"I of my own knowledge…"

Idries Shah, in The Commanding Self:

Q: How is it that laboratory experiments with extra-sensory perception do not seem to work, even though there is evidence that it does occur outside of the stage situation?

A: For a similar reason to that which applies when you give boiling water to a hen, to make it `lay boiled eggs’. The person who already knows how and why these things work will not attempt to structure the experiment in the way which is adopted by the ordinary experimenter.

We could almost believe that a certain old English rhyme was written to allude to this approach:

Simple Simon went a-fishing
For to catch a whale;
But all the water he had got
Was in his mother’s pail.

Edited transcript of a PREP session in the Bob Monroe Lab at TMI held Tuesday morning, August 10, 2004, Skip Atwater at the controls, Rita Warren at the microphone, Frank in the black box.

[resonant tuning]

[long pause]

Rita: We’re moving slowly up the focus levels, now. And when you’re ready, we have a few questions to ask.

Frank: [pause] Okay.

Rita: How are you feeling?

Frank: Very relaxed.

Rita: Good. [pause] Last week, as you remember, we had a different kind of session from the first in this series, and Frank was simply asked to relax into the experience and report anything he wished. We’d like to get your reactions to that, and if possible indicate the value in that kind of an experience for Frank.

Frank: My reaction is, it made it very easy to transcribe. Let’s see what their reaction is.

Rita: In other words, there wasn’t a lot of content.

Frank: [laughs] Exactly. [pause]

That kind of contact from the beginning has been a form of connection that has been invaluable in preserving morale if nothing else, a taste of home. There can be too much imbalance in a life, and it makes it hard to live, and this shall we call it, free-floating contact with the other side is a correction of the imbalance, it’s a – well, anyway, it’s very helpful.

Rita: So it isn’t important that the reporting occur at all, or is minimal?

Frank: Well, that’s not quite what we meant. The contact itself is very important. Contact with retrieval of content would be even better. But it would be better because it would deepen the memory of contact, in a way. Or it would provide an additional context around the contact, you see. [pause] You don’t see? If– (more…)

 Edited transcript of a PREP session in the Bob Monroe Lab at TMI held Tuesday morning, August 3, 2004, Skip Atwater at the controls and at the microphone, Frank in the black box.

 An unusual session. We had determined after the previous session that this time I would not do Q&A with TGU but would experience instead, as we used to do before TGU got so talky. As a result, the transcript is very short, because I said little, and what I did say was said very slowly, very meditatively. For our final session of this series of ten, we will probably go back to our previous format of Rita asking questions, as we attempt to find out from our friends what this series has been all about.

[begin transcript]

[Resonant tuning, then long silence]

Skip: Null point crossing. Shifting now to focus 12 frequencies.

Frank: I was wondering if I had crossed the null a few minutes ago. [long pause] Let’s go to 21, Skip.

Skip: Very good.

Frank: [long pause] Getting that wavering back-and-forth feeling that I occasionally get with Hemi-Sync. It’s like my – it’s too much trouble to explain, but it goes left and right, left and right. [long pause] Some curious feeling going on, as though energy were this ball that’s slowly descending down my body repetitively. And I’m sort of watching it, observing it, as it moves down. It’s a form of moving into my body in a way. pause] It’s as though I’m more in my body than usual. It’s as thought it’s pulling me in. pause]

[sigh] So much weight on me. pause] Makes it hard to function. Oh, that’s good. A reminder of how Columba functioned with that weight. You lean on – spirit. You live on faith. pause] And the heavier the weight, the less choice you have; and the more you lean on spirit, the heavier the weight. Or at least the heavier you can bear. pause] You don’t have to know what’s coming next.

Skip, let’s go as high up as the numbers go. (more…)

I found this quote on my friend Melynn Allen’s blog Breathing Easy. She is a talented potter, and so knows from experience what this quote really says.

To pour so much love and attention into something that comes to nothing– well, one laughs or cries or perhaps both.

“I came closest to understanding the heart of God one day when one of the potters opened his kiln after months of tedious work, only to find that every vessel had warped or cracked except one tiny cup which he picked up and held quietly in his hands. And he stood at the gaping kiln and cried.”

by Nell L. Kennedy, “Worthy Vessels”

Edited transcript of a PREP session in the Bob Monroe Lab at TMI held Tuesday morning, July 20, 2004, Skip Atwater at the controls, Rita Warren at the microphone, Frank in the black box.

Rita: Good morning.

Frank: I’m here.

Rita: We had decided to try this morning to see if it’s possible for Frank as he usually is, to be separated a bit more from the guys. We have no idea how this will work, but our intent was to see if I could talk to the guys with Frank playing off on the beach somewhere, or something. And Frank has some questions about whether or not this is possible, but let me start by asking to speak to the gentlemen.

Frank: [pause] Well, I don’t know what else to do but just respond as usual.

Rita: All right. Respond as usual, then. Let the interpreting or evaluating part slip away as much as possible and we’ll keep our eye on what is being perceived. We’ll see if that works.

We have some questions this morning from some individuals who’ve read the transcripts. I’d like to start with that if that seems okay. (more…)

Edited transcript of a PREP session in the Bob Monroe Lab at TMI held Tuesday morning, July 13, 2004, Skip Atwater at the controls, Rita Warren at the microphone, Frank in the black box.

Rita: [helping Frank relax] … and you’re getting comfortable and relaxed and letting that happen.

Frank: Very relaxed.

Rita: Release all those muscles that are tied up with current events.

Frank: Psychic muscles.

Rita: Yes. Relax all the muscles that might interfere with our session today.

Frank: [yawns]

Rita: Put the ego in the box.

Frank: No! Never.

Rita: Up to you.

Frank: Ego’s an important part of this.

Rita: Well, while you’re in the box, maybe it’s not such an important part of it, because maybe that function is being handled out here.

Frank: We may not be meaning the same thing by the same word. Since about ’93 or ’94 I’ve always functioned with the energy [conversion] box wide open. I wanted to integrate everything.

Rita: You don’t have any sense that it’s interfering with –

Frank: Well, [yawns] if I did I would put it away. (more…)

Edited transcript of a PREP session in the Bob Monroe Lab at TMI held Tuesday morning, July 6, 2004, Skip Atwater at the controls, Rita Warren at the microphone, Frank in the black box.

[I began the morning coughing, an ominous reminder of past problems with asthma which had been in abeyance – I had hoped permanently – as a result of the healing efforts of my little eight-year-old guardian angel Karis. Also, my hearing was much impaired.]

[begin transcript]

Frank: Rita, we might ask if there’s anything special about this being sick. It’s annoying.

Rita: Well, the part of you that’s feeling the symptoms, we’d like to have some help with that from the guys.

Frank: [clears throat] [long pause] [clears throat]

I can feel just where it is. [a pain, a hitch, in my chest] It’s localized quite in one spot. And the thought had come while I was lying here waiting that maybe I was back to identifying with Bertam again, and I’ll bet you he had TB in his left lung, at least. I don’t know what TB feels like, but this is quite localized. It’s not – It’s like a pain, like a knife pain rather than an inability to get enough air. It’s different. [coughs] Although the wheezing’s there too.

All right, I’m ready whenever you’re ready.

Rita: Do you feel up to doing some resonant tuning today?

Frank: [yawns] Excuse me. Well, let’s find out.

[A period of resonant tuning, quite strong and steady, a bit to my surprise.]

That seemed to help, actually.

Rita: Ok, just continue to relax for a few minutes and, remembering the guys’ definition of illness, try to ask for help in both areas, the mental processes and the physical. (more…)

 Edited transcript of a PREP session in the Bob Monroe Lab at TMI held Tuesday morning, June 22, 2004, Skip Atwater at the controls, Rita Warren at the microphone, Frank in the black box.

 Rita: If you have something that you’d like to start with, we’re open to that. Otherwise, we’ll begin.

Frank: No, I’m all right. [pause] Or you meant, do they have something? No I don’t think they do.

Rita: All right then, one of the things that we try to do constantly in this work is to challenge our understanding of what we’re getting, and our last session was full of things that on their surface were not easily understood by us. Another part of this is that you guys may have noticed that we sometimes get so enamored of a metaphor, or an analogy, that we move toward accepting the analogy for the thing that’s being analogized. So what would be the main error or misinterpretation in using the metaphor of spools and threads? Is there some way in which we’re tempted to misunderstand that because we get too hooked into the metaphor?

Frank: Let us start by saying that your habit of recapitulating your understanding of what has been said, is an excellent one not only for you but – whether you can believe it – for us. Because in your recapitulation of your understanding of what we have been conveying, we will in our usual picky way say “well, that’s not quite that, or that’s not quite that” and it has the effect of putting the needle onto the record and telling us which place we need to talk about a little more. So, to the degree that you summarize what we have said, it is a good way not only to check your own understanding, but also to give us a jumping-off point for further elaboration or course-correction. (more…)

Edited transcript of a PREP session in the Bob Monroe Lab at TMI held Tuesday morning, June 1, 2004, Skip Atwater at the controls, Rita Warren at the microphone, Frank in the black box.

A highly unusual session! I was very tired afterward, and spent much of the afternoon napping. This one was hard work, as you shall see.

[begin transcript]

Frank: For the first time ever, I feel the approving presence of Bob Monroe. Never felt his presence in the past ten years, or whatever.

Rita: Is there some more that you would like to say about that?

Frank: Well, I started by expanding my rebal [Resonant Energy BALloon, a Monroe concept] to the extent of the black box, and then to the room and then to where you and Skip are, in other words, expanding out among the whole building, and then I wound up expanding backwards to when he was building the place. [pause] I had just a sense of him smiling, you know. Like, “this is what I was doing. Keep doing it.” [yawns] No words or anything.

Rita: Is this important to you, the approval?

Frank: I never think about it one way or the other, it just happened. It feels nice that I’ve got it, of course. [pause] And we can always go into “am I making this up” [laughs] but I really don’t think so, because it was out of left field. [yawns]

Rita: Have you any interest in asking Bob questions?

Frank: Well, I’ll follow wherever you want to go. If you have something to ask him, go ahead. [pause] My method of operation here is really sort of an active receptivity, so it’s easier if somebody else is providing direction. (more…)

Edited transcript of a PREP session in the Bob Monroe Lab at TMI held Tuesday morning, May 25, 2004, Skip Atwater at the controls, Rita Warren at the microphone, Frank in the black box.

Rita: Good morning, Gentlemen.

Frank: Big smile.

Rita: This morning we’d  when Frank is ready we’d like to move ahead with Frank’s list of other lives. Would you like a little more relaxation time first?

Frank: I would be okay except I can hear that surf [Hemi-Sync] in the background.

Rita: It will be gone in a very short time.

Frank: Yeah, we’ll be fine then. [yawns] [laughs] You may recognize that sound.

Rita: Yes, seems familiar.

Frank: [yawns several times] All right, we’re ready.

Rita: Very good. In our last session, we asked questions about the life of Bertram. Frank has some anxiety about this process that I’d like to talk a little bit about. He is concerned about identifying time markers or place markers and the possibility that he’s wrong about some facts. What’s the best way for him to deal with this? (more…)