Contact

Transition, Change and Flux

redwoodjedi@hotmail.com (Erik) — Thu, 27 May 2010 04:45:00 +0000

As of this weekend, this site as Contact will cease to be but it will not disappear. Many changes are afoot on so many levels in our society, on the Earth and within ourselves. This site is intending on reflecting this change. It will continue on with methodologies and practices that will help enable one to engage the moment consciously and live fully present while remembering, recognizing and realizing our collectively long and forgotten connection to our Self, our Mother and our Hearts.

As of yesterday, I finally managed to gather all of my essays on my theoretical work on the Psychoterrestrial Phenomenon that I posited. They are now in a manuscript form with the aim toward publishing them collectively as a book. I have, as of late, befriended a dear brother and fellow worker in Consciousness, Mr. Colin Andrews. We have become close. So close that he will be writing the Forward in this book that has as yet, an undisclosed publishing date. Our collective work marries quite well as we have both come to a similar place in our findings. You can find the first of hopefully many more Heart oriented collaborations here on Colin's latest article concerning the massive atrocity of our Mother bleeding in the Gulf of Mexico. The music you hear is mine. Use it to center and reflect on this hugely tragic situation. We must all of us answer for this without exception one way or another.

You will see over the course of the next week or so, vast changes occurring on this site as I said. I hope to see those that are regulars remain and hopefully more still will visit and feel comfortable enough to stay as well. We are all family. We are all connected. Us. We. One.

Thank you all deeply and dearly from my heart in the most sincerest of gratitudes,

Cheers, Love and Grace,

Erik

An Unfortunate Announcement...

redwoodjedi@hotmail.com (Erik) — Sat, 22 May 2010 00:57:00 +0000

Due to circumstances that are far beyond my capacity, time and energy to deal with as any normal person would, I will be removing this site and other sites I have from the internet. These include my music, my art and all of my writing. I am in a situation that is beyond my capacity to control it and so the only thing I can do is remove all of myself from it. This also includes closing down all accounts on social sites as well as email. These circumstances are affecting me personally and I am beginning to take it out on my family. That is a huge no-no in my book. The source responsible for these actions knows what it is and so it wins. I am gone. Forever. I hope you are happy you son of a bitch.

I will not be found anywhere on the nets or otherwise. I am also removing all contacts beyond my immediate family and close, personal friends from my cellphone. I will be getting rid of the computer as well.

I am terribly sorry for any discontent this announcement may cause. I am very grateful for all of the opportunities that I have been given but the negative aspects of this field outweigh the positive by a long shot for me. I have stress beyond measure and as a sufferer of cardiovascular disease, that means that I could very well lose my life stressing over this situation. Nothing is worth this and I think you all would agree. As of this morning's situation my blood pressure was 180 over 90. Not good.

I have had a great time and have met a few very fine folks who are a boon to this field. I will miss them as well dearly. This is not an easy thing for me to do and I am an emotional wreck because of it but as of this morning with further harassment and threats, I have decided that this is the best course of action. I know that I have almost abandoned this field a couple of times in the past only to be talked out of it, but the peaceful coexistence never lasts. There is always vile and wretched action to muddy up all good endeavor. Such is the Universe.

I am reigning it all back in to a place I can see, touch, smell and feel. From that vantage point, I can control things that happen to me and my family.

I Love you all dearly and I will forever miss you,

~Erik

Psychoterrestrial Hypothesis: The Paranormal as a Vehicle of Enlightenment

redwoodjedi@hotmail.com (Erik) — Wed, 19 May 2010 22:17:00 +0000

It could happen to anyone at anytime. In a finger snap, all that you once thought you knew and all that you once thought you were, rapidly if not instantly dissolves into a perceptual extinguishment of diminishing returns. You die unto yourself. You no longer exist. Yet there is Awareness; an abundant Presence that still as yet permeates, infuses and embeds itself into Its own machinations of observation. There is no separation between Consciousness and all that arises and falls within It. You are This.

Presence is key for Presence is what you are. It is both your basal sensitivity as well as the construct of that which occurs within that sensitivity.

How then, can the Paranormal be applied as a vehicle of awakening if indeed it needs any application or permission from you at all? How does a seemingly detached phenomenon kindle recognition, remembering and realization?

Perhaps, like any other creation or made thing, there comes a moment when your attention is held captive by a sinuous moment of appreciated beauty or a horrific episode of terror and fear. Both are the same but obviously not in emotional content or perceptual context. The commonality is that the event or thing has your attention. Your abject awareness is nowhere or no when else. You are here. You are now. You are.

Let us say, for speculation’s sake, that you are in the throes of your typical daily routine, day or night, it does not matter. The fact that you are experiencing or not experiencing your routine as it were, but instead are more blindly going through a set of mindless actions does. A double distraction if you will, for if your mind is not on the task at hand, where then is it? Your latent attentive nature seeks Presence and one way or another it seems, it will find it.

Suddenly, while in your car perhaps, a brilliant object in the sky presents itself to your direct line of vision. The unknown nature of it is obvious and in that obviousness is the also sudden onslaught of fear. In a blind panic, you swerve your vehicle to the side of the road to try to get your bearing and understanding of the situation. Meanwhile, the anomalous object comes closer and you are now, one hundred percent captivated by it. You are nowhere else in thought. You are no when else in time. You are here. You are in the now. You are present, terrified, and fully aware. This scenario is not for the feint of heart and even though it could still manifest as an awakening experience if it is recognized for what it is.

To make things less dramatic, let us take away the aspect of fear or better still, let us turn it into a sense of awe and wonderment. It is still the same potential catalyst for awakening as the object is still unexplainable but you now no longer perceive it as a threat. There is no sense of self preservation or a Fight or Flight instinct. You are still here. You are still squarely in the now and you are aware of nothing else but this moment and all that is arising and falling within it.

In this less dramatic scenario, you can see that a tiny death has occurred. There was no you in this scenario. There was no sense of your body or its physicality. There was only object and Awareness surrounding it and permeating it. This is the beginnings of Self realization. It is not to be understood. It is furthermore not even to be comprehended. It is simply Awareness and the experience of Its Self. You are That. You Are.

How then, does this differ really, from many of the other meditative or contemplative practices outlined by as many of the World’s most noted Wisdom Traditions? It is like looking upon a fine piece of art or sitting in a place of visual vantage for the sake of taking in a most stunning view of an open and untamed beautiful wilderness. You are lost in the view. You are rapt and held captive by the beauty of the view or artwork. You are fully in this moment. The obviousness of the intentionality is for the most part subtle and perhaps to some innocuous or ineffectual but for the most part, that subtlety is sometimes all that is needed to capture the attention of not the mind but the heart within it.

Anomalous activity or objects, mantras and mudras, mandalas, chants and prayers; all can be construed as tools for the intent of spiritual awakening or realization. The only difference in all of the above stated is that some would argue that the anomalous events or objects were not applied tools of choice but instead a random unexplained occurrence of happenstance. But are they? Did they just happen without your participation or seeming permission? My answer and assessment and best guess is no because as I see it, if something occurs within your perception, then to my way of thinking and observing, you then must be a co-creator of the said thing or event even if it is co-created at a subconscious level of understanding. The brave task at hand then is to perhaps take upon oneself an ownership of all perceived events within one’s scope and thereby both utilize them and take advantage of them for their potential uses as tools or temporary mechanisms for Self realization and Enlightenment. In other words, see them for what they are not, not for what you think they are or want them to be.

When something is perceived as different or other than, it is often in this perception that the object beheld is seen or witnessed or experienced as a thing or event of fear. It is not like unto myself perceptively, therefore I fear it. Fight or flight instinct very often is the result of such an account. We become critically defensive seek an immediate way out or worse yet, a way to destroy the object of fear. One’s own beliefs are shaken and the memetic structures and natures of those beliefs are called to the forefront of one’s psyche in terms of questioning one’s reality. This can be a very useful thing if one at that very moment can actually be courageous enough to let the false reality of the small self’s deluded perception dissolve with its house of cards like structures into the moment, leaving behind only what has always/already been Your Awareness and the objects within it. The small self’s egoic identity can be at once diluted and dissolved into the nothingness from whence it came. One then can perhaps see the true nature of one’s own identity realize Its Self and remember Its Self and recognize Its Self in this simultaneously simple act of unknowing. All then is undone when the small self or egoic self no longer is held or believed to be an identity, for BEingness still Is regardless of the catastrophe and loss of perceived individuality. You Are this BEingness.

The Paranormal Realm and its subconscious catharsis into existence can perhaps be seen and used as a living tool of awakening in as much as any mandala or mantra is alive in the mind of its user. It can be a vehicle that carries one no place if only for just a little while until at such a point the vehicle is no longer needed as it is seen as merely a construct as everything else is a construct of Mind. The vehicle, then discarded, has brought you to a place without going anywhere to a time that only presents itself in the moment. Now.

All is undone. All is pith and nothingness. All is Mind and its machinations with Its inseparable Observer. All Is and You Are That. Singularity. Nondual Suchness. One. Vergessen. Nirodh. Nirvanna. Enlightenment.

I Am We Are All Is One Being.

This essay is only a speculative look at a potential application of the Paranormal as a vehicle of awakening. A possibility. An effort toward a pointing out of what a Conscious Engagement of the Great Mystery might be like were it to be applied with intent, with courage and with heart through the use of the Paranormal. For if what we think we know has been labeled Paranormal, then by those same definitions does what we think of as normal also apply. There is no separation.

One must truly be out of one’s mind if one is to truly see that nothing is known and everything is simply a vast sense of BEing.

Rest in that which is frightened. Rest in that which is confused. Rest in that which is feeling separate. Those still and only are the suchness of Spirit. The Is-ness of BEing. That which is reading these words is the very same that wrote them. No difference. No separation. No other. (nods to Ken Wilber)

You are The One that has written this to your Self as but one of the many gentle and loving reminders to your Self that even in this, these very words and all that they portray, are but lies, images and folly in your many attempts to create and believe in something that is other than your Self.

~Erik

Psychoterrestrial Hypothesis: Colin Andrews and the Call to Oneness

redwoodjedi@hotmail.com (Erik) — Mon, 17 May 2010 22:07:00 +0000

Colin Andrews

If one is already a practitioner of one of the contemplative or meditative Wisdom Traditions, then perhaps one can also feel the subtle pull or gentle tug from within. The slight tingling in the lower belly as well as the subtle contraction felt slightly above and centered behind the eyes. Further still, in addition to these, if one is a naturopathic energy healer such as a Reiki Practitioner like myself, then one perhaps also feels the warm fluidic movement of energy in one’s palms.

On Saturday, May 15th, 2010, I sat in the front row of an

Regan Lee

auditorium next to Deirdre O’Lavery, Regan Lee and her kind husband Jim Rich as a witness to what is now probably one of the most evocative talks I have ever heard. It was a little after four in the afternoon when Mr. Colin Andrews was introduced and stepped to his place behind the podium on the stage. I felt the energy then as I feel it now. The catalysts were many and plentiful. Colin’s voice, the images he presented on the large screen and The Sound…The Sound.

The Sound took me to 1972 in my home in Clovis, California. It took me to the mind of a five year old boy lying on top of the covers of his bed in his racecar jammies. Lying with his hands laid out to his sides, palms up as he intuitively closed his eyes and simply had one wish. He wanted to fly. And fly he did!

I will never forget the look on my mother’s face the following morning as I told her,

“I saw you watching TV last night, Mommy. I flew over your head and saw you watching that Bonanza Cowboy Show on the TV.”

She looked at me with a look that was both frightened and incredulous. She shook her head slowly from side to side as she told me that what I did was impossible. I watched her face shift more toward the frightened end of the emotional spectrum as I told her that I saw her eat a bowl of ice cream while she watched the TV and that I saw her grab the small throw blanket on the side of the couch and pull it over her lap and tuck it around her bare toes.

The Sound. When Mr. Andrews played the sound heard in the Crop Circle whirling all around him and his colleagues, I was at once transported back to being five years old again. Back then I had no idea what an Out Of Body Experience (OOBE) was or that I was actually participating in them. I was simply a five year old boy who didn’t want to go to bed early for fear of missing out on something fun.

Erik Stitt and Colin Andrews

Back again to the auditorium as Colin spoke of connections, occurrences and synchronicities. The images came and my head was spinning. I was held in awe by the information that only the genius that is the detail-oriented research of Mr. Andrews could find. Triangles of all manner popped onto the screen in slide show fashion. Some were schematic and mathematically tedious. Some again were of craft. Still again were the triangular patterns laid over the silhouette of the human body. All of them had one thing in common. This was the bombshell dropped on us all by this gentle, slightly bumbling, insightful and brilliant man. This is what left me in a wash of emotions that I fought with throughout most of the presentation for fear of letting them spill out in front of everybody.

The night before, in a quiet booth, I had already opened up considerably to Deirdre in a partially

Deirdre O'Lavery

reluctant way and shared with her who Erik truly is in a barely contained emotional state. I didn’t want to chase anybody away with the totality and the scope and breadth of my realization and being and here I was again in this auditorium with the Allness and Oneness threatening to bust the feeble dam that is my ego. I couldn’t let that happen. I couldn’t set all of it free then. Not yet. I needed, for the sake of my kind colleagues and for the preservation of my own rather innocuous presence, to keep still and outwardly quiet while inside the White Light was swelling and burgeoning, barely contained once again.

I am five years old and lying on my bed with arms out to the side, palms up. My palms tingle. My forehead tingles. My belly tingles. I like this because it feels pleasant. The Sound. The ringing, buzzing sound fills my head at first, then my ears and then it vibrates my whole body. And then at once with a quiet woosh, I am free. I am floating. I am flying. Thoughts guide me. Desire steers the course. My heart holds the imaginary ships wheel as I glide through waters of light to places that I only wish to be. A five year old boy realizes himself a Thought Pilot amongst a limitless scape of brilliant color and malleable form.

Again, my focus is held by the images of the equilateral triangles shown on the screen. The light patterns on the bottom of the craft mimic the energy points on the body which in turn emulate the triangular area of Crop Circle occurrences in Southern England all meticulously illustrated in a loving precision by Colin Andrews.

The Sound. The Triangles. The Lights. The Energy. Communication. Thought…

Deirdre O'Lavery and Erik Stitt

It seems that if we collectively open up as has been illustrated to us with brilliant and gentle subtlety that we are as receivers. All along this has been language. All along we have been spoken to. All along we have been guided as well as guiding. We have been both a witness and participant in these many events. With our hands held, we have been following a most brilliant primer. Something is speaking to us. Something wishes us to be more than a knowing, more than an understanding and more than a comprehension. There is a vastness to all of this that a rational or reasoning mind can’t even begin to see let alone comprehend. However, in tandem with the heart does the mind’s desire for understanding realize it’s confusion by allowing the realization of being to supersede.

We have a chance to open up to our collective Self. We have in some inadvertent way, co-created an opportunity for ourselves, by ourselves and of ourselves to show us the reality of eternity in the vastness of the single unending moment.

How could that little five year old boy have intuited the positioning of his hands in conjunction with the stillness of his little mind? How could he have known to have made unto himself a triangular receptor of energy and thoughtless wisdom?

I cannot even begin to explain what has happened this last weekend. Something incredibly huge and wonderful was witnessed and felt in the presence of this beautiful man. Something that has both preceded his talk and has continued well after it. It is stronger within me now than when I first noticed it!

I heartily apologize if my words sound deistic or messianic toward Colin. On the contrary, it is us,


Colin Andrews

each and All that is both deity and Messiah. I am only honoring the messenger. I risk coming across as a New Aged nut but I cannot deny what I am feeling. I cannot deny what I and others have experienced this weekend in this humble man‘s presence. Each one of us seems to have been profoundly impacted by an event that avoids description as well as comprehension. No science or religion can even begin to fathom the totality and scope of this enormousness and vastness within. Nothing else matters. Just this. Just this in this moment. In it is connectivity and no judgement. In it is liberation from thought and fear. In it is the entirety of all that Is.

We all felt something magnificent on May 15th, that I don’t think any one of us could ever convey accurately in any way other than giving it away as freely as it was given to us all.

Mr. Andrews, if you read this and I hope you do, I have so much gratitude and such a huge outpouring of what can only be called and recognized as love for you, your sincerity and for your bravery in truly embracing what it is to be a human BEing…

Forever in recognition of Self,

~Erik

In McMinnville for the UFO Festival!

redwoodjedi@hotmail.com (Erik) — Thu, 13 May 2010 20:54:00 +0000

Hope to see a bunch of you here. It looks to be a lot of fun. See ya!

McMinnville UFO Festival

Cheers,

~Erik

Update: 14MAY10, 10:30 AM PST

Well I found myself a cozy coffee shop with Wi-Fi called Union Block Coffee just a couple blocks down the Old Town District of McMinnville from McMenamin's Oregon Hotel where the UFO Festival is being held. There is a building sense of swelling festivity as most of the store fronts and window fronts of the local shops, cafes and bistros have decorative schwag of an "Out of this World" nature. Lots of blow up green aliens and various and sundry creative window paintings ranging from aliens on skateboards to cattle being sucked up by an ominous saucer are the decorative du jour. From the sidewalk vantage point in this lovely area one has only to look up to the rooftop bar of the Oregon Hotel some five or six stories up to see that something extraordinary has occurred near this town as the decorations of the roof edge and rake is of Saucers and Other Worldly metal work around it's street facing corners. Quirky and quaint. My kind of weird.

The adjacent street beside the famous hotel is currently closed to automobile traffic as a very large white tent is being set up while I write this update.

Aside from all of the alien hubbub, my nose has been more than repeatedly tempted to wander in and sample many of the little cafes that litter the sidewalks up and down this beautiful section of town. Currently I am enjoying a 16oz Double White Mocha with a very tastey and fluffy apple fritter that seemed to almost call me by name. Never a one to avert anything that speaks to me like family, I was only too happy to help the poor thing onto a plate and introduce it to my mocha.

That's the latest thus far and I will keep updating this post frequently so keep checking back for more info!

Cheers,

~Erik

Update: 14MAY10, 1:00 PM PST

Once again, your Paranormal Journalist on the inside has some more goodies for those of you who couldn't make it to this festival. The weather, by the way has been impeccable as it has been sunny and warm. I should have packed shorts but I didn't want to blind anybody!

The spirit of the festivities continue to build in this little town of 32,000 where not more than a mile and half away in any direction will find you in the middle of rolling farmlands and vineyards surrounded by gentle green, grassy hills all decoratively framed with coniferous forests, cottonwood and a few oak trees. Very inviting. Very quiet and peaceful. Yet in the middle of McMinnville's Old Town District you find High Strangeness!

...And upon closer inspection still we see an invasion of sorts hitting the shop windows!

Later, I was to meet up with Shopkeeper and Proprietor, James Tate, a founding Chamber Member who own and runs NW Food & Gifts right across the street from the Hotel Oregon. He lined me out pretty good on things but not before I scored a kick ass T-Shirt!

Next I had to cross the street to the Hotel itself. Here's that giant white tent I told you about earlier.

The Hotel Oregon Clerks told me that this is basically going to be a concessionaire area for more event schwag and souvenirs. And wouldn't ya' know it, I couldn't get outta the Hotel without scoring some more awesome, geeky schwag myself!

And then it was time to go back to my hotel room to post this update but not before I could get past an eerie sandwich board boasting the Special of the Day from the Menu. Yikes!

Well there's the latest from McMinnville! Stay tuned frequently as I have volunteered myself to be your Paranormal Journalist on the inside covering this wonderfully kooky festival.

Cheers,

~Erik

Update: 15MAY10, 9:45 PM PST

Well, this is the last update from McMinnville. Tomorrow, it's up at 4:30 AM and on the road by 5 for another 7 hour haul to the Giant Redwoods in the South.

On Friday night, Deirdre and I hooked up with the lovely Regan Lee and her Husband James Rich in the bar in Hotel Oregon. We had a very nice chat with all of us plenty to talk about and had a few delicious beers to boot!

This morning is was up and at 'em with a sucky breakfast at Shari's with Deirdre and her lovely partner Maggie for possibly the worst steak and eggs breakfast I have ever eaten. I've had boiled shoe tongue that was more tender and juicy than that piece of rangey chihuahua. Ecch!!

Next, we all piled into Deirdre's Blue Civic to go watch the Parade of Freaks back at McMenamins. What a riot. I weep for our species. Truly. After the fun parade, it was a quick hasty retreat to the hotel rooms and then all the way back for my personal highlight of the whole festival, Colin Andrews lecture which, of course, was nothing less than amazingly spectacular.

After Colin talked, there was the almost mandatory questions and I finally got to meet the man in person. He was very tired, so I did not get the interview but we both agreed to do that at a later time soon.

Next, Deirdre and I said our goodbyes to Regan and James and then headed off with her significant other Mags to the Pub by my hotel for Guinness, burgers and nachos and a really cute waitress. Ha! But all too soon it was time to part ways and say goodbye where I now find myself missing all and writing this last update. *Sniff*

I had a really great time meeting and getting to know everybody and solidifying new friendships. I will do this all again next year as Deirdre and I have decided that my hotel, The Newberg Travelodge Suites, was the best deal and it has the pub and steakhouse. Bonus!

Of course I'm not going to sign off without a bunch of pictures of the latest events. Enjoy!

Cheers,

~Erik

The Parade of Freaks!

Meeting the very kind and down to earth Mr. Colin Andrews. A life long goal of mine just about! And yes, as I promised, I said hello to him on behalf of Frank Feschino, Alfred Lehmberg and Jeremy Vaeni. He was a most pleasant and warm human being. I truly was in the presence of humble greatness the likes of which I have never experienced before.

In the Travelodge parking lot with Deirdre O'Lavery back in Newberg getting ready for the pub and Guinness!

...and then Deirdre left me with a departing kiss. Eat yer heart out fellas!!! Ha!

Mwah!!

See Y'all again next year!!

Takin' A Break For About A Week!

redwoodjedi@hotmail.com (Erik) — Sun, 09 May 2010 01:42:00 +0000

Hey Everybody -

I will be taking about a week off from writing and blogging as I am getting ready for the McMinnville UFO Fest up in Oregon this next coming weekend. I will be posting again the following Monday. I'm sure that I have written enough to keep everybody busy for about week and then some.

I will be in good company as I will be up there with other UFO Magazine Staff such as Regan Lee of The Orange Orb blog and Deirdre O'Lavery, the Interstellar Housewife herself. I'm looking forward to seeing and hopefully meeting with Mr. Colin Andrews and just generally enjoying the festivities. I hope to see some of you up there as well! It should be a lot of fun and I can't wait to get there!

In the meantime, please enjoy one of my compositions. Yes, I play all of the instruments and did the recording, arranging and producing. The lead instrument is a Native American Flute. I was inspired to post one of my music pieces since Bob Koford from the GRUDGE blog posted one of his. Very nice guitar work he did. Check it out!

Cheers and Grace,

~Erik~

Solace <--------my music!

_______

Cut! Stop the Cameras!

redwoodjedi@hotmail.com (Erik) — Fri, 07 May 2010 17:45:00 +0000

I'm going to ask all of you UFO Hunters and Ghost Hunters and Crop Circle Watchers a big favor. I'm going to ask you if you could please stop filming and trying to get photographic captures of the unknown phenomena please? I would really appreciate it.

You see, what the problem is and the motivation behind my request is, is that we can't ever see what you see once it is captured such as it is, on your camera. Almost never! I can think of maybe three or four compelling instances that have produced some truly remarkable filmed or photographic evidence but aside from that, it is all fuzzy, shaky and unfocused garbage that is barely discernible. I don't think it has anything to do with the quality of the equipment either. I don't even think ILM could help in this regard let alone NASA. I also don't think that it has anything to do with the atmospheric conditions, the lighting, the time of year, your shoe size or how high the birds are nesting. I think that it is something else entirely different. You may not like this but that's normal in this field and I have grown to love going against the accepted grain and line of reasoning but doing that, I'm sure, is not without its own particular dangers. So it is now that I don the armor of apathy. It helps.

There are two factors that I think are hindering our ability to capture any photographic or digital evidence of unknown or unknowable phenomena.

1) We are using the wrong kind of cameras and equipment

2) We are pointing them in the wrong direction

I would guess that if and when we are able to start translating the synaptic images captured by EEG Machines and the like into the actual thoughts of the subject, we will have plenty to photograph and capture.

Imagine if you will, the ability to take brainwave activity and translate it into the images, sounds, emotions and smells that the person having them is witnessing so that all may see what is going on in their brain pan. But Erik, what I saw was enormous and brilliantly illuminated and it had this strange vibration the resonated throughout my whole body. I believe you. I just can't see it. Indeed. To you, it very well may have been just exactly that, but to the camera and perhaps other witnesses if there were any, it was just a barely stable, fuzzy and nondescript dot of ordinary luminosity and mundane movement but I think that there is one more element here that is missing from this picture. Your potential ability to project images, sounds and other seemingly physical attributes, subconsciously from the inside outward. What you actually project and what is actually being seen or experienced are two different variations of the same thing. The projected event in actuality is probably of a lesser intensity and scope than what is actually occurring in your subconscious mind where all of the fun textures and details flesh out the event quite nicely in all of their terrifying, fear-based, archetypal glory. This is only my theory but I highly suspect that it might be close.

I should think that the source of the event would also have the most intensity of it. It would be at its most dramatic in its apex and origin whereas the projection of it is just that; a barely discernible aspect of its original self existing briefly as a limited phantom for just a little while outside of your perceived self.

Now back to the tech. I think it would behoove us to push our brain scanning and sensing technology to the point of being able to perceive as a human being perceives in addition to all of the other types of measurement currently in use. Those other things help to look at construct and makeup of synaptic activity perhaps, but I think what we really want to see "a thought" as the perceiver and creator is seeing it in all of its imaginative colors, sounds and textures. I have my doubts as to whether we would actually see thoughts in the brain though. I think the brain is just a translation device and a projector. I would go something like this, maybe; Mind is the film or creator feeding into the projector of the brain that translates the creative imagery being fed it by the Mind and the translated material is then projected onto the construct that we believe is the "outside world". So we have film, projector and screen. As above, so below.

You may think me barking mad, but pray tell whom else is making any headway with their ideas, science or guesstimations when it comes to things paranormal? I'm either contributing to the madness or bringing light to a possibility. I'm a Philosopher and Theorist. It's what I do.

So lets all put down the cameras and recorders and come up with some new tech to look deeply inward as a human would would look deeply inward. I think we would find a lot more answers of a satisfactory nature by doing that instead of following our current path of outwardly seeking schizophrenic analytics.

Cheers,

~Erik~

The Trickster as Shadow Government

redwoodjedi@hotmail.com (Erik) — Tue, 04 May 2010 15:43:00 +0000

I am going to briefly recap on the past concepts that I have covered in my Psychoterrestrial Hypothesis in which the Human Collective Subconscious Mind rubs or touches or has forgotten its connection to Gaia or Universal Consciousness and thus at those places of rubbing or connection or Touchpoints, phenomena manifest in the form of the various and sundry fear-based archetypes lying dormant in our collective subconscious until enacted upon by Consciousness itself. In other words, we, in a collective subconscious state, may be co-manifesting the various anomalous activities we are witnessing and as such become frustrated when we seek out these phantoms and find precious scant evidence as the Observer has not yet realized Itself as the Source.

In order for my theory to work, we must look at the egoic aspects of belief, fear and expectation as the source of the anomalous manifestations. First, we as a society have certain, generally accepted archetypes deeply ingrained in our subconscious mind. I will use Western society as an example. When we think of aliens, we have a tendency to quietly agree upon the stereotypical Gray being with its disproportionately large head and equally large and vacuous, black eyes mounted precariously on top of a stunted and emaciatedly spindled body that is usually genderless, pale and cold in appearance. Too, is the notion of a ghost or spirit that is of a transparent nature with the familiar human attributes of clothing and anatomical design that can be allegedly and stereotypically found in older architecture, burial grounds or places of historically violent unrest such as the battlefields of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.

So, these examples can be seen as a fear element and the fear element is the kissing cousin of belief. It seems when a human being fears a thing, it is often highly detailed and exaggerated in nature. It becomes phantom-like in our subconscious where it is ingrained or imprinted upon and then and when in times of fear, in the throes of an adrenaline rush, the images seem to often fill in the blanks of the questionable occurrences in our observation that may be otherwise innocuous and unthreatening in reality. This leads to expectation. This can be triggered perhaps, by a mish-mash of stereotypes and embedded culturally-based archetypal imagery.

Let us say that you are going to a place of purported disturbances such as a cemetery or an old mansion and lucky for you, for some reason you are going to be spending the night.., alone. It doesn't take the mind very long to start translating the settling ticks and odd bumps in the house as phantoms, ghouls and ghosts. Now there is fear. But what if the fear is like a beacon to the rest of Awakened Consciousness not acting or reacting as it were, from a subconscious state? Consciousness perhaps, senses this fearful projecting and interprets it as a reaching out or a calling of sorts. It answers by accessing those otherwise latent and dormant archetypal images in your sleeping subconsious and shows them to you in all of their exaggerated and horrific glory.  And why did you see that phantom or ghoul or ET by the strange lights?  Because that is what you subconsiously expected to see in this type of environment that you have been raised to believe that this kind of thing can occur while in it. Voila! Fear mixed with subconscious belief, goaded by expectation, equals manifested terror.

Now, on a lesser scale of terror, but more dramatic in impact at a societal level, is perhaps a variation of this same sort of process when it comes to society's interpretation of its elected governing bodies.   Could our collective subconscious possibly be affecting what we see and hear and get from our Governments? How many common citizens are actually privy to what is going on behind closed doors in those big government buildings? How many average folk can tell you what the processes are that occur day in and day out in say, The Pentagon? I would say close to none. It is all guesswork unless they actively do a bit of research which would then place them squarely out of the average category, but all in all it is mostly supposition. But rumors run rampant in this environment. It is hard to know what is truth or what is a lie and the human doesn't seem to like blank spaces. Fear rears its ugly head in the form of paranoia and once again fills in the empty blanks with exaggerated imagery and then fulfills them almost without fail through expectation and co-created manifestation.

If only we as a society could have this kind of faith in ourselves at a conscious level instead of constantly engaging in fear-based, knee-jerk and reactionary responses. What would the world look like if we all collectively just "acted" from a conscious place of non-fear? What would the world look like if we were all consciously creating instead of subconsciously destroying in a seemingly non-stop reaction of self preservation.   The domain of the ego. The domain of the Trickster.

I think we as a society are some if not all of the very monsters we fear because we haven't learned to trust the process of non-process. We haven't learned to just be collectively present in the safety of the moment and so as a result, we fear our governments perhaps because we have projected our own collective fear-based expectations upon them. How could these governing bodies possibly be expected to operate any other way what with all of the negative thoughts, archetypes and fearful beliefs constantly projected on them?

This is only my theory and as it is set up, it is also a two-way street. I imagine our governing officials, human as they are, have their own projected fears and expectations surrounding us, their expectant citizenry, with their own inaccuracies and exaggerations. The implications of this convoluted crossfire of negative thoughts of society fearing its government and government fearing its society are mind boggling. Unless we collectively decide to wake up as a whole, one can only further speculate how it will all come to a head and come to a head it will.

The Trickster of our collective subconscious seems to be currently experiencing a field day of running unabated and unchecked all the while dancing around gleefully in our periphery while wreaking havoc on ourselves through ourselves in our communities, in our societies and in our global associations simply because we don't pay attention to its source. Us.

When are we going to start pointing the finger of blame at the guy in the mirror?

Cheers,

~Erik~

Paranormal Activity Report and Questionnaire for Serious Researchers/Experiencers

redwoodjedi@hotmail.com (Erik) — Mon, 03 May 2010 15:45:00 +0000

Hello Contactees,

I am presenting a questionnaire and report form with a series of specific questions as a means to compile information from a broad spectrum of paranormal events and phenomena from largest span of the global population as possible. This site now reaches a global readership and so this type of information gathering is now possible and feasible.

Overall, as the reports come in, I am looking for patterns that could be construed as seasonal, cultural, regional and historical. I am aiming toward compiling the findings and using them as a means to bolster my theoretical work of which much of it has been posted on this site.

As a trade off for all of your hard work, my fellow researchers, I will also be posting the results of the compiled reports in a year's time so that you can use them as well. I will leave an obvious link on the sidebar of this site entitled, Researcher's Paranormal Activity Report so that it does not get lost in the wash of consecutive postings.

I intend to observe and compile the reports for a length of one year's time at which point I will still leave the Report Form Posted for the sake of its handiness and convenience. If you find that the line of inquiry suits your needs as a researcher, please feel free to use it for your own endeavors as well if you like. Again, I have created the following line of inquiry in the hopes of finding patterns related to a multitude of experiential influences.

The instructions and procedure for filling out this form are as follows:

1) Copy and paste the form onto Notepad or Microsoft Word or other some such text field of your choosing. This is to make it easier for you and also to have for your own records.

2) Fill out the form as completely as possible using the most thorough detail as possible and please leave referencing material and links so that any gross claims are verifiable. I am not looking for names specifically unless that is not an issue. When I post results, I will keep all names anonymous or use a pseudonym to protect identities should there be any relevance to using them.

3) Once you have completed the form, save it for your records and e-mail me the completed form to the following e-mail address: redwoodjedi@gmail.com

Thank you each and all in advance for your contributions. I know that this is a lengthy study, but again, I am looking for all manner of patterns.

Cheers,

~Erik~

----RESEARCHER'S PARANORMAL ACTIVITY REPORT----

1) Date of incident(s)__________Time of incident(s)__________Weather Condition_________

2) Location(s) of incident(s) (Country, State/Province, Town)

3) How many witnesses to the event(s)? Their age(s)______Their Gender_______Marital Status_______

4) Please furnish the Religious Affiliation or Belief systems of the witness(es) if any or available.

5) Please place and "X" by all types of phenomena that apply or type in any additional phenomena in the blank space labeled, Other.

Apparition___UFO___Orb___Cryptid___Crop Circle___Disembodied Voice or Sound___Entity

Anomalous Light___Electro Magnetic Anomaly___Poltergeist Activity___EVP___ Other___________

6) Please give as detailed a description as possible of all the above checked phenomena including where they occured, who saw them or witnessed them, and the approximate time of each event. Also please note as to whether or not these are repeat occurences or they are first time occurences.

7) What was the emotional state of the witness(es) at the time of the event(s)?

8) What was the mental state of the witness(es) at the time of the event(s)?

9) Were there any physical affectations to the area of occurences, the witness(es) or the surrounding area? Please describe in as much detail as possible.

10) If possible, can you give a brief description of the historical background of the area?

11) If possible, can you give a brief description of the cultural and religious background of the area?

12) What is the predominant culture and race in the area?

13) Are there any major airports or military facilities in the area? If so please name them.

14) Are there any cemeteries or burial grounds in the immediate area? If so please name them.

15) Are there any major bodies of water in the area? If so please name them.

16) Please furnish any historically significant Civil Disturbances or Battles that occured in the area.

17) What is the predominant industry of the area?

18) If possible, please furnish the highest completed education of the witness(es).

19) If possible, please furnish what the current economy of the region is in terms of good, fair, bad or burgeoning, etc..

20) Has/Have the witness(es) personally undergone any stressful event in the current or recent past? Please describe.

21) Please state any known medications or substances that may have been used by any of the witness(es) at the time of incident(s) that may affect mental state or visual ability.

22) Please furnish any witness(es) that need corrective eyewear and whether or not it was worn at the time of incident(s).

23) Was/Were the witness(es) suffering any ailment or illness at the time of the incident(s)? Fever? Migraine Headaches?

24) Was the witness(es) gainfully employed, retired or using social services at the time of incident?

25) Does/Do the witness(es) suffer from any known mental disability?

26) If known, what is/are the witness(es) blood/RH types?

27) If known, what is the racial background of the witness(es)?

28) Is/Are the witness(es) left handed, right handed or both?

I thank you for your time and patience in filling out this form. When the study is done, it should yield some interesting things to say the least. As you can see, I am looking for all sorts of patterns that may affect or influence or be a catalyst for any paranormal activity.

Viral Memetic Infection: The Psychological Stumbling Block of the Paranormal Community

redwoodjedi@hotmail.com (Erik) — Sat, 01 May 2010 21:56:00 +0000

Zeal. Fervor. Blind Faith. Unswerving Belief.

These are the symptoms and attributes that denote the ugly side of religion. Religion being that which is a system or enacted operation of ideas that are anchored into one's psyche and thereby act as a format or basis of day to day functionality in one's own life. We all have a religion, be it in the accepted wisdom traditions of the world, science, atheism, agnosticism or any structure whereby one has devised a foundation of principles to govern one's self by.

A meme.

There is nothing inherently wrong with a memetic mindset unless the mindset is one of division, polarity or a superiority complex in nature. These tend to be harmful as brother against brother and sister against sister exact a very real and principled physical or mental judgment of cruelty on one another with both sides thinking they are right in their zealotry to reaffirm their beliefs within themselves in a self righteous way. I give you the condition of the world today as an example of this infectious memetic polarity brought about by religious divisiveness in which others suffer at the hands of anothers beliefs.

What I wish to address in this article is viral memetic infection in which an idea spreads like a disease from mind to mind from it's source or origin that is accepted unquestionably as is with no thought of potential harm to one's self or another with the other idea that by following, one is doing a greater good. Many cults of infamy such as the Peoples' Temple of Jim Jones, Heaven's Gate of which I lost a distant family member of mine and the Unification Church are all examples of a mass viral memetic infection.

All it takes is a somewhat educated Alpha Personality with a megalomaniacal ego and a penchant for power to instill a plausible but still askew set of ethics and ideals into the mushy minds of the "lost" or low self esteemed seeker. Does this sound familiar to you? Let's take away the rituals of obvious religious overtones and change the names of the memetic seed planters who love to find the feeble minded that don't think for themselves to build a cult of personality upon full of just as much zeal, fervor and unbending faith as any fundamentalist religion and call it UFOlogy.

I think that this is a valid assessment and observation although not a new one. The obviousness of it, however, is more on the nose today than it ever was.

Their are two major infectious memes plaguing the Paranormal Community today and they are easily recognized as the two camps known as the True Believers and the Debunkers leaving the precious few Skeptics scattered haphazardly and thinly throughout the middle somewhere. Both are highly zealous in nature. Both have an unswerving faith in their beliefs that allows them to preconceive an entire notion or decision without reviewing any other possibilities, evidences or processes. The only difference between these viral memes is simply one idea. A belief. Other than that, both seem to be terrified of the prospect of not knowing. They are hellbent to know something even if they have to make it up so as to establish some sort of safety or security net even if that same net is tied to imaginary posts.

There are many cults of personality in the Paranormal Community and it is becoming so accepted as such that the acceptance of these viral memetic infections is yet another submeme of the acceptance itself. It is very subtle and it is rife with myriad nuances and almost imperceptible subconscious beliefs of its own also based on perceptively real fears. It is all a very confused and convoluted mess and each interwoven layer is yet another virulent and infectious meme.

Memes themselves are an oddity in that the highly subjective nature of one's own perception would almost seem like a fail safe against them as each and every perception is unique with no exception to that rule yet here it is that someone comes up with a compelling idea and subsequently almost without fail, others, not experiencing the originator's point of view or perception, blindly accept the idea unquestionably and thus are ensnared into following with no more thought to their act of following than a "this guy is right" perception and mentality.

Am I the only one that finds the obviousness of this running rampant throughout the Paranormal Community and UFOlogy in particular? I should hope not but then again, I don't want you to take my ideas as wrote and start following me or my line of thinking. I have tendencies toward being a hermit and wish no one to be that close to me. I would rather you thought for yourself! It is only because I am personally affected by the invasive thoughts and actions of the self perceived self righteous that I right this at all. It is a selfish indulgence, I know. So be it. My motivation doesn't take away from the validity of the point being made in any way.

You are alone in all of your perceptions and experiences. Only you can ascertain a direction of action should there be any to take, point being, make sure that you are clearly deciding for yourself and not blindly following the unproven ideals, principles and contructs as outlined by the unclear thinking of another.

The ultimate pointing out and intent of this article is simple. I can't, nor can anybody else tell you what to think or how to think. This is impossible. Everything that comes into your mind is there because your either

A) Created it, or

B) Allowed it to be put there

You have a choice. All I ask is that you exercise that precious ability of choice. The bottom line is, nobody has any answers for YOU. Nobody has the truth for YOU. Nobody knows something that you don't because there is nothing to know! Literally!

Think for yourself. Decide for yourself. Act for yourself. These are brave and courageous deeds but again these are foul, vicious and heinous times and no less an ethic will assuage the unfounded assertions of a self proclaimed prophet or power monger.

Free thyself for thyself...

Cheers,

~Erik~

Psychoterrestrial Hypothesis: Are We Not in Contact Already?

redwoodjedi@hotmail.com (Erik) — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 15:45:00 +0000

I think we are all ensnared in a very tangled and convoluted trap of our own making. We are struggling against ourselves and in all of the struggling and wiggling and kicking lies only the fear fed phenomenon tightening its grip around us. This is what I think. You are permitted to think otherwise, of course.

The Trickster (Human Collective Subconscious Mind) is at work at such a subtle level that we don't even recognize our own projected attributes as we confront them. The turmoil, the infighting and the mental cannibalization of brother against brother and sister against sister, it is all there in front of us to clearly see but we do not.

Encapsulated in our own fear-based constructs, we wander aimlessly about in an accusatory manner toward each other all the while the brilliantly ingenius subtle nature of the Trickster Mind revels in its ability to justify its existence through the chaos it has created within us.

You see, I think we have never not been in constant contact with the very things that have us searching. The saucers, the cryptids, the apparitions, the disembodied voices and the bizarre phantom entities are only decoys or subconscious mental projections. We fall for the bait every single time. We have always hunted that which we fear. We have always killed that which we fear. We are tormented by this Trickster Element because we can neither hunt it nor kill it. We are constantly seeking it without and so we blindly pursue the thing that all along dwells within.

Do you want to know what I really think the Paranormal is? It is that forgotten source within us that becomes the phantom projections of our darkest imaginative machinations buried deep within our subconscious mind. We chase these phantoms saying, "I've seen a ghost!" or "I saw a strange craft land over there!" and then get frustrated when those whom failed to have the same experiences have now labeled you as a kook. That is the Paranormal! It is that subtle reptilian brained, fear based catalyst residing within that has a voracious appetite for conflict and confusion. The acts of hostility and disorientation both feed it and perpetuate it and we stand duped with mouths agog in abject frustration because we can't catch the phantoms that are causing the frustration.

Place yourself in a straight jacket. Lock it up and throw away the key. You, in my opinion, have now caught the Trickster!

Here is a variation of the old Zen Koan that asks if a tree falls down in the forest and nobody is around to hear it, does it make a sound. Of course it does. But how about we change the flavor of this age old question.

Does Paranormal Activity occur if there is nobody around to observe it? This includes equipment left behind such as cameras and recording devices so in effect, you are still there with the machines listening and watching vicariously for you. It's still the Observer. You are still there. Remove you completely and entirely from the picture. In other words, you have no thoughts at all being directed to any given area. The area is not an object in your awareness. Would Paranormal Activity occur in such an environment? We know that where ever attention goes, energy flows. Well if your attention is not fixated upon a certain area or space, would any anomalous affectations still occur?

It has been said that when Ghost Hunters first start out trying to gather EVP (electronic voice phenomenon), that they are for the most part, fairly unsuccessful but should they continue with an avid interest at attempting to collect this type of data for three months or more, the EVP begins to come in clearer and with more frequency. Now is this because they think that the "Spirits" are getting used to them and they are therefore showing some sort of trust in the investigator by giving them more and more communications or is it the investigator through their focus and concentration by exercising an aspect of their mind like a weak muscle that is getting better through expectation at projecting their thoughts from their subconscious mind?

The other Red Flag or clue that I suspect is the causation of conflict whence all of this is talked about in a public forum is everybody, including myself, thinks that they have an angle or a perspective of some sort with the illusion of clarity on these issues. I suspect that everybody indeed, does without exception. The conflict arises when we can find little to no corroborative camaraderie in our fellow man who has shared the experiences with quite the same details you did. Everyone has a unique experience in regards to the Paranormal. To muddy up the waters further, you now have researchers and theoreticians like myself that throw their tidbit of information out and more often than not it doesn't match what anybody else is saying or thinking and so more conflictive frustration arises and the Trickster within has a Field Day as it skips about in glee with its mission accomplished. Viral Memetics works similarly only at a social or group level but the mental disease is the same with the same outcome of conflict and frustration because only the guy who came up with the idea gets it while his followers are blindly believing him with only their own mental translations of the originators teachings. The two are completely different and so again, conflict is inevidible.

Even the closest of research partners cannot come together completely on anything Paranormal. Nothing. It is always a variation of agree to disagree. So where am I going with all of this? Why do I keep harping on the topic of conflict amongst ourselves when trying to share and come together on any aspect of this field? Because I believe we never will and further more it is impossible. Why? Brace yourself for this and this is only my opinion in the mix of EVERYONE's opinions. So, why?

Because your reality is entirely subjective whether it is manifested from your subconscious mind or not and it is the belief in the manifestations from your subconsious mind that you have projected outward that is causing all of the conflict everywhere and at every level of human existence and in every system of our established lifestyles and societal management. So long as we do not consciously remain present and attentive to our thoughts, actions, beliefs and emotions, shift happens and anomalies arise.

You can no more share your Paranormal Experiences with any kind of accuracy with one another than you can share your heart and hope to stay alive. You are doomed to deal with your subconsious manifestations ALONE. You are Source and Observer. Turn your attention onto yourself. Really look deep. All of this crazy stuff is in there or else you couldn't see it out here.

This brings me back to my Psychoterrestrial Hypothesis once again. I think we are experiencing the cumulative effects of what happens when the Human Collective Subconscious Mind rubs or connects with Gaia or Universal Consciousness and thereby creating subjectively observable phenomenon unique only to the observer at the Touchpoints of Consciousness. They are for you, of you and by you soley and you are afraid of one thing only; yourself.

And so now that I put this out there, I can now expect conflict because of the very nature of this material being subjectively observable with any accuracy by myself only. Ha! The Trickster reigns supreme!

Once we learn as individuals, to stop projecting our fearful images from our subconscious mind onto everything by being brave enough to observe them directly, the projections at that point will then become extentsions and thusly recognized as Self.

This is only food for thought by a thought for other thoughts. From one idea to another...

Cheers,

~Erik~

Change: Lessons Learned, a New Look and a Fresh Start

redwoodjedi@hotmail.com (Erik) — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 14:54:00 +0000

Hello to you my fellow Contactees -

By now I think everyone has noticed something decidedly different about Contact. Then again, maybe not. In either case I have thought it a good time for change.

The last couple of months have been quite a whirlwind for me and for the most part it has been an absolute joy. I wouldn't trade it for anything. I have been introduced to many new and wonderful people and some of these associations have now formed into fantastic friendships in amongst a group of people, that only in my wildest dreams in the not so distant past would I have guessed that I would be hobnobbing with today. Longstanding personal heroes to me in the field I now call friends and colleagues. This is nothing less than amazing to me.

As of the last week and a half, two weeks, there have been a couple of nasty bumps in the road and one of them got about as personal as I care to have it. That was, to say the least, a very disconcerting situation and I learned my lesson from it...Hopefully. A fair warning to anyone starting out in this field; if you think that you can just come waltzing in and present your statements, ideas and material and expect a long standing ovation in return from all that lay eyes on your hard fought work, you got another thing coming. As a whole, the Paranormal Field and UFOlogy in particular is not friendly. Not by a long shot. You must choose your friends and associates but you must choose wisely. Never have I before in my naive, country bumpkin upbringing, experienced such a cutthroat savagery as I have when I decided to be more of a proactive voice in the Paranormal Community. I recommend that you get to know the players very well before you decide on whom to call a friend or camrade. One is not always sure what one is getting underneath the window dressing that is what one presents on the nets or otherwise as themselves. That is all that I will say to that as I simply just wish to move on and continue with my work and bring it to you fine folks.

So, in light of all of the hullaballoo, I needed some different scenery as there is too much past associated with the old scenery. I spent about five hours messing around with different designs and ideas last night and settled on what you see now. Yes, that is the ugly mug of yours truly and lucky for you, I had the foresight enough to wear big, alien lensed sunglasses as my face just gets prettier and prettier the more of it I cover up. However, I decided on my face because on this blog, I am the Researcher and I am the ever-present Observer experiencing the subjectivity of transient manifestations in all its myriad forms, sounds, textures and colors parlaying them to literary bafflement and translative incongruity. I have also been told that I needed something that looked a little more "Paranormal" and not like a painting by the late PBS Landscape Artist, Bob Ross who decided to paint a "happy little saucer" in the middle of an otherwise beautiful vacation destination. The old pic served its purpose though as I enjoyed the absurdity of it but it wasn't exactly iconoclastic or typical either. The saucer has flown away and I am here to stay...for the time being. Ha! I hope you all like the new look!!

You and each and all may have also noticed that I have taken a couple of days off away from writing. I needed it. I have been writing between 10,000 to 15,000 words a week for almost the last two months and I gotta tell ya', my fingers are sore! Good night! And now that I have had a chance to recoup and gather what is left of my bearings into some cohesive semblance of order, I am ready to rebolster my efforts and you will see a nice, fresh and hopefully uniquely informative article grace the place in front of your face bright and early tomorrow morning.

I am also trying to do some research on a couple of folks that I wish to interview and the results as well as the interview itself will wind up on this here blog for your reading pleasure and perusal. In addition to that, I am also reestablishing my previous podcast engagements now that I feel it is safe for me to do so with little foreseen risk to me and my family and I will be posting those here for your eager ears unless of course you decide that my voice is something analogous to that of a guinea pig in a blender mixed with a cat in heat. However, if any of you are Paratopia fans, you hear the dulcet tones of my sweet voice once a week without even realizing it as I am one of about five co-composers of the current Paratopia Theme Song. I did the bulk of the drum and bass work and some keys, but my signature mark is the backing vocals that you hear behind Jeremy's raging lyrics singing in perfect two part harmony, "PARE-AH-TOH-PEEYAAAH". So if that doesn't grate on your nerves too badly, then you probably won't mind my speaking voice too much.

This should get everybody up to snuff and I will "see" all of your bright, smiling faces tomorrow with another thoughtful and exciting installment of......CONTACT!

Cheers, Love and Grace,

~Erik~

Stephen Hawking's Alien Statement: A Response to the Responses

redwoodjedi@hotmail.com (Erik) — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 15:14:00 +0000

Well a veritable bevy and torrid of all manner of views an angles came out of the proverbial woodwork pertaining to mine and other like responses concerning Stephen Hawking's view on Extraterrestrials including the similar viewpoint of Author and Experiencer, Whitley Strieber. I will probably never get through all of the e-mail.

Let me just say that first off, I think this is a very good thing. Many people are now actively engaging their minds and perhaps referencing their own experiences in regards to all of this and thusly applying their own views, some of which are a bit heated and emotional in nature. Again, I find this a wonderful thing. We are thinking!

I will address the two main concerns that repeatedly seemed to come up and those are the onslaught of readers that defended Hawking's stance which, in my opinion, was heavily steeped in the Extraterrestrial Hypothesis and the second factor of curiosity was the motivation behind his statement to begin with which, to my way of thinking, is probably the most important and interesting aspect of all.

So for years, many folks have been asking the great thinking minds in High Science what their opinions or views are concerning Extraterrestrials and in some cases the Paranormal. We all know that noted Physicist, Michio Kaku has addressed some of these issues on many occasions and to a satisfactory if not an expectantly profound level. That being said, I think it is safe to say that that same type of expectancy would be applied to Mr. Hawking should he have come forward with anything by way of an Extraterrestrial or Paranormal nature.

We as a society tend to generalize I think and by doing so, we look at the likes of Stephen Hawking and we say, "There is a great thinker with big ideas" and then in turn with that same assessment have found that perhaps we have granted this type of assessment irresponsibly. Shame on us. I think most of us, because of the very scope and breadth of Mr. Hawking's work, expected something as equally cerebral if not pithy concerning his view on ET. It turns out that his views on ET are very much based on an old and tired paradigm that has never been substantiated in any way.

The Extraterrestrial Hypothesis or ETH, since its inception nearly 70 years ago, has yielded nothing of any substantial evidence whatsoever in any way, shape or form. This is the shock of Mr. Hawking's statement in my opinion. Surely he would know this. Surely he has done is homework and research and found, very quickly, that the ETH has bore no fruit and hasn't even left a promising trail of crumbs to follow to said fruit.

I think, and I will speak for myself personally here, that if Mr. Hawking were to make a statement of any kind concerning ET or any aspect of the Paranormal, that it would unmistakably smack of a more psychological flavor or bent. It did not. Again, this is the shock of it. It really is and at a seeming great risk to his authoritative positioning within his field and at a seeming risk of perhaps losing his chair; the very same that Newton sat in. This leads me to the second issue at hand: The motivation behind Mr. Hawking's statement in the first place.

By putting this very risky and fringy testimony out to the public, it would seem that Mr. Hawking would have something to possibly lose by doing so: The highly esteemed Lucasian Professorship at Cambridge University that as mentioned before, was held by Sir Isaac Newton as well as the respected authoritarian stance that comes with it. These are titles of reasoning and rationale. Mr. Hawking's statement was one of severe nonreasoning and no rationale from a very reptilian brained, fear based viewpoint that was delivered with a sense of probability.

I have heard several people point out to me that Occam's Razor works best in dealing with the ET issue and that an ETH is simply an application of it to bring one to this, its simplist solution. I have only one question to propose to all of you proponents of the Extraterrestrial Hypothesis:

When at any time or place has the Paranormal in any of its myriad manifestations ever shown itself to be a phenomenon of reason and rationality? When? Never!

Not once in the last 70 years of High Strangeness have Paranormal Events ever lent themselves susceptibly and ably to Occam's Razor. Not once. There are always very many unanswered questions left in its slashing wake that are all unsatisfactorily dealt with when it is used on any aspect of the Paranormal. One size does not fit all!

Now back to the motivation behind Mr. Hawking's statement. Why would Mr. Hawking place an outstanding career on the line with such a brazenly outlandish and outdated viewpoint of a now well known innocuous theory? Who stands to gain anything by it? Do governments? What actions in governments could possibly be enacted by taking advantage of Mr. Hawking's high standing? Is military involved?

I smell money.

Call me cynical. That is fine. I will be digging and digging further into this aspect of all of this and I will hope that I find nothing but that his statement is just one of folly and whimsy although I suspect that because of the precariousness of all of this and what is at risk for Mr. Hawking, it is not. This is so out of character for him so as to be again, shocking.

One thing is for sure; we will all be watching what happens very closely. The spotlight of scrutiny is now on him and if there is anything to ferret out, it will be. The relentlessness of the media and the landslide of attention that Mr. Hawking has now garnered because of it, will be as is always, the focus of the global public at large irregardless of its accuracy. This is all I have for now. But I have a feeling this is only just the very beginning.

Cheers,

~Erik~

A Response to Stephen Hawking's Alien Statement

redwoodjedi@hotmail.com (Erik) — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 14:57:00 +0000

The Shot Heard Around the World...

As is well known by now, Mr. Stephen Hawking presented a statement regarding Extraterrestrial Life and whether or not we should continue pursuing a discovery of them. Let me just say that although I think that Mr. Hawking is a brilliant intellect and is the proverbial "it" in the world of physics, I found his statement to be a brash one that was egoic, arrogant and effetist, rife with suppositional anthropomorphization of human assumption that was blatantly wrong on so many levels.

Of course an Extraterrestrial Intelligent Lifeform would be expected to act just like us...NOT!

I am going to use Mr. Hawking's own example of the Columbus Voyage to the New World in which he illustrates from his view, the probable mentality of the visitors should they come to Earth and how things didn't turn out so well for the Indigenous beginning with that fateful day in 1492.

It has been said that the Indigenous population of that little cluster of islands couldn't even see Columbus' small fleet of ships moored off of the beach as they did not have the referential archetypal imagery in their collective subconscious to even recognize the comparatively behemoth floating transports. It was the Shaman that suspected that something was askew and not well with their world as he noticed that the ocean water was rippling inconsistently and oddly in the very place the ships were anchored. He later was able to witness some structure which then alluded to the now famous discription of giant water birds.

If there is anything that we can learn from this is that history has a tendency to repeat itself if I am at all even prepared to entertain the slightest inkling of the possibility that there is some merit to the Extraterrestrial Hypothesis, which in my view is plausible but exeedingly thin in that same said plausibility.

We can get into all kinds of speculative trouble here, but I would hedge a guess that any visitors would easily be able to take advantage of this subconscious blind spot in our psyche in so much as any kind of stealth technology used to hide their appearance would simply be an innocuous act of redundant overkill. I certainly do not think that they, were "they" here to "conquer" Earth and its inhabitants, would even bother to land but instead would probably do something analogous to what we would call Terraforming in which we would reformat the environment of the planet or other some such heavenly body to suit our biological needs. A few well placed probes dispensing microbes and viral substances toxic to our systems and ecology would probably do the trick quite nicely and all we would know is that a mystery illness is killing us and the Earth's lifeforms off without even a hint as to whom had perpetrated such a deed. This is just my own very simple idea of how easy it would be to conquer us with not much of a dent in their budget should they even have an economy which would just be another gross assumption.

How Mr. Hawking came to this idea is complete mystery to me. Surely he could see the error in his giving Extraterrestrial visitors or conquerors as it were, human psychological attributes. I understand that we have only a human point of view to suss things from or do we? It is obvious that an attempt at looking past our own flawed reasoning and rationale wasn't even attempted here and Mr. Hawking's statement just comes across as slap dash, last minute and flagrant which reminds one of the not so distant past's atypical thinkers of flatland mentality just a hundred plus years ago.

I do not mean to insult Stephen here, but I certainly felt that this statement needed addressing as Mr. Hawking's authority and notoriety in the field of physics is globally known and so as a direct result, his opinion has a tendency to carry a lot of weight which in this regard I think could be disastrous.

We, as a global society, are a lazy lot and do not want to be educated or to pursue any kind of effort other than that which is the bare minimum for every day functionality. Educating and thinking for oneself has become so blase faire that the global standard anymore is pretty much one of a marketable entertainment peppered with 30 second sound bites of compact and useless information just gleaning the surface of reality. It is to this general population that Mr. Hawking has thrown his perhaps very irresponsible statement and leaves one to wonder if it was made in earnest or was to generate popularity or perhaps some other unknown agenda.

The bottom line here is this: People will believe him! This I find to be a potential psychological societal tragedy in the making. The seed has been planted. Will the governments of the world use this statement from a Super Intellect speaking from well beyond his field of expertise to regenerate new interest in funding yet another stupidly arrogant Star Wars-like defense program? I know. Out on a limb, but you see what I mean.

Mr. Hawking's statement is so like us humans. Who, in their right mind, would come here openly? We are not friendly. Our Modus Operandi in every single aspect of our collective cultural past has been simply this mentality:

It's different. Kill it.

We have done this with everything and every race on the planet. We kill stuff that looks and acts different because in our underdeveloped reptilian brain we fear difference and see difference as threatening.

Now, you can see where I find major flaw in this statement and why I think that there is possibly an alterior motive behind it. Whom or what stands to gain anything from this statement? Is this statement societally preparatory in nature or is it just an innocuous off the cuff rambling from an aging brilliantine? Was he put up to it? If you ask me, it does seem way out of character for him.

I'm not going to give my guess or reasoning beyond what I have provided. I want you to research and read and apply that research to your own mode of rationale and thus think for yourself! If you care. Otherwise, just wait for the next Dancing With The Stars. You have been placated.

Cheers,

~Erik~

Orbs and the Manifestation of Anomaly

redwoodjedi@hotmail.com (Erik) — Sun, 25 Apr 2010 20:06:00 +0000

With the advent of Skype, an internet communicative tool that allows one to not only talk to other voices on the planet but to see them as well as if they are in your living room, I am able to wax and wane philosophically, theoretically and speculatively with others in the field. Such a wondrous and beautiful tool that simultaneously denies space and time their normal constraints and laws.

It is through the use of Skype that I have been able to flesh out my theories and speculative ruminations in such a way as to convey them to all with an approachability and an accessibility. My favorite person to bounce ideas off of at this point in time is none other than the lovely Ms. Deirdre O'Lavery or as you may know her, The Interstellar Housewife.

As of late, what with all of the tumultuousness in the field we have both been experiencing, we have found solace in one another's thoughts and ideas, usually over a good beer or a delicious wine into the wee, small hours of the morning.

Last night was just such a night and at one point in the enlightening conversation, one of us happened to bring up the anomalous phenomenon of orbs. I think that I brought up how Nick Redfern was making a connection between orb activity and the manifestation of entities and craft. I am going to expound on this idea a bit and see how it resonates with you, for again, that is how I learn, grow and teach.

This isn't so much a deviation from the norm of my writing as it is a contraction of the broader conceptualizations that I normally present; a step down or in between if you will.

I have written and expounded at great length on my Psychoterrestrial Theory as the cumulative effect of the Human Collective Subconscious Mind touching or rubbing against or forgetting its connection to Gaia Consciousness wherein the place of rubbing or connection perhaps manifests anomalous activity or objects. A smaller version of my theory will present in a speculative nature, a possibility of what this Touchpoint or connecting point of the two consciousness' may look like.

Let us look at this Touchpoint of Consciousness as a raw construct or foundation if you will. It is perhaps plasmic matter or energy oriented that is psycho-responsive or interactive through thought and expectation. First off I would right away like to make a guess as to the physical origins of this plasmic matter just to give it a reference. This is not to say that my guess is correct but more to give us a reference point of convenience as the egoic act of reasoning and rationality almost demands it.

I have heard and read of instances wherein plasma-like activity has been recorded in relation to tectonic activity and vulcanism as well as finding such plasmics associated with densely charged electromagnetically anomalous regions on the planet such as the Bermuda Triangle. I have seen photos of plasmics associated with weather in the form of brilliantly colored sprites or offshootings of energy jutting erratically from the tops of storm clouds. It seems the most common form of these plasmics, if related to one another, is sphere or orb-like and they have been witnessed in all manner and variation of primary colors.

In all of these cases, plasmics appear to be solely of Earth origin and the obviousness of this goes without saying. What I am curious about is what their purposing might be and how interactive with Consciousness they might be if at all.

We are, all of us, beings comprised of light and mostly empty matter. The idea of a like thing relating interactively with another like thing, from this standpoint does not seem so strange. Only at a subconscious level are things perceived as other than and separate from. From a completely subjective viewpoint, there is only the observer and its extensions and projections.

So now, with the idea that the orbs or plasmics are possibly the conscious machinations of the Earth, we will begin to speculate more as to their possible use and nature of purpose.

Google has been my good friend in where I have found many sober accounts of anomalous phenomena in relation to orb activity in which the orbs were the precursor to the much more dramatic event that is seen as the compelling thing. That is not to say that the orbs weren't again witnessed once the said major event had transpired. To me, the orbs are the more subtle but compelling thing.

I have found accounts of orb activity in almost every type of esoteric phenomena such as cryptid events, UFO's, entities, ghosts, electromagnetically anomalous regions as well as some cases less anomalously phenomenological such as concentration and meditation oriented spiritual practices.

I have read of cases and have seen some video whereupon orbs arrive firstly onto the scene of observation only to expand or morph into something culturally or regionally relevant such as alien-like entities, craft or even chupacabra and sasquatch events. Many cattle mutilation accounts have also been associated with orbs as has been documented quite well by noted Fortean Journalist and Author, Christopher O'Brien in his Mysterious Valley trilogy of books. And of course there are the several well known instances of orbs arriving in graceful low-flying, sweeping arcs over the sleepy wheat fields of Southern England leaving an interwoven and flat lying pattern of poignant intricacy and cultural relevance rife with symbolism and enigmatic linguistic potential in their immediate wake. Noted Crop Circle Researcher, Colin Andrews has shared his knowledge of this aspect of Crop Circle manifestation on several occasions.

Not that I give them too much creedence, there are many noted cases involving hauntings, spirits, apparitions or ghosts that seem to yield quite a few stories of associated orb activity. I would almost bet that when one thinks of anomalous orbs, one first thinks of ghosts or hauntings. Although a great many of the orb photos attributed to ghost or spirit activity have been shown to be suspended dust there is one case of compelling significance that, in my opinion, stands tall above the rest as far as presented evidences are concerned and that is the Black Forest, Colorado case in which experiencer and resident, Steve Lee captured some of the most riveting footage of a plasmic orb that was tentacular in nature as it moved or swam through the air of his basement as if suspended in water. It moved with intent and it moved with an intelligent grace.

Could these orbs or plasmic spheres be the raw stuff of observable pre-manifested phenomena? Could they be psycho-interactive? Could they in fact, be a conscious by product of Gaia Consciousness that enables us to subconsciously activate the dormant archetypal imagery locked deep within our psyche?

I think that this is a worthy avenue of exploration and a plausible step of many such steps in between our selves and our Self.

Wouldn't the irony be just too delicious if in fact UFO's turned out to be swamp gas after all?

Cheers,

~Erik~

And so it is over for me before it starts...

redwoodjedi@hotmail.com (Erik) — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 19:45:00 +0000

This is an official announcement of my intentions to all of you, the readership and those who wish me to pursue this field further than what I have given it thus far.

First off I would like to state that as of the News Piece I published yesterday, I took a little heat from some of the ones named in it. I had no intention of painting anyone in any less light than that they have already presented themselves in. So if anyone was hurt by my observations or otherwise felt slanted by them, my sincerest apologies. I watch and observe and then I write what I see. My perception is just as flawed as any human's.

Second, I intend to stand down from any agreements I made in a podcast or interview capacity. My writing, my art and my music is presented on the nets and those aspects of myself are all that I wish to be known publicly. By placing myself in the public eye in lieu of my aforementioned creativity, I risk, like any human, compromising it by way of contradictory statements or behaviors. This I do not wish to happen.

The following are affected thus far by this decision:

Mr. Jeffery Pritchett and Mr. Guy Weddle, I am reneging on my agreement to appear as a guest on The Church of Mabus Podcast in July.

Mr. Jeremy Vaeni and Mr. Jeffrey Ritzmann, I am reneging the invitation for hosting any episode of Paratopia as an interviewer.

Ms. Regan Lee, I am reneging on the wonderful opportunity to appear as a guest on your podcast.

Ms. Deirdre O'Lavery, I am officially bowing out of any idea entertaining a collaborative effort with you in a podcast capacity.

To Ms. Lesley Gunter. If this decision of mine has in any way adversely affected my opportunity to continue to blog on UFO Mag Blog, know full well that I understand entirely and that I hold no negative thought against you should you decide to let me go. My hope is to continue as a Blogger for UFO Mag but I do not wish to be thought of representing the publication in a negative light as a direct result of my decisions or actions.

I experienced a little time in the frying pan yesterday and I did not like it at all. I got too close to the surface and as a Buddhist used to detachment it was a bit disconcerting to say the least. I will not be posting any name oriented News or News of any kind henceforth. I am not on anybody's side, camp or view. I am in this to explore the phenomena and nothing else. Placating personalities and tip toeing around conflicting situations is a distraction to that end for me.

I will remain in the closet and let my work speak for itself. I do not wish to have any notoriety, fame or infamy past what I produce and put out in a highly controlled fashion. You will know about me only that which I allow you to know and not one speck more.

I thank each and every one of you for the wonderful and rare opportunities and I do not take them for granted. Please know that I mean no one any disrespect and thus the reason for my actions. I am making an example of myself of what I feel should be a core value in the paranormal community. They shall know me by my works only...

Cheers, Love and Grace,

~Erik~

Update! I'm going through a bit of a mess right now that is kind of ugly. When it gets resolved, I will again make myself available to podcasting. I will also furnish details as to what I've been going through. What a nightmare!

Universal Law Number One: Perception Goes No Further Than How One Sees Self

redwoodjedi@hotmail.com (Erik) — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 17:59:00 +0000

I am going to illustrate through your own perception how all reality is subjective and personal in nature. For as many different sentient beings residing on this planet, there are among that number an equal amount of perceived realities.

The causal affectations of one's mind and its views are what dictate how the mind perceives its surroundings accordingly. If the mind is busy then the world around it is busy. Like ripples on a pond, thoughts shimmer, splash and radiate thusly distorting what is actually being reflected. By that same token a still mind reflects only what is there and makes no effort to distort what is being felt and witnessed.

For instance, an angry person will be all too quick to be able to point out another angry person and what is more, if the anger of the perceiver is deeply rooted at a subconscious level, the anger perceived, more often than not, is not recognized as their own.

The mind is only a mirror. The reflective surface of a still pond on a moonlit night. Mind sees a tree it reflects a tree. Bird, bird. Happiness, happiness, etc..

The cultural composites comprising the perceiver's mind and how it looks at things also point directly to the source of their perceived reality. Themselves. It is very difficult for a very troubled person to recognize an awakened person simply because they do not recognize that awakened nature within themselves. They might in fact find the awakened person to be ineffectual, arrogant, condescending, or utterly loathesome with pretentiousness without realizing that those are the qualities within themselves judging the perceived awakened person. The awakened one is merely a mirror. The non-realized one is a rippled pond with a latent tendency toward inward stillness. The awakened one sees the other as is, witnessing and observing the true nature of within with no more thought than just observing it. That is the true task of mind.

Presence stills the ripples. Knowledge creates them. Thinking agitates the still waters and distorts the perceived reality by not remaining present with nowness and beingness in the fore. Rippled thoughts, rippled reality with each ripple representing a stance or conditioned view making perception askew.

If one is stressed then one will perceive predominantly stressful things. A like thing always begets a like thing.

Polish the mind with presence. Wipe it clean by not seeking to know anything or attain anything as one cannot become what one already is and one cannot attain what one already has. Keep it still by reflecting without judgment what is actually all around or in you. That is your task. That is what and who you are. Presence reflecting creation. Source experiencing its Self.

An awakened mind always recognizes another awakened mind and further more it can even recognize the latent awakened nature within a turbulent mind because it does not perceive it as other than.

Awareness is both a sword and a light simultaneously slicing through egoic machinations while shining away the shadows leaving only a clear path to walk on and BE in.

Make your mind as a still pond and then you will only reflect the beauty that is and what YOU ARE.

Cheers and Grace,

~Erik~

Are You Awake?

redwoodjedi@hotmail.com (Erik) — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 14:39:00 +0000

You, Common Citizen, whom see differences surrounding you that loom large and frightful,

are you awake?

Devout and gentle Buddhist, detached and observing in your quest for attainment,

are you awake?

By the Book, Fundamentalist Christian with your laws and theistic authority,

are you awake?

Zealot Islamist with your anger and ire directed to your fellow brothers and sisters in the West,

are you awake?

Earth Mother Indigenous with your perception of destruction of livelihood and views of balance,

are you awake?

Fervant Scientist inacting your learned laws of measure and structure putting all into a box,

are you awake?

New Aged Truth Seeker with your visions of otherworldly hope and change,

are you awake?

Corporate CEO with your bottom line thinking foresaking your starving brethren for a yacht and power,

are you awake?

Esoteric Researcher with your staunch and narrow-minded view of nothing,

are you awake?

Destitute Homeless with your self pity and chemical drowning of sorrows and low self esteem,

are you awake?

Human Being with your ability to lash out and instill suffering against another over a belief,

are you awake?

Look at yourselves all

with your self righteousness and false pride in accomplishment.

Look at yourselves all

with your perceived sense of lacking of less than and more than.

Look at yourselves all

with your microscopes, philosophy and fear based scrutiny.

Look at yourselves all

with your machinations of false comfort and security where there are none.

Look at yourselves all

and your willingness to beseech one another over ideas and theories.

Look at yourselves all

with your ability to mock and judge and in the face of it claim intellect.

Look at yourselves all

with your constructs of convenience and pleasure.

Look at yourselves all

with your latent fear used as a weapon.

Look at yourselves all

with with your constant seeking for what never was.

Look at yourselves all

with your justified murder over differences.

You take your stance and it is as a spear in stone to be weathered down to dust. You have your view when even the broadest of them have blinders in the periphery. You hold onto deep values and precious principles with an iron grip not realizing that you crush your own fingers by doing so. All of you stuck in your vehicles looking through a window and calling it reality whilst never taking into consideration that you are the road as well.

You take your stance as a spear in stone.

There is nothing to hold.

There is nothing to see.

There is nothing to hear.

There is nothing to have.

There is nothing to become.

There is nothing.

YOU ARE THAT

Awakened.

Present.

Still.

All.

Being.

~Erik~

Giving Fans a Huge Pile of Shift

redwoodjedi@hotmail.com (Erik) — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 15:38:00 +0000

There is much adieu amongst some of the key players in the field of the paranormal lately and some of it seems to be pointing and coming to a head of sorts but as to what that head looks like, I haven't a clue.

The first major event is that yesterday, April 21, Co-host and Paranormal Journalist, Jeremy Vaeni announced on the Paratopia Message Boards that Paratopia will be evicting its current vacationers after Episode 70 and thereby closing the island. No more weekly Paratopia Podcasts are scheduled past the remaining six of which Mr. Vaeni promised that he and Co-host Jeffrey Ritzmann would "make them really count". The popular Paranormal Podcast has to date produced sixty-four informative and thought provoking episodes that have, in many ways set a standard of research that is open, transparent, honest and ethical. With the advent of Paratopia sweeping the sand of its citizenry in the near future, one has to wonder who will be brave enough to pick up the torch of such unorthodoxy and continue on if there is in fact anything to continue on about.

Mr. Vaeni also announced that although the Paratopia Podcast was shutting down as a weekly show, the name and brand of Paratopia would continue on in the form of its already existent and prolific Message Boards as well as some bigger and as of yet unannounced projects in the beloved podcast's name. Many will be anticipating the next form of Paratopia as its reputation for consistent excellence brought with insight and humor and an imaginative array of knowledgeable guests, can only expand into bigger and better things.

On the online Chat Room Interview Show, Mabus Incarnate last Sunday, the 18th, Host Jeffery Pritchett held a chat interview with the highly controversial guest and alleged experiencer, Stan Romanek. Although the interviews on Mabus have a decidedly digital and borderline non-human aspect to them because of their inherent relegation to just the online chat format, one could almost feel a very palpable and uncomfortable tension in the Mabus Chat Room as soon as Mr. Romanek signed in.

Right away, there was an almost immediate loss of decorum and order as a flurry and volley of epithets and questions came unsolicited from a broad spectrum of Mabus participants. Again, UFO Magazine's Jeremy Vaeni, left no mystery in anyone's mind as to what his very clear intentions were as he peppered the Mabus Chat Room with an accusatory tone toward Mr. Romanek calling to everyone's attention the controversial nature of Mr. Romanek's presented evidences such as they are. Mr. Romanek's experiences as well as the secretive and possibly lucrative nature of more as of yet unreleased evidences in the form of books as well as a DVD were also chaotically discussed with a couple of questions directed by yours truly.

One hopes that Mr. Romanek has some sort of idea of what his next and very scrutinized moves will be and if anything that Mr. Romanek brings to fore in the future will stem the lynch mob mentality against him as well as alleviate some of the tensions between his supportive believers and his adversaries. We shall see.

And on a personal news front, as many of you here at Contact now know, a couple of weeks ago I was invited to become a Staff Blogger by UFO Magazine Editor Lesley Gunter of The Debris Field, Women of Esoterica and UFO Mystic notoriety. On that very same day, Interstellar Housewife blog Authoress, Deirdre O'Lavery received the very same invite. You can now find the same quality and ethic of writing from both blogs at the UFO Mag Blog site in addition to the continuation of both of our blogs.

With this sudden advent of attention and notoriety has come the prospects of more available opportunities, such as they are within the paranormal field. Coming up on the weekend of May 14th and 15th, I will be in McMinnville, Oregon for the 11th Annual McMinnville UFO Festival which will feature noted guests, Abductee and Author Travis Walton and noted Crop Circle Expert and Researcher, Colin Andrews. I hope to be able to get a little time with each of these gentlemen for a mini interview that will be posted on this site and UFO Mag Blog should they transpire. Wish me luck on both of those accounts.

Also taking place at the McMinnville event will be a meeting between myself, UFO Magazine's Regan Lee and once again, The Interstellar Housewife Authoress, Deirdre O'Lavery for an episode recording of Ms. Lee's podcast. Ms. O'Lavery and I will be appearing in a guest capacity on said podcast which should prove to be very interesting, fun and informative.

I'm looking forward to meeting both of these powerhouse women in the field in person as they are also together a formidable tour de force as Co-Authoress' of the hugely impactful and relevant Women of Esoterica blog.

All of this spells big changes in the paranormal community with new blood coming in, current blood boiling and clotting and old blood perhaps bleeding out. All in all, these are uncertain times in an uncertain field and the next few months should prove to be very engaging to say the least.

That is all for now and I will keep all of you posted periodically on all the pertinent goings on as I come across them. I would like to take these next few words to thank each and every one of you, the readership for your wonderful support, commentary and sharing the contents of my site. It has been a very exciting, humbling and unpredictable last two months and my head is still spinning in the wash from all of it. What a ride it has been indeed. I am enjoying the waves as well as making more as this topic is prone to doing just that.

Thanks for staying in Contact,

Erik Stitt

The Great Church of Lies: The Objectification of Evidences

redwoodjedi@hotmail.com (Erik) — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 18:26:00 +0000

Pssssst! Hey...You! Yeah, you! Come here. I wanna ask you something. No I'm not tryin' to sell you a Rolex knock off. I just have a question. You don't even have to answer me. Are you ready? Here goes.

Are you chasing the Future with the Past?

I know. It's kind of a weird question. But I gotta ask it to illustrate a point. You're gonna love this. I know you will because I'm you and I love it. Ha! That's existential humor. It's hilarious because what is more is you are also writing this. Hoo hoo! Alright, alright. Don't get all defensive. I'll explain.

Where are you? You at work? Chances are then, you are not here. You are but you aren't. You are planning a vacation or making a grocery list or hiding in your favorite stall in the restroom to avoid the boss whilst trying to beat your previous Bejeweled score on your iPhone. Always making plans, aren't you? The grass is always greener or I'll have it real good someday or if I could just make a little more money...

You are chasing your Future with the Past. What's this got to do with the paranormal, you ask. Everything! But just be patient. I'll get to that.

So there you are making plans. Based on what? You are referencing something, right? Experiences. You couldn't even formulate the recipe for mud if it wasn't for your constantly referenced experiences.   You are thinking in the Future while referencing the Past to do it. Both of these temporal realities are illusory and non existent in every way, yet there you go leaking emotional energy into two imaginary directions simultaneously and you wonder why you are stressed. Tell me...What's so bad about the present? What's wrong with this moment? You can't even honestly answer me because in order to make an accurate assessment of it you would actually have to be present in it. You are too busy feeling lack or less than or perhaps even more than. Both are false. YOU ARE. But you've got plans and can't be troubled with reality. Ha! More existential humor. At your expense entirely of course!

Once again I have your attention with a pith.  The idea that maybe the lifestyle of looking, seeking, gathering, harboring, knowing and getting isn't all that it's cracked up to be. You wonder why your experiences in the paranormal are so disconcerting and in some cases downright scary. Well it's no wonder! There is no mystery. There is only distraction and discontentment.  Stress.  Stress activates the subconscious mind. The subconscious mind harbors the exaggerated archetypes of fear-based imagery that have a nasty habit of making themselves known when you are otherwise distracted, worried or stressed. Your greatest fears manifest into the realm of your observation when you are not fully present and aware in the moment for if they did manifest in the mindset of presence, you would probably not fear them as you could clearly and at once see that you are both Source and Observer of the manifestations.

Most, after witnessing an event or otherwise odd phenomenon, start right into the objectifying of it and go straight into the Past and then chase the Future with it by way of seeking answers and thus, once again, avoiding the present.   It's a simple two part process. It goes something like this:

*Loud, wailing moan in room of choice* "What was that?!?"

Just like that, you are trapped. You were distracted to begin with but now you are doubly so. Furthermore you now intend to spread the pathology by sharing your account with others and possibly distracting them from the present as well. Ignorance is the wildfire of the mind.

How does this all come about? Well, unbeknownst to your person, you belong to a vast, Global Church that most mindlessly worship in. The Great Church of Objectification. To be a faithful follower, simply believe that all is Other Than. Most are quite gifted at it and have the necessary skills down pat. All around you are separate objects and things and they frighten you because you do not understand them. You no more understand a pencil eraser than you do another human being much less a Sasquatch. I find the term human being ironic because most aren't. They are a human existing with very little sense of BEing involved. Most are too busy making objects and looking at objects, seeking objects and wondering about more objects.

So fascinated are we with objects that we invented a way to study them and give them relevance to our existence which of course is a lie. By our categorizing them and breaking them down into even smaller objects, all we have done is make ourselves feel smart. The object is still the object regardless of what you may think of it. Your fancy terms and definitions have done nothing for it or to it. It goes on in spite of your self importance. So why do we study the objects? The answer is very amusing. To know more about ourselves. So by looking at something as perceived outside ourselves we are to learn more about the inside of ourselves and so goes the battle cry for Science. Objectification is its standard basal function for observation. Detach from the thing. Put it in a box and see what it does. Put it in a fire and see what it does. Well all you are doing is manipulating the object with other objects and in most cases separating it further from yourself to the point that it is almost impossible to experience it and then once the outcome of placing the object within another object is perceived we make a name for it and call it that even though it's still just an object.

Through and through, the whole thing is subjective. The truth is, all of the objects are in your observation and by that very notion, the thing is within you and not without. There is literally no difference between your thoughts and ideas and a chair, a table or a ghost. Objects all. And if its a subconsciously generated object in your awareness the chances of it being fearful are exponential. If you are prone to these subconscious machinations of fear I have a bumper sticker of warning to place on your forehead as a warning for those around you to read:

Caution: Objects in my awareness may be bigger than they actually are.

At least the rest of us will know to get out of the way should an episode arise.

The long and short of it is this. Objectivity means the identification with a dualistic reality and that all is other than. Subjectivity means the identification with the object or experience as you. I could flesh those definitions out a bit and incorporate some subtlety but essentially that is the jist of them.

To get from a mindset of Objective Reality to a Subjective Reality is easier said than done. In many ways, most of us relate at a subjective level already on some things especially when we are relating an experience to another person. All you have is your experience to relate from and so you speak as that event whether you realize it or not. You are its voice. You are the thing spoken of but then schizophrenia creeps into the discourse because the thing you are and talking about is being related to another thing you think you are not. How can that be? They both occurred in your mind. How is one you and the other not? Clearly there is some sort of pathology here that is very convoluted and confusing. Well, I'll tell you what it is and as is my M.O., this is only my best guess. You are fully allowed to have your own best guess and to go ahead and follow that. In fact, I highly recommend that. Because everything I say, once said is a lie. Objects.

We see things inside out. There. That's my best guess. But it goes a long way toward explaining the objective nature in a perceived dualistic reality wherein we think all is separate and external to ourselves. But in reality NOTHING is external to you. I will use one of my handy dandy analogies to help clarify this stance.

I used this one this morning and I thought it was my best one yet.

Blow up a balloon. Of course I'm using structure here to illustrate a point but in reality there is none. Let's say that Consciousness is the inside surface of the balloon and so is the air that fills it. Within this Consciousness are ideas, images, sounds, feelings, emotions and smells. They all arise and fall within this Consciousness in a continual and contiguous fashion. All is transpiring within it and at the same moment All permeates it and observes it and experiences it. Remove the balloon and make Consciousness a formless and thingless vastness and there you have it. What is it that you have? YOU! YOU ARE THAT.

This is Ultimate Subjectivity. Nothing occurs, transpires or manifests outside of You and what is more, nothing that is manifesting or occurring is not You.

The inside out reality that you may be currently experiencing and identifying with is the egoic trick of it. It is the Great Deceiver and it is also the Veil of Forgetfulness. What are you forgetting? Your true nature. Who you really are. What you really are. You see, in reality You are utterly alone in your BEingness for there is none other. You are alone with no thing to qualify your YOUness.

In this vast loneliness of Self came about an idea. A game if you will. This game is perhaps called Who Am I? or Shall I Pretend to be Other?. The rules to this game are very simple as there are only two and it is from these two rules that all transpired.

1) Forget who I am

2) Believe in another

It is the second rule that is the source of all suffering and feelings of lack and without, separation and less than and pain and in short, duality. These rules create a playing field that is rife for the purpose of creating experiences. Consciousness feels Its Self vicariously through its creations. By believing in Other Than, It can in effect, through Its manifestations, turn around and see Its Self. YOU ARE because I AM.

This realization is the Great Undoing of objectification. No more perception of Other Than or difference or lack or covetousness. YOU are the Always in All Ways and in your Self realization YOU ARE and YOU HAVE in a seemless and eternally unified simultaneous BEingness. You are the moment, the observer within it and all that transpires within its gaze.

You have never not been home...

Cheers,

~Erik~

The Undoing of Science in Ultimate Subjectivity

redwoodjedi@hotmail.com (Erik) — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 16:35:00 +0000

With the advent of the recent discovery by physicists of the now famous sub-atomic particle experiments having their outcome manipulated by thought and expectation, it is clear then that Science is on its way out if it isn't already as an accurate mode of investigation. However, that is not to say that two pertinent scientific findings may or may not have a potentially gross impact psychologically as to where we, as a species, go from here.

The first potential or notion of pertinence implied by these experiments is that the Universe or Kosmos is in actuality an interiority and not and exterior field of investigation which makes the process of its analysis purely and squarely a subjective one thus eliminating all objective variables as proposed evidences as there may be no objectivity accept from a dualistic perception.

The second potential of pertinence is the possibility that matter is not only manipulated by thought but perhaps even manifested within this possibly realized interiority.

These two posits should set everyone nicely on their collective ear. All is now chaotically askew and askance as by looking at things in a purely subjective way as an interior domain should have potentially tossed your current paradigm or world view into turmoil and tragic antistructure. This is called "getting your attention".

Now that I have your attention, what do I intend to do with it? Well, I intend to propose the possibility of a new model of investigation for all things esoteric. And, if I am correct about Science having solved itself and nothing more, then what I have proposed is that in effect, EVERYTHING IS of an esoteric nature with no exceptions to that rule.

So let's say things are thoughts and thoughts are things. This interplay of existence would then go a long way toward explaining how the concepts of prayer, intentional thinking, visualization and the calming of the torrential seas of the rambling mind and its concepts being stilled by meditation practices focusing on the moment or nowness work. And work they do. There are enough evidences available for one's perusal to suggest and not necessarily qualify yet, that these practices do indeed have an impact on our reality.

So if you just bear with me here and entertain the idea that what I have said is wrote, then this, in no less terms, changes everything in a mind boggling fashion. I imagine some of you have stopped reading by now. That's OK. Nothing great that has ever transpired was ever done subtly or overnight and some great things never transpire at all. I would also like to tell you that I expect no one to accept this proposal and that you should still find things out for yourself which is actually the exact point of this article.

From this point forward, I am going to be writing as if this idea is reality as it just makes it easier for me to speak without constantly having to put in political correctness oriented disclaimers peppered liberally with "perhaps'", "maybes" and "per chances", which after a while become a distraction even unto myself which again, in turn, is annoying at best. I just want to say what I have to say and then get out of the Coffee Shop. A drive-by mooting if you will. Cool? Thought so. Heh heh.

I have now proposed that all of reality is one hundred percent subjective. That means everything you are witnessing in terms of people, buildings, planets, space, time, life, death, inert gases, atomic constructs of all made things are an internal affair moldable and malleable by you through perception, thought and intention. The New Model of Investigation therefore, would deal with not these mental contructs or machinations of psychological make up but the realization of the source behind them or of them.

The New Model would therefore contend with just this: The Who, What, When, Where and Why of I and the processes necessary or vehicles necessary to work as a progenitor toward realizing one's Self as source and witness of all things interior to one's self.

No longer would we be looking at the aspects and constructs of individual occurences and made things as those are purely not the proverbial "it". Science has done that and frankly I do not think it can go any further. It is all redundance and repetition at this point as far as I am concerned and since there is no point in reinventing the wheel, I say thank you Science and its been a real fun ride!

Once One is realized as source and witness thru a vehicle or technique of mind experimentation of choice, the answers all at once to Who, What, When, Where and Why I AM, are answered succinctly and simultaneously. By focusing our collective intention toward this end, the Great Mystery is abruptly alleviated and all that is left is awe and wonderment in the Grandeur that is One and all that transpires within it. Radical Awareness and Nondual Suchness are soon to follow as the Great Catastrophe of the self collapsing into Self becomes accutely obvious in this, the always and already ever-present moment of eternity.

The many truths of existence find their end and beginning in You. Breathing out, new truths are borned and thence, whereby breathing in, they are all undone.

You are merely presence and creation is Your folly. How could You ever Be any more or any less than....this?

Cheers,

~Erik~

A Plea to the Great Ones

redwoodjedi@hotmail.com (Erik) — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 15:29:00 +0000

As of late, there has been a lot of head banging going on. Unfortunately it is not because those partaking of it are enjoying Heavy Metal music. No, it is a cranium pounding of frustration and against a seemingly impenetrable wall of steel followed closely by another tell tale sign; the tossing up of the hands into the sky in abject acquiescence. Whom might be some of those in suffering? A few names for certain come to mind. Jeremy Vaeni of UFO Magazine and Paratopia, Jeff Ritzmann also of Paratopia, potentially Wes Owsley and Stacy Lowery of The Black Fridays, Colin Andrews of crop circle research notoriety, all the way up to the top with The Birnes', Bill and Nancy. These fine folks and many others I missed, are in the midst of a gruesome war. As important educators and facilitators of paranormal information of the utmost quality and timeliness, they are more and more finding themselves against a Juggernaut of Ignorance and just plain laziness.

With the advent of rising "stars" in the field full of themselves more than they are full of anything pertinent and relevant flourishing in a self made sea of mindless non-thinkers, it is becoming increasingly difficult for those that are doing the real work, the real gathering and the real critical thinking to make any headway by way of gaining the attention of those that would hear them and expand on the information themselves.

Popularity is the game du jour these days and with it the burden of relevance is seemingly lifted from those in the lime light and by the same token this popularity has also afforded these egotistical confabulators the ability of non factual embellishment apparently without too much worry for any kind of retaliation for their gross irresponsibility. It is an appalling mess. The paranormal in general and ufology in particular have become a Circus Act mockery of themselves and the clowns in the center ring honk their horns of prevarication while riding their high horses of self importance as they juggle facts and lies together in a fashion that would flummox the best of any government subsidized disinformation campaigns. Shame on them. Shame on them all and their day of justice is coming. Mark my words, you will be run out of town by the very mob you now call followers laden with pitchforks and machetes. Paranormal Ne'er-do-wells and Ufological Nogoodniks, take this as a warning. You wanted the spotlight and so now you've got it. But with that celebrity comes perhaps those that watch that you do not want watching. And we are. Closely and with scrutiny, we are documenting everything, giving you plenty of rope to hang yourselves. I personally will watch with glee while your eyes bulge and your feet flutter seeking the ground that is there no more until you gasp your last.

But that is only half the work. Now once you are gone, the rest of us have to clean up your mess. And such a giant albatross of a mess it is. A mountain of white elephants looms large over those that dare the daunting task of confronting it and scaling it. Nothing short of a monumental effort will conquer it. Educating the masses with relevancy and well wrought speculation is a daunting task at best.

But I ask you, the Great Ones who face this task, to not give up. Your information is relevant and hard fought. Your integrity and honesty makes it doubly so. It might not be seen now but it will be once everyone is tired of empty promises and false claims. The sea of the mindless will eventually come to find that their great sacred cow was nothing more than a blow up doll waiting for somebody to give it a hat pin enema.

It is going to get worse before it gets better. Desperation brings about a need for impromptu religious fervor and cult like devotion to these Paper Doll Iconoclasts of shallow content and swollen head. But when the Honeymoon is over and the Wedding Cake is gone, the sheep will come flocking back to reason....hopefully.

The masses as a whole are lazy. Listening to reason and applying critical thinking and coming up with ideas of their own is difficult and arduous. It requires work. People do not want to work. They want to be entertained not educated. When has this never not been so? But there are small numbers of the worthy amongst the woollen mindless. A select few that do do the work. That do apply reason and think for themselves. It is for this precious, scant few that you labor and teach. It is in this capacity that you serve selflessly. But it is also these precious few that appreciate you O Great Ones! Please do not forsake the few for rampant idiocy that threatens to overtake them by sheer number. Please look for them and tend to them. They are easily recognized by there signs of willingness to learn and grow, to not feel threatened when an idea trumps or adds to their own and most importantly, their words and actions are known before their faces are.

And so to you Charlatans, Snake Oil Merchants, Scheisters and Disinformation Agents, this is a calling out and you know all too well who you are with your look of incredulousness and faux innocence. You are easily identifiable with your double spoken rhetoric playing upon the hapless naivete of those that would listen, desperate for answers to their own experiences and observations. I will take you on and take you down. I will show the true cut of your cloth and the color of your paint as I am now in a position to be able to do just that. I am gunning for you and I will always find you in your most favorite of hidey holes, the shadows and crawl spaces that you so believe in your gullibility to be safe havens from the light that you so ironically seek. You have been warned.

And you, Great Ones! Keep fighting with vigilance and compassion! Rise above the chaos! See with clarity by refusing to mingle among the complacent and placatedly content. Stand tall and confident against the verbal darts and the celluloid hearsay. It is no easy task but you were chosen. You bear this cross. Bear it with humility and servitude. I will do my best to take it off of your shoulders for a while as I can as I'm sure others in recognition of your burden will be only too happy to help alleviate the suffering as well.

You, in this most desperate of times, are needed now more than ever.

Please.....don't give up.

Yours in Service,

~Erik~

The Paranormal: Believing the Reality You Have Created

redwoodjedi@hotmail.com (Erik) — Sun, 18 Apr 2010 17:51:00 +0000

The ideas of ghosts, saucers, aliens, poltergeists and sasquatch do not seem so strange when one looks from a vantage point of omnipresence. And you can witness from this vantage point and furthermore, you already are and always have. Realizing this removes the veil; a wispy shroud of forgetfulness that is so frail as to suggest the merest breeze could dispel it. Realization is the breeze that blows all notion of Other Than away.

Most go through life thinking that all around them is without them. This is inside out perception. Literally. All, and I mean ALL, is within YOU. All comes to you. All comes from you. You do not understand? Rest in that which does not understand and that is still it (thank you Ken Wilber). There is nothing YOU are not.

I am not suggesting that you take up a meditation practice to reveal your true nature. Unnecessary. Meditation is not going to reveal anything more to you than what you already are and always have been. This is not to say that meditation is a bad thing. It's just that when I mention meditating to most folks they take it as just another act of seeking. There is nothing to seek for you are already that which is, no matter how mysterious or how frightening or how vague. The looking around within for answers is no different than looking without. The act of looking is nothing more than an egoic trick of distraction in which the ego tries to prove its own existence as you. It fails miserably time and time again. You will know the ego by its easily identifiable earmarks. Those being separation, confusion, fear and anything of a covetous nature that believes you are without or lacking. This is the ego's game. The Grand Deception. It likes to have fun that way.

What I would suggest is that on any particularly nice day to you, that you go to your favorite quiet spot, indoors or out and just sit down there in a comfortable position. No need to burn a mile of Nag Champa incense or drag around a samadhi cushion. A park bench or a nice patch of soft, green grass or a sunny hillside affording a magnificent vista will do just fine. No need either for memorized mantras or prayers or rituals of any kind. More stroking of the ego. It likes to feel important. Just bring you and your breath.

Now just sit. Look around you. Listen intently. Do not let the mind attach to any of it. Just let the images roll by your awareness like your own movie inside the home theater of your mind's eye. Slowly and deeply breathe in the scenery. Take in the smell, the sounds, the colors and all of the subtle nuances of shade and shape. Breathe all of it in and sink it deeply into your pelvis. Exhale it back out and recreate the scene. As you do this, feel how it fills you, feel the emotions behind the beauty or the terrible. Feel the body's reaction to all of this intentional observation. Just note it and do not analyze it. We are just being aware. That is the reward. That is the journey. That is YOU.

If you find your mind wandering and not paying attention to your Self, just focus on listening again. Do you hear that distant bird; the one just slightly out of earshot? By focusing on listening to the subtle sounds, your attention will be brought squarely and succinctly back to the only measure of time there actually is. This moment. All transpires within it. All arises and falls within it. Trees, cars, apparitions, people, sounds, craft, lightness, darkness and you are this at once all of it as well as the emotions brought about by its conscious witnessing. Even boredom! Your gentle and nonjudgmental gaze falls upon all of it. Only the mind makes a critique of things. Awareness does not. Let the mind do as it will and do not listen to it. It will settle on its own accord once it finds you are no longer interested in what it has to offer for you are not your thoughts you see as you are beginning to gently find out. If you witness a flying saucer, anomalous lights or a strange beast, how imaginative and creative YOU ARE!

It is by this approach of gentle subtlety and kind embracing of my Self that I witness the paranormal for it is all paranormal. There is no Other Than. How could there be?

By bringing the light of awareness to shine on the phantoms of the subconscious, you may find that they no longer hold any mystery or specialness to you. The new mystery, very suddenly, is realized that you were able to manifest them within a manifested reality of your own making. You are the game and the pawn simultaneously. You are responsible for every single thing around you and in you.

Who am I? I AM!

What am I? THIS!

Where am I? HERE!

Once this is realized, you can go back to the game of grasping and reaching anytime you want. Knowing that you don't know affords you everything. Wanting to understand and wrap a thing up in logic is to loose it entirely like trying to hold a fistful of water. It continues on while you stay trapped in your confounded confusion yet your confusion didn't change the water in any way. Such is the nature of the paranormal. By trying to get a hold of it, you find that time and time again, it only runs through your fingers. Why? Because your fingers, just like the craft or ghost or yeti, are just as illusory. Now you are trying to capture water with air when all inside you is just malleable space, infinite and ever expanding. The silly putty for your mind.

You only get stuck once you believe that what you have created is real and by necessity, once you believe it is real you must believe it is separate and so again by its being separate it is now a thing to be feared. Existence only appears in that which is created. BEingness requires no such construct. YOU are prior to all creation. YOU are prior to life. Prior to death. Prior to time and prior to space (thank you again, Mr. Wilber). All of those things exist within you because of you. They are your children and they look to you the same way you look to Creation with the mind of a child. Only now, in this moment, all is borned of YOU as it always has been.

Look no further for you are here.

*Snap!* Wakey, wakey...

Cheers,

~Erik~

What Truth Beyond Awareness?

redwoodjedi@hotmail.com (Erik) — Sun, 18 Apr 2010 01:36:00 +0000

Analogous to the current curriculum of information gathering in the paranormal is the concept of beating one's head against the proverbial brick wall it seems. Year in and year out, the investigatively faithful pursue their craft by all means of traditional manner only to produce literary articulation yielding no gained ground. I'm not necessarily speaking of physical evidence either. What about emotional evidences? What about the more sanctimoniously pithy and philosophical evidences with their plethora of profundities and deep scope of impacting and sumptuous spiritual poignance?

An internal conundrum can almost never be resolved by any external source. It was witnessed within. It was felt within. It resonated within; proof positive that it was observed. To the Witness it was real as from the Witness the modifiable reality emanated. Are these not evidences of significance? You say, "Subjective". I say, "But of course!"

The trap of the thing or phenomenon is not in it's intimate and personal subjectivity which was obviously for you, by you and of you. No. The ensnarement is in its full confusion brought about by the ego's need for confirmation and affirmation and so thereby what was a subjective and full event is now broken because one is forced to speak objectively to a perceived other so as to convey, try as one might, the nuances and subtleties that are all but pithy fluff to the non experiencer of said event.

Pray tell what subtlety? What nuance? That in all probability the witnessed event was more a play of feelings, emotions and colorful wordless discriptors that ran unabated throughout your psyche while a paranormal event manifested in the observable without. That nuance. That subtlety. Translating that accurately and effectively to someone who did not observe and feel the thing themselves is a borderline act of futility perhaps.

I really think that paranormal events, as they are observed, are really meant for the experience of the observer and nothing else. I really think that the same said events are also curtailed intricately for the observer because the observer curtailed them. Intricately. Beautifully. Hideously. Wonderfully diabolical and pervasively all encompassing to the fullest extent of the emotional range.

If what I say here has any bearing at all, the implication, the understanding and the beautiful abstractness of it is far more meaningful than any event were it outside of oneself as a separate thing as clunky as that. To see it as an external causality cheapens the experience perhaps. So what? A craft whizzes all the way over from Betelgeuse 5 and parks on your front lawn. Once you "know" that the thing is from Betelgeuse 5 and that it flies and that it lands, wherein lies the mystery and awe in that? Now you as well can fly to Betelgeuse until the honeymoon is over and next its to the Horsehead Nebula for fleeting satisfaction where none shall be found like any other perceived destination. Hawaiians too, tire of azure seas to trade in for a while the opportunity for cooler climes and larger terrains.

We are about the journey. To understand a thing is to end a thing where there can be no end. Go ahead. Understand a thing. All goes on in your stead! Your belief is the perceived end. Your belief is molding the malleable. Such is existence.

The never ending machinations extending from one's mind are the unknowable. They are mysterious to the ego but not to one's Self. They are the Self. They are creative emanations of uninhibited splendor loosed by nothing more than the unwanton ability to consciously create. The rub of it, the mystery presented by it, is nothing more perhaps than the subconscious quandry-driven "Other Than" perception, I should think.

Do not know the thing. What's to know? You ARE THAT. Can you know your SELF? Do not name the thing. What is there to name? Can you name your SELF?

The very act of wanting to know a thing is the very act driving it from your realization. The unknowable will not be known. See a ghost? There YOU ARE! Observe a craft? My, how YOU fly!

If per chance we begin to look at emotions and feelings as another type of sight, perhaps then the stuff we have trapped into the confines of space and time will finally be set free in a broader spectrum of not only thoughtful effluence but emotional depth. Eros and Agape. The Observer and The Created embraced and intertwined in eternal copulative dance. The Mind and The Heart married always and already.

One sees and so therefore One feels...

I beseech nothing so as to bequeath it all.

Cheers,

~Erik~

Something Under My Bed Ate My Pants!

redwoodjedi@hotmail.com (Erik) — Sat, 17 Apr 2010 00:58:00 +0000

Growing up on the edge of the Mojave Desert was not without its ghastly perils in the fertile if not volatile imagination of a teen aged boy. Aside from all of the obvious elements of scary fauna involving sharp things and pointy stuff, there was another mysterious aspect that, to this day, still leaves me drooling and dumbstruck for lack of answers. I lost pants there. Twice!

Above and beyond the normal hazards of Laundry Day in our house that had a drier populated with the usual gremlins, frizzards and mugwumps that made regular culinary use of my socks and underwear, was this even more illusive something that ate my pants. It didn't live in our drier but as a 14 year old boy, I was prone to satisfy my mother's insistent curiosity by giving the obligatory once over of the inside of the malicious drier in question. And of course to satisfy my own hormonally imbalanced reasoning and assessment I was usually good for another four or five inspections in addition to my mother's mandatory "suggestive" number. The machine yielded no pants which was good because I did not recall ever putting them in there which is also good because my mother often accused me of the same but I digress.

My missing pants had a more mysterious and otherly dimensional aspect to it and much to my chagrin, their "missing in action" aspect didn't ever seem to involve a per chance meeting of Farrah Fawcett or Pat Benatar that I was sure both could hear my telepathic urges to their person to perhaps bade the carnal wishes of a teen aged boy. Ahem....some socks were needfully sacrificed to this fantasy but for purposes of keeping my mother's staunch Catholic sanity and my wishing to avoid telling the sordid tale to a priest in a small dark box with uncomfortable furniture, I felt it was safer to just placate my mother's suspicions with the inevitable stories of the nefarious cotton knit fabric cravings of the mugwumps in the drier. Thank God she never checked under my mattress although I had a damned good story prepared for that curious phenomenon as well that involved my brother.

The missing pants dilemma I have never satisfactorily solved and although you couldn't convince my mother that I was not lying about their unknown whereabouts, I found it even more disturbing about the circumstances of their mysterious loss. Let me explain.

I grew up within the park boundaries of Silverwood Lake State Recreation Area in Southern California in a unique transition zone where the San Bernardino Mountains seemed to be slowly devouring the Western foremost edge of the Mojave Desert. The closest towns and villages to me, as I lived in the Park Employee Residence Area called Cedar Circle, were Crestline, about ten miles Southwest of my house in the mountains and Hesperia about 18 miles East, which back in 1979 was essentially nothing more than blue hair living in a scant few mobile home parks peppered sporadically around a somewhat blondish-green colored nine hole golf course. For additional desert decoration and entertainment the retirees had a Stater Bros. Super Market, Post Office and a small airport which always struck me odd as I don't ever recall seeing any airplanes on it. This of course required acute observation skills of which my father was prone to repeatedly point out my severe lack of although I did make a small appeal to my father's approval by asking for some for Christmas one time. I was convinced I never got these skills because I would almost daily, obsessively look into the bathroom mirror and never once did I see anything cute.

So it was in this setting that I lost pants. Again, twice but not for the lack of trying for a good, solid thrice times. But fortunately for my backside, my fathers belt never had to beat a missing third pairs' explanation from it. I don't think he would have liked the answer anyway as that region of my anatomy had a tendency to relax muscularly in times of distress.

It was at this age between 13 and 15 that the missing pants phenomenon occurred. The residence area of Cedar Circle sat snugly nestled in a narrow valley approximately a quarter mile wide at the base in between two ridge lines known as Cleghorn Mountain to the East and Cajon Mountain to the West and they gently conjoined into a shallow sloping geological bowl about a mile to the North in an area known as Cleghorn Saddle. This area fascinated me to no end. I was called to it. Save for a small ranch outside the park boundaries in that area, there was nothing there really but Cottonwood Trees and yucca stalks with their tall tassels piercing and waving in the sage and mesquite scented Santa Ana Winds. I found myself on the weekends mounting epic expeditions of great adventure fortified with an old nap sack stocked with at least three days' provisions which consisted of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, a can of soda, a slingshot of my own devising and a mangy flannel shirt that I had refused to get rid of in spite of all the threats of double helpings of lima beans from my mother.

After having spent the better part of 8 months thoroughly exploring this region and all of its nooks and crannies and potential "secret places that were good for forts", I happened upon a curious place that was only ever there twice. It was on one particularly nice May Saturday, that after I had spent a good hour trudging up and down hill and dale avoiding rattle snakes and scorpions, that a shine from the distance caught my eye in the noonday sun. I was naturally curious and seeing as how I was not burdened with any kind of adult supervision, I ventured over to the shiny place against the imaginary adult's best wishes. As I got to within a hundred yards of the shiny place, it turned out to be the sun glinting off of the rusted metal of a corrugated steel roof over a crude clapboard shack or shed that was surrounded by about six other similar outbuildings. The buildings were separated by a narrow path that ran between two buildings of small stature on the East side and three or four buildings on the West side. There was room enough to drive a small vehicle in between the tiny shacks with about two foot on either side to spare were there ever people stupid enough to actually build a road through here but as it wwas, the potential for more stupidity was there as here it was, the shack houses in question before me.

This place struck me right away as odd because I had been up here several times and never once recalled ever seeing it. In my mind I called it a Ghost Town as that is what it looked like. Nobody was there. There was also a slight shimmer to it like when one sees a mirage on the distant horizon. Against my better judgment, my curiosity prodded me like a stick in the back and I walked over to the little run down village. Right away I found it very unsettling that there was no sound but the wind. No Ravens called out and no Scrub Jays spat out their high pitched squawk of disapproval. It was just me and the strangely shimmering shanties standing forlornly in the hot desert sun. I was about to walk into one of the shanties that had a ramshackle door lazily swaying in the breeze when a funny blue lighted orb about ten inches in diameter slowly sailed from behind one of the sheds on the East side of the path. I watched it in disbelief as it slowly meandered about four feet off the ground around each and every one of the shacks. As I was standing at the doorway of the furthermost Southern shack, the orb finished its odd patrol and was making its way toward my person. My person did not like that at all. I had this sudden urge to high tail it out of there when suddenly my forehead feels a sharp pain. I look up to see the bottom of my brother's top bunk bed just two inches from my nose from the vantage point of my own bed. I was asleep?!

I tell you in all earnestness that I had actually hiked to this strange little village. I had planned the hike to the area in question and told my mother my whereabouts should I not return for supper which of course no teenager has ever successfully threatened. The confusion was setting in pretty fast as I swung my legs out from under the light covers and I started the second half of the mystery. I was looking haphazardly for my pants which in this situation, were it normal, would have been thrown equally as haphazard on the floor beside my bunk in close proximity to the nosehair burning scent of my sneakers.

I found the sneakers but my trousers were nowhere to be found. I fished out a pair of shorts and put them on and began to go on the first of several frustratingly fruitless quests for my pants of which I was convinced were still somewhere in the house. I gave up after about a half hour of looking and rearranging furniture cushions. Plus my mother was getting annoyed and when she asked "what on Earth was I doing?", I was then at once obligated to tell her exactly what on Earth I was doing, although the longer I searched the more I was convinced that I did not know.

This is the first of two, almost identical scenarios that played out within two months of each other in the early summer of 1981. As notoriously fuzzy the fabled teen aged memory can be, I swear to you that these events happened. It was after the second time that I took a good friend with me to show him this mysterious little Ghost Town and for the life of me I could never find it again leaving my friend to think I was a Raving Loon, even though I was convinced that I was standing in the very spot where the little village once stood.

I never saw the Ghost Town again. Nor did I ever find my pants after either occasion but I will never forget the tiny shimmering buildings being guarded by the funny blue lighted orb that called it home.

~Erik~