​We had been lucky the night before, getting the very last spot in the “overflow” lot of the campground along Lake Erie in Ohio.  The next day, my son, whose current obsession is with the old Soviet-era East German dud car “Trabant,” saw two of them on the highway while heading to Gary, Indiana, his first view of them ever.  At nearly the same time, I looked at the dashboard clock, reading “3:33,” then looked up to see a billboard with an advertisement using the phone number, “333- 333- 3333.” What was happening? 
 
I had a clue, because we had been listening to the audio book, Struck by Genius, by Jason Padgett, and had learned that the mind in each one of us has miraculous powers that go far beyond what we can normally comprehend - including synchronicity with the universe.  Moreover, the author, Jason, had not been born a savant, or anything else more than average.  Instead, he had once been one of us, a normal head-down shmuck, until physical trauma changed everything and brought him into the world of what could be called the Universal Mind.  
 
He was 32 and a happy-go-lucky playboy living the young college grad life well after the norm, especially since he had never graduated from college.  Instead, he had flunked out, showing up hung-over to classes more times than even a dumbed-down curriculum could stand.  But he had a dad who owned a futon factory, and Jason knew the business well enough to earn a pay check that allowed him to buy faddish clothes, get styled haircuts, and work up his biceps at the gym to show off in short tee shirts to the girls.   It was this superficial lifestyle that led him to a seedy karaoke bar in Tacoma, where he was beaten after closing by thugs looking to steal his wallet.  They couldn’t find his wallet, but they found the sides of his head with fists and feet, pummeling him until he blacked-out with a severe concussion.   
 
This, at least, was all that an MRI could find, but things in Jason’s life changed dramatically.  Suddenly, he noticed everything with an intensity that he had never known.  Everything appeared in fractals, those geometric shapes that repeat over and over again in nature, and from this he began to understand the mathematical underpinnings of the universe.  At times he thought he was going insane, but after registering anew in college – this time in math and physics – he found that his hunches were proven right.  His teachers were shocked by his intuition, an understanding of deep mathematical concepts usually reserved for PhD’s deeply entrenched in their profession.  He became known to doctors who studied savant syndrome – that which gave some people marvelous abilities to, say, instantly intuit one hundred prime numbers (which cannot be done with standard algorithms) – as well as synesthesia, which gave the ability to hear numbers, or receive colors from music, the names for the abilities Jason had gained from his beating.  He found that he was both luckier than most – those with savant syndrome often suffer brain deficiencies like those of the man made famous in the movie “Rain Man” – and also unique, in that his savant syndrome had been acquired through trauma rather than genetically with so few negative side effects.  He also discovered that his condition was helping professionals who study consciousness to understand the nature of the universe, and the true nature of Man.     
 
Here’s some of what has been discovered through conditions similar to Jason’s:
 
It is now believed that ALL humans are born with these genius abilities, but that portions of the brain mute them in normal consciousness to make ordinary life simpler.  In effect, the selves that we understand to be ourselves are really dumbed-down versions that are more likely to survive in a complex and dangerous world.  However, the genius-like thought processes continue within us whether we are aware of them or not.  We are, then, all unconscious geniuses.  But why do we have this genius within us if we are not aware of it?
 
The answer becomes complex.  It is also believed that the human mind is coordinated with all other human minds – that there is a genetic intelligence (a poor term, really, because complex knowledge simply cannot be encoded in DNA material.  It is rather the relationship of the material that matters, which brings us back to the mystery of thought and consciousness) shared by us all, much like Carl Jung’s collective unconscious.  This collective unconscious, though, is much more than human – rather, it is also the collective mind of the universe.  What mind is, many think, is a reflection of the cosmos.  In effect, we are, beneath it all, reflections of the mind of God.  That is, that as the Good Book says, we are indeed made in the very image of God. 
 
Only we don’t know it.  As said, to survive in this world, we have to dumb down.  To me, this shows that spirituality as we practice it is the moral equivalent to the mathematical truth of the universe.  It is its other, humanistic side.  What is “dumbed down” to the scientist is, to the religious and spiritual, a deficiency of character that focuses on the competitive, gross materialistic aspect of the world.   Whereas a scientist might say we have to “clear our mind” to get at the innate processes, the religious would say that we have to deny our selfish self so that we might hear “the voice of God” – that is, hear the inner voice that carries the essence of cosmic intelligence. 
 
The parallels have not gone unnoticed by the professionals.  Consciousness scientists are truly embracing the idea that all is consciousness, that all is design, and that we indeed do live in an intelligent universe.  Which means that many now understand that the ultimate answers to life’s big questions, including those of a scientific nature, are ultimately to be found in the spiritual nature of the universe. 
 
Why then, once again, do we have this great intelligence that we normally cannot access?  First, it is likely that something happened along the way that made such intelligence anti-adaptive, simply because this intelligence is more basic to the brain, and thus made before our more superficial, discursive selves.  I might call this ‘something happened’ Original Sin, speaking again in moralistic terms, but whatever the cause, I believe that encompassing this genius within  our conscious self is the primary goal of our evolution – which is perfectly in synch with the notion that we are made by God to return to God.  It also seems that this evolution is contingent on two beautifully coordinated aspects of human evolution – the technological and the moral. 
 
It was my son who came up with the idea when I asked him, “why is it that this genius is hidden?”  He said “adaptation.”  I then said, sure, but our technology has taken us out of harm’s way of predatory beasts.  His reply: “It’s now people preying on each other.” Yes.  We have evolved technologically to the point where, even if the lion does not lie down with the lamb, it really is of no importance, but Man still cannot be peaceful among his own kind.  The space-cadet turned-on genius would be – and is – ridiculed and belittled by his fellow creatures.  To continue our intended evolution, we need to evolve morally as well as technically.  As is said, the first shall be last, the last first; blessed are the children, blessed are the meek.  Blessed are those who look beyond their selfish selves to the inner, more inclusive consciousness, that which makes the other also the self.  
 
Technology and morality, then, are mutually dependent components of our evolution.  As we are the reflection of cosmic consciousness, which is law and order meaning, we know where we have to take ourselves, and how to do it.  We know that the genius that will take us to our destiny is both smart and moral. 
 
We know because we already have it all hidden away in our own minds, all the time.  Jason had to find out that he was a natural genius, an active and integral part of the universe, the hard way, just as the gurus and the prophets and the scientists have understood forever or are now discovering.  Even seeing those Trabants, and those 3’s, and getting that last space at the campsite are all tied in, pointing to something, maybe even this essay.  But whatever the case, we all really know what it and most everything means, and that it is our destiny for this to become wonderfully clear to everyone someday.    
 
 
  
 
 
 

            I kinda feel bad about Cal, for his comment on the last blog (see below: “What If It Landed?”)  It began as a UFO contemplation, and ended with the now-usual spiritual stuff.  It was not intended, but this “spiritual stuff” is coming naturally these days to my pages.  Even so, I had thought about erasing that second half as somewhat incongruous to the first, but something odd happened, something that just might have to do with UFOs: I couldn’t get the essay/blog posted.  It took three days and four calls to my server before it finally went through, and by then I just wanted it off my hands and on the website. 
 
            Not odd?  Well – it was the first time it happened after 600 postings, and just when I was discussing – and I think quite smartly – what is going on with UFOs, as well as other government cover-ups.  Could it be that “they” were aware?  Could it be that “they” blocked it until they saw that it was later resolved in non-political spiritual stuff? 
 
            Not only that; the very same day that it finally was posted, I had a bicycle crash.  It was on a rails- to- trails location that is filled with chipmunk holes, but I had hit those dozens of times before.  This time, I was thrown at high speed off the trail’s edge into the woods, injuring my shoulder, incapacitating me in many ways to this day.  Was that a warning?  I mean, it had never happened before; what are the odds?  And both, that and my blog at the same time?  Are we talking – gasp – Men in Black? 
 
            Or is it destiny?
 
            I must tell Cal the truth – destiny is always debatable, but paranoia is un-provable and often demonstrably nuts.  That’s the trouble with the UFO phenomena.  While there are spiritual things that are undeniably true, at least to thinking people – I mean, look at our predicament! – those other things, those ghosts and goblins and aliens – can only take us so far.  I really do believe, given everything that I have read over decades, that the UFO phenomena probably points to an alien intelligence of sorts, but I cannot say what that is.  I cannot say if aliens have anything to do with our destiny or if they are going to someday land on the White House lawn or if they need some poor schmuck’s vital juices to continue their race.  They don’t seem that important to the great philosophers or prophets of this or any other age, unless we want to include the likes of Clive Custler in the ranks of our great sages.  There might be a reason for this.
 
But there are so many things that only God- knows- what.  I admit that all these things are fascinating.  I will get back to more of it soon, but it cannot be that deep, because we have so little to go on.  And recently, for me, life has been deep.  But maybe, just maybe, that’s what the Men in Black have wanted all along; maybe they’ve wanted me off their trail.  Let me tell them now, if they are listening, that I will not be intimidated – er, unless it gets really scary. 
 
But onward!  The end of summer calls!  Time to heal.  We will talk again to each other soon.  
 
           
 
 
 
 
 
 

​As we passed the small-plane, grass-surfaced airport of our town the other day, it struck me.  The open flat space was only big enough for prop planes, but for something landing helicopter style, there was a quarter of a mile of even grass in all directions ready for it to do so.  And then I had another thought - that yes, the government does hide things.  In the past several years, we have heard of the bad kinds of hiding, such as the NSA lying about holding our emails, or the FBI lying about warrants, or the … I won’t get into it, as it is too political, but you get the idea.  Sometimes the government lies.  Sometimes, not for good reasons, but sometimes because it has to, for defense and foreign spying and so forth.  Then there are other times when it lies only because it thinks it has to.
 
Of the last, as we drove past the airstrip, I recalled what my professor friend had told me in a hushed voice nearly thirty years ago: that the wolves were back in northern New England, not just a few, but in breeding pairs and packs.  He said this in a hushed voice because the powers that be had decided that no one should know about this.  Even to this day, Vermont has a lot of dairy farms, and New Hampshire and the Maine coast are filled with semi-rural communities where nearly every household has a cat or a dog.  Wolves eat calves and dogs and cats.  If the people new of the packs, the reason was, they would panic and demand their eradication.  And so, for the betterment of ecology, the public was kept in ignorance for decades.  This is still going on with wolves and cougars and bears in other areas.  Keep the panic down; don’t tell the people what many hikers and hunters already know – that in many areas, the big predators are back.
 
And that’s the thing; we all kind of know they are, from those hunters and hikers who know they are.  With that, the mass panic the smart people fear might happen slowly becomes attenuated.  That, I believe, is the plan.  Bit by bit, we become used to the idea, until, finally, when the big boys decide to tell us their big secret, we already kind of know.  There is no panic, just interest, and comments like “I knew that all along!”
 
This seems to be what the government is doing with the UFO phenomena.  The labeling of unidentified flying objects began after WWII, and ever since, we have been titillated with possibilities that are soon poo-pooed, or just left to drift into the ether.   We have gradually gotten immune to it all, to the point that about half of Americans think that UFO’s are alien visitors (or there abouts.  I can’t remember the exact percentage).   Recently, several videos taken from Air Force fighter jets have substantiated that something physical is being directed by intelligence to fly in ways that are now either beyond our technology or are thought to be impossible with any technology carrying living beings (high-speed right-angle turns).   They do not have to be directed by aliens – these could be experimental craft that are being hidden from us for defense purposes, or those of another nation whose technology has far surpassed our own.  Since the latter is highly improbable, the truth would fall to the former.  But if even Air Force pilots see something beyond their understanding, that would be quite a leap for our hidden technocrats; and if it is our own technocrats, why would they fly in front of our aircraft?  They would, after all, know that our Air Force fliers are there.  Why, if they wanted to keep it a secret, would they show off like that?
 
The simplest answer for me is that these UFOs are vehicles directed by an alien intelligence.  Apparently, the Air Force has no qualms about the pilots showing their films on U Tube.  So what we have here, I think, is a government that is willing to slowly let the cat out of the bag.  I don’t think they know what these things, or intelligences, are, but I think they are finally willing to let the chips fall where they may.  We have been prepped for this for seventy years – a lifetime, or three generations.  Maybe now, the big brain people think, is the time to open things up.  It could even be that they think others might understand what they obviously cannot.  At the very least, though, our unofficial managers seem to finally believe that we can take the news, just like we have learned to accept the idea that the big carnivores are coming back to our woodlots and backyards. 
 
But there still is a problem – wolves are not aliens.  As we looked at that big landing area, we envisioned a 200 -yard diameter flying saucer landing there.  We both pictured it clearly in our minds, and it was as if it were there.  We were frightened, and that was only using our imagination.  I believe that if it were real, we would be terrified and almost literally petrified.   I have had dreams of spaceships coming, and at first I am wonderfully amazed as the saucers appear, knowing that a new phase of human evolution is now upon us.  But then, the aliens themselves start to descend, and they kill.  It is the most horrible thing imaginable, this alien death, and I think the dream captures the reality of our fear – that is, that an actual landing on, say, the White House lawn, would not be taken with good humor.   We would be overwhelmed, and the old Air Force psychologists would be justified.
 
Which is not to say that this essay is all about UFOs.  It is not that I find them unreal, but believe in the back of my mind with a near certainty that we will not come face to face with alien craft (at least not most of us) in nearly everyone’s lifetime, if ever.   What the psychological phenomena really tells us is that huge, life-changing events cannot be duplicated in simulation.  In warfare, the attempt is made to turn the reality into a sort of simulation, which apparently works until the bayonets are fixed, or your buddy next to you literally loses his head.  Then it becomes real.  Then it takes us beyond where we ever thought we could be.
 
Such it is with death, and because death is an integral part of life, such it is with life itself.  We cannot handle the truth, as the movie character says, and so we bury it in platitudes and the obscurity of time.  Heck, the young guy says, I’ve got fifty years before I have to worry about death.  Heck, says the older guy, on average, I still have fifteen to twenty years left.  But the old, those who still are sharp, do not say “heck” when they suffer another stroke, or another heart attack, or lose a leg to diabetes, or go blind or fall and break everything.  “Help!” is what they scream.  The preparation and the simulations were not adequate.  We stand near the edge of shore on D-Day waiting for the doors of the transports to drop.  The Nazi bullets are hitting the sides like hail.  We are going to die, and it can’t be real, now or later.  Yet it is the most real thing that we will ever encounter.  It is the final, and perhaps only, moment without bullshit in our entire lives.  
 
The importance of the martyrs to religion is not to show us how brave they are, although that is a good thing.  It is to show us that we must have faith, and that the faith must be absolute, so much so that it will take us through death.  We say we will not be hammered to a cross or roasted alive over a pit, but we are wrong.  Go to the hospital and you will see what most of us face.  We who are older have already seen it in the passing of our parents, and even our friends.   It is beyond belief, these things; better them than us we think, however cowardly that seems, because we know that it can’t be us.  It can’t be.  But it will be, and most of us have been given nothing more than weak soup, nothing more than placating images, of what death and dying is – and, with that, of what life is.  It is because of this that we can continue our lives as they are, vapid and petty in the face of eternity, filled with our cries and complaints that sound all the world like the whiny voices of spoiled children.  
 
No government, no state, will cure this vapidity, for they are all and only us.  It is only faith that can.  Faith is something that is more real than real, because the “real” of our lives falls off into an undefinable black hole of nothingness.  The real behind faith does not.   If you think this eternal world of spirit does not exist, then ask yourself how it is that we can percolate up from nothingness, then disappear into it again.   I mean, really ask, because if you are honest, you will admit that you do not believe in this blackness at the end.  You also do not believe in death.  Yet, there death is, inevitable, and no sadly sweet story dripped from the cinema or the pages of a romance novel will comfort.  Because they are incomplete and imaginary.  Because they are not real. 
 
Spirit is real, so real the faithful died for it, as some still do, and some gladly.   There are also the others, the involuntary near-death survivors, who often no longer fear death because they understand, not just that there is an afterlife, but what this world is.  For most of us, the world is an image of reality that will never be the real thing, at least not until death; a dream, not because it is a dream, but because that is how we live it.  For those others, they understand that reality has infinite depth and time, that it is in fact timeless, and that we are only on a stage here, playing our usually tiny part, and that there is so much more.  But most of us aren’t there yet.  We keep reality at bay because we can’t handle realty –a self-fulfilling prophecy that the great spiritual teachers have tried so hard to waken us from. 
 
We are too frightened and lost, most of us, to waken to reality, and so we need faith.  It, not work, will set us free.  It, not success or government grants or anything of the like, will open the way at the end.  We will still fear the real thing, the flying saucer of our lives that is death, but we will know for sure that it has not come to exterminate us.  It has come instead as an evolutionary moment, to bring us forward to something we cannot conceive but that is, at last, the reality behind the dream. 
 
 
 
 
 

 
“There comes a moment when people who have been dabbling in religion (“Man’s search for God”!) suddenly draw back.  Supposing we really found Him?  We never meant it to come to that! Worse still, supposing He had found us?
“So it is sort of a Rubicon.  One goes across; or not. But if one does, there is no manner of security against miracles.  One may be in for anything.” (C.S. Lewis, Miracles, ch. 11)
 
I found this so “me” that it is embarrassing.  Yes, I was searching and dabbling, and then it became real.  I am telling you frankly, believe it or not, embarrassing though it might be for us intellectuals (as it was for Lewis and other intellectuals at Oxford), that the Holy Spirit is real.  No kidding.  And, just as they say, it comes through you like a river and you know it is as real as if it were water. But then it leaves.  Then it leaves and you are left standing in the desert with a choice to believe or not.  It has been given; now, do you revert back to what, from the perspective of the Spirit, seems blind, or do you now shake your head and say, “that was an illusion!  Enough of that!   That’s for crazy ignorant fanatics!”  You are split; you don’t want to abandon what you have found – or what has found you - because you realize that in this different reality there are miracles, marvels, the possibility for anything - the end to tedium and meaninglessness.  But you don’t want to be played the fool.  And there are so many reasons to disbelieve.
 
It is so that I was struck after seeing the movie, “The Clover Field Paradox.”  There is no theological intent, pro or con, at all in this movie.  Rather, it is a fairly well-done sci-fi pic that uses the outlandish and controversial physics of a “multi-verse” to create a horror thriller.  The plot goes like this: Earth is running out of energy.  Nations are gearing up for war.  An international effort has been put forth to take a particle accelerator into space, where it can (somehow) smash through space-time to create endless energy for our planet.  Test after test fails and rumblings of war increase down below.  They only have enough power to have two more tests.  They run it again and “bam!” Power surges!  Yay!  But then something goes horribly wrong.  Parts of the accelerator blow up, and then very weird things happen.  A crew member’s arm is swallowed by a wall, and then comes back on its own to communicate with the crew by writing; a woman is found partially enmeshed in interior wiring, a woman who was not on the space station before; a tech crew member goes crazy and dies, but the “arm” writes that the missing gyrocompass is inside him.  It is.  And the strange woman turns out to be a crew member – from an alternative reality.
 
And so it goes, weirdness followed by weirdness, catastrophe followed by catastrophe.  There is no appreciable order in this in-between state.   We learn that there is order in other states – just very different order.  In fact, as the multi-verse goes, all possible universes exist infinitely, some with natural laws that are impossible from our perspective – space and movement without time, for instance, or existence of objects at different locations at the same time, and so on. 
 
A real nightmare from our reality, which is why it is such a good theory for horror movies (also, because it is so weird and complex, the writers can make up anything at all.  A writer’s dream).  It is a nightmare because there is no ultimate order in the multi-verse – all things can and do happen in every possible way, which is infinite.  The problem is, in such a reality (or infinite set of realities), where is truth?   While an omnipotent god can, by definition, make and handle such a situation, we cannot, nor ever will be able to.  In this infinite set of realities, what is death?  The beginning or end?  Even, presumably, good and evil?  There is nothing firm, no values, no behaviors, nothing to hold on to at all.  How could we be capable of handling such a broad reality?  How could we judge ourselves in any possible way?   We could say that we should determine our behavior and truth by our own dimensional laws, but that would not be universal truth.  Where, then, do we gain footing?  Where can we even begin to say, “there is truth?”
 
The multi-verse theory is controversial, to say the least, and perhaps we shouldn’t even think about it, but such movies force me to, and force me to consider: under what circumstances do I still hold firm to the “spirit”?  Of the 12 Apostles, (not including Judas, but including his replacement, another Judas) all died as martyrs, holding firmly to their beliefs even under extreme torture.  They did not have ideas about multi-verses, but the ancient world was awhirl in ideas and beliefs about gods and different realities.  What made these guys hold out against such pain and death – and, just as importantly, why?  Was it the desperation of the ego, so committed to a reality that its loss was considered worse than death?  We hear of such stories about people overwhelmed by invaders such as the Taino Indians of Cuba, who purposefully killed themselves en masse rather than become part of the Spanish colonial system.  Was this the way of the Apostles and early Christians?  
 
It could be, and so movies about the multi-verse, as well as others about inherent evil, throw me off any pedestal of certainty that I might have.  On the other hand, I have to recall just what the Holy Spirit gives us – a glimpse of a totally different reality that puts our normal view on a par with a child’s game.  This goes for other views we might have of reality, including theories about a multi-verse.  These, too, become small potatoes in light of Spirit, which is beyond all thought and “laws.”  It is the living water, lived only as IS because it IS what is.  No mind games, no arms merging with walls, nothing freaky, but so different that freaky is normal in comparison. 
 
What happens when one goes over this Rubicon of the Holy Spirit?  In ancient times, crossing the Rubicon River from Rome meant leaving the homeland to embark in war.  Once war is started, there is no going back, because bringing in another side takes away that choice.  Here, we seemingly have a choice; the war is with common reality, but we can and often do return to it almost instantly after crossing the “Rubicon” of the Spirit.  It seems we can turn from it at a whim, at any time or forever. 
 
But maybe not.  Maybe once we are immersed in the waters of that river, it brings it into play, if not against our will, then against our normal judgement.  Why else would some consent to being tortured instead of simply bowing before a statue of Zeus, and then continuing on as usual?   That, I believe, is what I would do.  But again, maybe not.  Maybe once we have crossed this Rubicon, we can never be safe, as Lewis said, from miracles.  Anything can happen.  We do not know what, and we also do not know how we have been changed.  We have been placed into a multiverse that reaches to a firm foundation that, somehow, has no end, but it is not chaos.  It is peace and light.  We can turn from it, but once crossed, can we ever forget it?  And if not, can we really go on as if nothing at all has ever happened? 
 
Again, I don’t really know; but I do believe that once we cross the river, we witness a fantasy land that is more fantastic than imagination and more real than real.  It just might reach us once we are safe – and bored – back home.  Maybe against our will, but more likely, with a will that is ours but that we never knew we had - at least not in this dimension, or this side of the river.       
 
 
 
 
 
 
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