Writing this blog, I have found that there are a few main questions that rise again and again. Laura George's book, "Truth," brings up the conflict between future- minded modernists (including George) who believe that we are advancing spiritually in an evolutionary way, and those (the Perennialists) who believe we are cratering big time into the bottom of the materialist pit. Perhaps it would help to write a list of pros and cons to these perceptions and compare them to see where it takes us. It seems at this point that some clarification is necessary, but I will leave it for another day.
For now, I have started an autobiography by Joseph McConeagle, "Stargate Chronicles," that has left a certain impression at the very beginning. McConeagle was THE star of the military Stargate program that experimented with and used remote viewing for information gathering purposes in the 1980's and 90's. Since portions of the once top-secret program have become de-classified, at least one movie and several books have been made concerning it. McConeagle was the outstanding player in this program, and he later verified publicly in double-blind experiments his incredible psychic talents. Why the greater world has not come to believe in the "effect" must be as frustrating to people such as McConeagle as it was for Galileo to convince the Catholic Church of a sun-centered solar system, but we will leave that for another day as well.
Instead, I'd like to focus on the initial part of the book, where Joe tells us what a miserable upbringing he had. His parents were alcoholics, he lived in an impoverished slum, and he later joined the service to get away, only to end up in Vietnam. He hated war - he called it "pure hate" - and yet stayed with the military as a career man because, we can suppose, he felt he had few options. His first marriage was destroyed by military life, leaving him without his son who he adored, and a later marriage proved to be a monumental mistake. He often drank too much and was frustrated by the military mind-set at nearly every turn. He was nearly poisoned to death, on purpose, which led to his first near-death experience, and later suffered life-threatening illnesses from exotic stations in SE Asia. Even after he entered the Stargate program, he was subjected to ridicule by many of those who knew his mission. So far, tough, tough, tough.
And so I have found with the life stories of most psychics. They have earlier lives of abuse or sickness or poverty or emotional loss. Coincidentally, shamans - the traditional psychic healers of tribal peoples - often also undergo great trauma before they are "called" to the spirits. It is as if the steely facade of society - regardless of the society - must be weakened before a person is capable of grasping another or a parallel or a deeper reality. If one satisfied with what one has, why change? And so it seems that the greater kingdom is indeed inherited by the sick and the outcast and the lowly. It also seems that it is not just our society that binds us to a limited reality. Why is this so if we are otherwise capable of such knowledge? It is, I believe, what is meant by an "age" : that at certain epochs of human existence, we all collectively fall in line with certain thought patterns. Thus we might have an age of wonder at one stretch, and a countering age of materialism and cynicism at another.
So for now, in our age, the psychically gifted must suffer for their gift. We might suppose that one should be careful what one wished for, but how many really want psychic abilities? Is it worth the final price of being forever an outsider? Perhaps the autobiography will answer this clearly, but I suspect we will be left in doubt - were the adventures from his gift worth the price? FK
For now, I have started an autobiography by Joseph McConeagle, "Stargate Chronicles," that has left a certain impression at the very beginning. McConeagle was THE star of the military Stargate program that experimented with and used remote viewing for information gathering purposes in the 1980's and 90's. Since portions of the once top-secret program have become de-classified, at least one movie and several books have been made concerning it. McConeagle was the outstanding player in this program, and he later verified publicly in double-blind experiments his incredible psychic talents. Why the greater world has not come to believe in the "effect" must be as frustrating to people such as McConeagle as it was for Galileo to convince the Catholic Church of a sun-centered solar system, but we will leave that for another day as well.
Instead, I'd like to focus on the initial part of the book, where Joe tells us what a miserable upbringing he had. His parents were alcoholics, he lived in an impoverished slum, and he later joined the service to get away, only to end up in Vietnam. He hated war - he called it "pure hate" - and yet stayed with the military as a career man because, we can suppose, he felt he had few options. His first marriage was destroyed by military life, leaving him without his son who he adored, and a later marriage proved to be a monumental mistake. He often drank too much and was frustrated by the military mind-set at nearly every turn. He was nearly poisoned to death, on purpose, which led to his first near-death experience, and later suffered life-threatening illnesses from exotic stations in SE Asia. Even after he entered the Stargate program, he was subjected to ridicule by many of those who knew his mission. So far, tough, tough, tough.
And so I have found with the life stories of most psychics. They have earlier lives of abuse or sickness or poverty or emotional loss. Coincidentally, shamans - the traditional psychic healers of tribal peoples - often also undergo great trauma before they are "called" to the spirits. It is as if the steely facade of society - regardless of the society - must be weakened before a person is capable of grasping another or a parallel or a deeper reality. If one satisfied with what one has, why change? And so it seems that the greater kingdom is indeed inherited by the sick and the outcast and the lowly. It also seems that it is not just our society that binds us to a limited reality. Why is this so if we are otherwise capable of such knowledge? It is, I believe, what is meant by an "age" : that at certain epochs of human existence, we all collectively fall in line with certain thought patterns. Thus we might have an age of wonder at one stretch, and a countering age of materialism and cynicism at another.
So for now, in our age, the psychically gifted must suffer for their gift. We might suppose that one should be careful what one wished for, but how many really want psychic abilities? Is it worth the final price of being forever an outsider? Perhaps the autobiography will answer this clearly, but I suspect we will be left in doubt - were the adventures from his gift worth the price? FK
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