"I of my own knowledge…"

[Now came a development that maybe somebody smarter would have foreseen, but it certainly bowled me over.]

[Thursday, February 9, 2006]

[Joseph, continuing]

If the war had ended with 1864 and Lincoln hadn’t gotten killed, there’s so much could have been better. Mr. Lincoln had been thinking about things, the way he did, and he knew the problems

You’ve been talking to him.

Yes I have, and yes you can too. This one ain’t a whim like the last idea you had.

Whew! A little overwhelming, the idea of it. Can I talk to him directly, or through you or how?

This ain’t entirely your idea. It’s set up, just be ready. (more…)

[The first of a series of 10 weekly black-box sessions at TMI.]

Each time I entered the black box for a session, Skip attached three wires to my right hand, to measure skin temperature, galvanic skin reponse and skin potential voltage. At the end of the session, the instrumentation produced a chart representing how the three sets of measurements had varied during the session, and I took it home with me. Notice the data points (marked a, b, c, d, e) with cryptic notes from Skip to record where in the transcript this was. (more…)

The process of talking to the other side progressed in increments. At least, that’s how it happened for me. First came guidance, then came “past lives” whenever they are really, then came this close connection with Joseph. And I suppose on my life’s calendar on the other side, February 9, 2006 is marked in red. That’s the day it moved up a step as you will see not in this post, but in the next one, Chasing Smallwood – 30. But you need to have read this one (which is a continuation of this same session) to be prepared for that one.

[Thursday, February 9, 2006]

(12:50 p.m.) Joseph, you know that I am very interested in the Civil War material, but I feel others looking over our shoulder, and I know you know it. What is your aim in telling me all this, or would you rather not say?

It will emerge. It has been emerging, in fact. Some things are better seen than described. You don’t want the advertising to overwhelm the product. (more…)

[Saturday, January 21, 2006]

So perhaps I should work. Disappointing yesterday that I couldn’t really get my head right to start – and I think I knew it ahead of time….  

All right. We have spoken of time and space and separation and delayed consequences. All this was to lay the groundwork so that you may see more clearly that there are other ways of seeing yourselves than as individuals. (more…)

[Wednesday, February 8, 2006]

(10 p.m.) Joseph, do you have more in mind?

We could talk a bit about the railroads and how that’s what won the war for the Union. Or we could talk about marching through Georgia.

Well, which do you suppose I’d be more interested in? Besides, I know how the railroads won the war – they made it possible for the northern industrial power to express itself to overcome the huge geography that had to be held and conquered. Let’s talk about Georgia.

Now bear in mind, I wasn’t in on the long maneuvering that led to Sherman capturing Atlanta finally in September. Where I was I’ll tell you later, but for now let’s just say that Gettysburg put me out of action for quite a while. That is going to be hard to sort out for you because of conflicting timelines – the ones when you did help fix my back and the ones when you didn’t. Remember this morning I said there was some kind of information could come through only at certain times? This is one of ‘em, and this ain’t yet the time – though it’s getting closer! It ain’t that it’s a secret we want to keep, it’s that you have got to be able to understand it, to swallow and digest it, and by our judgment you can’t yet do it. Now sometimes it’s just as well to put something across knowing that later you will get it, but sometimes no, because the errors in transmission will overwhelm the message, and this is one of those. (more…)

Not least of the resources The Monroe Institute has offered me are sessions in its isolation chamber, which I call the black box. After December, 1992, when I did the Institute’s Gateway Voyage, many things opened up, as I described in some detail in my book Muddy Tracks. In 2000, after I had moved to the New Land (where the Institute is located), I did a session of 10 PREP sessions in the box with lab director Skip Atwater as monitor. Week by week, I transcribed the audio record of the sessions and posted the transcriptions on the institute’s Voyager’s Mailing List. The postings met response, and it does seem to me that these transcripts provide a taste of what it is like when you begin to learn how to communicate with the other side.

So I intend to post those transcripts here. But first (stealing from and silently editing the Muddy Tracks description), this account of the session that took place in 1993, also with Skip, three months after my Gateway, at another Monroe program called Guidelines.

(more…)

[Thursday, April 26, 2007]

8:30 a.m. I can see that making a regular practice of clearing cords is necessary for me — and I should have done it long ago. So many things I have never been able to say. And, it occurs to me, maybe this goes all the way back to childhood. Cording, I mean. Gentleman?

You are creating a metaphor in a way, because psychic cords are only a metaphor, and it is as well for you to remember it. Easy to adopt a widely used description without thinking what the underlying reality may be. “Cord” is a useful shorthand, but even a moment’s reflection should remind you that it is a metaphor and can only be a metaphor — and therefore by necessity is only a rough and ready description. We don’t — to paraphrase “The Magnificent Seven” — deal in manila, friends.

Nice to see that you spend your time watching westerns. I wondered what you did with your spare time.

We smile too. But that is a diversion we may take up at some other time. Let’s finish about cords. You may find it productive to change the metaphor; there is no reason you can’t continue to use it, and no harm done provided that you remember that it is a metaphor. So — state your understanding of what people mean by cording.

(more…)

This came out in two pieces, the first reflecting upon the process of reflection, and the second — quite unexpectedly– discussing the concept of “the guys upstairs” as a sort of bridge concept.

Thursday, April 26, 2007

All right, nearly 7 a.m.. Joseph, I posted your communication about the night you and I connected, when you were injured at Gettysburg. I can see that there was much you wanted to say as recently as last year that I was not yet in a position to understand, or maybe you just didn’t want to break the flow.

That’s right. Both of those things. Think how much better you understand the process since you went through the “perception versus story” theme. It unexpectedly answered a whole lot of things you never expected to get an answer to! (more…)

William Herndon, Lincoln’s last law partner, says in Herndon’s Lincoln, “the truth about Mr. Lincoln is that he read less and thought more than any man in his sphere in America.” Repeating it, he adds, “if not in the world.” He credits Lincoln with possessing “originality and power of thought in an eminent degree. Besides his well-established reputation for caution, he was concentrated in his thoughts and had great continuity of reflection.”

As I think of long-headed, calculating Mr. Lincoln, reading the newspapers, talking extensively with his fellow lawyers and judges and politicians (what we today call the courthouse crowd), I see a man thoroughly immersed in the intellectual and emotional currents of his day. Immersed, but not submerged. (more…)

[Thursday, January 19, 2006]

(8:30) Not a very long break – just time enough for a toad in the hole – but hopefully enough refueling that I can continue. I don’t particularly want to wait.

No, go look out the window and quietly have some coffee for a few minutes. Come back at 9, say. These things have their own rhythm and you need to learn to discern and respect it or you will do your body damage as Cayce did.

All right. (more…)