Last week I tuned into a radio show as I usually do when doing warm-ups on the guitar, and heard an interview with author and screen writer William Blatty, who had just published a new book titled "Finding Peter." I was wary - he is now in his 80's, and I have learned well that, like sprinters and poets, writers often peak well before old age - generally in their 50's. But we all know William Blatty - he is the author and screen writer for the classic horror tale, "The Exorcist."
I would't call myself particularly superstitious, but I do believe in coincidence. The subject matter of the book intrigued me, for it was about supernatural contact with his son, Peter, who died suddenly at age 20, and I had just been considering changing my focus of reading from deep religion to spirit contact. Hah! Just the thing! I am rolling with the will of heaven! I bought the book on Kindle, a bit much for electronic print at 15.99 but, what the heck.
I found it was true - Blatty, like so many others, was no longer in his writer's prime. The book had the feel of a staged best-seller, which shouldn't have such a feel if the author is up to snuff. In fact, the first half of the book and a little bit more was an autobiography, some of which had relevance to the overall theme, but some of which was plainly a hook to thrill readers with name dropping, and he had plenty of names to drop. But I did buy Brian Weiss's book along with it, which was excellent, I did get some juicy star gossip, and I did come away with something. It was, as the author must have known, a question rather than an answer.
There are people very close to me who have lost young sons, and the way they dealt with this varied. Of the two closest, one drank herself to death. The other, though, sought meaning in the entire affair, from the short life to the death to the present. In that present, this person found many coincidences that, he believes, are signs from his son. They have given him great comfort, but are these signs real?
Such it was with Blatty, who readily admitted it. "What," he declared, "do you not think I am not a good enough writer to make you believe in miraculous tales?" Instead, he offered the truth - somewhat vague possible signs that his son was still with he and his wife, although a few were more than usual - levitating vases and falling things, for instance, but the author had had that sort of thing since researching "The Exorcist" (and I believe these, too, but do not know what to attribute them to). More usual were little notes that he would find just when he was thinking of certain things or of Peter, or things Peter's old friends would recall just at the right time, or things lost appearing apparently out of nowhere, and so on. Wishful thinking? If it helps, we might say, fine; but these are not proof of contact beyond the grave, not at all.
Still, it was a page turner, and the first night I stayed up past midnight to read three fourths of it, until my eyes blurred. But that night I woke with terrible premonitions of something similar happening in my own life, and it was not 'till dawn that it all seemed silly. And then I got the news: the son of another person close to me had tried to kill himself (fortunately, he did a very poor job of it) the night before, when I was reading the book. And I had odd premonitions of the future, where things I had dreamed (little things) manifested in reality shortly afterwards (until today, when nothing seems out of the ordinary).
All coincidence? Was it chance that a once in ten-year near-tragedy happened the night I was reading about such a thing, and in a night where I had dreaded it? And what of the premonitions? Were they real, or was I conditioned to find such coincidences out of so many things? Or was I simply directed to noticing a reality that passes right before my nose every day without before being noticed?
It seems to me that the answer is, or is most likely, "all of the above." Like end-of-the-world preachers, we often look to signs and see what we want to see - even though it does not jibe with reality. At other times, though, we are jolted by the unexpected, that stroke of amazing coincidence that simply could not be, given the odds. And at other times, we are sensitized to things so that we might begin to see them, just as a botanist is when he recognizes certain obscure plants - which then suddenly seem to be everywhere.
The other book, Brian Weiss's, discussed in Monday's blog, flatly states: there is no death. We merely pass from one stage to another. And we are surrounded by, for lack of a better world, spirits. Beyond that, Weiss was not specific.
A few months after my father's death, I had a dream where he told me that he was leaving me now, and then he drove off into a bright son blazing with love. My mother died less than two months ago, and still I feel her presence. Do they, these spirits, leave when it is their time? And what of the others who "surround" us? Much is wishful thinking, but there seems more to it than that. If we admit what is really and truly true - that we know almost nothing of reality - we cannot simply push aside this weirdness, not if we want the truth. And maybe someone or something is at times trying to tell us something.
We are presented with a fine line between fantasy and a reality greater than what we know. Given that we do not know the truth, it would be hard to discern between the wish and the truth. Perhaps, though, we can rely on those little things that are very personal that strike a cord. And even though others might not believe, perhaps we can sense when these are for us to know, just us, and they are very, very real. FK
I would't call myself particularly superstitious, but I do believe in coincidence. The subject matter of the book intrigued me, for it was about supernatural contact with his son, Peter, who died suddenly at age 20, and I had just been considering changing my focus of reading from deep religion to spirit contact. Hah! Just the thing! I am rolling with the will of heaven! I bought the book on Kindle, a bit much for electronic print at 15.99 but, what the heck.
I found it was true - Blatty, like so many others, was no longer in his writer's prime. The book had the feel of a staged best-seller, which shouldn't have such a feel if the author is up to snuff. In fact, the first half of the book and a little bit more was an autobiography, some of which had relevance to the overall theme, but some of which was plainly a hook to thrill readers with name dropping, and he had plenty of names to drop. But I did buy Brian Weiss's book along with it, which was excellent, I did get some juicy star gossip, and I did come away with something. It was, as the author must have known, a question rather than an answer.
There are people very close to me who have lost young sons, and the way they dealt with this varied. Of the two closest, one drank herself to death. The other, though, sought meaning in the entire affair, from the short life to the death to the present. In that present, this person found many coincidences that, he believes, are signs from his son. They have given him great comfort, but are these signs real?
Such it was with Blatty, who readily admitted it. "What," he declared, "do you not think I am not a good enough writer to make you believe in miraculous tales?" Instead, he offered the truth - somewhat vague possible signs that his son was still with he and his wife, although a few were more than usual - levitating vases and falling things, for instance, but the author had had that sort of thing since researching "The Exorcist" (and I believe these, too, but do not know what to attribute them to). More usual were little notes that he would find just when he was thinking of certain things or of Peter, or things Peter's old friends would recall just at the right time, or things lost appearing apparently out of nowhere, and so on. Wishful thinking? If it helps, we might say, fine; but these are not proof of contact beyond the grave, not at all.
Still, it was a page turner, and the first night I stayed up past midnight to read three fourths of it, until my eyes blurred. But that night I woke with terrible premonitions of something similar happening in my own life, and it was not 'till dawn that it all seemed silly. And then I got the news: the son of another person close to me had tried to kill himself (fortunately, he did a very poor job of it) the night before, when I was reading the book. And I had odd premonitions of the future, where things I had dreamed (little things) manifested in reality shortly afterwards (until today, when nothing seems out of the ordinary).
All coincidence? Was it chance that a once in ten-year near-tragedy happened the night I was reading about such a thing, and in a night where I had dreaded it? And what of the premonitions? Were they real, or was I conditioned to find such coincidences out of so many things? Or was I simply directed to noticing a reality that passes right before my nose every day without before being noticed?
It seems to me that the answer is, or is most likely, "all of the above." Like end-of-the-world preachers, we often look to signs and see what we want to see - even though it does not jibe with reality. At other times, though, we are jolted by the unexpected, that stroke of amazing coincidence that simply could not be, given the odds. And at other times, we are sensitized to things so that we might begin to see them, just as a botanist is when he recognizes certain obscure plants - which then suddenly seem to be everywhere.
The other book, Brian Weiss's, discussed in Monday's blog, flatly states: there is no death. We merely pass from one stage to another. And we are surrounded by, for lack of a better world, spirits. Beyond that, Weiss was not specific.
A few months after my father's death, I had a dream where he told me that he was leaving me now, and then he drove off into a bright son blazing with love. My mother died less than two months ago, and still I feel her presence. Do they, these spirits, leave when it is their time? And what of the others who "surround" us? Much is wishful thinking, but there seems more to it than that. If we admit what is really and truly true - that we know almost nothing of reality - we cannot simply push aside this weirdness, not if we want the truth. And maybe someone or something is at times trying to tell us something.
We are presented with a fine line between fantasy and a reality greater than what we know. Given that we do not know the truth, it would be hard to discern between the wish and the truth. Perhaps, though, we can rely on those little things that are very personal that strike a cord. And even though others might not believe, perhaps we can sense when these are for us to know, just us, and they are very, very real. FK
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