Welcome to The Mystical Underground

In 1999, the movie The Matrix hit theaters. To date, the movie has earned more than a billion worldwide –$1,632,989, 142.

And with good reason. It wasn’t just because Keanu Reeves played Neo and because Laurence Fishburne played Morpheus or even because Carrie-Anne Moss played Trinity. The Matrix was a phenomenon because Andy and Lena Wachowski, the brothers who conceived and directed it, had a message: reality is NOT what we perceive it to be.

Now, fast forward to 2015. Our daughter Megan, is always recommending TV shows to us. You guys gotta see this. Usually, her recommendations are good – The Whispers, a spooky show with Spielberg as executive director; Wayward Pines, with M. Night Shyamalan as executive producer; and now, Sense8, with The Matrix boys- – the Wachoski Brothers – as executive producers. These guys also produced Cloud Atlas.

Sense8, an original Netflix production, is about eight individuals in different countries and cultures who suddenly discover they are connected telepathically to strangers – IMDB calls it linked mentally. Thing is, this connection among the eight goes well beyond telepathic. Each of the eight is able, under duress, to connect physically and emotionally with their counterparts and change the outcome of whatever one of the eight is facing.

The connecting thread appears to be Naveen Andrews, a character from Lost, who is able to manipulate his consciousness so that he can appear to the others – a Hindu woman, a Chicago cop, a tortured singer/performer in London, a thief, a van driver in Nairobi, a gay American woman, a young Korean woman, and a closeted gay Spanish actor. Navene  is apparently trying to protect the others from another sensate who is trying to tap into their psychic cluster and capture them. After we watched the third episode this evening, I was struck by a couple of things.

The Wachoski brothers have a vision for this show, just as they did for The Matrix. But it’s not just a storyboard about who does what to whom and when. It’s not just about plot twists and characters. It’s about the nature of reality. While watching tonight’s episode, I felt as though I were watching a visual depiction of how Indra’s Net works,  how each of us is connected in a real, vibrant way and how this connection is strengthening, gaining momentum.

In this episode, that connection happens through music, where each of the eight are singing, What’s Up by Four Non Blondes, the video at the top of the post, a song from 1992. The scene is extraordinary for television, so real and visceral that when it ended, I was on my feet, shouting, Yes, yes, this is it, this is the Wachoski defining moment for the 21^st century!

Okay, so maybe I overreacted. But honestly, it’s so refreshing to see psychic ability and soul connections depicted in such a real, emotional way across such cultural divides, that I would binge on the rest of the episodes if they were available. Netflix didn’t just pound Blockbusters into the ground. With their original programming, they are redefining television – and the nature of what we may be willing to accept as true.

At the very least commit to three episodes of Sense8. I’m pretty sure that’s all it will take for you to be hooked. The Wachoski brothers not only understand synchronicity; they show us how it works and why.

It’s always good to hear from readers who find our books helpful, especially when synchronicities are involved. Here’s an interesting correspondence from Daniel, and it happens to involve a mysterious sighting in his backyard.

“I have enjoyed reading the excellent books you and Trish wrote. I have an interesting story to share. In the summer of 2013, I was reading Whitley Streiber’s The Greys.
In it, he discusses synchronicities, then I listened to the latest Open Minds podcast and Rob and Trish were on discussing Aliens in the Backyard, so I read that and learned quite a bit more about the subject.

“On a clear night in mid July I decided to sit under the stars and listen to a podcast. I chose the latest of Whitley Strieber’s Dreamland.  The guests turned out again to be Rob and Trish.  About ten (eleven?) minutes into the show a bright light flashed in the sky. Fifteen seconds after, it flashed again, in the exact same spot! Chills ran down my spine like electricity . . .”

That was an interesting comment to hear from Daniel. I wanted to know more, so I asked him to expand on his thoughts about UFOs or synchronicity…or both. Which he did.

“There is much we don’t understand about our reality. I believe that synchronicity is a fundamental part of that reality, the order from chaos. And like any other force in the universe, it can be manipulated by technology.

“The powerful synchronicities I experienced that summer were that kind. They were a message that I began to understand intuitively. Like smoke signals. Much more happened in the following year. Stranger things.

“I’ve been seeing things and experiencing things my whole life. I’ve personally researched the subject extensively, searching for answers. Answers to events in my life that I now understand were purposefully obfuscated. When I was seven years old in 1979, I remember seeing a silver disc with multicolored lights spinning right outside the window of our playroom.

“My grandfather was a full bird Air Force colonel who admitted to me when I was 19 that he had seen close up, craft that were “not of this Earth.” That was all he ever said on the subject. He used to work at Norton AFB nearby here in San Bernardino. In 1976, he then moved to Homestead, FL. He had taken a very early retirement and in retrospect, I believe he was still working at Homestead AFB.”

Daniel went on to say that he thinks he is part of a program involving children and grandchildren of high ranking Air Force officers. “There are too many coincidences in my circle of friends and schoolmates. Some of these friends have also recently come to a similar conclusion.”

He added: “I have memory gaps and strange dreams. Unexplained injuries. Now there is a ‘third party’ involved. It might sound crazy, but I believe they have been guiding me to the truth mentally and through synchronicities. They are helping me and my friends.”

There was more, but I’ll stop here. Needless to say, it’s not surprising the Daniel stumbled upon Aliens in the Backyard. We’re glad he found it helpful.

We posted this synchro about Bruce Springsteen when our blog was about a year old. And because it was fun, we’re posting it again!

+++

On Saturday, March 27, 2010, we posted a synchronicity involving Bruce Springsteen, where Rob was hoping to materialize The Boss in the gym while a Springsteen song was playing. (He does belong to the gym). However, as the song ended, Rob materialized his boss for his yoga classes, the owner of the gym – a bit of a trickster.

Today (three days later) we were at the gym and I noticed a bunch of kids and women congregating in one area. Then a man in workout clothes gathered a couple of kids in front of him while the women whipped out their cell phones and snapped pictures.

It’s The Boss, I thought. Now how do I take a picture without being really tacky?

I paused on the rowing machine and snapped a photo of him working on a bicep machine. I was too far away and the photo just looked like a bunch of machines in a gym.

At the time, Rob had run home to get his pay sheet for his yoga classes for the week and I kept hoping Springsteen wouldn’t leave before he returned. I moved to a different area in the gym, hoping to snap a better photo. But people kept walking between us and I was still too far away.

Rob returned and I said, “You just walked right past Springsteen.”

“What? Where?”

I tilted my head toward him. “I’m going over to ask him if I can take his photo. For the blog.”

“Naw, don’t do that. He’s working out.”

I thought about it for about five seconds, then went over. “Excuse me. May I intrude on your workout for a moment?”

“Sure.”

Soulful eyes, I’m thinking. “You’re the topic of a synchronicity,” I said.

“Synchronicity,” he repeats, looking amused.

“You know, meaningful coincidence?” And then I tell him about Rob’s experience and mention our book, 7 Secrets of Synchronicity. “May I take your photo for our blog?”

“Let me put on my shirt.”

I’m thinking, No, don’t do that. A friend of mine wants pictures of your biceps!And he got up from his machine, shrugged on his shirt, and I snapped the photo with my BlackBerry.

“So now I’m going to be on a synchronicity blog?” he asks.

“You are. Thank you so much. I appreciate it.”

So, three days after Rob’s post on whether he could materialize the boss, The Boss appeared.

+++

We no longer belong to that gym. Too bad. It was fun seeing him and feeling the energy whenever The Boss stopped by to work out.

What’s the science behind precognition?

In Larry Dossey’s book, The Power of Premontions, he points out that recent research shows that the hippocampus in the brain may be involved in premonitions. It makes sense. The hippocampus is the center of emotion, the autonomic nervous system, and memory.

Researchers at a neuroimaging center at University College London studied five patients with amnesia who had suffered brain infections that had damaged the hippocampus. They could recall the names of relatives, but not past events. When they and a control group were asked to visualize future scenarios, common events like visiting a beach or pub or meeting up with a friend and to describe what it would feel like, they couldn’t do it.

“The hippocampus-damaged subjects could not describe spatial relationships between objects that were part of the future scenario, and they said little about what they felt like, Dossey writes. “The discovery that the hippocampus is involved in visualizing the future may be important in understanding premonitions.”

This element may be key in understanding the science of precognition because people who experience them visualize possible future events. Dossey points out that a major difference is that the individual experiencing the premonition often experiences a certainty that the event will occur while the person who visualizes a future event considers it imaginary. “The brain may not respect this difference. It has a way of responding as if the imagined event is real.”

If, for instance, you’re lying in the dark and you’re the only person in the house and hear a noise that sounds like a door opening, like footsteps, it’s possible that you’re imagining it, but your brain doesn’t know that. It reacts as though the event is real and releases stress hormones that prepare you for the real thing.

Is the hippocampus in precognitives more active and ramped than the hippocampus in people who never feel premonitons?

Eleanor MacGuire, the same researcher who conducted the experiment with the amnesic patients, performed MRIs on sixteen London cab drivers and found that the rear region of their hoppocampuses were uniformly larger than that of the fifty individuals in the control group.

As Dossey explains, becoming a licensed cabbie in London isn’t easy. “Drivers have to learn ‘the knowledge,’ as it’s called, which includes up to twenty-five thousand street names and the locations of all the major tourist attractions. Cabbies must know not only how to get somewhere, but they must know the most direct route possible.” This “knowledge” usually takes three years of training. The longer a cabbie is on the job, the larger that region of the hippocampus became.

When the BBC News featured MacGuire’s discoveries, some cab drivers came forth and said their experiences as cab drivers made them better at everything from business decisions to mathematics. MacGuire is asgainst GPS devices in London cabs. “We believe this area of the brain increased…because of the huge amount of data they have to memorise. If they all start using GPS, that knowledge base will be less and possibly affect the brain changes we’re seeing.”

Dossey points out that GPS devices may not be the only premonition inhibitors in technology. Practically instantaneous information on everything from the weather to stocks to who will win the Super Bowl may inhibit our natural precog ability as well.

So what’s the solution? I, for one, don’t intend to unplug my iPhone, iPad or computer. But perhaps unplugging for brief periods every day and then spending a few minutes envisioning and visualizing the future on my own will help in the development of whatever precognitive ability I have.

HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY TO OUR AMERICAN FRIENDS!

Sometimes, synchronicities occur in pairs or in clusters of more than two and those synchros seem to be addressing some inner thing, at least for me. These pairings or clusters can happen with anything, but for me, perhaps because I’m a writer, they often happen with words.

The other day, I was driving to the hair salon I frequent. I was listening to an Abraham-Hicks CD that was talking about allowing whatever we desired into our lives, about yielding to it. At the exact moment that the word yielding was spoken on the CD, I saw a sign that said yield. And I knew that was the message.

According to dictionary.com,  yield means:

verb (used with object)

to give forth or produce by a natural process or in return for cultivation:

This farm yields enough fruit to meet all our needs.

to produce or furnish (payment, profit, or interest):

a trust fund that yields ten percent interest annually; That investment will yield a handsome return.

to give up, as to superior power or authority:

They yielded the fort to the enemy.

to give up or surrender (oneself):

He yielded himself to temptation.

to give up or over; relinquish or resign:

to yield the floor to the senator from Ohio.

to give as due or required:

to yield obedience to one’s teachers.

to cause; give rise to:

The play yielded only one good la

Notice that in each definition, you yield to something outside the self – your teachers, the senator from Ohio, the farm – or to something lesser than what you are – temptation, obedience.

But with synchros, it seems that we often don’t understand the meaning until the event happens. And sometimes, even when the event happens, we miss it. But a few hours after the synchro happened,  we were hired for a ghostwriting project. We object to some elements of the contract – like how many words have to be written before you see your first payment. But contracts aside, writing is what you do in solitude, unless you work in TV, where you are a cog in the collective wheel called team. Writing is really about yielding what you think you know about the craft and the business to what you don’t know about either one.

It’s about faith that you make the intuitive leap to wherever you need to be to wherever you want to be.

Sounds simple, right?

Yield: to allow.

Okay, universe. Message received!

When Bill Nye, ‘the science guy,’ debated a creationist at a public event, a reporter for the Internet site, Buzzfeed, asked 25 people in the crowd, who considered themselves creationists, to write a question that they would like to ask Bill Nye. Then the reporter took pics of them holding up their questions.

More than 5 million people have viewed that clever report, and the comments of readers mostly take the creationists to task as unscientific-minded individuals in need of re-education. Granted, most of the comments are not ones that would stump Nye. Here’s a short selection:

“Is it completely illogical that the earth was created mature? Ie. trees created with rings, Adam created as an adult.”

“How do you explain a sunset if there is no God?”

“Why have we found only 1 Lucy when we’ve found more than 1 of everything else.”

I love that one, but then there’s this one: “If we came from monkey, then why are there still monkeys?”

My own contribution might be a takeoff of that one: “If we came from monkey, then why are we still monkeys?”

So it’s easy to make fun. Some commenters even got into the grammar, ie. ‘their’ instead of ‘there,’ etc.

Recently, those same pics were reposted on Facebook and the science-oriented commenters took no hostages, so to speak. Several were so adamant in maintaining the factual reality of Darwinian evolution that they sounded, well, sort of like  fundamentalists. And anyone who didn’t agree was stupid or uneducated.

I entered the fray and commented that, hey, Darwinism is 200 years old and represents hardcore scientific materialism. I suggested that physical existence was derived from consciousness, not the other way around. Well, that didn’t go over well.

That made me a ‘creationist’ in the view of the pro-evolution commenters, who of course knew they are right. It seemed that any doubts about Darwin’s natural selection theory as the key mechanism for evolution meant the writer must be a Bible-thumpers.

Science is always evolving, making changes when old theories prove false. For example, medical students don’t spend much time studying the history of mainstream medicine, basically because much of it—like bleeding people with leeches—was just wrong. Nobel Prize winner Kary Mullis put it this way: “The history of science is that we are always wrong.” That’s a humorous way of saying that science—unlike fundamentalist beliefs about creation and evolution—is always evolving.

But wait, it seems there is one area of science that seems less than open to evolving. Yes, ironically, it’s the science of evolution.

Of course, the bottom line here is that the debate is really all about God. There is no God in Darwinism or mainstream science. Atheism rules; God is a myth.

My take is different. God is consciousness. We are all about consciousness. That’s our true essence, our heritage, our true selves. Hence, we are all God.

No doubt such ideas don’t win favor with either side of the controversy, but they do present an alternate view. But enough monkeying around.

Did they have it right all along?

This was their reaction to the Supreme Court’s June 26 ruling on gay marriage:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=31&v=qLTdRqYwzXQ

When I first started studying astrology, I was still in my teens and had never heard the term synchronicity. I was simply curious about the deeper underpinnings of who I was and where I might be headed in my life. In those days, astrology software didn’t exist and I, who am math-challenged, spent hours struggling with the complicated algorithms just to draw up a single chart. Today, the astrology software I have on my phone and iPad do the calculations in seconds.

During my freshman year in college, I ran across Richard Wilhelm’s edition of The I Ching, a Chinese divination system that dates back thousands of years. It uses 64 hexagrams that are derived from the toss of coins. Carl Jung wrote the introduction and used the term synchronicity to explain why the system worked. I suddenly understood that synchronicity was the basis for astrology and every other divination system.

As Jung wrote in the introduction, whoever invented the I Ching believed the hexagram “was the exponent of the moment in which it was cast.” In other words, when you ask your question and toss the coins, the hexagram you receive is like a snapshot in time, making manifest the internal. In much the same way, in the moment when you drew your first breath, the stars and planets were at certain positions in the heavens and that pattern, your birth chart, is a snapshot in time – the blueprint of your potential.

“…synchronicity takes the coincidence of events in space and time as meaning something more than mere chance,” wrote Jung.

I was recently reminded of the connection between astrology and synchronicity when I looked at the calendar for this September. My latest astrology book, Unlocking the Secrets to  Scorpios is due to be published that month, but on September 17, Mercury – the planet that rules communication, writing, books – turns retrograde. Over the years, I’ve learned that a Mercury retro period isn’t a good time to make submissions, sign contracts – or release a book into the world. So I wrote the editor and asked for the exact pub date and explained about the Mercury retro.

He said the pub date is September 8, so we miss the retro by nine days. I erected a chart – essentially a natal chart for the book – for that date, at noon, in Salem, Mass, where the publisher is located. I chose noon because it’s the middle of the day. It’s likely the book will be shipped before then and shelved in bookstores on the 8^th. Now here’s the synchro. The ascendant or rising in a natal chart – the symbol to the left of that horizontal line that cuts the circle in half- is the point where you enter life. That symbol is for Scorpio. So, an astrology book about Scorpio will be entering its “life” when Scorpio is rising!

A skeptic might point out that Scorpio had a one in 12 chance of being on the horizon, so essentially this is simply a random coincidence. But if I had chosen, say, 1:00 p.m. as the time, the rising would be Sagittarius. If I’d chosen 7:00 a.m, the rising would be Virgo. But that isn’t what happened. Like I said, I selected noon because it’s the halfway point in the 24-hour day.

As Richard Tarnas noted in his phenomenal book, Cosmos & Psyche, Jung  didn’t regard the outer world as “merely a neutral background against which the human psyche pursued its isolated intrasubjective quest for meaning and purpose. Rather, all events, inner and outer, whether emanating from the human unconscious or from the larger matrix of the world, were recognized as sources of potential psychological and spiritual significance.” From this perspective, Tarnas said, “…all of nature supported and moved the human psyche towards a larger consciousness of purpose and meaning. Each moment in time possessed a certain tangible characters or quality which pervaded the various events taking place at that moment.”

So, whether you believe in astrology or not, there’s a curious synchronicity about the time I “randomly” chose for the birth time of the book’s release into the world. Scorpio is rising for a book all about Scorpios.

Here’s kind of an eerie synchro from Jane Clifford about a short journey she took through rural Wales, where she resides.

+++

I visited my dear friend and soul sister Liz, who is in the final stages of cancer and before leaving had a conversation with her son about hospice care. I usually visit Liz for two hours, but found myself leaving after an hour without knowing why.

On the way home through remote mountain country I stopped at the only shop there is on the journey home to buy a lighter. There I bumped into a friend I had not seen for many months, who told me she is turning her mountain property into a hospice!

I told her my friend was dying of cancer and I had just visited her. Bizarrely, she asked if I knew of the “Death cafe” in my local town, a place where those losing someone they love or in grief can meet and share experiences. I then realized if I had not cut short my visit  after an hour I would not have bumped into her and had the conversation.

+++

Apparently, there is a worldwide network of these death cafes. The one in the image at the top is in Chicago. It makes sense, I guess, since death is a worldwide phenom. They even have a web site.

Sorry, but I don’t care for the name. I find it more ghoulish, than comforting. A place you might visit on Halloween. How about something more transitional and upbeat, like “The Sa Ta Na Ma Cafe”—birth, life, death, rebirth. It’s one of my favorite chants. Of course, they might have to serve Indian food!

When my sister was pregnant with her oldest son, I awakened very early one morning with severe abdominal pain. (And I’m NOT an early riser!) At first, I thought I might have food poisoning or that I’d contracted some sort of virus. Other than the pain, though, I didn’t have any of the usual side effects of intestinal problems. I didn’t leap out of bed and rush into the bathroom! The pain eventually subsided and I fell back asleep.

Later that day, I received a call from my sister in Atlanta. Her son, Ardon, had come into the world early that morning, at around the same time I was experiencing the abdominal pain.

Coincidence? Hardly.

Neurologist Berthold Schwartz called this type of experience a telesomatic event, from words that mean “distant body.” It’s the sort of psychic experience in which emotions and feelings and intimate connections play an integral role.

In Larry Dossey’s 2009 book, The Power of Premonitions: How Knowing the Future Can Save Our Lives, he wrote, “The term is appropriate because the involved individuals behave as if they share a single body, even though separated by great distances and, in some cases, by time.”

This kind of experience is often reported by identical twins.

Dossey’s book includes several intriguing stories about telesomatic events. In one example, a mother was writing a letter to her daughter, who had recently left for college. For no apparent reason, her right hand suddenly started burning so badly she had to put down her pen. Less than an hour later, she received a call informing her that her daughter’s right hand had been severely burned by acid in a laboratory accident – and it had happened at about the same time that her own right had started burning.

Dossey believes these examples aren’t precognitive, but illustrate how emotions and empathy are often interwoven into precognition. He cites a letter he received from Larry Kincheloe, an obstetrician-gynecologist in Oklahoma. He’d been practicing for about four years when, one Saturday afternoon, he got a call from the hospital that one of his patients was in early labor. Since this was her first baby, he figured she wouldn’t deliver for many hours. Yet, while he was sweeping leaves, “he experienced an overwhelming feeling that he had to go to the hospital. He immediately called labor and delivery and was told by the nurse that everything was fine; his patient was only five centimeters dilated and delivery was not expected for several more hours.”

But Kincheloe couldn’t shake the feeling and started feeling an aching pain in the center of his chest. The more he tried to ignore it, the worse the sensation became. He finally leaped into his car and rushed to the hospital. The nurse was just walking out of the patient’s room when he arrived and gave him an odd look, curious about what he was doing there. He admitted he didn’t know. Just then, a cry came from the labor room.

“Anyone who has ever worked in labor and delivery knows there’s a certain tone in a woman’s voice when the baby’s head is on the perineum, nearing delivery. He rushed into the room in time to deliver a healthy infant.”

After this experience, Kincheloe began paying attention to his feelings and these days, he’s usually en route to the hospital before anyone calls. “This is now such a common occurrence among the labor and delivery staff that they tell the new nurses, ‘If you want Dr. Kincheloe, just think it and he will show up.’”

As Dossey points out, Kincheloe’s experiences illustrates “how physical sensations can alert us to something important about to happen – an early warning premonition system. Physical symptoms are like psychic cell phones uniting distant individuals.”

So I started thinking about this in relation to planetary enpaths,  individuals who experience physical symptoms  hours or sometimes days before a natural or man-made disaster.  My hope is that more research can be done on this phenomenon so that perhaps in a not so distant future they are able to fine tune their abilities. They won’t be able to stop quakes or man-made disasters, but perhaps they’ll be able to offer ample warning about the specific area and type of event so that injuries and deaths are prevented.