Welcome to The Mystical Underground

Think about this era for a moment. Men and women dressed like the cast in Grease, Afro-Americans still couldn’t vote, and in most states, the only way you could divorce your spouse was to prove he or she was guilty of a crime.  The Cold War was in full swing, and Harry S Truman, the unpopular incumbent president, had decided not to run in the November election. Eisenhower won that election and ended twenty years of  Democratic rule.

But in July 1952, Truman was still president and, according to CIA historian Gerald Haines, his administration was alarmed about a “massive buildup of (UFO) sightings over the United States.”

The sightings in Washington, D.C. began on July 19, at 11:40 p.m., when seven to ten UFOs were tracked on radar at Andrews Air Force Base and Washington National Airport. They  were about fifteen miles south-southwest of the city, no known aircraft were in the area, and they didn’t follow any established flight path. The UFOs reportedly moved along at normal speeds of 100-130 mph, then accelerated to speeds estimated to be over 7,000 mph. They were observed for more than six hours.

The objects were seen by pilots, air-traffic controllers, civil engineers,  and ordinary citizens. Around three that morning, shortly before jet fighters arrived from Newcastle Air Force Base in Delaware,  the UFOs vanished simultaneously from all radar screens.  But when the jets ran low on fuel and had to return to base, the objects reappeared, which convinced a senior air traffic controller, Harry Barnes, that the UFOs were monitoring radio frequencies.

Over the next ten days, the UFOs reappeared  and F-94 military jets were dispatched to intercept them. But the jets were never able to get close enough to shoot. According to Lt. Colonel Moncel Monte, an Air Force public information officer, they sometimes outflew the pilots by “as much as a thousand miles an hour.”

The media, of course, had a field day, with headlines screaming about flying saucers in restricted airspace over the White House and the Capital. The headlines of the Washington Post on July 28 read: ‘Saucer’ Outran Jet, Pilot Reveals. From The New Yorker: ‘Saucers’ Spotted on Capital Radar. The Washington Daily News headline for July 29: Jets Ordered to Hunt Down Flying Saucers.           

On July 29, Major General John Samford apparently realized the Air Force had to make some sort of official response, so he held a press conference. It was the largest and longest pres conference the Air Force had held since the second world war.  The following day, July 30, the Washington Times Herald ran a cartoon featuring flying saucers, with a caption that read: Are these what you saucer?  Beneath it was: Mirage, Says AF Officer of ‘Saucers.’  The officer, of course, was James Samford, who told the press corps that he was satisfied in his own mind that the appearances of the objects were the result of atmospheric conditions.

The article went on to explain that radar experts from the Air Force Technical Intelligence Center at Wright Patterson AF Base said that false radar images often are created “by a type of air layer that ‘bends’ the electrical beams.”  Temperature inversions as an explanation was readily accepted by debunkers, but Air Force Captain Edward Ruppelt wasn’t convinced. Even though temperature inversions occurred nearly every night in June, July, and August, none were strong enough to effect radar.

So, way back in 1952, sightings by dozens of ordinary citizens and technical experts were relegated to the land of “weather.” And anyone who thought otherwise instantly became an outlier, to be shunned and ridiculed. It’s an effective weapon. And it has worked for decades.

–                                                              Rupert Sheldrake

You’ve probably heard of TED, a global set of conferences with remarkable people giving talks on a variety of subjects. TED is about ideas, or as they say, “ideas worth spreading.” The name stands for Technology, Entertainment, and Design. I’ve never attended a TED conference, but have been impressed by videos of talks.

So it was surprising and disappointing to find out that one of my heroes from the world of science, biologist Rupert Sheldrake, has been censored by TED. Sheldrake recognizes that we are more than physical beings and that mainstream science needs to let go of outdated mechanistic view of the universe. He researches the paranormal – specifically telepathy – and his theory of morphic resonance was so controversial when he first introduced it that one science magazine called him brilliant and another – NATURE – called him a “heretic.” NATURE actually said his paper should be burned. But the bottom line is that he’s a scientist with vision, a man whose work is on the fringe, but supported by experimental evidence.

After he gave a talk at a TEDx conference, skeptics of the paranormal attacked Sheldrake for challenging what he sees as dogma in mainstream science. They demanded that  TED take down his video and the TED administrators complied.

Here’s what our Australian friend futurist Marcus Anthony says about the matter.

“Unfortunately, TED took down Rupert Sheldrake’s TED talk about ‘science set free.’ Two skeptics complained about the talk, which posited 10 questions which challenge scientific orthodoxy on a number of key questions, including the nature of consciousness.

“Sheldrake merely asked the ten questions, and suggested they be scientifically investigated. This is indeed a rather disturbing development, given that the discussion page on the issue indicated that the general public was heavily on Sheldrake’s side. If one cannot legitimately ask open questions about the way science is conducted, or about discrepancies in data, then science is no longer open inquiry, but a set of unquestionable dogmas.

“Tellingly, this was the central point in Sheldrake’s talk that has been removed. They also removed a talk by Graham Hancock, who openly supported Sheldrake.”

It’s disappointing to see TED caving in to pressure from skeptics. It seems to show that mainstream science has become a ‘religion,’ a dogma, the very type of mindset that science is supposed to shun.

A ring cutter

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On Christmas day, I smacked my left ring finger on something and didn’t think anything about it until the next day, when I suddenly realized I couldn’t slide my wedding ring off my finger. The ring, in fact, was so tight against my finger that the area above it to the first knuckle looked malformed.  So I started soaking the finger in ice water, hoping the swelling would go down at least enough for me to slide the ring off.

When the swelling seemed to be subsiding, I coated my finger in all types of slippery stuff – soap and shampoos, olive oil and creams. Nothing worked. I continued to soak it in ice water. Then when it seemed like I might be able to slide the ring off, I was getting out of the car with a bag of groceries and smacked the same finger on the door into the house.

It swelled again. I kept telling myself I should probably go to a jeweler and just get the ring cut off. It wasn’t, after all, my real wedding ring. My wedding band had come off in 2004 or so, when I slipped in our local grocery store  and hit this same finger. That time, though, the swelling wasn’t bad and I was able to slide the ring off. Around this same time, Rob and I found silver rings in a catalog that we really liked; they had southwestern designs on them, like petroglyphs from an Anasazi cave. So we bought a matching pair and ever since, that was the ring I’d been wearing.

After my dad died, his wedding ring was returned to us by the Neptune Society, the organization that had handled his cremation. At the time of his death, his fingers were retaining so much water we couldn’t remove the ring. So when the ring arrived, Rob tried the ring on, it fit perfectly, and he’s been wearing it for the last eight years.

Yesterday, February 21, we were at the dog park, hanging with the regulars. Cassie, who owns border collie, Willow, and I were talking about how her boss – novelist Tami Hoag – has finally figured out who the murderer is in her long overdue new novel. Like many Geminis (she’s June 8, I’m June 7) Cassie’s  hands move a lot when she talks and I happened to notice her ring finger.

It was terribly swollen, the knuckle at least four times the size of mine. When I commented on it, she held her hand out, palm upward, and I could see where the skin on her finger was in serious trouble. Worst trouble than the skin on my finger.

“Look,” I said, and showed her my finger.

Cassie just looked at me. “How weird is that? We need to get these suckers cut off.” Her ring is complex, a family heirloom that is actually three gold rings welded together. Mine is a simple silver ring from a catalog. I was able to turn my ring a little; hers was completely immobile and looked as if it was sinking into the skin and headed for bone.

Early the next morning, Cassie texted me. Karin, who owns the husky Codi, had told Cassie to go to the jeweler she uses. Cassie and I agreed to meet at 11:30 that morning and get our rings cut off. The woman behind the counter  owns the place with her husband. She’s a chirpy little thing, and when we presented our swollen ring fingers, she looked up, her eyes wide. “Wow, both of you? This is weird.”

“Do you get many of these?” Cassie asked.

“Actually, yes, but mostly pregnant women who are retaining fluids.”

“Well, we’re well beyond that,” I told her.

She started to gather together her tools. “Uh, this doesn’t involve a saw, does it?” I asked.

“Nope. No saw. But there’ll be some discomfort.”

“You go first, Trish,” Cassie said quickly.

So I laid my hand flat against the counter, palm upward. The woman picked up a small tool that looked like a miniature can opener. A sort of saw, except that it’s turned manually. It sliced through the ring. Then she took two small pairs of pliers and worked the sliced ends away from each other.  The relief was instantaneous. Blood flowed back through my finger.

Now it was Cassie’s turn. Her finger was badly swollen and the woman had to stop at one point and get a glass of ice water for her to plunge her finger into – numb it. Once she had sliced through the band, she had trouble pulling back the ends and called in the jeweler from the back room. He examined Cassie’s finger with a jeweler’s microscope, then looked up at her and said, “We’ll be talking about you for a long time to come. The skin has started to grow around the band.”

“Just get it off, okay?” Cassie said. “Please?”

“Trust me,” he said. “This is much easier than the emergency room.”

Then, after many winces and groans,  her ring was off. The woman said we could come back in a few weeks, when the swelling had subsided, and have our rings resized. I call Rob and let him know our marriage is being resized. “Cool,” he said.

Cassie and I went to lunch and puzzled over the weird synchro. Two Geminis, two ring fingers. The message? Well, neither Cassie nor I rush to doctors for anything. We’re optimists who figure that ice water soaks and nature will fix the problem. What we learned is: Don’t procrastinate. It sounded sort of silly in this situation, but may be more relevant than we realize.

Whenever our daughter comes home for a visit, we end up watching movies we’ve heard of – but haven’t seen. The first night of her most recent visit, she insisted that we watch Garden State  with Natalie Portman and Zach Graff. “You’ll love it,” Megan insisted.

“Let’s watch Downton Abbey,” Rob said – a TV show to which Megan introduced us.

“No, c’mon, you guys, you’ll love this movie. It’s like Silver Linings Playbook, but better.”

So we watched it. Zach Graff, who plays the protagonist, also wrote the script and directed the film. He is best known for his role on the TV show Scrubs, which we’ve never seen. There are certainly parallels between Garden State and Silver Linings Playbook.  The male protagonists in both movies are damaged goods. In Playbook, Bradley Cooper plays a character who is bipolar. We know this from the beginning of the movie, when we see him in a mental hospital where he has been confined for eight months. Graff plays a man in his late twenties who has apparently gained a bit of fame in Hollywood playing a mentally challenged character in a movie. He returns to New Jersey for the funeral of his mother, whom he hasn’t seen in nine years.  She has drowned in the bathtub.

It’s apparent from the opening scenes that there’s something wrong with this guy. We gradually learn his back story – his father, a shrink – his shrink – has kept him on lithium since he was nine. We don’t know why. We do know he was sent away to boarding school when he was in his mid-teens and hasn’t been home again until now.

He goes to see a neurologist to find out why he has such splitting headaches and this is where some of his back story emerges. The script is written so cleverly that it’s awhile before we find out he was a pissed off little kid who pushed his mother when he was nine. She hit her head on the edge of the kitchen counter and became paralyzed from the neck down. By the time we discover this,  we already love this guy, we feel for him.

We’ve met his emotionally constipated father, some of his buddies from high school, and we’ve been to his mother’s funeral.   We‘ve also met the young  woman, Natalie Portman, who becomes his co-conspirator. She, like the character played by Jennifer Lawrence in Playbook, is also a wounded person. She’s an epileptic, from a strange family, and yes, they fall in love.

If you saw Playbook, then you probably recall that Bradley Cooper used to go running with a garbage bag covering his clothes. Oddly enough, there’s a powerful scene where Zach Graff, Natalie, and Zach’s buddies also wear garbage bags over their clothes. It’s depicted on the cover fro IMDB at the beginning of this post. Maybe wearing a garbage bag is an emerging archetype, who knows?

As similar as the themes are in these two movies, Garden State feels more real, as though it was written from Graff’s life experiences,  from the frozen core of who he was to the  shifting core of who he is becoming.  By the end of the movie, he has known Natalie Portman’s character for four days – and she has changed his life completely.

I immediately went to IMDB to find out if this film had been nominated for anything.  And it was. This Zach Graff guy is a man to watch. He was the star, scriptwriter, director, and many facets of this story are what he lived, I’m sure of it.

I recently read Marcus Anthony’s novel THE MIND READER. As regular visitors here know, Marcus has frequented the blog and we’ve posted some of his synchronicities and other musings. For those unfamiliar with Marcus, he’s an Australian Phd futurist and author who until recently was living in Hong Kong. His blog delves into psychic and spiritual matters as well as a intuitive take on the future that goes beyond the nuts and bolts outlook of many futurists.

I was curious about his novel, especially because he refers to it as semi-autobiographical. THE MIND READER tracks the spiritual initiation of a floundering Australian college student, Greg Marks, who somewhat naively steps into a group – Journey of Light – under the domain of a powerful but imperfect leader. In order to develop psychically, Marks must assume the mantle of other members of the group – invading their emotions, thoughts, and motives– and play out their worst issues, often in front of the person he is depicting. Of course, the same happens to Greg as other members dive into his psyche.

I found the somewhat ruthless and cultish interior workings of this group fascinating, and as a committed non-joiner, it was decidedly unappealing. Working with such a group no doubt can speed one’s spiritual and psychic development, but it’s not without a price. Did it work for Greg? Yes and no.

Within a few months, Greg becomes quite competent in reading minds and connecting with his inner child, a major part of the inner work. But as he develops his abilities and sees into people’s thoughts and motives, his ego gets the better of him. As a result, he opens himself to powerful dark energy, especially after he foolishly confronts a group of skeptics in their own territory.

It took me quite awhile to read the 500-page book, because of other stuff going on. But I kept coming back and looking forward to see what happened next to Greg. It’s a good read for anyone pursuing spiritual development or even thinking about it. Greg is a flawed but sympathetic and believable character. Julie, the leader of JOL, on the other hand, didn’t appeal much to me. Greg, who becomes dependent on the group, gets kicked out not one but twice. I don’t think I would’ve lasted more than one session under Julie’s tough love.

In fact, in reading the book, I was reminded of a personal experience. Years ago, I connected with a group that was meeting in a desert setting in the Southwest. The focus of the group was dream development and, in fact, I was there in the dream state. At the same time, I felt I was there physically. I questioned the leader of the group, who was someone quite famous, and he instantly banished me to ‘fifth-degree kindergarten,’ whatever that is. I bolted upright in my bed, baffled by what I was doing there, then realized it was all a dream. A short time later, the leader of the group had a new book out. It was called The Art of Dreaming.

Don’t let my prejudices against self-proclaimed ‘gurus’ keep you from reading Marcus’s book. The first part is a bit slow, as we follow Greg through some typical college angst. It could’ve been shortened, but the pace quickly picks up once Greg gets involved with the JOL group. It’s a good ride and a good read.

Rob

from Megan’s website

At the recent Abraham/Hicks workshop that Megan and I attended, Abraham suggested several techniques for raising your feelings of well being. “The better you feel, the more you allow.”  So I’ve been trying these techniques for three days now and have enjoyed the results.

Here’s the technique:

Meditate for 15 minutes each day

Go outside in appreciation of the plant life and talk to them. Vocalize your appreciation.  

In a notebook,  write down what you appreciate about five different areas of your life.

Look upward and outward and acknowledge and acknowledge that there are universal forces watching over you, helping and guiding you, inspiring you.  

In a notebook, jot down what you will do today and what you would like the universe to do today. 

Since I have trouble sitting still for longer than five minutes, unless I’m in a meditation class, my meditation consists of moving around our backyard, appreciating the beauty of the plants and trees. I talk to them. Abraham noted that Esther walks through her garden daily, talking to every plants and flower and stone. “You’re my favorite flower, my favorite stone, my favorite tree…”

This morning, Nika followed me.

I then sit for a few minutes and think about what I would like to accomplish today – and what I would like the universe to do for me today. I write it down. And here’s where it’s gotten interesting.  On three consecutive days, under the universe column, I’ve asked for unexpected money to arrive; for positive surprises for Rob, Megan, and I; for strong sales for our books. I don’t know how these requests will unfold, but feel that reality around me, as if it’s already happened.

Here’s what has unfolded: we received unexpected checks, got royalty statements for our e-books that show healthy sales; Aliens in the Backyard continues to show strong sales; and Megan sold her most recent painting, featured in the above photo, for $500! Here’s her website.

As Abraham said during the workshop, Treat every day as a buffet.

We leaped forward an hour in time today, with the start of Daylight Savings. Thanks to Adele for sending!

Tomorrow, we’ll be on the H20 network with Dia, at 1 p.m. EST, to talk about Aliens in the Backyard. Hope you’ll join us!

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Megan and I attended an Abraham/Hicks conference today (March 7), the first I’ve been to since the death of Esther’s husband, Jerry, about a year and a half ago. We arrived an hour early so we could get good seats and ended up in the fourth row. We had a perfect view of the “ hot seat,” where members of the audience sit when Abraham picks them to come forward with their questions.

The workshop started promptly at nine a.m. and the instant Esther strolled out in her stocking feet, the audience gave her a standing ovation and cheered.  She greeted everyone hello, then shut her eyes, bowed her head, altered her breathing, and went into an altered state. When her eyes opened again, Abraham started talking.

At one point, he said that when Esther was on her way to the hotel the day before, she felt Jerry around, felt him appreciating the beauty of the South Florida landscape – the palm trees, the vast blue sky,  the perfect weather.  Esther, he said, began to miss him terribly. Even though she is aware of his spirit’s presence, she missed talking to him, exchanging ideas, interacting with him in the physical universe.

So Esther got checked in at the hotel and went to her room. As she was opening the door, she heard noise inside and wondered if the room was occupied. The door swung open and she saw that the room was empty. But out there on her balcony, perched on the back of a chair, was a large black bird just chattering away. It remained there for fifteen or twenty minutes, staring in at her, and she stood there listening to it, watching it, and knew it was Jerry, talking to her.

Birds often act as messengers between the living and the dead and this story certainly seems to fall into that category.

Abraham explained this as a coincidence, in which the bird picked up Jerry’s impulse to speak to Esther, and was attracted to her desire to speak to him, and found the right chair, on the right balcony. And Esther, Abraham said, was attuned to her need for communication with Jerry. For us, it’s a perfect example of spirit communication through synchronicity. Whatever you call it, whatever label you give it, the end result is the same: Esther recognized what it was.