A Second In Eternity by Gary L. Wimmer

Bob Peterson,

Today's blog entry is about Gary Wimmer's book "A Second In Eternity" which I finished reading last week. The subtitle is "The true story about a voyage beyond time and space and into the Infinite."

The whole book is about a particular set of events that happened back in 1977. It starts with Gary staying with a group of friends. His main problem is that he can't sleep. Then he notices that his psychic awareness is increasing: he's taking the words out of people's mouths. He knows who is on the telephone when it rings. He has many deja vu experiences. Soon things get wild: Over the course of several days, his psychic abilities increase beyond reason. He can tell what people are going to say, what they're wearing before he sees them. He becomes more and more aware of the interconnectedness of the entire universe.

Soon this psychic tsunami sweeps him into an ocean of awareness to the point where he can't function properly. He becomes aware of a group of spirit guides that visit him. He calls them "The Monitors". He knows when they're near, but he can't actually see them. In due course, he starts to trust their guidance.

To any sane person, it would seem like Gary had completely lost his mind: he's behaving strangely, doing crazy things, saying crazy things, even SEEing crazy things. At one point, to prove a point, he picks up a pan of boiling hot water and pours it over his own head, with absolute knowledge that he won't be harmed: he is protected by the forces that led him up to this point. And he's right: He isn't burned by the boiling water. But he his buddies are even more distressed about his sanity.

His level of awareness keeps increasing throughout the book. One day, while he's taking a walk, he is able to actually see "The Monitors". They ask him if he trusts them completely, and he says yes. Then they tell him to jump into the street in front of a oncoming car. He does! When the car hits him, he is propelled into his "Second in eternity." He has an amazing out-of-body journey where he experiences complete Union/Oneness with the Universal Mind: God. Instantly he sees and understands the complete mechanics of the Universe and everything in it. He perceives everything: all the people in the world, all the worlds in the solar system, all the solar systems in the galaxy, all the galaxies in the universe, all the universes and all the layers of reality within the eternal mind of God. He is one with it all.

Gary's experience reminded me of an OBE account I received by an acquaintence, Chris Hazlitt, many years ago. Chris's experience had moved me so much that I included it, in its entirety, in my second book, "Lessons Out of the Body", in chapter 16: "Chasing God". At the time, Chris had said he had a terrible problem after he returned to normal in-the-body consciousness: For a long time he had a hard time distinguishing himself from others. His sense of "Self" was blown so far out of the water that he referred to everyone as "I": He'd be in a meeting at work and say "I did X" when, in fact, someone else had done it. It took him weeks before he could think in terms of "me" and "you" again.

Getting back to Gary Wimmer's book: Eventually he comes back from his God-experience and is squeezed back into his tiny body, which strangely seems unharmed (except for a few scrapes and bruises) by the collision with the car. The driver's car has a lot of damage, however. Gary goes through a big ordeal that includes jail time and being committed to a psych hospital. But it was all worth that one second of total awareness.

What I liked most about this book is Gary's descriptions of his psychic awareness. He made a long series of crazy events sound perfectly logical and normal from his point of view. The book is very well written: You can see and understand both his line of thinking and at the same time understand why people would think he had gone mad.

I was particularly struck by a portion of the book where he wrote about being able to influence the minds of other people: putting thoughts into their heads, experimentally manipulating them. To the average reader, this might seem way over the top. I've said this many times, but I'll say it again: I wouldn't have believed his claim except for the fact that it actually happened to me. There was a point in my life, too, where it seemed like my psychic abilities went out of control. Like the author, I wondered just how important my thoughts were and whether I was really influencing people or just intimately knowing what would happen next. Or maybe my will was becoming in tune with the divine will of the Creator; I honestly didn't know.

This sounds so totally insane that I didn't even dare put it in any of my books, except for small snippets: Like Gary Wimmer, I found I could influence people psychically. It started out slowly: I began doing little things, like psychically telling slow drivers to speed up or take the exit ramp on the freeway.

I even demonstrated the ability to friends. I remember one day I was sitting in a restaurant with my friend Scott and a few others, and I was trying to explain how I had learned to manipulate people by planting ideas inside their heads. I could see in Scott's mischievous grin he wanted me to prove it. I looked around and saw a group of beautiful girls chatting outside the restaurant preparing to come inside. I said, "I want a better look at them. Watch this." I reached into their minds and planted the idea that they should sit at a particular table near us. They walked into the restaurant and sat down exactly where I wanted. I smiled at Scott. He said, "You did that, didn't you! You made them sit there!" And like Gary, I started to seriously question my sanity.

This became pervasive in my life. Then one day it even entered my dreams: I found myself manipulating a dream character in the same way. When I woke up, I knew it had gone too far and it had to stop. What kind of arrogant son-of-a-bitch was I, anyway, messing with people's minds? It was wrong.

I just couldn't handle it anymore. This was just too much along side the pressures of college and I found myself praying several nights for God to take this ability away. I also vowed to stop manipulating people psychically. My prayers were answered and it went away.

Many years have passed and now I question whether that was the right decision. Maybe if I had let it go on, maybe I would have had an experience like Gary or Chris. Maybe I would have jumped out in front of a car and been killed. Or maybe I would have lost my mind altogether; there's no telling.

Having seen through the veil myself, I believe Gary is telling the truth. His descriptions are just too realistic not to be. I enjoyed his book very much and I think you will too. Thumbs up!

2012 Nov 21