Yes, we are back to a New Age book - "The Synchronicity Key" by David Wilcock - and I have to admit to being partly embarrassed because I read so many of them. This does not mean that all books written about psi, UFO's or other unusual events or possibilities are "soul candy," as I call them. The book that I have often mentioned and will return to again, "Irreducible Mind," is about as serious and well-documented as a book can be. But most others have so many holes in them that they cannot be taken seriously, and I do take the weird, the mystical and the psychic seriously.
There are good things in this book, as there often are in this type of publication. For instance, on synchronicity the author makes a wonderfully insightful note. Now, many of us have noted surprising synchronicities in our lives - what Carl Jung called "non-causal coincidences" - and in my own life, they seem to come in clusters, with several happening within a few days or a week, only to stop for any length of time. Jung fudges on the meaning of these clusters, only noting that they are getting us in touch, for some reason, with the collective unconscious. Wilcock does no such thing, but rather immediately tells us what they are about: that is, reminders or bookmarks of important things that we must now decide in our lives. For instance, a meeting with the person you will marry is often preceded by these "non-causal"coincidences, which to the author sounds the bell in the spiritual unconscious that tries to impel you to act. To understand this fully, we must first understand that he believes, along with many others of this type of work, that after death we eventually end up in a kind of workshop where certain things we must improve in our next life are identified. Here, key markers are set that will joggle our conscious mind to an alert state in our next life, in hopes that we don't miss out on the opportunity that has been made available by our spiritual guides in-between lives. This scenario has been made clear by many observers of NDE's (near-death experiences), hypnosis, and mediumship, with the bulk of the information confirming (surprisingly) this scenario.
Recently - two days ago - I did have one of those experiences; while on my way to grocery shop, I flipped on the radio and got Gerrison Keiler doing his "Lake Wobegone" monologue, and in it he mentioned a young man who was selling corn for "10 for $3.00." This immediately struck me as odd, for I had never heard of selling corn by 10 - only by a dozen or parts of it - and I remembered it well as I walked into the grocery store, only to see, immediately, corn for sale at "10 for $3.00." Because of the book, I have been looking for important things to do ever since (and haven't found any, but there are things on the horizon...) In other words, the book has given me an explanation and a comfortable magical meaning to heretofore unexplained things.
Which is why I like soul candy, and am an apologetic but irredeemable addict. In so many ways, these books are superficial and coincidental - that is, they take the smallest threads of possibilities and weave whole cloth from them. But they also
offer easily accessible hope and understanding. The old-time religions are just so much tougher. For instance, while many religions, including some offshoots of Christianity (the gnostics), take reincarnation as a fact, they do not describe the after-world as a pleasant classroom. Rather, it is a vortex of emotion and danger, where nearly everyone is shot back to earth to suffer the consequence of their negative actions. Rebirth for them does not last forever, but almost so - for thousands or millions of lives. What a nightmare! For much of Christianity, reincarnation became verbotten shortly after it was integrated into the Roman Empire -according to the above author, at the Nicene Counsel in the 6th century. Since then, Catholicism has created a purgatory for most of us, giving us an equivalent of a rebirth where we can "burn off" our sins, but most of the Protestant religions give us only heaven or hell - and few there are who can pass into heaven (like a camel through the eye of a needle; yes, with perfect faith in Christ it can be done, but how many among us really have that? According to many, like the Calvinists, very, very few). Enter the tender New Age.
The New Age also gives us answers to such things as psi and UFO's and other weird phenomena, something left out of most religions (but not all - see Tibetan Buddhism and Hinduism. For instance, a major Indian newspaper recently reported as fact that army officers at a nuclear facility had direct discussions with aliens regarding the use of nuclear weapons. The people took it in stride) And so we have it: mind excitement, hope, comprehensibility - all there in the New Age. No, it is seldom as deep or true as real religion, but I must have my desert. And in it, I insist, are traces of important nutrients that are either not in or are overlooked by traditional religions. FK
There are good things in this book, as there often are in this type of publication. For instance, on synchronicity the author makes a wonderfully insightful note. Now, many of us have noted surprising synchronicities in our lives - what Carl Jung called "non-causal coincidences" - and in my own life, they seem to come in clusters, with several happening within a few days or a week, only to stop for any length of time. Jung fudges on the meaning of these clusters, only noting that they are getting us in touch, for some reason, with the collective unconscious. Wilcock does no such thing, but rather immediately tells us what they are about: that is, reminders or bookmarks of important things that we must now decide in our lives. For instance, a meeting with the person you will marry is often preceded by these "non-causal"coincidences, which to the author sounds the bell in the spiritual unconscious that tries to impel you to act. To understand this fully, we must first understand that he believes, along with many others of this type of work, that after death we eventually end up in a kind of workshop where certain things we must improve in our next life are identified. Here, key markers are set that will joggle our conscious mind to an alert state in our next life, in hopes that we don't miss out on the opportunity that has been made available by our spiritual guides in-between lives. This scenario has been made clear by many observers of NDE's (near-death experiences), hypnosis, and mediumship, with the bulk of the information confirming (surprisingly) this scenario.
Recently - two days ago - I did have one of those experiences; while on my way to grocery shop, I flipped on the radio and got Gerrison Keiler doing his "Lake Wobegone" monologue, and in it he mentioned a young man who was selling corn for "10 for $3.00." This immediately struck me as odd, for I had never heard of selling corn by 10 - only by a dozen or parts of it - and I remembered it well as I walked into the grocery store, only to see, immediately, corn for sale at "10 for $3.00." Because of the book, I have been looking for important things to do ever since (and haven't found any, but there are things on the horizon...) In other words, the book has given me an explanation and a comfortable magical meaning to heretofore unexplained things.
Which is why I like soul candy, and am an apologetic but irredeemable addict. In so many ways, these books are superficial and coincidental - that is, they take the smallest threads of possibilities and weave whole cloth from them. But they also
offer easily accessible hope and understanding. The old-time religions are just so much tougher. For instance, while many religions, including some offshoots of Christianity (the gnostics), take reincarnation as a fact, they do not describe the after-world as a pleasant classroom. Rather, it is a vortex of emotion and danger, where nearly everyone is shot back to earth to suffer the consequence of their negative actions. Rebirth for them does not last forever, but almost so - for thousands or millions of lives. What a nightmare! For much of Christianity, reincarnation became verbotten shortly after it was integrated into the Roman Empire -according to the above author, at the Nicene Counsel in the 6th century. Since then, Catholicism has created a purgatory for most of us, giving us an equivalent of a rebirth where we can "burn off" our sins, but most of the Protestant religions give us only heaven or hell - and few there are who can pass into heaven (like a camel through the eye of a needle; yes, with perfect faith in Christ it can be done, but how many among us really have that? According to many, like the Calvinists, very, very few). Enter the tender New Age.
The New Age also gives us answers to such things as psi and UFO's and other weird phenomena, something left out of most religions (but not all - see Tibetan Buddhism and Hinduism. For instance, a major Indian newspaper recently reported as fact that army officers at a nuclear facility had direct discussions with aliens regarding the use of nuclear weapons. The people took it in stride) And so we have it: mind excitement, hope, comprehensibility - all there in the New Age. No, it is seldom as deep or true as real religion, but I must have my desert. And in it, I insist, are traces of important nutrients that are either not in or are overlooked by traditional religions. FK
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