted by it. Intuitively I knew that Danny was totally at peace, he needed nothing from me and again I knew in my heart that no living being can produce such a light. Sunday the same happened and I got the same feeling. Also, during the whole weekend I could sense Danny’s presence very strongly. It was as if he was with me, relaxed and free. I had the elated feeling of going on holiday and anticipating a long time of rest and freedom. What struck me about that weekend is that I went into a frenzy of cooking – something Danny liked but I dislike. I used all the spices and ingredients he would have used and enjoyed myself thoroughly.

Because men hate being checked upon, I did not phone his work – he made it quite clear that he was going away. But deep inside I knew … Tuesday I phoned. The secretary said he died on Friday. I was shocked, but not surprised. But I was certain that he did not die on Friday. Later the police confirmed that he had actually died on Thursday between 10:00 and 11:00 pm – the time I sent him the last sms. He hanged himself in his house. It was quite clear that he had planned on doing this for a long, long time. Before he went, he deleted a whole life behind him. None of his friends could be contacted.

The day I heared about his death, a friend came to stay with me. Like Danny, she was a psychologist. She wanted to help me cope without me knowing. Later she told me that on that night she felt a very strong presence around me. She was nervous and afraid to say or do something wrong, because she was sure someone watched over every single word she said. When she left me, she was sure I was not alone … The first 3 weeks after his death, I was aware of a very strong protective and loving presence around me (although when alive, this was not his nature), and even up to this day, I often have the feeling that Danny is here, that he is, in his quiet manner, helping me through this crisis …

When I learned that in his will he had left all his belongings to a friend of whom I had never heard before, I was stunned. But then I remembered that he used to prompt me to be without attachment. When I realized that nobody else had ever felt his presence after his death, I came to appreciate the wonderful farewell present he had left me: he actually came to visit me like he promised, and since then he has never really left me alone. He guided me with loving-kindness towards the realization that he had left: nobody could phone me with the shocking account, I didn’t need to identify him at the mortuary, I wasn’t left with the albatross of his will and his belongings … What he gave me, is the most exquisite gift anyone can receive … and at last I know “lovers don’t finally meet somewhere – they’re in each other all along”!

In my own language there is a beautiful poem ending like this:
Go then; take sail at break of day,
even with a broken mast and tattered sail,
right in between the Scylla and Chalybdis,
for you will know how near, how nearby that far, faraway land is.

Posted in emotions, love, precognition, suicide | 7 Comments

The Luck Factor

Posted on July 11, 2009 by Trish and Rob


After reading the story of the church choir members who were all late for practice the day the church blew up, you certainly could call those people lucky. So what’s the difference between luck and synchronicity?

In essence, luck is a fortunate synchronicity unless the adjective ‘bad’ comes before it. Luck is something that appears unplanned, outside of cause and effect, hence, synchronicity.

But here’s the difference. Imagine jotting down six numbers and they turn out to be the ones that win the powerball lottery the next day. That’s synchronicity. But if you bought the ticket and used the numbers, that’s luck.

So it took action before the synchronicity turned into something incredibly lucky.

When someone is an overnight success, we call that person lucky. But a closer look usually reveals that the ‘sudden’ success followed years, even decades, of practice. Trish wrote five novels in the 1970s after graduating from college before writing one that got published. Yet, some would say she was lucky, because her work was selected from hundreds, even thousands, of manuscripts written by competent writers.

On the one hand, it wasn’t just luck, it was work and strong intent. And along way synchronicity guided her. The editor at Ballantine Books who bought the manuscript read it the weekend after the premiere of Miami Vice. Like the television show, In Shadow featured two Miami detectives, one white, one black, and they were involved in a drug investigation.

Synchronicity. The editor made an offer and Trish’s fiction-writing career was launched. That came on the twenty-fifth submission of her sixth novel, and was the first and only of those books to be published.

As Frank Joseph writes in Synchronicity and You, “The surest method for conjuring synchronous events into one’s life is to be passionately involved in something, especially if it is greater than oneself.”

Notes therapist Marcus Anthony, author of Sage of Synchronicity: “For Jung, the cosmos was not the great machine of the modern science, but more of an intelligent, organic entity. A serendipitous cosmos is a playful, childlike one, and an adventurous and joyful approach to life encourages synchronicity. A key point is bringing the mind fully into the present moment. In the joyful state of complete presence, it is as if the cosmos comes alive. The deeper meaning and purpose of things becomes known even as they unfold, as if your psyche and the cosmic mind are in open dialogue.”

When you’re doing an activity like biking or running you are releasing so many endorphins that if you positively visualize what you want, it materializes faster. But research also points to the release of endorphins during meditation and intense creative work, as well as sex and childbirth. It’s as if the endorphins somehow help connect us to the powerful source of who we really are, and the potential of who we can become.
Rob

Posted in creativity, endorphins, luck, spirituality | 7 Comments

The Way of the East

Posted on July 10, 2009 by Trish and Rob

Indra’s Net


Picking up on the history of synchronicity, I promised to add references to Eastern philosophy. I’ll work into it from the perspective of quantum physics.

Let’s start with the concept that the unity and interconnectedness of all things forms an underlying order that complements our everyday world of cause and effect. And synchronicity is our link to that hidden reality.

In quantum physics, this hidden reality, this universal consciousness, is known as the non-local mind. Quoting Deepak Chopra on the non-local mind from The Spontaneous Fulfillment of Desire: “Operating outside the boundaries of normal space and time, it is the great organizingand unifying force in the universe, infinite in scope and duration. By its nature, nonlocal mind connects all things because it is all things. It requires no attention, no energy, no approval; it is whole unto itself, and therefore attracts love and acceptance.”

Carl Jung called it the collective unconscious, and the French philosopher, paleontologist and Jesuit priest Pierre Teilhard de Chardin called it the noosphere, an invisible web linking all existence. He proposed that as mankind organizes itself in more complex social networks, the noosphere expands in awareness.

These Western ideas are similar to concept of ancient Eastern traditions, dating back 5,000 years.

In the Indian sacred text, the Rig Veda, Indra–the king of gods and god of war–casts a ‘great spiritual net’ in which all members of the cosmos are interconnected.

The ancient Hindu mystics said everything in the universe was inextricably interconnected, and they used Indra’s net to illustrate the concept. “If the net is multi-dimensional, the points where the strings of the net connect would be like intersecting points from which one could access the whole net. One tug pulls the whole net, one tug connects you to the whole net. Basically, that is how synchronicity works,” writes Shawn Randall, Synchronicity in Your Life.

The Bhagavad Gita, the Hindu religious poem, recognizes the synchronous nature of creation and an underlying cosmic unity. The Hindu term, Brahman, refers to the fundamental connection of all things in the universe. The appearance of this universal oneness in the soul is called Atman.

Joseph Franks in Synchronicity and You wrote: “An indication of the deep antiquity of these seemingly advanced concepts is shown in Atmen, the word for ‘breath’ in German, whose Indo-European roots go back to ancestral beginnings on the Steppes of Central Russia, five thousand and more years ago.”

Zen Buddhism refers to satori, a sense of unity felt with the universe and an awareness of the compassionate intelligence that permeates the most minute details. Pratitya-samutpada, a doctrine of Buddhist philosophy, especially in China and Korea, translates as ‘dependent arising’ and refers to an interdependent web of cause and effect. the motivating principal of the universe.

One last reference: Chi in Chinese philosophy is the life force that permeates all things and empowers the universe. In yoga philosophy, Chi is comparable to pranayama, and is manifested in humans through the breath, as one means. Such breathing exercises date back to ancient times and the origins of yoga, and variations of those breathing exercises continue today in yoga classes around the world.

Breathe!

Rob

Posted in history of synchronicity, quantum physics | 7 Comments

The Space Between

Posted on July 8, 2009 by Trish and Rob


I was editing a chapter in our book recently working with a synchronicity called Blue Dog that Tony Vigorito had offered when I came to this phrase within it:

Good atmosphere, good friends, good conversation, good wine, good books, and the space between.

I was curious about the end of it…the space between. I paused a moment thinking about that, then moved on. The next morning I opened up Pathways of Chance, by F. David Peat. I was looking for a chapter I’d been reading, but the first thing I spotted was this:
***
Independent of our meetings and discussions I had been thinking about what I called the space between. It was an idea that could be applied in many areas, particularly to describe what happens when you look at art or read a work of literature. It is the space that lies between the observer and the observed; it is the space of the creative act that brings a poem or painting to life.
***
Hopefully, readers will occasionally experience that space between right here.
Rob

UPDATE
The Space Between is also a song by The Dave Matthews Band.

You cannot quit me so quickly
There’s no hope in you for me
No Corner you could squeeze me
But I got all the time for you, love

The Space Between
The tears we cry
Is the laughter keeps us coming back for more
The Space Between
The wicked lies we tell
And hope to keep safe from the pain…

Posted in Blue Dog, books, Peat | 11 Comments

The Magical Picture

Posted on July 7, 2009 by Trish and Rob



This synchronicity appeared in The Sunday Times (London) on May 5, 1974.

***
For over 20 years, Eileen Bithell’s parents of Portsmouth, England, had a grocery store with a framed sign in the window that stated which days the store was closed. Two weeks before her brother’s wedding, the sign was taken down and removed from its frame. Behind the sign was a large photograph showing a small girl held in her father’s arms. The girl was Eileen’s brother’s future bride and father-in-law.

“No one knows how this particular photograph came to be used as a backing for the shop sign as none of the people in the photograph were then known to my family. Yet now, twenty years later, the two families were to be joined by marriage.”
***
So what does this tell us about synchronicity and the interconnections in life?

Posted in family, prophecy | 7 Comments

A Disembodied Voice

Posted on July 7, 2009 by Trish and Rob

My friend took a 240-mile bike ride a couple of weeks ago. He and his brother rode from Georgetown in Washington D.C. along a mostly paved trail to Pittsburgh. He’s a practical guy, knowledgeable about how things work in the mechanical sense, not a mystical bone in his six-foot frame. He’d come over to look at a leak in our roof when he told us this story.

On the first day, they started early and rode to a restaurant outside of D.C. for breakfast. It was closed. They continued on. No more restaurants. No breakfast, no lunch. They had 60 miles to cover before they reached a bed and breakfast. They figured there would be plenty of time to find a good dinner.

Mid-afternoon my friend gets a flat tire. No problem. He put in a new inner tube. But when he inflated the tire with his hand pump, he realized he was in trouble. The inner tube started to protrude through a three-inch slash in the bottom of the tire. He needed a new tire.

He stayed by the roadside with the swarming mosquitoes while his brother rode off in search of the nearest town and a bike shop. The town wasn’t far away, but there was no bike shop. He was telling a cashier at a food mart about his problem when a woman overheard him and offered to drive him to the next town to a shop. (The woman was in a fight with her boyfriend and he saw her drive off with a strange guy, but that’s not part of this story.)

A couple hours later, the brother returns with the tire and a funny story. He waves a spare t-shirt to keep the mosquitoes off my friend as he changes the tire. Now it’s late afternoon and they have 15 miles to ride to the B&B. They head out and soon the paved road ends and they are on dirt, potholes and roots for a few miles.

Eventually, the road gets better and they’re getting close. But they don’t know exactly where the B&B is located and start to wonder if they’ve missed the turnoff. They come to a huge hill. My friend is tired and can’t make it up the hill. They both get off and walk their bikes.

Halfway up the hill, they hear a voice calling out from the woods. “Do…you…need…any…help?”

They stop and look, but they can’t see anyone. Finally, the brother yells out the name of the B&B and asks where it is.

To their surprise, the voice from the woods shouts out precise directions involving several turns. They yell their thanks and continue on. They follow the directions and find the B&B. They never saw anyone back there. It was just a voice from the woods, and synchronicity.

The B&B is isolated. No restaurants nearby. But there’s a refrigerator and another synchronicity inside it. The last people who stayed there had left behind two hot dogs, two pieces of cake and a pint of ice cream. That was dinner.

My friend laughed at the recollection: “It was like a little kid’s dinner, but it was good. And things got better after that.”

It’s a case where dire circumstances lead to unusual and unexpected solutions to problems. Even my practical friend understood that. But when I pushed him about that voice from the woods, he shrugged and said, “Let’s take a look at the roof.”
***
UPDATE
While on Facebook earlier, someone clicks in with a greeting. It’s my brethren, Rob Roy McGregor, writing from Scotland. We’re Facebook friends, never met each other in person, just through e-mails, mostly years ago. He asks what I’m doing. I mention the synchronicity book, and refer him to the blog. He takes a look while we’re still chatting, and he’s fascinated by this bike trip story. The reason: he’s on a bike trip across the Scottish Highlands, and he knows about synchronicity. “I have synchronicities every day on this trip,” he remarked before signing off, and pedalling away.
Rob

Posted in biking, travel | 12 Comments

Poe Remastered

Posted on July 6, 2009 by Trish and Rob


Working on the book last night, I was about to mention something about Edgar Allan Poe. (We are using a synchronicity related to one of his stories.) But as I was about to utterPoe’s name, I started to say Bob Dylan. Suddenly, in my mind the two men’s images merged, and I blurted out: “I think Bob Dylan is the reincarnation of Edgar Allan Poe.”

There was no Dylan music playing in the background, nothing to reference him. Just as I said that to Trish, our daughter Megan walked up to me with a CD in hand and a shocked look on her face.

The CD was Dylan’s Nashville Skyline, which I’d given her a couple of weeks ago to copy onto her iPod. The photo on the CD shows Dylan tipping his hat in greeting, almost as if in acknowledgment. He’s also smiling, a rarity in his photos. Like Poe, he’s not known for a grinning visage.

Maybe it’s just imagination, but it was definitely synchronicity when Megan appeared at the right moment with the right object in hand. And, hey, the two are both master poets. One is the best known American writer, the other one is the best known American singer/songwriters of all time. And both are known as eccentrics. – Rob

Whatever colors you have in your mind Ill show them to you and you’ll see them shine
Bob Dylan – Lay Lady Lay
***
UPDATE from ‘Rue Morgue Avenue’
There apparently are many recorded references to Poe by Dyan, including this one:

In 2003, interviewed by Robert Hilburn in Amsterdam, Dylan said that in adolescence Poe’s poetry had ‘knocked me out in more ways than I could name.’ Dylan also mentions Poe twice in Chronicles Volume One (2004), and that December, interviewed on US-TV by Ed Bradley, when Dylan says that the burden of being perceived as a ‘prophet’ in the late 1960s made him feel like an imposter, he elaborates: ‘It was like being in an Edgar Allen Poe story and you’re just not that person everybody thinks you are, though they call you that all the time.
bobdylanencyclopedia
(thank you, Gypsywoman)

Posted in Dylan, poets, reincarnation | 7 Comments

Signal Grace

Posted on July 5, 2009 by Trish and Rob


This one comes from Teapots, aka Max Action. After reading the recent post on the history of synchroncity, he pointed out that the Catholic Church not only recognizes synchronicity, which they call signal grace, but suggests that you can make use of it through higher awareness. In the case of The Rosary Foundation, where the following was posted, the suggestion is – as one might expect – to pray the rosary and watch for signal grace.
***
“Signal Graces are signs sent by God to help us make the right decisions in life. Moses saw a burning bush as a sign from God, and other people received signs from God daily. Signal graces usually come about as subtle hints to help keep us moving in the right direction – these signs are truly gifts from God. Remember – there is no such thing as a coincidence, everything happens for a reason! By praying the rosary you will be more conscious of the way that God tries to help you and speak to you every day.”
***
As lapsed Catholics, Trish and I are not likely to follow that suggestion. However, we believe that higher awareness and intent can lead to magical synchronicities that further one’s goals.

We’re focusing on this topic – Synchronicity and Your Intent – in the last chapter of our book. So we’re looking for stories of how people have applied their intent through whatever means – meditation, prayer, sympathetic magic, divination, etc. and followed the leads of synchronicities to change their lives or to reach their goals. Butternut Squash’s story – Reading the Bumps – is one such example. It’s about how she took the cues of an exotic reader and synchronistically turned a trip to China and Nepal into a new career.

Rob

Posted in intention, religion, Signal Graces | 8 Comments