Welcome to The Mystical Underground

Dear Bernie,

You fought the good fight. You moved Hillary Clinton’s discourse farther to the left – even though we have no guarantee that she will abide by any of it – and fueled incredible enthusiasm in millions of young people. Throughout your campaign, you have been true to the principles that have guided you throughout your decades in politics. You have never been in bed with Wall Street, never voted for war, never said something you didn’t believe just to secure votes. It’s why so many of us felt the bern and still feel it.

In the last few months, the one supposedly progressive TV cable news Rob and I watch, MSNBC, turned decidedly toward Clinton and basically ignored you and your campaign. This turn became so obvious and sometimes painful to watch that I doubt if I’ll bother watching Rachel Maddow again. It was as if all the commentators on MSNBC got the word from the higher ups that Clinton was to be touted.

At one town hall, I think it was, Maddow gave Clinton an hour; you got 30 minutes. I think that’s when I realized the tide really had turned in the election, that the candidate would be determined by the media. I often felt and still feel that Maddow hopes to become the press secretary in the Clinton administration.

I doubt if there is a genuine bone in Clinton’s body. She is the establishment, through and through. Expedient. She has considerable baggage. She is the one who will say anything to get elected. I never feel that about you. You fight for what you believe and you haven’t changed your tune on the basics of progressive politics in all your years in politics.

Even when the AP called Clinton the presumptive nominee on June 6, the day before California and five states were left to vote in their primaries, it felt like a ploy. It felt as if the call was intended to give Clinton a chance to do her victory speech this evening. I’m it, folks. The first female nominee of a major party.

Now Clinton is going for your supporters. I wish her luck. The pundits have said that it’s up to you, Bernie, to sway them. I disagree. It‘s her task to woo us. It’s her task to prove that she’s worthy of our support. And, I’m sorry, but falling back on the card called, We must defeat Trump isn’t enough. I would love to see a woman as president. But not Clinton.

Your platform represents the future. Clinton’s campaign represents business and politics as usual. Trump represents Fascism. If she wins, Bernie, I don’t think her moment in the sun will last longer than four years. But in the larger scheme of things, however this election shakes out, you have made a vital difference in how the Democratic party moves forward.

Will they become truly progressive? Or will the Democratic party still be one that’s rigged with super delegates, in bed with Wall Street, and won’t allow independents, who represent 40 percent of the electorate, to vote in primaries? Will the Democrats, who supposedly represent the people, still be a party that favors the one percent? Who aren’t that different from the Republicans?

In 2008, I changed my party affiliation from independent to Democrat so that I could vote in the primary for Obama. He moved me. Unfortunately, he was up against an intractable congress, did what he could, but didn’t quite make it on many fronts. Before this election, I plan to become an independent again. If, in 2020, Elizabeth Warren or some true other true progressive runs on the Democratic ticket, then I’ll switch again. But for now… back to the independent status.

Onward, Bernie! When you return to the Senate, it will be with greater power, a greater voice, and greater clout for pushing forth a truly progressive agenda. We who feel the bern have your back.

We posted a video about a week ago that featured this psychic medium, Danielle Egnew. Here, she’s talking about how the electromagnetic changes in the atmosphere affect us. She’s animated and has a sense of humor.

Every day, spirits communicate with ordinary people, usually the loved ones they left behind but also with strangers. They do this by using anything they can to seize our attention – sounds and scents, objects, places, patterns, dreams and visions, signs and symbols, animals, clusters of numbers, names, birthdates. You don’t have to be a medium to converse with them. You don’t need a medium to interpret what they say. You can avail yourself of this secret language with simple, effective methods.

The language of the dead is synchronicity and it’s accessible to anyone. You might be thinking of your deceased father, wishing he were still alive, and suddenly catch the scent of pipe tobacco wafting through your room. Your dad used to smoke a pipe. There is no cause and effect between your thought and the aroma of tobacco. However, you’re aware that the coincidence is meaningful. This synchronicity, conveyed through a scent, not only seizes your attention, but provides comfort and reassurance that your father’s spirit is alive and well in the afterlife and may be reaching out to you.

Suppose that while you’re thinking of your deceased mother, you request that she communicate with you? Perhaps you even speak to her out loud. You might be leaving for work and set the intention that the next thing you hear will be your mother communicating with you in some way. When you’re in the car, you turn on the radio and the first song you hear is about a mother reaching out to a lost daughter. Goose bumps erupt on your arms. You’re struck by the sheer odds that out of all the songs that exist, that one plays in the immediate aftermath of your request.

One evening before a meditation class, Trish asked her parents to communicate with her. She set an intention. And she summoned strong desire for this to occur. Midway through the meditation class, she opened her eyes and saw her parents in a corner of the room. They were laughing, vibrant, younger, and were directing a group of people into a theater. When they realized that she saw them, they faded away.

Time and again we have found that synchronicity is the vital component. But to fully engage with our deceased loved ones, we can become active participants by using any number of effective methods: awareness and recognition, intention, summoning through desire, requesting, and incubation. In the ancient practice of dream incubation, we “plant a seed” in the mind in order for a specific dream topic to occur. Incubation is often used for guidance in solving a problem.

When Rob’s mother recently developed dementia and could no longer live alone, he and his sister searched for facilities that could accommodate her. They narrowed their choices to two places. Both had pros and cons. He incubated a dream in which he asked for guidance from his deceased father. In the dream, his father handed him two checks for small amounts of money. Rob’s interpretation of the dream was that they should choose the less expensive facility, so that’s what they did. His mother toured the facility, moved in today – April 27 – and loves it.

We can also incubate an inner climate, a receptivity and openness, that is conducive to spirit communication. In the course of a year, Mike Perry of the UK lost his mother, daughter, and closest friend of thirty years. One day while walking through town, he thought of his friend and asked for a sign that he was doing okay. Suddenly, a white feather landed at his feet, was whipped up in a breeze, then settled at his feet again. Stunned, he picked up the feather and knew his friend had just communicated with him. Whenever Mike needs reassurance about a deceased loved one, he requests a sign and invariably finds a white feather.

Objects that spirits use to communicate seem to be whatever is most convenient and immediate. They range from white feathers to books, straight pins to coins, appliances, photographs, numbers, even cakes! We’ve written a number of posts about these various aspects of spirit communication.

Recently, I was texting my sister about some old family photos I had run across and suddenly, a pair of hummingbirds landed on the bush outside my office window. We rarely see hummingbirds here and I felt strongly that the birds were messengers from my parents dropping in to say hello.

It seems these kinds of experiences are proliferating now, perhaps because Rob and I are working on a new book, Secrets of Spirit Communication: A Guide to the Language of the Dead. This evening as I was writing this post, I took a break and clicked over to Whitley Strieber’s site. And what do I find? A new and moving journal entry from him entitled Building a Bridge Between Worlds. It’s about the communication he and others have had with his wife, Anne, since she passed on last summer.

Okay, I thought. A synchro. Then I realized I hadn’t dropped in on Mike Perry’s blog today and clicked over to his site. His  post is entitled Life After Death and has two intriguing stories about spirit communication. The second synchro in just a matter of minutes. I’m expecting a third to that it’s officially, at least in my mind, a cluster. I’m interpreting these as confirmations that we’re on the right track with this new book.

Galileo

If you Google the phrases ‘paradigm shift’ or ‘new paradigm,’ you’ll find more than a million potential links. If anything the terms are overused. Just as Carl Jung coined the term synchronicity, Thomas Kuhn coined paradigm shift in his book, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, a book about the history of science. Kuhn contends that change in science rarely comes from the mainstream scientists, who tend to prove what is already accepted as true ‘normal science.’  Change comes from outliers who disrupt the orderly affairs.

While that doesn’t sound like much of a startling idea today, it was in 1962 when Kuhn’s book was published. Prior to his book, it was thought that science evolved by the gradual addition of new truths that supported the established truths, and that especially did not undermine mainstream science.

Here are three outliers who rocked science.

Galileo

Just in the course of my daily life, I’m aware that a new paradigm is on its way into the world, but that it’s encountering a lot of resistance – from religious dogma, scientific dogma, political dogma. But the birth of a new paradigm has always been challenging, the kind of delivery that keeps the mother in labor for hours. Look at just this small slice of history.

In 1609, the intrepid Italian astronomer Galileo began a serious observation and study of Jupiter and in January 1610, he discovered the four largest moons that orbit Jupiter: Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto. His discovery proved to be a critical curve ball for the geocentric scientific theories at the time that said all planets orbited Earth. It laid the foundation for the heliocentric model of the solar system – i.e., all planets orbit the sun. Ultimately, Galileo’s discovery also proved to be his nemesis.

The Catholic Church contended that scripture was absolute about the sun moving around the Earth, that Earth was, in fact, the center of the universe. They deemed Galileo’s beliefs as heretical. In 1633, Galileo was forced to recant his own scientific discoveries as “cursed.” It caused him profound anguish but saved him from being burned at the stake. From 1633 to his death in 1642, he lived under house arrest.

The really appalling part of this story is that it took the Catholic Church 350 years to admit that Galileo was right – the planets really do revolve around the sun!

Gregor Mendel

In the mid-1800s, the scientific consensus in biology was that all characteristics were passed to the next generation through “blending inheritance” – an idiosyncratic term that means the traits from each parent are averaged together. Then along came Gregor Mendel who, through his work on pea plants, figured out that genes come in pairs, are inherited as separate units, one from each parent, and that each inherited trait is defined by a gene pair; that genes for different traits are sorted so the inheritance of one trait isn’t dependent on the inheritance of another

He published his findings in 1865, but it wasn’t until 1900, sixteen years after Mendel’s death, that other biologists rediscovered Mendel’s work. Over the years since, various scientists have tried to disprove Mendel’s work, accusing him of falsifying information. Finally, in 2008, a book was published that settled the controversy – Mendel didn’t deliberately falsify his results.

So it took 143 years after Mendel published his work for science to fully accept he was right. It’s a great example of how i scientific dogma can be as intractable as religious dogma.

Nikola Tesla

Then there was Nikola Tesla, a wild card, a brilliant eccentric who for years was best known because of his feud with Edison. Yet, more than 70 years after his death, he’s now recognized as the inventor of alternating current, the harnessing of light, X-rays, radio, remote control, the electric motor, robotics, laser, wireless communication and limitless free energy.

Tesla arrived in New York in 1884 and was hired as an engineer at the Edison headquarters. He worked there for a year and at one point, Edison told Tesla he would pay $50,000 for an improved design for his DC dynamos. After months of experimentation, Tesla presented a solution and asked for the money. Edison told him he didn’t understand “American humor.” Not surprisingly, Tesla quit soon afterward.

The light company he tried to start didn’t pan out and he resorted to digging ditches for two bucks a day. He finally found financial backers to fund his research into alternating current. In 1887 and 1888, he was granted more than 30 patents for his work and was invited to address the American Institute of Electrical Engineers. George Westinghouse was impressed with his lecture and subsequently hired Tesla, licensed the patents for his ACV motor, and gave him his own lab.

In 1891 in Chicago, Tesla and Westinghouse lit the World’s Columbian Exposition and partnered with General Electric to install AC generators at Niagara Falls, creating the first modern power station. Four years later, Tesla’s New York lab burned and his notes and equipment were destroyed. He moved to Colorado Springs, then returned to New York in 1900 and was backed financially by J.P. Morgan. He started building a global communications network on Long Island, but funds ran dry and Morgan got fed up with Tesla’s grandiose ideas.

Throughout this life, Tesla was persecuted by the energy power brokers of that time – Edison, Morgan, and other heads of industry. On January 7, 1943, he died broke and alone in a hotel room where he had lived for decades, working on inventions as his physical and mental health decayed. That same day, the U.S. government moved into his apartment and confiscated all his scientific research. Why? Because of his material on zero point energy?

These three men came up against the scientific and religious dogma of their time and as a result of their work, new paradigms were ushered into existence. In much the same way, scientists and researchers studying consciousness today are birthing a new paradigm about the nature of time and reality.

“I believe that we stand on the threshold of a new phase of science,” says biologist Rupert Sheldrake.

The problem is that for every 21^st century visionary, there are dozens of skeptics like Michel Shermer and his Skeptical Inquirer magazine whose worldview is threatened by any change in the status quo. I like to think their paradigm is in its death throes.

Back in 2003, daughter Megan and her dad (me) co-authored, Star Power: Astrology for Teens. The book eventually went out of print and now we’re returning it to life through the magic of e-books. As I’m re-reading it, I’m amazed by the changes in technology that have taken place over the past 13 years. We wrote about the digital world and how it was different for kids than when their parents were teens. But now even our technological references are outdated. I mean how many people use Palm Pilots today. There was no iPad or smart phones.

From the astrological perspective, Pluto was downgraded to a dwarf planet by the International Astronomy Union in 2006. Truthfully, that doesn’t matter for astrologers. Pluto, after all, hasn’t changed, only its definition.

So I’ve updated the material and really enjoyed reading it over, especially Megan’s sections, which were labeled: From the Teen Viewpoint. Here’s one of them.

From the Teen Viewpoint

Astrology in School? No Such Thing!

When I was younger, I thought my parents could speak a second language. That’s because sometimes when they talked they used strange words and nothing they said made any sense to me. As I got a little older, they started telling me about how the stars affect our lives, and that’s when I discovered that the other language is called astrology.

In elementary school, I noticed that the teachers never said anything about astrology. In middle school, it was the same way. It wasn’t one of the subjects and it didn’t even seem to be part of any of the regular subjects. Even though all my friends seem to know what sign they were born under, they certainly didn’t learn that from any of our teachers. I figured the teachers didn’t know anything about astrology, so that’s why they didn’t talk about it.

But my dad says that’s not the reason they don’t talk about it. “So why don’t they?” I asked.

“Go ask one of the science teachers in your school about astrology. Pick the friendliest one you know, the one who likes to talk a lot to the kids.”

I knew just the teacher. I had him in sixth grade. I told him I was helping my dad with a book about astrology for teens and I wanted to know what he thought about the subject. I promised I would include what he said right here.

“That’s fascinating,” he said. “I’ll get back to you.”

But you know what, he never did. I reminded him a couple of times, but he just put me off. So I told my dad I didn’t have any answer.

“The answer is in his silence. Teachers in public schools have to watch what they say. My guess is that he thinks astrology falls into the realm of belief and religion. He won’t say anything, because whatever he says could get him in trouble.”

“Why?”

“There are a lot of rules, regulations, restrictions, and limitations that teachers must follow. One of those is not to say or teach anything that offends someone’s religious beliefs.”

“But astrology isn’t a religion.”

“True, but when astronomy was separated from it and became the science of the stars and planets, astrology was ignored because it seemed to give the stars too much influence over our lives. It didn’t seem to fit into science.”

“Then why are people still interested in astrology?”

“Because people are interested in seeing patterns in their lives and the deeper you look into astrology the more patterns you find and the more meaningful they become.”

“But if it’s meaningful, then why don’t scientists see that?”

“Some of them do. Cary Mullis, a Nobel Prize winner in physics, wrote a chapter on why astrology works for him in one of his books. Carl Jung, one of the most renowned psychoanalysts of the last century, used as­trology as a valuable tool.”

“But it’s still not in school.”

“Things are changing. The schools eventually will catch up. Meanwhile, there’s a lot of information available about astrology and we’ll cover some of the basics.”

This woman is a psychic, medium, and a comedian… Love her take on things:

In December 1970, while flying a Bonanza from Andros Island to West Palm Beach, pilot Bruce Gernon experienced something in the Bermuda Triangle that forever changed his life.

Bruce and Rob wrote about the experience in The Fog,in which Bruce, his dad, and a friend were surrounded by a yellow fog- an electronic storm. They lot the use of all their electronic instruments in the plane and experienced a time distortion that puzzled him for years.

We had lunch today with Bruce so Rob could clarify a few points about Bruce’s experience for a young adult book proposal they are working on. Rob’s first question concerned the number of TV appearances Bruce has made over the years. From National Geographic to the Discovery Channel and the History Channel Bruce has been on 35 TV shows.

“What and when was the first show?” Rob asked.

“It was 1996 and the show was Arthur C. Clarke’s Mysterious World. The odd thing is that two years earlier, I was driving home and felt a vision coming on. I pulled into my carport – we lived in the keys at the time – and stopped the car and stared into the shadows by my feet. A clear vision unfolded of a television screen where an older man was introducing me as the only person to ever survive an experience in the Bermuda Triangle. At the time, I had no idea who this older guy was.

“But the day I got the call from Clarke’s office, I suddenly understood the vision, The older man was Clarke.”

“How did Clarke hear about you?” I asked.

“I was mentioned in Charles Berlitz’s second book. And the only reason I was mentioned is because some years before, I had met with Dr. Manson Valentine, who knew Berlitz.”

Dr. Valentine, who held three doctorates, was then director of the Miami Museum of Science. In spite of his academic standing and his position at the museum, he explored mysteries that other scientists avoided – Atlantis, the Bermuda Triangle, UFOs. A year or so before Bruce met Valentine, he had a vision similar to the one he had about appearing on Clarke’s TV show. He saw himself talking about his Bermuda Triangle experience with a tall, handsome man in his seventies, in the man’s home.

When he actually met Valentine in 1974, Bruce recognized him as the man in his vision. After Valentine heard Bruce’s story, he turned to his wife and said, “This is amazing. He is the only pilot to have ever flown through the heart of the storm, from its birth through its maturity, and to exit trough the vortex.”

Bruce has had other precognitive visions and hunches over the years, and believes the ability may have been triggered by his experience in the Bermuda Triangle.

Do anomalous experiences trigger psychic ability? Some alien abductees and people who have died and returned report psychic incidents in the aftermath of their experiences. But maybe it’s simpler than that. Perhaps when we encounter the unknown, as Bruce did, as alien abductees do, as NDErs do, a portal is blown open in our consciousness and we are suddenly more attuned to the unseen.

This MacGregor clan is actually pretty small – Rob, me, Megan and, over the years, a number of animal companions. It’s been awhile since we had a new animal addition, but there she is at the top of this post, looking straight at my phone’s camera.

This kitten, a female, was rescued by a friend of our daughter’s who is allergic to cats. Megan agreed to take her in, but her current roommate is also allergic to cats. Her roommate, though, is going to move into an apartment soon so we agreed to take the kitten until Megan finds a new roommate who, hopefully, won’t be allergic to cats.

We named her Luna, but think she may actually be a Dusty or Dusky. We found that she isn’t afraid of dogs and is, in fact, apparently eager to bond with them. Here’s Megan’s dog, Nika, eager to make the kitten’s acquaintance.

We also discovered that she likes riding in cars.

During her first night at Megan’s, she explored the house in a couple of hours and slept draped around Megan’s neck. During her first night at our place, she was hissed at by both of our cats, aging Powder and middle aged Simba. But, undaunted by the hostility, she eventually found her way to our bedroom, where she slept curled up between Rob and me, in a nest of pillows.

I’d forgotten the wonder that kittens bring with them. The world itself is like a Beatles song, a magical mystery tour of sights and sounds, movements and strangeness. She loves playing with a spool of thread, a ball covered in catnip, or chasing some stray fly in our kitchen. When we’re watching the latest news on Trump and Clinton and Sanders, she’s happy to curl up between us and offer her two cents on the candidates. Trump gets a big yawn, Clinton gets a stretching of her claws, Sanders gets a contented purr.

Okay, so I’m reading into this. She actually doesn’t give a cat’s poop about politics. When I rail that Rachel Maddow is apparently campaigning to become Clinton’s press secretary, the kitten yawns.

When we talk about how Laurence O’Donnell is more balanced in his coverage of the campaign, how he actually discusses Clinton’s email problems and the FBI’s investigation, the kitten is momentarily interested, then curls up and goes still again. Her eyes are partially open, though, so I know she’s listening.

She is not quite as sanguine when the news turns to Trump. I imagine that she hisses, snarls, darts away to hide. But the truth is that she jumps to the floor and cuddles next to our Golden Retriever, Noah, who is at least 100 times her size. Protect me from Trump. Noah’s tail thumps the floor. He is happy to oblige her. He equates Trump with Romney, the Mormon dude who actually announced to the 80 million dog owners in the U.S. that he actually put the family dog in a crate on top of the car for a trip to Canada.

Some people believe that Romney lost the election in 2012 because of his comments about the 47 percent. But Noah knows it was the dog story that did him in.

I would like to know what this little kitten, still casting around for a name, might actually know. Maybe she’s a political oracle. Maybe she’s my muse in a new disguise. And maybe she’s just as cute as she appears to be, big ears and all.

I’m in love. Welcome to the clan, whoever you are!

There’s a certain eeriness about the Latin name for night terror. Pavor Nocturnus…Say it three times aloud and you’ll wake up screaming.Well, let’s hope not.

Night terrors make ordinary nightmares seem well, ordinary. These experiences typically involve  a sudden false awakening from sleep and persistent fear or terror. Your heart hammers in your chest. You probably scream, sweat profusely, and feel disoriented. It sounds like a bad acid trip, but these experiences are typically drug-free terror and can happen to anyone from infants to the elderly. But the most common age group is 3-7.

Usually the person has no recollection of the incident, only a vague sense of frightening images. Researchers say that many people experiencing night terrors see spiders, snakes, animals, or strange people in the room.

It’s tempting to link night terror with alien abductions, but I think they’re two distinct experiences. One of the reasons is that people who experience night terror often wake up the entire household and are observed during the experience. Alien abduction experiences, on the other hand, are quite the opposite. Typically, no one wakes up except the abductee.  The experience is closer to sleep paralysis, another experience confused with alien abductions. In the Middle Ages, a succubus – a small creature – was said to sit on the chest of the sleeper causing the paralysis.

The two sleep experiences are explanations of choice for skeptics who don’t accept the reality of alien abductions. The problem with that explanation, though, is that alien abductions are also reported by people who are awake, sometimes driving cars, as in the famouse case of Barney and Betty Hill.

I write about night terrors in my book Dream Power for Teens, which is just coming out as an e-book to accompany the print edition.

While nightmares take place during REM sleep, night terrors occur at a deeper level of sleep, when the brain produces slow delta waves and no REM sleep. The night terror experience might last from five to twenty minutes. During that time the person is asleep and unable to wake up, even if his or her eyes are open.

While it isn’t considered dangerous, what you do during the night terror episode can lead to dangerous situations. Some people who experience night terror walk into walls or fall down stairs, which is certainly hazardous.

Here’s a description of night terrors from my book that was provided by a nineteen-year-old named Heather.

One of my most frightening experiences was when I was six years old. I was having the worst night terror of my life. I was sitting in my room, everyone still sleeping, and the walls were falling in around me. The books were all falling off the shelves, walls crashing. I was so scared, but I couldn’t do anything. I was in a trance, a haze. My head throbbed and buzzed, and I was sure I would die.

From what I’m told, I walked into the living room and turned up the stereo as loud as it could go, and woke up the entire family. I told them about the book shelves falling in my room, and I ranted and raved for about twenty minutes. Some things I said made no sense at all. I was in my own world, more like my own hell. Finally, my mother put me in a cold bath and I “sobered up “ That was one of the most traumatic experiences of my life and one that I will never be able to forget. Even now when I think about it, I get shivers down my spine.

Heather reported her experience on the online Night Terror Resource Center, at www.nightterrors.org. She said that her night terrors stopped when she turned twelve, and she considers herself very lucky.