7
A Fountain Not Made by the Hands of Men
let it be known there is a fountain
That was not made by the hands of men
—from “Ripple,” song by The Grateful Dead (words by Robert Hunter, music by Jerry Garcia)
Dead?—I say. There is no death. Only a change of worlds.
—Chief Seattle, cited in Pumpkín Seed Poínt:
Beíng wíthín the Hopí by Frank Waters (1969)
Wallowing in the Trough of Despond
All waves have both crests and troughs. Waves of change are no exception. It's part of nature's cyclical rhythm that highs are followed by lows, seasons of activity by seasons of rest. Without winter, there could be no spring. That's the universal pattern.
Nevertheless, I was still shaken when, not long after my return from Virginia, I found myself slipping into the murky waters of a deep blue funk.
What had happened?
Often I was too tired to meditate. When I did, I would often fall asleep or “click out” (Monroe's term for the odd sense of blacking out during a Hemi-Sync exercise). The daily routines of commuting and teaching proved to be more draining than ever. The peace and exhilaration of my Gateway Voyage were melting away like ice cubes on a hot griddle.
A psychic friend weighed in with his opinion that my Gateway experience had been a mirage rather than a real oasis in the desert. To him, the whole thing was a sham. Another friend, hearing of my plight, gently advised me “not to push the river.” She reminded me that everything must develop in its own time. Trust the process, she counseled.
I understood, but I also yearned for some sort of confirmation. In plain terms, I was hoping for a sign. I needed some sort of encouragement from the universe.
One day, heading home from the college, I was stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic on the expressway. Cursing my bad luck and irritated, I glanced at the license plate of the SUV in front of me. Framing the plate was one of those brackets that car dealers use to advertise their dealerships.
“WE CARE,” it proclaimed. On the bottom of the bracket was the name of the car dealership: “MONROE.”
I felt a familiar shiver. For the moment I even forgot that I was miserable, stuck in rush-hour traffic. I'd never heard of a local dealership by that name. But I had, of course, heard of a certain out-of-body explorer by the name of Monroe.
I'd wanted a sign. So I got one. Well, at least the universe had kept its sense of humor.
More Signs and Portents
There may have been another, darker reason for my moodiness, for I was experiencing ominous foreshadowings of death.
This had happened before, as I mentioned. But this time it was different.
Beginning in October of 2000, these episodes occurred periodically, over a span of months. They stirred urgency and unease within me. Much more than the death of a single individual was involved. Of this I became certain.
On several occasions during meditation, I found myself accosted by shadowy figures issuing vague warnings that “time was running out.” Once, an inner guide figure, an elderly Native American woman that I had encountered during my Gateway (and in an earlier dream), grabbed me by the hand, insisting that I accompany her.
“Hurry,” she implored, “there's little time.”
Time for what? “Am I going to die soon, Grandmother?” I asked.
“No, not you,” she replied tersely.
That shook me. There was something about her reply that told me that there were many deaths to be expected. I wrote in my journal,”…something much larger or bigger [than my death or that of a single individual]; an event or something.”
In another meditation, I found myself in a dark chamber walking past an ancient Egyptian sarcophagus when I heard someone shout a warning: “Danger!”
Then one night I had three disturbing dreams in a row. In the first dream, I sat across from a man who claimed to be Adolf Hitler. In fact, he looked nothing like Hitler. Yet he radiated an intense, sadistic brutality. He had no conscience. Next to me sat another man who was busy filling a large capsule with poison. He gleefully explained that there was enough poison in that one capsule to kill an entire building full of people. Cold shivers cascaded down my spine. I felt I was in the presence of evil.
In the second dream, I was in a large building when everyone suddenly had to evacuate because the structure was collapsing. As I awoke, I experienced a puzzling vision. I saw a map of the East Coast of the United States. Off New Jersey, in the Atlantic Ocean, a marker indicated “Persian submarines.”
Not long after this, I dreamt I was at the college when someone burst into my office. This person informed me that a TWA flight had crashed nearby, killing all aboard. He urged me to make a public announcement of the tragedy, but I was too upset to do so.
Initially, I tried to read these frightening dreams and visions symbolically, as references to my inner processes. Maybe, I reasoned, these images were calling attention to my darker aspects and fears, to what Carl Jung called the Shadow.
I knew, for example, that the Death card in the major arcana of the Tarot often has another, subtler meaning than literal death. “The death card strikes fear in the hearts of most people when it should be welcomed,” writes Tarot expert Rosemary Ellen Guiley. “It is not an evil card. It is a card of change, of transformation.”'1
On the other hand, if these were dire warnings or premonitions, then what? Premonitions of what? Airplane crashes? Collapsing buildings? Lunatic mass murderers from Egypt and Iran? Whom would I tell? What would I say? Who would believe me?
I could not completely ignore my disturbing feelings, but I swept them under the rug, at least for the time being. I'll deal with them at some point, I promised.
The Lighter Side of the Trough
It wasn't all doom and gloom in the months following my Gateway. Indeed, I had several encouraging experiences that told me I was on the right path.
One night, for example, I had a dream about a small lizard and some turtles. One of the turtles was chasing the lizard over a rocky landscape. But the plucky lizard was too fast and outran the slow-moving turtle. When I awoke, I was puzzled. The dream didn't mean anything to me. It read more like a fragment of a folk tale than a personal dream. So I put it aside and forgot about it.
Several days later, I happened to pick up Richard Erdoes's book about the Sioux holy man Lame Deer John Fire}, Lame Deer: Seeker of Visions, which had lain unread on my bookshelves for many years. Lame Deer told Erdoes that, in the old days, before a child was born, a grandmother would make two little dolls, one in the shape of a lizard (for a boy) and one in the shape of a turtle (for a girl). These were guardian spirits, or good luck charms, meant to protect the baby against evil influences. They stood for strength and long life. The lizard “is very fast and hard to kill,” explained Lame Deer.2
My library angel (or the synchronicity switchboard) was at it again.
On another occasion I was meditating when I found myself behind the wheel of a car zooming forward at terrific speed. Suddenly, I was coming up very fast behind another vehicle, a truck or bus. Panicking, I slammed on the brakes. This popped me right out of the meditation. Yet, for a few seconds afterwards, I still experienced a queasy sense of forward momentum, like when you get off an elevator and still feel you're moving.
Relaxing, I returned to my meditation. This time I was sitting at a round table with two other people when I began to experience an odd sensation. I was moving forward across the table, or part of me was sitting in the chair, while another part had popped out of my “body” and was flying toward the wall opposite the table. I realized with a start that I could no longer feel myself breathing. This scared me. I snapped back to waking awareness with a gasp, as if my breath had been taken away by a sucker punch to my gut.
This episode reminded me of the aborted racing/flying “dream” I'd had in the Holiday Inn, the night before my Gateway Voyage. Once again it seemed that I was on the verge of having a conscious out-of-body experience. If only I could master my fears, I figured I could move forward (or outward).
Whatever that might mean.
Return Engagement
In early April of 200 I , Cynthia and I visited Maine during our spring break. As usual, the lake acted as a magic mirror, reflecting back to me the things I most needed to see inside me. One night I dreamt that a large ugly rat was creeping around the ground by my feet, evidently attracted by some rotting garbage. I was afraid it might bite me and I was relieved when it left me alone.
The next morning I awoke in a foul mood. At breakfast, I felt out of sorts and jittery, without knowing why. Then with a shudder, I remembered the rat dream. The message seemed clear: Leave your emotional garbage lying all about uncollected and you can expect to attract scavengers—nature's helpful recyclers.
Yet it wasn't enough just to interpret the dream. I felt I had to do something physical to banish the negative energies that hovered about me like a dark cloud. So I gathered some paper and plastic shopping bags and ambled up the hilly driveway to the dirt road beyond. I kept on walking all the way down to the paved road that runs the length of the cape.
I trudged along the shoulder of the cape road for an hour. The melting snow banks were receding into the woods, leaving behind their fresh winter deposits. But these were man-made, left by visitors, laborers, and, no doubt, local residents. Every few yards, I stooped to place another item in my swelling bags: Styrofoam coffee cups, beer cans, cigarette packs, fast-food cartons, and empty whiskey bottles. There was a kitchen knife, a surgical mask, and the bubble-wrap package from something called “The Jelly Future-Flex Ultimate Vibrator,” which promised to send its user “straight into orbit” with its “powerful multi-speed dial control soft jelly exterior.” A technological marvel.
I filled up two, three, then four bags with this junk. My arms ached from the heavy load. I lugged the trash two or three miles back to the house, where I placed the bags in larger plastic bags for disposal.
All the while I pondered the weirdness of my fellow human beings. How could anyone who enjoyed the beauty of this place despoil it so? Was it thoughtlessness or malice?
Then I realized with a start that the entire scenario, including my project of reclamation, could be viewed as a metaphor. Surely I had my own mental “garbage” to clean up. Whenever we avoid this task, out of laziness or fear, we act out our inner demons, polluting our environment. Mother Earth suffers when we avoid our personal responsibility. Was I moved to clean up the road because I was evading an inner housecleaning?
When we returned from our vacation, I received word that my research grant had been renewed. I immediately knew what I had to do: return to The Monroe Institute. I sensed that I was in this funk not because I'd gone too far, but because I hadn't gone far enough. I had to clean up my own act, as the rat dream implied.
The only question remained, Which program should I attend? I wanted to take the Guidelines workshop, which stressed inner self-knowledge. But Guidelines wasn't being offered during the only week in late August when I could attend. That left Lifeline.
What is Lifeline?
Bob Monroe described the genesis of the Lifeline program in his third and final book, Ultimate Journey (1994), published shortly after the passing of his beloved wife, Nancy, and only months before his own final out-of-body excursion.
Monroe found himself retrieving the souls of those deceased persons who hadn't yet accepted or understood their postmortem condition. He brought them to a place where they were met by friends, relatives, or guides. In most cases, this destination was a peaceful parklike setting that he dubbed the Reception Center (or simply, the Park). However, in some cases, Monroe realized that these bewildered “lost souls” were actually dissociated aspects of his own larger identity, or what in Ultimate journey he called the IT, or “I-There.” This is the greater self “that each of us has [on the nonphysical side], containing all previous and present life personalities.”3 This whole self thus includes what is commonly referred to as “past lives” or “reincarnational personalities.” But, as Monroe's definition tacitly implies, it also includes entities that might be called “co-incarnates”: other members of one's I-There team that are living physical lives (in male and/or female form) during the same overall time period as oneself.
Thus Monroe developed the Lifeline program as a “service to those here in physical matter reality and service to those There who have made their transitions from the physical and who may benefit from assistance.”4 In seeking to help others, it may turn out that you are helping your (greater) self; but in seeking to heal yourself, you are also lightening the load for others.
Crossing the “Boggle Threshold”
Deciding to attend Lifeline seemed at first like a decision by default. But then I had a vivid dream that suggested it might be much more than that:
I watch as a grieving man and his young daughter ride together in silence on a subway car. The little girl is crying softly. She is grieving over her mother's recent death. The man appears distraught but resigned. Then the scene shifts and I watch as the pair enters a coffee shop. They take seats opposite each other on two comfortable couches. As the man orders an espresso, the daughter curls up on her sofa and quickly falls asleep. An air of eager expectancy pervades the room. Suddenly, an attractive woman makes her entrance. She walks over to the man and they embrace warmly. I know that this is his dead wife, and that he was expecting to meet her here. Yet she looks every bit as alive, and as physical, as he does! As they talk quietly with each other, my attention shifts inward. I think about my own lost loved ones. I feel a wave of sadness, and also confusion. I wonder: Can contact with them really be this effortless, this easy?
This dream bugged me for days. It was so realistic and detailed that it felt like I was watching a movie—a good movie. I felt sorry for the man and his daughter. I also felt the husband and wife's joy as they were briefly reunited. So why was I so put out?
The dream forced me to confront my own limitations. I had reached what my friend, the EHE researcher Rhea White, calls “the boggle threshold.” Even for those who accept the validity of certain EHEs (say, precognition or telepathy) there will come a point where one, in effect, declares, “Oh, no, I can't buy that.” “That” might refer to, say, UFOs or OBEs, or wherever one feels compelled to draw a line in the sand and beat a hasty retreat into the hard shell of self-protective skeptical denial.
For me, the idea of contacting or assisting “those who have made their transitions from the physical” apparently brought me to the edge of my “boggle threshold.” I couldn't say why, but I felt resistance, almost like a magnetic repulsion. I had to admit that, like everyone else, I still harbored certain limiting beliefs. The dream was like a gauntlet thrown down before me.
Find your boggle threshold, I was being told—and cross it. Or else!
Grabbing the Lifeline
The Lifeline was held at the newly refurbished Roberts Mountain Retreat (RMR), at the summit of Roberts Mountain in Faber, Virginia. As I drove onto TMI grounds, past the Gate House and the Nancy Penn Center where my Gateway had been held the year before (almost to the very day), I was flooded with fond memories and warm feelings. It was great to be back.
A friendly staff member showed me to my CHEC unit in the new annex. It was a warm, comfortable room, complete with private bathroom. My roommate had not yet arrived, so I had my choice of bunks. After stowing my gear, I walked over to the main building (formerly the home of Bob and Nancy Monroe). A few other participants had already arrived and were chatting over snacks in the den. After introducing myself, I helped myself to a hot cup of coffee and a sandwich. As I listened in, the conversations flowed.
Gina and Miri, who had just introduced themselves to one another, were talking animatedly, excited by their discovery of an improbable connection. It turned out that Miri (who now lived in Alaska) had dated Gina's brother several years before, when she was attending college in California. Gina still lived in New Jersey, where her family was based. For me, this neat bit of synchronicity set the tone for the week.
As the other members of the group arrived (there would be fourteen in all), I realized something odd: I had no trouble recalling anyone's name. I'm not usually good with names, but I felt a rapport with these “strangers,” some of whom, like Nora and Felippé, had journeyed a great way (Argentina and Spain, respectively) to attend Lifeline. It felt more like a reunion with dear old friends.
This mysterious sense of familiarity extended to the two veteran trainers, John and Carol. John's delightfully puckish humor was immediately apparent, and Carol's smile radiated a welcoming and reassuring warmth. She invited me into the spacious sunlit breakout room for my brief intake interview.
I had wound myself up beforehand wondering what to say, reflecting on my frustrations and fears, blockages and dark premonitions. But Carol's calm, centered demeanor proved contagious. I breathed a sigh of relief. I explained that I felt a little like a clumsy dancer tripping over my own feet.
Carol listened attentively, then she said that one of the aims of Lifeline is to help us uncover and examine our limiting beliefs, those fixed ideas about reality that may be hindering our development and keeping us from a fuller experience of life.
“That sounds like exactly what I need,” I acknowledged.
Carol agreed.
Reset, Revisit, and Release
The first program exercises were given over to what in TMI parlance is called “resetting,” or getting reacquainted with the various Focus Levels of consciousness to which we were introduced during our Gateway Voyage. According to brain-wave researchers, it's like riding a bicycle; once you learn, you never forget. Similarly, once the brain-mind has been educated on how to achieve the various altered states with the Hemi-Sync process, the pattern has been set. It's merely a matter of reinforcing the habit.
So our initial shakedown cruise in the CHEC unit was for resetting Focus 10 (the state of mind awake and alert/body asleep). I was delighted at how easily I entered the Focus Levels without “clicking out” or falling asleep. I saw several successive bursts of bright white light, like camera flashes. Then I glimpsed a mysterious figure in a hooded robe. He was wielding an axe, though I could not make out what he was cutting or chopping. I also felt a familiar discomfort: an annoying cramping sensation in my right leg (either my physical leg, or my nonphysical, energy-body leg—I couldn't tell which).
I had first noticed this puzzling cramp during my Gateway the previous year. I had asked Sharon, the massage therapist, whether she had any thoughts as to its origin.
“Hmmm,” she mused. “Maybe you don't want to ‘put your right foot forward?”
In other words, I was resisting change. Which made sense. I remembered all those driving or flying dreams when I slammed on the brakes.
“You know,” Sharon added, “you might experience some imagery when I work on that part of your body.”
I did, in fact, have a brief impression of a dark place, like a cave, when she massaged my right leg. But the image faded quickly. I didn't make any sense of it.
Experiencing the leg cramp again, I resolved to ask about it in a future exercise. Perhaps I would get (or be ready to receive) a clearer answer.
The next morning at breakfast, I was seated next to John, one of the trainers. I was lost in my own thoughts when I overheard him mentioning a strange figure wearing a hooded monk's robe. I recalled the robed monk I'd glimpsed in my meditation. I'd assumed this was only a symbol of “cutting myself off” from daily concerns. It just seemed too hokey to be anything else—as if it had come straight out of “spirit-guide” central casting.
“Wow, I saw him yesterday, too, during the Focus 10 reset!” I said eagerly.
“Ah, good, you know Zoltar, then,” John said, grinning broadly.
“Zoltar? He has a name?”
It turned out that “Zoltar” was some character from a comic book or movie. At first I felt embarrassed at having missed the joke. But then I realized, joke or not, it was at least a funny coincidence. (John thought I was joking, too, until I told him of my vision.)
Later that morning we did a tape exercise that enabled us to work with healing energies. At one point we were encouraged to visualize our “Energy Bar Tool” (EBT), a mental device for focusing and accessing these energies. But every time I tried to imagine a glowing bar-shaped rod, as the tape instructions suggested, the bar would resolve itself into the shape of an hourglass resting on its side. In the narrow center of the hourglass, where the two ends met, was a glowing sphere. A sparkling energy-fluid, like twinkling stars in molten crystal, flowed from one end of the hourglass to the other, through the central sphere It was beautiful, but strange. The EBT seemed to possess a mind of its own.
In the next exercise, a reset of Focus 12 (the state of expanded awareness), I decided to ask about my leg cramps, which were still bothering me on and off. I found myself in the darkest darkness. Slowly, I realized that I was inside a cave. I knew this was the same cave I'd briefly glimpsed during my massage the year before at the Gateway Voyage. The darkness now seemed to be pierced by a nearby light source—a torch, perhaps—and I could make out certain figures painted on the walls. Giraffes and other large animals. The pictures resembled the paintings discovered in Paleolithic caves.
My attention was drawn to the source of illumination. It turned out to be an illuminated globe, a glowing ball of yellow-white light. It had suddenly appeared out of nowhere, hovering in the midst of a band of humanoids, clearly startling them out of their wits. They were definitely not Homo sapiens. They were hairier, more apelike. The ape-people were grunting and pointing at the globe as they backed away in fear. I felt sorry for these poor, frightened creatures, yet I also felt a deep sense of kinship with one particular member of this timid group. Strangely, I identified with the pulsating globe of which they were all so afraid and which seemed to radiate compassion and wisdom.
I knew why this glowing sphere seemed familiar. It was the same light source that transected the sideways energy hourglass in the earlier exercise, when I couldn't get the energy bar tool (EBT) to do what I wanted it to.
But what did all this have to do with my leg cramp? Here I was still in the dark.
Next came the reset of Focus 15, the state of “no time.” As usual, I experienced 15 as floating in thick darkness, a quiet muffled stillness. Then I found myself hovering above a wooded grove in wintertime, watching through bare branches as a group of people silently trudged through a clearing. I knew that they had just come from church, where the funeral service for the husband of the woman at the front of the group had been held. I felt her grief. Then I heard the word “Hon,” whispered in my ear. It was my wife's voice. I was her husband, the man who had died. I was watching my own funeral. I felt guilty for leaving her. But she would get over it.
Afterwards I wondered whether this was truly a “past life.” It had felt unusually vivid. The emotions were real and it certainly had a psychological validity. But was it only a symbol of the guilt I felt over leaving Cynthia for a week to come to Virginia? Or had my feelings in the present opened up a “time corridor” to another past existence in which I had experienced similar emotions? After all, if sensitives like Jane Roberts and Joe McMoneagle are right and all time is simultaneous, we should expect what Jane called “bleedthroughs” from what we regard as past to future—and from future to past. So was my ability to work through my guilt in this life helping that husband to work through his? The circumstantial details of the funeral scene were at least provocative. In this life, I don't attend church because I'm not a Christian. Nor does Cynthia ever call me “Hon.”
I tried to tell myself that the scene had its own meaning, even if its factual truth couldn't be verified. (Details of names, dates, and place of death came later. I have yet to try and verify them, however.) Yet I couldn't trust my own perceptions.
Janet Stuns Me at Dinner
That night at dinner I found myself sitting opposite Janet. Soft-spoken but warm and friendly, she was easy to talk to. She reminded me of everyone's ideal aunt, or a kindly schoolteacher—hardly metaphysical. I could see her making you sit down for tea and cookies as soon as you walked through her front door. But Janet was a Reiki practitioner and a veteran out-of-body explorer who enjoyed surprising her son with her “unorthodox” visits to his home in faraway Japan.
Janet and I were chatting when her gaze took on a sparkle of intensity. She appeared to be looking over my right shoulder.
“Do you mind if I ask you a question?” Janet asked.
“No, not at all,” I replied.
“Do you have any special relationship to American Indians?”
“Do I!” I cried. “Lately it seems I can't get interested in reading anything unless it's about Indians.” However, I neglected to mention my many other experiences (synchronicities, dreams, and visions) involving Indians. Or the Indian “guide” I occasionally sensed hovering about me in my meditations. I wasn't sure I believed it myself. It all sounded too hokey—too New Agey—even to my ears.
“That makes sense,” Janet stated matter-of-factly. “Because you have a guide figure, an Indian. He's standing right there”—indicating with a nod of her head the spot over my right shoulder where she'd been staring just a few moments before—“and he's wearing one of those chest plates. He's thin, forty-ish, and rather somber looking.”
I was amazed. After dinner I showed Janet the Plains-style beaded Indian necklace I'd brought with me to the workshop as a kind of lucky charm. Janet was not surprised. I, on the other hand, was still in shock.
My limiting beliefs were wearing thin, showing signs of shriveling and cracking.
Then, in a valiant effort to preserve the status quo, my defenses stepped in. After all, I reasoned, perhaps Janet was “just” picking up telepathically on my obsession with Indians. (This is called Occam's Razor, the principle of method that says we should prefer the simpler explanation. A “lesser miracle”—like a medium reading the minds of the living—is even preferable to a “greater” one, such as the survival of bodily death.)
But was this really the simpler explanation? If Janet was “only” telepathic, she had to search through all my mental “files” for that one special bit of information. She also had to know how emotionally significant that datum might be for me—a brilliant act of psychological insight. And all of this had to be processed instantaneously of course, on an unconscious level. A feat of supermental gymnastics in its own right.
As William James advised, we must not prematurely “close our accounts with reality.” I was not ready to say what or who this Indian “guide” was. Maybe he was an aspect of my own larger multidimensional self, an entity whose outlines we can barely glimpse, or even imagine, and which challenges all our current concepts of human personality. Or maybe he was what he seemed, an independent entity—a friend.
Whatever he was, he was real, and I had perceived him. I could no longer dismiss my own experiences simply because they were mine.
Ari's Wall and Carol's Fountain
As the workshop got into high gear, we began our exploration of the Focus Levels associated with Lifeline work. These included Focus 23 (the area where the disoriented deceased and personality fragments are trapped), Focus 24-26 (the so-called Belief system Territories where the very religious and others with definite afterlife expectations tend to congregate), and Focus 2a7 (the area Monroe called the Park or Reception Center).
John and Carol emphasized that our goal was the exploration of vast new inner territories, not necessarily a retrieval of “lost souls” or missing parts of ourselves. They encouraged us to suspend our expectations and allow events to unfold in their own way in the moment. There would be plenty of opportunity later for analysis.
In an early excursion into Focus 23, I beheld a giant crystal sunflower. I felt myself pulled through the center of its head, which became a translucent tunnel. As I hurtled through the tunnel, I could make out faces looking in at me. Then a voice said, “You're helping just by being here.” Next came a loud series of ‘thumps,” like the sounds an airplane makes when encountering turbulence. Several times I got all choked up, though I could not say why. At one point I gasped. Then I arrived in a place filled with a dense grey mist, like foggy London in an old Sherlock Holmes movie.
In one of my first forays into the Belief System Territories (of Focus 24, 25, and 26), I felt myself opening a door. I sensed a vastness inside. I seemed to fly over adobe-like structures in an area that looked vaguely Southwestern. I sensed the hive-like activity of enormous, bizarre machines whizzing past me overhead like airplanes stacking up over an airport. Later I realized this was my symbolic way of perceiving those consciousness clusters that were so tightly ensnared in a rigid belief system—say, a religion—that they were trapped inside a lifeless mechanism that perpetually circled its real destination.
Could this be my fate? Was I so attached to certain beliefs that I would prefer the predictable (if decidedly claustrophobic) comfort of an insular illusion to an experience of an unknown reality?
Luckily, I wasn't the only one wrestling with such thoughts. Ari and his wife, Sara, were speech and feeding therapists from Brooklyn, New York, who did emotionally demanding early intervention work with babies born prematurely or with birth defects (such as cleft lip or palate), who had difficulties vocalizing, chewing, or swallowing. Ari had previously owned a successful computer consulting business, with most of his clientele coming from a list of top Wall Street investment firms and prominent banks. But one day he decided he'd “had enough of machines and wanted to work with people instead”—and also with healing energies of a more subtle kind. That's what originally brought him to The Monroe Institute, years before, to the Gateway program, and now, once again, on his (and Sara's) return trip.
This time around, however, Ari appeared to be running into obstacles in his meditations—though he didn't claim to view them that way. At least, not at first. Oddly, Ari's experiences never matched other people's reports of the Focus Levels. It was as if the rest of us had gone off to enjoy a cool swim in the lake, and Ari would come back complaining about how hot and dry it had been in the desert. Such discrepancies only seemed to amuse Ari, a born iconoclast. Then came the wall.
The wall was a mysterious structure that Ari kept bumping into as he journeyed into the higher Focus Levels. At our debriefings, he would describe his puzzlement at this turn of events. He didn't describe the wall itself, only its effect on him, and the questions he felt obliged to ask. Was it a barrier keeping him from going further? Was it a symbol of an inner blockage? Had he “hit the wall” of his own beliefs?
On an early journey to Focus 27 (the Park) I stopped off in Focus 26, one of the Belief System Territories. There I hovered above a stone building. At first I was disoriented, thinking I was viewing a vertical wall from an odd angle. Then I realized that the wall itself was angled. It belonged to a pyramid-like structure. Etched into the face of the wall were intricate, serpentine designs. Perhaps they were hieroglyphics. Their vibrant reddish color stood out against the sandy patina of the stone.
That's Ari's wall. I just “knew” this.
Following the exercise, we assembled in the carpeted breakout room for our debriefing.
“Hey, Ari, I think I saw your wall!” I excitedly announced as we all took our seats. Then I described what I had seen.
“That's it,” Ari replied, his usual nonchalance offset by an impish grin.
Ari had had another encounter with his wall, but this time he discovered the wall was not an obstruction. Rather, it was a mystery he was meant to ponder. It would enhance his explorations.
I don't know if my momentary “presence” at Ari's wall had anything to do with his breakthrough. I do know that getting that confirmation from him bolstered my self-confidence. We had somehow shared this experience, and that may be as “real” as reality gets. Several people commented on the strong, if unspoken, link between the two of us. We even found ourselves wearing identical T-shirts one morning.
In a later trip to Focus 27, I arrived at the Park. Not perceiving much, I decided to let my imagination run wild. So I imagined myself standing near a bubbling water fountain surrounded by a circular stone walkway. All along the walkway were stone benches. In between the benches various paths radiated outward to different sections of the Park. It was a pleasant, peaceful little scene I'd managed to conjure up. I even sensed the presence of my Indian “guide.”
During the breakout session, Carol happened to mention that she had participated in this exercise (which was not always the case). She reported that she'd gone to her own “special place” in Focus 27—a fountain.
I showed Carol the sketch I'd made of the fountain from my trip to the Park. “Yes, that's it, that's my fountain,” she stated matter-of-factly. “I didn't see you there. But I was standing on the hill on the far side.”
After this episode, I felt comfortable enough to ask her a question. “Do you think that Bob Monroe still ‘visits' here on occasion? I know there are those who were close to him who are deeply skeptical of this notion.” I told her about my dream in which I attended Monroe's lecture, and also of my humorous encounter with “Angel Bob.”
“Funny you should ask,” Carol replied. She explained that she had just finished writing an article in which she mentioned sensing Monroe's presence during a Gateway Outreach workshop she had recently given in Spain. Carol sensed things had changed.
In 1995, shortly after Bob's passing, Carol had a dream in which she saw Bob standing at the far end of a crowded bar. Excited to see her old friend and mentor, she made her way through the throng to greet him. Bob was pleased to see Carol, but after briefly acknowledging her, he shooed her away, explaining that he was far too busy to chat. He had to learn how to sing opera.
Carol laughed as she recalled this odd exchange. “I think this was Bob's way of contacting me,” she said. She suggested their meeting was more than a “mere” dream, that it was Bob's spirit communicating with her. “Yet at the same time,” she said, “he was letting me know that his focus was elsewhere, on new challenges.” (Hence Bob's strange remark about studying opera.) Carol had the impression the situation had changed since her dream, however, and that Bob—or at least some portion of his nonphysical personality—was taking a more active interest in earthly affairs. His recent surprise “appearance” during her workshop in Spain had confirmed her impression.
“You know,” she added, “this project [i.e., TMI] was pretty important to him.”
As Carol went for a cup of tea, I recalled an incident that had slipped my mind. It was a dream in which I had glimpsed a funny-looking figure standing near a doorway, surrounded by admirers. As I approached this figure, I realized he was wearing a clown outfit—a white robe with oversized buttons, and big floppy shoes. He didn't say anything to me, but he looked familiar. Then I realized it was none other than Bob Monroe. What a silly dream, I'd thought afterwards.
Now, as I stood in what had been Bob Monroe's kitchen, it was as if I'd been struck by the proverbial thunderbolt out of the blue.
“I, Pagliacci!” I cried out, laughing. The opera with clowns!
Was this the confirmation “Angel Bob” had promised me at Gateway last year? It was difficult to ignore the evidence. Carol's and my dream had occurred years apart. We were strangers to each other then. I didn't even know why I'd brought up the subject with her to begin with, yet it all fit neatly together, like the last two pieces of a jigsaw puzzle.
Only who—or what—was the clever puzzle master?
Metaphysical Cross-Dressing (and Other Feelings of Inadequacy)
After my conversation with Carol, I mused about how easily we are seduced into believing that our “wispy” dreams are no more substantial than the effervescence of club soda. Or how reassuring it is to suppose that, even if nonphysical realms exist, only the “Ascended Masters” or the wise gurus have access to them. That way, we can avoid the tough questions and our own responsibility in creating our experience of reality.
Alas, if only it were so. But it is not.
This was brought home by a little experiment undertaken by Geoff, a member of our Lifeline crew. Geoff decided to see if he could communicate with Ann, another member of the group, during one of our excursions to Focus 27. So, without her prior knowledge, he decided to attempt to deliver a message to her while they were both There.
When the exercise was over, we met in the breakout room. Ann reported receiving Geoff's message, only she perceived it as coming from a trusted inner guide of long acquaintance—a beautiful woman in a blue dress.
Geoff's face turned red. We all had a good laugh at his expense.
Still, I think we all recognized that while the experiment had succeeded, it raised more questions than it answered—at least if you were open-minded about it. For it was tempting to conclude that Ann was more comfortable with the message coming from a trusted source, so she saw Geoff as her guide. But what if it was more complicated than that?
Perhaps, unbeknownst to Geoff, he is, at another level of reality, only one aspect of a nonphysical entity (Bob Monroe's 1-There, or Jane Roberts's Source Self), another of whose personalities is Ann's Woman in the Blue Dress. It could be that Ann's perception is just as true as Geoff's. Maybe, in a sense, he is Ann's guide and just doesn't know it.
Physicists admit that light can be perceived as particles and continuous waves, depending on how it is measured. Philosophers like Hegel speak of grand “dialectical syntheses” of opposites. In truth, however, in our daily lives we all act as if such paradoxes, while interesting in theory, can safely be ignored in practice. The idea that we are simultaneously creating and discovering reality all the time is something we'd prefer to ignore. It's easier to abide by the old either/or dualisms—true or false, subjective or objective, imaginary or real, one or many. Remote viewer Joe McMoneagle says, “Through the tools of perception and cognition, we mold and shape our concept of reality and make reality what it is.” Joe admits that for some people, “This is a scary concept.”5
Scary? Try petrifying.
How can we overcome, or at least learn to control, this paralyzing fear?
John, one of our Lifeline trainers, suggested that we view fear as the emotional expression of an underlying “belief in our own inadequacy to deal with something (whatever that may be).” This formula offers hope; beliefs, after all, can change, and can be changed—if one is willing to listen to the voice of experience. The only way to challenge such a belief is to confront it head-on. You have to know that you can deal with it (whatever “it” is) after all. Even (or especially) if “it” happens to be expanding your concepts of reality and self.
Golden Retrievals
Even as I was enjoying some newfound flexibility in my consciousness muscles, I was still skeptical about the retrieval process. Others were reporting dramatic rescues, complete with names, dates, causes of death, and the like. Joan had recounted an emotional reunion with her recently deceased husband that choked us all up. Nora was gifted with a revelation about her older brother and his role in her life. (She had always felt inadequate next to him, but now she realized that he was only mirroring her own potential. What she had envied in him, she, in fact, was.) I was getting only tantalizing fragments.
Then we did another exercise in Focus 27. Although I did not experience being in the Park, I saw a little boy. He had dark hair and was perhaps five years old or so (I'm a notoriously bad judge of age). I asked him his name.
“It's Bobby,” he replied. Bobby told me that he had died of leukemia.
After the exercise, Ann reported that she had rescued an eight-year-old Mexican boy in Focus 23 and brought him up to the Reception Center in Focus 27. The boy's name was Roberto, and he told Ann that he had died of leukemia.
Was Ann's Roberto my Bobby? I began to feel more confident.
In my next trip to Focus 27, I requested guidance. I felt the reassuring presence of my Indian friend (he refused to give me a name). Together we floated downward into the grey fog of Focus 23. There I had an idea. I imagined the two of us bathed in a cocoon of brilliant white light. Suddenly like moths attracted to a flame, several figures emerged out of the mist and slowly, tentatively, moved toward us. I asked if anyone wished to accompany us to a better place. They all said yes! Now I just had to figure out how to get them there. Instantly, our cocoon of light began to swell to the size of a huge hot air balloon, surrounding the group. Then the Indian transformed himself into a great eagle. I grabbed its tail and it flew us up to Focus 27. Once safely inside the Park, a woman in her twenties thanked me. She told me her name was Celia. As the Indian led the group in the direction of the Reception Center, I asked him how I did, but all he did was look over his shoulder at me without comment.
The next morning we did a tape called “Vibe Flow.” Following the preliminary relaxation exercises, I found myself floating in a black velvety void. Above me, I sensed a bright disk or sphere that was sending down rays of white light. Off in the distance, I saw an object that looked like a giant Ferris wheel. I recognized this as the symbolic “wheel of time” that I often glimpse when I visit Focus 15. (Although Bob Monroe called Focus 15 the state of “No-Time,” it is a condition in which all times—past, present, and future—typically become available for exploration.)
Then the wheel of time was beneath me, resting flat on one side, like a roulette wheel, and I stood on its surface, near the center. Extending outward from the far edge of one of the wheel's spokes, out into the darkness, was a walkway. I made my way from the center of the wheel onto this walkway and kept going to the far end, where I stopped in front of a closed door colored like an abalone shell.
“What is this door?” I asked.
A voice replied, “This is the door to your heart.”
I opened the door and walked through. In front and above me was an enormous pink rose. Soft, warm, healing pink light streamed down from the rose onto me. I was flooded with a bittersweet mix of joy and grief. Then, in the center of the room, I saw, or sensed, a crystal sphere set high up off the floor, like a diamond, by semicircular supports. The crystal pulsed on and off, alternating white and blue light. I recognized familiar faces of deceased relatives all around me. My mother was there, as were my aunt and my grandmother. I felt myself hoisted up, by a thousand hands, then placed inside a chalice. The hands raised the chalice up to the pulsating crystal, as if making a toast. Ribbons of love extended upward, from them to me, and downward, from me to them. Finally, I was given some personal information about my destiny, and also about our group.
Later, when I recounted this experience to the group, I felt the afterglow of that love and acceptance. I'll never forget that feeling. I was finding my boundaries—and moving beyond them, at last.
Moment of Revelation
Then came one of our final exercises. It was a tape with the momentous title of “Moment of Revelation.” Oh, no, I moaned as the trainers introduced the tape. Talk about pressure! What if I don't get a revelation? Then, feeling like a greedy child, I was assaulted by a wave of guilt. After all, how could I expect more?
The tape was well guided. I flowed with the instructions and felt myself moving out, way out, to the edge of the known universe. There, in the blackness of deep space, a scene slowly unfolded. I was in the scene, and also observing it from the outside.
I found myself sitting in a nearly empty auditorium, like an old-fashioned movie house with a big screen or maybe a Broadway theater. A few other people occupied seats. The house lights were dim, and the heavy red velvet drapes that covered the screen or stage were closed. I couldn't tell if the curtain had just closed, or whether the show hadn't yet begun. Were we the first to arrive or the last to leave?
Then the scene faded. That was it. My Big Revelation.
As we moved back under the tape's guidance to normal waking consciousness, I was angry. I felt cheated. But as I sat in my CHEC unit making notes (futile gesture, I grumbled), I realized how dense I'd been. I laughed.
As the Bard said, “All the world's a stage.” Now, had the stage show just ended, or was it about to begin? Both—or neither. This is infinity, after all.
In Ultimate Journey, Bob Monroe told of traveling to the furthest reaches of inner space, where he received his own revelation of the paradoxical infinite. He expressed it this way:
There is no beginning, there is no end,
There is only change.
There is no teacher, there is no student,
There is only remembering.
There is no good, there is no evil,
There is only expression.
There is no union, there is no sharing,
There is only one.
There is no joy, there is no sadness,
There is only love.
There is no greater, there is no lesser,
There is only balance.
There is no stasis, there is no entropy,
There is only motion.
There is no wakefulness, there is no sleep,
There is only being.
There is no limit, there is no chance,
There is only a plan.
The plan was shown to me by cosmic intelligence in a way I could grasp. After all, how else do you explain infinity to a monkey? You use whatever crude gestures the monkey can understand. And we're the monkeys. The symbol was brilliant, economical, and humorous—a good example of what Bob called Non-Verbal Communication (NVC). And I had almost tossed it away like a useless candy bar wrapper.
Wait a minute, I thought. Why did I just say to myself, “How else do you explain infinity to a monkey?” This reminded me of something. What was it?
Then I remembered: in the cave, when I glimpsed that pulsating sideways hourglass and the ape-people scurrying away in fear. It was one of the first exercises we did at Lifeline. Could my theater image be connected to that? Had I come full circle?
You bet. I realized that the “sideways hourglass” was a familiar shape, after all: It is the lemniscate (from the Greek lem-niskos: ribbon), the sideways figure eight that is the symbol for infinity. This, by the way, is the very same symbol that the venerable Dr. Zorba would write on the chalkboard during the introduction to each episode of the old Ben Casey TV show. Remember the series of symbols? “Man—Woman. Birth—Death. Infinity…”
No wonder my mother had seen Ben Casey come for her the night she died. Ben knew. And so did she. And now, at last, so did I.