A Ghost Story

Posted on February 10, 2017 by Trish and Rob

Victorian

I received an e-mail earlier this month from a cousin who I hadn’t seen or talked since I was a teen. A long, long time ago. She was wondering what happened to my mother because her Christmas card to her went unanswered and her phone was disconnected.

I explained that she was living in an assisted living facility and had dementia. I started corresponding with Barbara and she told me about her haunted Victorian house. Well, formerly haunted. She’d found a medium who removed reticent spirits and was successful. Barbara provided a lot of details that I’ve already incorporated – with her permission in a book – STRANGE THINGS: True Tales of Alien Encounters and Paranormal Experiences – that I was just completing. When she wrote, I was working on the last chapter, which was called Haunting Experiences. A synchro there.

Barbara told me she wanted to visit my mother and I gave her the address. A snowstorm and the flu outbreak at the facility slowed the reunion. Recently, when my sister was visiting our mother, she called me and I told them both about Barbara’s plans. My sister was too young to remember her, and at first my mother didn’t know who I was talking about. Then she remembered and what she said to me was startling: “Barbara lives in a haunted house.”

Wow! I hadn’t said anything to her or my sister about Barbara’s story. So thinking logically, I figured Barbara had written about it in the Christmas letter, which my mother had finally gotten. Later, I e-mailed Barbara and she said, “I didn’t tell her anything about ghosts.” She was not only perplexed by the comment, but concerned that my mother had used the present tense! Barbara doesn’t want any more ghosts around!

So the very next day she visited my mother, who didn’t recognize her or remember who she was, even though I’d told her about the upcoming visit. They chatted awhile and my mother did remember Barbara’s mother, Elaine. There was no mention of ghosts, but Barbara noticed, as my sister and I also have, that she seemed to converse on the side with invisible people. Dementia, I guess. But maybe dementia somehow opens the mind to invisible worlds and even to knowledge about things that are outside of her regular awareness – like the ghost story.

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CUBA!

Posted on February 8, 2017 by Trish and Rob

cars

We are going to Cuba!

Thanks to Obama opening up diplomatic relations with Cuba, American airlines are now flying to the island from various cities in the U.S. From Fort Lauderdale, the airfare round trip is dirt cheap, $150. Visas cost $100 round trip per person. So, for $250, we can fly an hour to a country that has been under a U.S. embargo for 60 years, an embargo that failed miserably. I want to get there before the old cars vanish, before franchises move in, before Cuba is transformed into resorts and casinos.

For lodging, we’ve opted for a casa particular – a room, apartment or home in a neighborhood that is rented out to travelers for far less than the hotels charge. I was surprised by the hotel prices- $400-$500 a night. Then I realized that for years, Cuba has been a tourist hub for travelers from numerous other countries who apparently are willing to pay those prices. Air BNB is the route we took.

Air BNB is one of those marvels that developed because of the Internet. They list hundreds of casas particulares all over the island with photos, prices, numbers of bedrooms and bathrooms, locations, every bit of information you need to make an informed choice. We’re staying at Casa Jose, an apartment to the west of Old Havana that sleeps eight. There will be 7 of us for the four nights, an eighth person for two nights. When we split the cost of the apartment, it comes out to about 40 bucks per person per night. The apartment is about a 20-minute walk from Old Havana.

The apartment has a kitchen, air conditioning, a balcony that overlooks the city. I’ve been in touch with Jose, the host, whose English is better than my Spanish, and he has answered all the questions I’ve asked.

We are going to be seven in the group that arrives first. The eight person is arriving the day after we do and leaving a day earlier. Jose will pick us up at the airport and the ride to the apartment costs 25 CUCs, not bad when you’re splitting the fare with others.

I have learned that there are two currencies in Cuba – the CUCs and the CUPs. One CUC is worth one dollar; this is the currency tourists use. The CUPs are the currency that locals use. It’s best to exchange money at the Havana airport, even though a 10% fee is imposed, which actually means one dollar is worth a bit less than one CUC. I’ve learned that local transportation is relatively inexpensive, so we don’t need to rent a car. However, if we wish to make a day trip out of Havana, there are inexpensive buses or we can hire a driver of one of those incredible cars from the 1950s.

I’ve also learned that the best places to eat are private restaurants and cafes, rather than those owned by the government. The prices are more reasonable and the food is better.

Lonely Planet has a fantastic book on Cuba and I’ve been going through it, selecting spots I really would like to see during our four days on the island. On Sunday afternoons, for instance, there’s a public drumming session by local santeros that Lonely Planet describes as “hypnotic.” There’s a Santeria museum that I hope to visit. Art and music are huge on the island and I’ve selected a couple of spots in Old Havana that are high on my list for both of these pursuits. There’s even a nightclub that features flamenco dancers.

Outside of Havana, I would love to see the island of Trinidad. The caves. The beaches of Matanzas. My friend, Marina, who was an ER doc in Havana and now works at our local Publix, has been advising me on which areas to see. I’ve got my Cuba book in my car, with my map of the island, so that when I see her again, we can pore over it.

I’m psyched for this trip. Cuba has been on my bucket list for years, ever since my dad told me about his stopover in Cuba during the Batista years. I actually never thought the island would open up to Americans in my lifetime, Thank you, President Obama.

Internet is sketchy on the island and when you have it, the price is steep. Supposedly, AT&T finalized a deal with Cuba in October 2016, but Verizon was there first. This Internet iffiness may be a challenge for me, but frankly, I just want to have photos and if I can’t upload them until we get home, well, so what. I’m ready to embrace the entire experience, whatever it may be.

Cuba, si!

 

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Alzheimer’s

Posted on February 7, 2017 by Trish and Rob

alzheimers-fb

Every so often, I run across articles on Alzheimer’s – what it is, symptoms, how to cope if you’re a caregiver. I don’t agree with a lot of what I read and here’s why: I saw this disease up close and personal.

My mother’s onset started several years before she was diagnosed and while there were some symptoms that parallel what medical literature discusses, there were many other symptoms no one ever mentions. Take this Huffington Post article.

The first item on this list – stealing or other law-breaking activity – i.e., the inability to distinguish right from wrong – didn’t apply to my mother. She always knew what was right or wrong. But she believed that the woman who cleaned my parents’ home twice a month was stealing from them. She was in her seventies when this happen, around 74, 75.

 One day, for instance, she called me in a panic. Her wedding ring had disappeared, she was sure the cleaning lady had stolen it. She asked me to call my friend Millie Gemondo and ask her if she could see where the ring was. So I did. Millie is an incredible psychic and pinpointed that my mother had put her ring in a bowl or some other object in the cabinet under the bathroom sink. Sure enough, that’s where my mother found it.

But before she found it, my dad placated my mother’s paranoia – a BIG symptom – by telling her to put her valuables in a hallway closet, that he then locked. Many objects went into this closet. But it didn‘t matter. When anything in the house vanished, it was because the cleaning woman had taken them or she’d stolen the key to this closet.

Frequent falling: the second item in the Post article. It didn’t apply to my mother. She and my dad were runners for most of their adult lives, six days a week, one or two miles. She had great balance.

Forgetting the function of objects: Nope. That didn‘t apply until the disease had advanced to the point where we had to put her in an Alzheimer’s unit. By then, she didn’t even know the purpose of a fork.

Eating inappropriate things: Nope. She never ate paper. Or sawdust. Or anything that wasn’t actually edible.

Inability to recognize sarcasm: Didn’t apply. She had a quick wit, my mother did, and always recognized sarcasm, even when the disease was advanced.

Depression: Yes. One day she drove off to a friend’s house to play bridge with a group of women with whom she’d played bridge for years and got lost. Another time, she and my dad went to the mall and he waited outside of a department store while she went inside. She forgot he was waiting for her outside and walked the three miles home and he didn’t know it. I got a frantic call from him after the mall had closed, the cops were called, it was a mess. Meanwhile, she was sitting on the front porch at home, she didn’t have a key, and this was in the days before cell phones. Depressed? You bet. She knew enough to know that she was losing it.

Unfocused staring: No. What should be here is crying jags, an awareness that something terrible was happening inside of her that she couldn’t fix.

The other item that should be listed here is something no one talks about: visits from the dead that are utterly and completely real to an Alzheimer’s patient. In the beginning, this puzzled me. But in the two and a half years my mother was in this Alzheimer’s unit, I came to think of Alzheimer’s as a spiritually-based disease. My mother, in spite of her beliefs in heaven and hell from a Catholic upbringing, was terrified of dying. Alzheimer’s enabled her to sample the afterlife without actually going there. After all, if your consciousness isn’t fully focused in physical reality, then it has to be focused elsewhere.

 When she told me her siblings or her mother had visited her – all of whom were dead- I came to believe her. I do think the dead stopped by to say hello and to ease her way into the afterlife. This suspicion was confirmed when a year or so into my mother’s confinement in the Alzheimer’s unit, my friend Millie was visiting and we drove over to the facility. My mother announced that her two brothers were here, visiting. Millie, who sometimes sees the dead, said, “Your younger brother, is his name Dick?”

My mother’s eyes lit up. “Yes. Dick, such a sweetheart.”

Millie gestured to my mother’s right. “He’s sitting right next to you.”

I’d never told Millie anything about my mother’s siblings – not their names, not that they were all dead, not that my mother claimed they visited. I was blown away. And ever since, I have believed that Alzheimer’s is a spiritual condition, as most diseases probably are. But with Alzheimer’s, dementia, brain traumas, the soul is offered a way to sample the afterlife, to step into it before actually going there.

Rob’s 92-year-old mother, presently in an assisted living facility, has two imaginary male friends who visit her frequently. An electrician, a cook, who have names. They don’t exist in this reality, but who’s to say they aren’t real?

 The bottom line is simple. We don’t know what death is, what the brain is capable of, and we have really don’t know how thin the veil may be between the living and the dead.

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Where to Invade Next

Posted on February 5, 2017 by Trish and Rob

 

This evening we watched Michael Moore’s latest documentary, Where to Invade Next. We have seen all of his movies, from Bowling for Columbine to Sicko, and each one takes a particular issue in American culture and society and places it under a microscope. In Bowling, it was gun violence and Moore won an Oscar for that one.

Fahrenheit 911 came out in 2004 when this country was embroiled in Iraq. We were being told it was all good, that Saddam had to be brought to his knees, that we would be welcomed as liberators, that all that Iraqi oil would be ours…Remember those lies? Waterboarding was suddenly legal, Gitmo was the prison where the worst terrorists were sent, and every night Cheney was on the news, snarling about how dangerous the world was and how necessary the war on terror was.

I remember sitting in a local theater, watching Moore dismantle the Bush administration, the lies, the zillions being spent, the lives that were sacrificed. And I remember how at the end, nearly everyone in the theater leaped up and applauded.

In Sicko, Moore’s microscope was focused on health care in this country – the expense, the millions that were uninsured, the corporate greed. So where does he go to drive home the point? To Cuba, where health and dental care are free, where university education is free…

In Where to Invade Next, Moore travels to various European countries with an American flag draped over his shoulder, and “invades” each country in search of ideas that he can take home.

In Finland, which has one of the highest ranked education systems in the world, Moore takes home the idea of an education system so unorthodox that I, a former teacher, couldn’t believe what I was hearing. There are no standardized tests, kids go to school for just 20 hours a week, and the teachers encourage their students to learn to be happy. Students are encouraged to think for themselves, to socialize with friends, spend time with their families, to make independent decisions, and, most of all, to have fun with learning!

In Norway, Moore visits prisons. Having worked as a librarian and teacher in a state prison in Florida, this segment of the movie astounded me. There isn’t any death penalty in Norway. The maximum sentence anyone can receive is 21 years. The concept of “punishment” isn’t about deprivation except that inmates are denied daily contact with their loved ones.

Otherwise, the prison is like a summer camp. The 115 inmates are “guarded” by just four prison officers, who aren’t armed. They have classes they can take in art and music, cooking, and academic subjects. Their rooms have private bathrooms, flat screen TVs, and comforts we associate with home. These prisoners are even allowed to vote and politicians running for office come to the prison to talk about their platforms. There’s an amazing sense of community.

Even the maximum security prison that Moore visited is nothing at all like its equivalent in the U.S. Here, even murderers are rehabilitated through education, the encouragement of their creative endeavors, and their camaraderie within the community. Moore interviewed the father of a young man who was killed in 2011 along with 54 other students and kept asking the father, “But don’t you want to kill the man who killed your son?”

And the father kept shaking his head, no, no, that isn’t what we do here, the father said. He didn’t want to climb down the ladder to the level of the man who had killed his son. The cultural attitude, the collective consciousness, is vastly different in Norway.

The most moving parts of the movie for me was Moore’s invasion of Germany, specifically of Nuremberg, and of his invasion of Iceland. In Nuremberg, Moore takes us through an education system that doesn’t try to sweep its collective dark side father back into the shadows.

Children are taught the history of Hitler and the annihilation of Jews through hands on activities. Bring one thing to school that you couldn’t be without if you were told you had to leave your home and get onto a train. They are surrounded with reminders of what Hitler did – plaques on buildings that commemorate the Jewish families who lived in particular buildings and were forced to leave them. There are signs on streets with particular dates and what happened on those dates. Moore asks, “What would such signs look like in the United States?” And offers a few examples from the Civil Rights movement.

In Iceland, we discover that it was the first country to elect a female president – back in the 70s – and that women really are equal in that society. By law, all corporations must have no more than 60 percent or men or women on their boards, that female CEOs are as common as male CEOS, and that the only bank out of four that didn’t melt down in 2008 was run primarily by women. One of the women he interviews sums it up succinctly- for men, it’s about me. For women, it’s about their families and the larger collective; it’s about others.

Iceland arrested and convicted more than 70 bankers in the country responsible for the financial meltdown. In the U.S., by contrast, only one Wall Street guy went to prison – and he was a Muslim. Everyone else got bailed out

Moore pretty much nails what is wrong with this country, disparities that have become glaringly apparent during this campaign season. But in the end, there’s a note of optimism. Moore points out that nearly every progressive idea he has taken away from the countries he “invaded” had its genesis in the U.S.

Perhaps we have only detoured from our better selves.

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Media Blackout

Posted on February 3, 2017 by Trish and Rob

media-blackout

 

What if…. For a day or two, for 24-48 hours, the media stopped covering trump? What if the media just went mute on the man’s shock and awe pronouncements and executive orders and proclamations? What if twitter cut off his account for a day?

The world wouldn’t fall apart. But trump’s ego might suffer some severe damage. What? No one’s talking about me? How can that be? I’m the most powerful man in the world and no one is talking about what I’m doing? Oh, you blasted media, you’re the opposition, you’re the devils, you’re the…how can you ignore me?

Even a 24-hour media blackout on trump would tamp down on the fear and uncertainty that many people feel. Remove him from the discourse. Remove Bannon from the discourse. Shut them all up for a day or two. What might happen? Well, many of us would sleep more soundly. We would begin to feel hope again. We wouldn’t be feeding emotionally into the paranoia and dissension that trump and bannon strive to create nationally and globally.

Yes, Fox News would still cover every word he utters, every silly tweet he composes. So there would still be an outlet for his diehard fans. But the rest of us would have time off. So what if he’s president of the U.S.? That doesn’t entitle him to continual 24/7 coverage. Journalists could cover good news for a change – something trump and his people don’t want us to hear because, after all, good news is anathema to the climate of fear they’re trying to create.

The Bush administration did the same thing in the aftermath of 9-11. Their mantra was, Be afraid, be very afraid. It’s an effective political ploy. When people become terrified, they go silent, stop protesting and resisting.

So how about it, mainstream media? How about a 24-hour blackout on news about trump and everything and everyone in his administration? If he calls a press conferences, boycott it, just as the dems did for a couple of confirmation hearings. If he tweets his outrage, ignore it. If he screws up a phone call with a foreign leader, let that leader report it.

24 hours. 48 hours.

The world won’t end, but trump’s ego will throw a tantrum. Imagine what might happen if he was robbed of the limelight for a week!

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An aside: tomorrow, February 4, marks the 8th anniversary for this blog. Thanks to all of you!

 

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Join Us Tonight for…

Posted on February 2, 2017 by Trish and Rob

ycparanormalradio

YCparanormalradio  to talk about synchronicity

9:30-10:30 pm

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What’s Afoot

Posted on February 1, 2017 by Trish and Rob

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Recently, I’ve been inundated with email from friends, acquaintances, even strangers, who are experiencing synchronicity in a variety of ways, usually because they are in the midst of pivotal life events.

One friend lost her husband to cancer. Another friend’s husband has been diagnosed with a rare form of brain cancer and after trying chemo, which nearly killed him, he decided to try alternative methods of treatment. And yet, I also hear from people who are experiencing exceptional good fortune and feel their lives are exactly where they should be. I suspect that most of us live between the extremes, where synchronicity hums along in the background, nudging us here, there, elsewhere.

There are days when I believe that synchronicity is a force of nature, some sort of underlying power like a hurricane or tornado that sweeps into your life and changes everything in a heartbeat. Other days, I see it as a far more subtle influence, something smooth and effortless, like eating Jell-O. Then there are the days when I actively seek out synchronicity, giving myself suggestions, stating my intentions aloud, typing out affirmations that I plaster on the fridge, the walls, my computer.

But all of this is testament to the fact that we don’t really understand the nature of reality or consciousness. We’re still in the infancy of learning, but our learning process is accelerating because of the Internet. In many ways, the Internet is a synchronicity machine. It generates the conditions, the connections, and all we have to do is create an inner climate where we’re receptive to whatever this phenomenon is.

Coincidence, Indra’s Net, God’s winks, or David Bohm’s enfolded or implicate order, or just a curiosity: call it whatever you want. Thing is, it’s happening more frequently and when you recognize it’s happening to you, you begin paying attention.

Honestly, in all these years of studying and researching synchros, of reading Jung – his bios, his autobiography, of steeping myself in all things Jungian- I’ve concluded that synchronicity may defy any ultimate definition. The deeper I dig, the more questions I find. When a skeptic experiences a synchro and acknowledges it as such to his peers, how does that revelation change his or her life? How would his or her life been different without that acknowledgement? Which paths open or close?

My musings about synchronicity tend to be spurred by whatever I’m writing. Rob and I are working on a recently sold book, Secrets of Spirit Communication, something we’ve discussed frequently on this blog. I’m also working on  a novel .We’re  doing radio shows for Sensing the Future,  and I’m preparing for a second workshop in mid April, on astrology that will be taught in Cassadaga,  a Spiritualist community where everyone talks to the dead.

I used to hide my interests – except when I wrote fiction – but I’ve reached that point many of us usually reach, and probably far earlier than I did. Think what you want, but this is who I am. I believe we live in a universe so mysterious and unknowable that when we catch glimmers of truth, we seize them. We are far more than our physical bodies and our consciousness interacts daily with this greater power – divinity, Source, synchronicity- give it whatever name that feels comfortable for you. These experiences provide guidance, confirmation, warning, reassurance, a sense that we are never alone, that our allies are the very experiences that lead us in this direction. These experiences blow open our perceptions of what is possible.

And that is no small thing.

 

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The Pauli Effect Redux

Posted on January 30, 2017 by Trish and Rob

telekinesis

We’ve written about Wolfgang Pauli before, but we’re taking a closer look now at some of the strange stories about his apparent psychokinetic powers as we begin research for a book on psychokinesis—sometimes referred to as mind over matter.

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There are some people who enter a room and stuff happens. Appliances go berserk, computers crash, cell phones act up. Theoretical physicist and Nobel laureate Wolfgang Pauli, one of the early supporters of Jung’s theory on synchronicity, was one such person.

From early on in his career, colleagues noticed that whenever he entered a lab, equipment broke down spontaneously. It happened so frequently when Pauli was around, his coworkers called it “the Pauli effect.” Over time, most of the scientists with whom Pauli worked knew about it. Physicists at the university in Hamburg where he worked were convinced that Pauli’s presence anywhere near a lab led to a breakdown in equipment. Otto Stern, a fellow physicist, eventually forbade Pauli to enter the lab.

Imagine what a dilemma the Pauli effect must have been for fellow scientists, particularly for Stern, a Nobel laureate in physics. Psychokinesis, which hasn’t been proven—not to the satisfaction of mainstream science—happened often when Pauli walked into a lab.

“The Pauli effect, as it became known, was obviously impossible; it had to be just a matter of coincidence,” wrote Arthur I Miller in Deciphering the Cosmic Number. “But nevertheless, it happened again and again.”

Miller’s statement is an oxymoron. If something “impossible” occurs repeatedly, then it isn’t impossible. And apparently the Pauli effect could happen even when Pauli wasn’t present.

In Miller’s book, he discusses an incident that happened in the 1920s. One afternoon at the University of Gottingen in Germany, a complicated apparatus for the study of atoms collapsed, without apparent cause. Pauli was in Switzerland at the time. “At last, said his colleagues, relieved, here was clear proof it couldn’t be the Pauli effect.”

The professor in charge of the laboratory wrote Pauli, telling him about the event. After a protracted delay, he received a letter from Pauli saying that he had been on his way to Copenhagen, but at the moment the equipment broke down, his train had stopped for a few minutes at the Gottingen station.

Miller also relates another story that happened in 1955. In celebration of the 50th anniversary of the discovery of Einstein’s special theory of relativity, Pauli was to lecture at the Zurich Physical Society. Three of his friends and colleagues had dinner with him beforehand, then they all set out for the lecture. One Swiss physicist was on his scooter, saw he was low on gas, and stopped at a gas station. His scooter caught fire, was totaled, and he had to walk. A second Swiss physicist discovered that his bike had two flat tires, so he had to walk, too. The third man took the tram, which he did frequently, but forgot to get off at the right stop.

They all made it to the lecture, but one of the men involved noted that with the Pauli effect, Pauli himself never experienced any harm.

As one of Pauli’s close friends said, “It is quite legitimate to understand the ‘Pauli effect’ as a synchronistic phenomenon as conceived by Jung.”

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Reality Check: Trump’s First Week

Posted on January 29, 2017 by Trish and Rob

trump hitler

REALITY CHECK TIME. Let’s take a look at what trump has done just in his first week in office:

Inauguration Day, Jan 20

He signed an executive order to “ease the burden of Obamacare,” the first step in the repeal of Obama’s signature health care mandate.

Big problem: the Republicans have nothing to replace it, so that means 20 million people lose their health insurance and things probably go back to the way they were – sky high premiums, if you have a pre-existing condition, well, sorry, we can’t cover you.

Weekend, Jan. 21 and Jan. 22

Millions of women and men worldwide took the streets for the Women’s March.

“Alternative facts” became the buzzword when trump’s people( Keyllanne Conway) said the media downplayed the numbers at his inauguration. Trump even called the head of the National Park Service about finding aerial  photos that proved his inauguration crowd was larger than Obama’s.

Real fact: His crowd fell way short of Obama’s. It hurt trump’s ego.

Monday, Jan. 23

Good-bye TPP –from the platform of Bernie Sanders

Reinstated a gag order on government support for internaitonal aid groups that discuss and perform abortions. These aid groups also give advice on family planning and birth control.

This is, of course, a no-no in the trump/pense admin. For them, the unborn – an embryo – must be defended. But hey, once you’re born, kid, you’re on your own. No health care (unless your framily can afford it), no preschool, no childcare – unless your family can afford it. Yes, you love life until it actually becomes a living human being.

Build the wall and oh, sorry, but Mexico isn’t going to pay for it. You taxpayers are – not the wealthy, who are getting tax breaks, and not corporations, who are also getting more tax breaks, but you middle class chumps.

Withhold money for sanctuary cities.

Tuesday, January 24

For the EPA – Environmental Protection Agency – a freeze on all new contracts and grants.

Media blackout at the EPA and Department of Agriculture. You know, the agencies that are responsible for the air you breathe, the food you eat, the ones who provide data about CLIMATE CHANGE, that phrase that trump and his people claim is a hoax made up by the Chinese.

Defund International Planned Parenthood which provides family planning services, contraception, and women’s health care around the world. And yes, they provide abortions, too. That’s about three percent of what they do.

Wednesday, Jan. 25

Trump’s ego needs to be fed, so today he ordered a major investigation into voter fraud. I mean, how did Clinton win the popular vote by nearly 3 million votes? It had to be VOTER FRAUD. But nothing about the Russian computer hacking.

But, in the voter fraud realm, several members of trump’s team were registered to vote in two states!

Trump gives his first prime-time interview as prez.

Thursday, Jan. 26

Trump proposes 20% import tax on Mexican imports. Mexico is our third largest trading partner. The only thing this tax does is raise the price of foods and goods for American consumers.

He also apparently thinks torture like waterboarding works and said he was in favor of bringing it back, along with black op prisons. He then supposedly deferred to his secretary of defense, who’s opposed to it.

The heated rhetoric between trump and the president of Mexico ratcheted upward.

Friday, Jan. 27

Trump creates chaos at American airports when he signs an executive order that blocks all refugees from entering the U.S. for 120 days and added travel restrictions from Muslim countries – none of which have been responsible for terrorist acts in the U.S. since 9/11

This order caused unimagined chaos at airports, protests, and opened the door for mass deportations. A federal judge banned parts of it.

Oh – this too. On Inauguration day, four journalists covering the protests were arrested on federal riot charges – even though they weren’t involved in the riots – and that carries a ten year prison sentence and a fine of $25,000.

In short, trump’s first week in office has taken the U.S. several steps closer to Fascism.

Re-read 1984.

Follow Robert Reich’s nightly live feed on Facebook.

Stay abreast of real news.

And if a Muslim registry is started, sign up.

If your beliefs are in line with everything trump is doing, then own them without resorting to “the bible says…” Or “god says…” Don’t use god as an excuse for your own hatred, racism, bigotry, misogyny, homophobia.

 

 

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The Poughkeepsie Seer

Posted on January 27, 2017 by Trish and Rob

AJDavis1

This is an old blog entry from 2011 that I posted when I was writing BUMP IN THE NIGHT. Somehow, the story never made it into the book, but I just came across it while preparing for a radio show that was to focus on that book. Just as the story didn’t make it into the book, the radio show didn’t happen either! But here’s the story. It’s an interesting one that says a lot about the mystery of spirit contact.

If you know much about American history, you’ve no doubt heard about Andrew Jackson, the fourteenth president. But you’ve probably never heard about American mystic named Andrew Jackson Davis. So here’s a history lesson from the mystical underground.

In  1844, at the age of 18, a shoemaker named Andrew Jackson Davis went into a state of semi-trance and wandered from his home in Poughkeepsie, New York. The next morning he found himself forty miles away in the mountains where he claimed he encountered the spirits of Swedish philosopher and mystic Emmanuel Swedenborg and the second-century Greek physician Claudius Gale.  He came away from the experience claiming he was mentally illuminated. Even though he never attended school, he began teaching and writing about supernatural powers, which he called human magnetism and electricity.

Davis, who became known as the Poughkeepsie Seer, also exhibited these powers. In 1845, he began to dictate, while in trance, a book entitled The Principles of Nature.  In the book, Davis made the following prediction regarding a new era of communication with the other side.

“It is a truth that spirits commune with one another while one is in the body and the other in the higher spheres—and this, too, when the person in the body is unconscious of the influx, and hence cannot be convinced of the fact; and this truth will ere long present itself in the form of a living demonstration. And the world will hail with delight the ushering in of that era when the interiors of men will be opened, and the spiritual communion will be established…”

In Davis’ notes, dated March 31, 1848, are the following words: “About daylight this morning a warm breathing passed over my face and I heard a voice, tender and strong, saying: ‘Brother, the good work has begun—behold a living demonstration is born.’ I was left wondering what could be meant by such a message.”

It wasn’t long before he realized the meaning of the message. March 31, 1848 was the day that  Maggie Fox and her two sisters established a means of communicating with the others side, which gave birth to Spiritualism, a movement that flourished in the waning decades of the Victorian Era.  Davis had experienced a synchronicity through his contact with the other side.

While synchronicity doesn’t always involve spirit contact, it can serve as connective tissue between the everyday world and the other side, the world of spirit. The more contact we make, the more the so-called ‘dead’ appear to be quite alive and willing to communicate.

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