Come on, we all think about it. At three in the morning -- Fitzgerald's long dark night of the soul -- or when spooked by a glimpse of deja vu or a flash in the peripheral vision, or someone's unexplainable return from death's door with a guaranteed-to-be-terminal illness, we give ourselves over for just a moment to ponder The Other Side. Ooooo. Western medicine, the scientific method and firmly institutionalized religion all conspire to scare or mock us into Not Going There; all three have, after all, invested centuries in controlling the social paradigm. As long as they can keep us frightened for our health (and going into surgery isn't FRIGHTENING???), and worried about looking silly, not to mention unwilling to risk eternal damnation, they can pretty much have it all their own way. We'll accept wholly what medicine and science and religion tell us is good for us, and readily hand over our lives to those whose arrogance is unrestrained, and whose political interests rest in themselves and in their self-serving institutions.
But don't get me started....
Anyway, given my rebellious streak and my 'satiable curtiosity (Kipling's Elephant's Child, look it up), I've been willfully wandering around in ontology, metaphysics, the nature of consciousness, ET's, alternative healing, the life of the spirit, that kind of thing, for a couple of decades now. The other given is that I'm incurably practical, and so I've never been carried away by The Occult, and I'm suspicious of those who are. God knows there are charismatics and charlatans anywhere, in any paradigm, and this field seems to have more than its share of dreamy-eyed nutsoids, people who get their frissons in the methods of getting the information and mostly ignoring the information itself. ("Methods" can include trance-channeling, astrology, Ouija boards, Tarot, guided meditation, hypnosis, past-life regression, even acupuncture and similar energy work, stuff like that.) These methods are remarkable in themselves, but too many people get stalled on how bizarre they are, become addicted to fooling around with the medium (so to speak) and don't go the next step, which would be to explore the territory when they get there. For my part, I don't even think about the media anymore -- don't have time, I'm too busy taking in the sights and cogitating the significance of, say, reincarnation, or ready and easy communication with non-carnate spirit beings, from which I can get some sensible explanations of why we do what we do. (More Oooooo.)
This is all background for some of my upcoming blogs, ruminations on what these explorations have turned up. I don't pretend to have all the answers, but I can claim to know where to get them, and, believe me, they don't lie in the smug and drawling catch-phrases of our institutions. I've heard some great stories in this time: the history of the planet (longer and more complicated than you think), the inexorability of karma, the delusions of power vs. strength, and, yes, the nature of consciousness. It's a lot to swallow, and as I've said, I don't swallow much without long and careful examination. (Figuratively speaking, of course.)
But it is interesting, and fun to contemplate. Besides, it can't hurt to loosen up the preconceptions, right? Want to come along for the ride?
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