Ghost Cats

Ghost Cats

by Bob Peterson

In a way, my out-of-body experiences make me a good paranormal investigator, since I've already conquered my fears of the unknown, fears of spirits and so forth. I've come face to face with "ghosts" so many times in an OBE that there's not a lot that can frighten me anymore. Plus, in those OBEs, I am a ghost!

A few weekends ago, the Minnesota Paranormal Coalition (MPC), hosted a paranormal investigation of the Palmer House hotel in Sauk Centre, Minnesota, and I joined in. Several paranormal teams from the MPC were there, but the investigation was led by a team called F.R.E.A.K.S (Friends Researching Entities And Known Spirits) and their team leader, Char.

I must admit I was apprehensive: I hadn't done a ghost investigation since around 1984, when I was president of the MSPR (Minnesota Society for Parapsychological Research). Back then, we did many ghost investigations (that's primarily what we did) but I got out of it after I graduated from the University of Minnesota. Since that time, the technology has advanced greatly. Now I'm a member of a team called Nightweb Paranormal Investigations, led by my friend Mikail Bumpus.

The subject of the investigation, the Palmer House, is a very old hotel, and reputedly very haunted. People see ghosts there all the time. It's even been the subject of popular television show "Ghost Adventures". I heard dozens of ghost stories about the place: There's room 22, which is very noisy, even when unoccupied (and the television turns itself on). There's the ghost of a little boy who sits on the stairs and sometimes rolls a ball. There's the ghost of a German fellow and lots of other ghosts in the basement. There's Annie, an affectionate old woman who haunts room 11. Lots of ghosts.

I think most people would agree: It's one thing to hear ghost stories, and it's another to experience it yourself. I only want to talk about what I personally experienced myself. Seeing is believing, so I know my camera's photos were not faked. I know my audio recorder was not altered. Besides, I haven't heard from the other teams yet.

There were a lot of investigators. That makes it difficult because there's too much talking and background noise to get solid evidence over all the noise. We split up into small groups, each of which walked around the place with cameras, audio recorders, video recorders, K-2s, and other gadgets, trying to make contact.


And what did I find? Ghost cats. I'm still waiting to hear what other investigators got, I got evidence of ghost cats.
The first ghost cat I noticed was on an ordinary photo from my Sony Alpha 1 digital camera of the hotel lobby sitting area. I took this photo myself and it's not been altered. At first glance, it looks like a normal photo, right?

Look closer. This is a 24-megapixel camera, so focus on the blue chair sitting on the very back wall, next to the sofa. Next to the curved railing, it looks like a ghost cat is sitting in the chair. Zoomed in, it looks like this:

I used a photo processing program called "gimp" to adjust the brightness and contrast (and nothing else), and it becomes a bit easier to see:

Incidentally, the photo I took before this one also shows some possible paranormal activity: It looks like the ghost of a little girl standing next to that same chair. But that's another story.

Later that night I joined a group of investigators in room 11, "Annie's Room." As standard operating procedure, I had my audio recorder going. At one point in the recording, there is a very clear "meow" and 17 seconds later, another very clear "meow." You can listen to the excerpt here:

http://www.robertpeterson.org/meows.mp3

I have a strong allergic reaction to cat dander, so I'm always on the lookout for cats. I guarantee you: there were absolutely no cats in any of the rooms while I was there, and I did not have a reaction. So whatever made these "meow" sounds was either a ghost cat, or one of the investigators (or their recordings.)

I contacted one of the investigators who was in the room with me, a guy named Jerry from SIM (Supernatural Investigators of Minnesota). I sent him a facebook message:

Bob: "Hey Jerry, remember Palmer House when you were doing the Ganzfeld experiment? I've been going over my audio recording and seem to have caught EVPs of two cat meows. You recorded that on video, right?"

Jerry: "Yes I did - plus I had a cat walking on my bed and video taped that too!"

Bob: "Wait. A physical cat? Or a nonphysical one? I don't remember any physical cat there."

Jerry: "A Ghost Cat!"

So now I'm anxiously waiting for the other evidence to pour in, including Jerry's video recording.

One nice thing about a ghost cat: It's clear to hear over the noise and talking of other investigators.

Note that we haven't examined all the evidence we gathered, so these are only preliminary findings.

2013 Aug 29

Adventures in the Afterlife by William Buhlman

Adventures in the Afterlife by William Buhlman

book review by Bob Peterson

I have to apologize for the length of this article, but I need to explain a few things so you don't get the wrong idea.

First of all, let me say that I love everything about William Buhlman. I remember many years ago when I got my copy of his first book, Adventures Beyond the Body. My wife Kathy and I were staying at a lodge in the woods of northern Minnesota, one of the perks of her job at the time. I had just bought Adventures and took it on the trip. Kathy wanted to go out boating and hiking, but all I wanted to do is read. And so we sat on the balcony overlooking the pristine lake and read our respective books side by side. I always prefer nonfiction, especially books on OBEs and consciousness, whereas Kathy prefers fiction, especially Stephen King.

I distinctly remember turning to her on several occasions and breaking the silence, saying, "I love this guy! Listen to this, Kathy..." and then I'd read another passage to her. I also told her, "If this book had been written a couple years earlier, I might not have written my book. He says a lot of the same things I said in my book, and a bunch of things I should have said!" (That was before I wrote my other three books).

A couple years later, I had the pleasure of meeting Buhlman on a trip to Colorado where he was doing a joint OBE seminar with Albert Taylor and Patricia Leva. They invited me along as an unannounced special guest speaker, and I was thrilled. I was surprised to find that Buhlman (who insisted we call him Bill) and I were a lot alike. It wasn't just the OBE thing. We had a very similar attitude toward life, politics, religion, spirituality and everything else. There was an instant bond there.

Not long after, Bill asked me to read his book The Secret of the Soul before it was released, and I even wrote an endorsement for the back cover.

So I was really looking forward to reading Bill's latest book, Adventures in the Afterlife. Unfortunately, Kathy and I were in the middle of some expensive projects (for example, painting our house) so I didn't want to spend the money to buy it. I figured I'd wait patiently a couple months when money wasn't as tight. Then, out of the blue and unsolicited, Bill sent me a copy of his book in the mail. It's funny how the Universe always conspires to make certain things happen, regardless of the circumstances.

Then I quickly discovered that most of Adventures in the Afterlife is fiction. Do you remember my first paragraph where I said I always prefer nonfiction? Well, this book isn't just fiction, it's visionary fiction.

Now I have to explain my feelings about visionary fiction. I've always preferred nonfiction, but when I read my first visionary fiction book, Illusions by Richard Bach, I loved it. I absolutely loved it, and I was hungry to read more like it. I read Jonathan Livingston Seagull, and it was okay, but I was already starting to lose faith in the genre. I read more: 2150AD by Thea Alexander, which was just alright. Then God on a Harley by Joan Brady. Blah. Then I read The Celestine Prophecy by James Redfield and it felt more like a sales pitch than a work of fiction. I tried several others, but finally gave up: I became completely disillusioned with the entire genre of visionary fiction.

The problem with visionary fiction in general is that it never seems to have a captivating story line, a plot or conflict like "real" fiction. Even the characters seem flat and two-dimensional. Visionary fiction always seems to be a long boring series of statements like: "The master took me here, showed me X, and told me Y, and I learned Z, an important spiritual lesson." At the same time, you can't trust what it's saying: the fact that it's fiction means that it's not true; it's made up. So who cares what happens in the book? Even if it's based on real events, it's not true! In other words, the fiction spoils the lesson, and the lesson spoils the fiction. It's like baking brownies with garlic: I love brownies and I love garlic, but if you combine the two, the two flavors spoil each other: yuck!

Disillusioned, I told myself, There's got to be a better way! There's got to be a way to weave a set of spiritual lessons around an interesting, engaging, captivating plot! And so I took it upon myself to tackle the impossible: to defy the stereotype of visionary fiction. I wrote a novel called The Gospel According to Mike, and my goal was to tell a compelling story, and still be visionary fiction. I worked for years on that novel, weaving an intricate plot with interesting characters embroiled in conflict. But guess what? I failed too. In the end, my novel turned out to be not very "visionary" at all. I focused too much on the plot and made it too much like a "real" novel and didn't spend enough time on the spiritual messages. Sigh. Oh well. I gave it a good try though.

That should give you a pretty good idea about my feelings about visionary fiction: It frustrates the hell out of me. Needless to say, I started out extremely apprehensive about Adventures in the Afterlife, but I dove in and started reading it anyway, because hey: it's William Buhlman! I was pleasantly surprised.

In March 2011, Buhlman, was diagnosed with stage-four cancer of the tonsil and lymph nodes. It threw his life into turmoil and he faced the possibility that he might die. The main character of this book, Frank Brooks, is also diagnosed with stage-four cancer, and that's how the book begins: on a very real and sobering note.

The book reads like the diary of the main character, Frank, as he slowly deteriorates from cancer. This part of the book was very engaging; I was shaken, reading this heart-wrenching story. The cancer eventually takes his life and he begins his adventures in the afterlife.

After a long stay in what he thought was "heaven," Frank eventually gets fed-up and decides to explore outside the comfortable boundaries of his after-death society. This leads him to meet his spiritual guide, Remi. Remi takes him from place to place and teaches Frank all about how we humans keep returning to Earth, feeding our addictions and ego, and get trapped inside the illusion of the Earth plane.

The book's descriptions of nonphysical environments are very good; they perfectly match my experiences. But to be perfectly honest, it felt a little flat as fiction goes. As I said, that could just be me: I have a hard time with visionary fiction.

Then, surprisingly, two thirds into the book, the fiction ended and I got to "part 2" which is nonfiction. This is where I perked up and I started really enjoying the book. He hit the ground running, talking about our life-lessons and how we plan our lives. Once again, this perfectly matched my beliefs. For example, here's a quote I like:

As your awareness grows, lessons take on a deeper significance. You begin to witness the beauty of the universe. The synchronicity of spirit gives everything in life a new meaning and purpose. You feel a reverence for all things because you know that the characters around you are important vehicles for learning expressions of unconditional love. You take a deep breath and try to comprehend it all. The awesome intelligence behind this magnificent creation is amazing to behold--you realize that all are evolving through the use of form. (p. 175)

Very well put.

Chapter 7 of part 2 contains what Bill calls his "personal reality principles" and I really enjoyed them. I think mankind would make a lot faster spiritual progress if we all repeated these 33 important messages to ourselves, rather than our usual inner dialog of typical negativity.

The book was well written, with good grammar and spelling (with the usual number of typos). It's also well organized. Each lessons leads to the next, in a logical progression.

The visionary fiction part was off-putting to me, but despite my own biases, I liked the book.

This book is not about out-of-body experiences. If that's what you're looking for, read Buhlman's first book, Adventures Beyond the Body, instead. This book is about life after death, and our purpose for being here, and where we go from here. And really, those are some of the most important things we can learn from OBEs.

2013 Aug 8

Controlling Your Reality in an OBE

by Bob Peterson

Recently, Jess Golden posted a very good question in the Astral Projectors facebook group. She asked:

It is said that the astral realm is controlled by thought processes. I believe that. However I am having troubles. I did a test where I commanded (while I was in the astral) that a series of numbers appear. I said it loud and with conviction. However NOTHING happened!!!!!

What gives?!?!

Later on, she sent me a private message that said, in part:

I don't even know if I could manifest Green Eggs & Ham in the astral!

LOL. Okay, here's my take.

First I have to make clear: I've always maintained that there is a difference between out-of-body experiences and lucid dreams (many authors do not). And unless you've seen the difference, it's hard to tell them apart. In both experiences, you're awake, aware, lucid and out of your body. So what's the difference?

In a lucid dream, you're basically hallucinating (because that's what a dream is), and you're in complete control of your hallucination. So it's easy to create a series of numbers or green eggs and ham or whatever you want. You're probably floating above your physical body, but you're dream hallucination is still going on in front of your eyes.

In an OBE, you aren't hallucinating, so you have much less control over your environment. That's not to say that you're seeing our physical world, or even an echo of it (which some people believe). It does, however, seem to be some kind of objective reality.

Yes, many authors claim you can manipulate astral reality with a thought. I wonder if maybe some of these authors got that idea because they were experiencing lucid dreams rather than OBEs. That's best left for another article.

(By the way, you can transition from a lucid dream to an OBE by dispelling the illusion / hallucination of the dream. When you do, you will see the hallucination dissolve, and you will "wake up" in the out-of-body state.)


I wrote in my first book about how I struggled with these kinds of problems--trying to use thought power--all the time when I was first starting out. I'd try to get to a friend's house, and I'd follow the advice of all the books, and even try my own things. I'd visualize my friend. No movement. I'd think about them. No movement. I'd say their name. No movement. I'd voice my desire. No movement. I'd demand to get there. No movement. Sometimes I'd even try to fly and end up falling on my face in the middle of the street. The books said it was easy: Just think about the person or a place and *poof* you'll be transported there. Wrong. For me it was not that easy.

I often get asked if I've gotten better at out-of-body transportation since that time, and the answer is: a resounding yes. I was like a baby who wants to walk, but whose legs were too weak to do it. I needed practice, patience and I needed to exercise my astral muscles. Like a baby, I learned slowly by doing it, trial and error.

So how do you travel to a person? It's kind of hard to explain. It has a lot to do with intent, exerting your will, and focusing your consciousness. It's almost as if you think of that person, at their remote location, then you place your intent there, then you follow your line of intent to where you put it by exerting your will. I know that sounds cryptic, but like I said, it's hard to explain.

As for commanding things to appear: The fact that you're having trouble doing it is proof enough for me that you're having a genuine OBE and not a lucid dream. If it was a lucid dream, you would be able to easily change it by an act of sheer will.

I remember one lucid dream I had in which I found myself in a (hallucinated dream) hospital. I was walking down the halls, but I decided I wanted to fly. So I started flying down the hall, no problem. I was about to hit a wall, but with an act of will, I commanded the walls of the hospital to open up into a tunnel, then I flew down the tunnel. It was great fun, but eventually I got bored and dispelled the hallucination. After the dream dissolved, I found myself in an OBE state, comfortably floating above my body.

Now let's briefly talk about limiting beliefs. Limiting beliefs can and will tie you down and prevent you from accomplishing your goals. In my opinion, this is true not only of the astral world, but the physical world as well. If you think, "I'll never be good at math" then you won't. If you think, "I'll never be rich" then you won't. The concept of "thinking outside the box" is important to your experiences in life, and I do mean that literally.

Likewise, in an OBE if you think, "This is nonsense; I can't fly" then guess what? You won't be able to fly in your OBE. Sometimes you have to combat your own self-doubt to get something to happen. Often all it takes is a suspension of disbelief and self-doubt.

Sometimes all you need is a crutch. One perfect crutch I've found is the invisible helpers. Don't be afraid to ask aloud, "Can I get some help here? I want to do X." Often an invisible helper will accommodate you and give you a helping hand. Sometimes that's quite literally. For example, there have been times when I've asked them to help me fly, and felt their warm hands gently grabbing my wrists and helping me lift off.

Once you prove it to yourself--with their help--that you can do something (like flying), the limiting belief is no longer an issue. Sometimes you just need to get out of your own way.

As for manifesting astral things, like green eggs and ham, I'd like to give you a word of warning. It has to do with something I wrote about in my first book, which I called "The fantasy trap." The problem is this: If you try to use your imagination to create an object, it can easily lead you to focus your attention on your imagination. Focusing your attention on your imagination can easily lead you back into another dream hallucination, which in turn, can suck your awareness into the dream state. Pretty soon, you can find yourself dreaming, and it's often not a lucid dream.

So my best advice is to set goals for your OBEs, try to stick to your agenda, try not to get distracted, and don't use your imagination for things like this, because you'll just spoil the OBE when you could be out there exploring.

2013 Jul 30

Book Review: Astral Travel & Aura Viewing

Book Review: Astral Travel & Aura Viewing

by Yvette LaBlanc

Review by Bob Peterson

Don't judge a book by its cover. Here's why: Yvette LaBlanc's 165 page book Astral Travel & Aura Viewing has a really blah cover, and a blah title, but it's really not bad at all. Like all OBE books, there's good and bad.

What I liked most about this book is its no-nonsense approach. There's almost nothing extraneous. It's all practical. She doesn't waste time or words. She spends almost no time telling stories or touting theories; it's all good information.

The book is divided into four parts.

In part one, she gives OBE definitions and preparation. It's all practical and good information.

Part two, the next 82 pages, is a concise but detailed set of different OBE techniques. It's almost like a recipe book. Very few books in the genre devote that much space to techniques, and I applaud her for that. She details many techniques; lots of things to try.

Some of her techniques were surprisingly new to me (although I doubt many would work on a stubborn mind like mine). I've read almost every book on OBE and studied every OBE technique under the sun, but LeBlanc has some unique new ideas.

My favorite example relates to how breath is used. A few rare OBE books talk about the importance of breath control in regard to OBEs (author Robert Crookall devoted an entire book to the subject), but the subject is largely ignored by the vast majority. But in one of LeBlanc's techniques, she recommends slowing down your breath, then pausing a second or two after you exhale. During this exhale pause, you try to separate your astral from your physical body, and she says sometimes it works. Most people would be deathly afraid that their body would stop breathing.

Many OBE beginners are very much alarmed when they get close to the jumping-off point and lose their awareness of their body's breathing. They think "Oh my God, my body's stopped breathing!" and abort the experience, even though it's really still breathing, but they've just lost awareness of it. Rookie mistake. LeBlanc deliberately tries to use that pause after you exhale to initiate an OBE. Of course, in order for this to work, you have to just blindly trust that your body's autonomic nervous system will take over and continue breathing while you're out-of-body. An interesting concept, and definitely worth trying. Note that you don't want to force your breath to be unnaturally slow; it needs to be a natural progression to slow breathing. It's interesting to note that my breath is naturally very slow to begin with.

Part three of the book is what I didn't like. It's all narratives of the author's OBEs, and in my opinion, they are sorely lacking. Her narratives are way too short and nondescript. Books like Robert Monroe's Journeys Out of the Body, Fred Aardema's Explorations in Consciousness and Jurgen Ziewe's book Multidimensional Man are chock full of amazingly vivid descriptions of astral worlds, breathtaking vistas, and eye-opening adventures. They draw you into the scene and you can feel the excitement of standing in a strange new world. By comparison, most of LeBlanc's narratives are as "blah" as her cover. For example, here's one of her narratives:

I projected to a crystal and moved all around it. I was tiny; it was gigantic. The experience was life altering.

That's it. That's the whole experience. She doesn't say why this particular OBE was life altering. She doesn't describe what she felt or what she saw, the colors or the enormity. She doesn't set the scene or paint the picture. Why was it life altering? The reader is left to wonder.

Most of her OBE accounts are like that: very short and uninspiring. It's almost enough to make me wonder if LeBlanc is the "real deal." You can just tell authors like Monroe, Aardema, Ziewe and many others have genuinely "been there" because of the way they describe the experience. I don't get that warm fuzzy feeling with this book's narratives. Regardless, I still say the book is good, and worth buying for the technique section alone.

Earlier I said that there's nothing extraneous in the book, but some would argue the point because of part four. Part four is about aura viewing. If you're into auras, this is also good, practical information. It has little to do with OBE (even though she makes a good effort at tying the two together), but it's still good information about auras, and it's short enough to not be annoying. The book's title includes "& Aura Viewing" so I can't fault her for including this information. If the book was just called "Astral Travel" I'd complain about extraneous information about aura viewing. But I bought a book on "astral travel AND aura viewing" so part four is definitely fair game. I can't fault her. I'd have a problem if the aura viewing section outweighed the astral travel sections, but it didn't. It was a good size, and good information.

Ms. LeBlanc needs some help with her OBE narratives, but don't let that discourage you from buying her book. I had low expectations, but was actually impressed with it. I liked her no-nonsense, lay-it-on-the-line approach to OBE. Her techniques were solid and her information was good. She doesn't beat around the bush or make you wait for the good stuff. She dives right in and tells you how to approach the OBE. There are better OBE books out there, but I still give it a thumbs up.

2013 July 11

Stairway to Heaven

Stairway to Heaven

by Bob Peterson

Message number one from the Universe:

A few days ago I heard the classical Led Zeppelin anthem Stairway to Heaven on the radio. And it makes me wonder: Is it about out-of-body experiences? After all, climbing a stairway to heaven wouldn't be much different from the famous rope technique; climbing a rope or a ladder. There's even a ladder pictured on the Astral Projectors group page on facebook. Why not stairs?

Message number two from the Universe:

When I got home I kept thinking about the song. I felt inspired to research an article on how the song might be related to out-of-body experiences. After all, it's well known that Jimmy Page was into new-age stuff. I googled the meaning of Stairway to Heaven, and according to one site:

The lyrics came to Robert Plant in a flash of inspiration when he and Jimmy Page were sitting by the fireplace at Headley Grange with Page strumming the intro chords. Said Plant: "I was holding a pencil and paper, and for some reason I was in a very bad mood. Then all of a sudden my hand was writing out the words, 'There's a lady who's sure all that glitters is gold/And she's buying a stairway to heaven.' I just sat there and looked at the words and then I almost leapt out of my seat."

So clearly this was a case of automatic writing, which is typically viewed as spirit communication. In other words, it sounded like someone from the spirit world reached across the veil to give Robert Plant (and the world) some messages, albeit cryptic ones.

I took a look at the lyrics and I started to believe there wasn't enough material there for a decent article. It seemed like a stretch.

Message number three from the Universe:

Then, early this morning, a new-age radio talk show host, John DeSalvo, not only posted a youtube video of Stairway to Heaven, he also quoted some of the lyrics on facebook. Hm, I wondered, is the Universe trying to tell me something? Getting the same message twice is nothing, and can easily be ignored. Getting it three times is what I call "a coincidence" and I'm well practised in brushing those off too. So no big deal, right?

Message number four from the Universe:

After checking facebook this morning, I turned my attention to other things. First, I fired up my computer's music player in shuffle play mode. There are 6490 songs to choose from--enough to play nonstop for more than 23 consecutive days--but it somehow managed to "randomly" play Stairway to Heaven as its first song!

Hm. Now I knew something was up. When you get the same message from the universe four different ways, you should definitely pay attention. I took another look at those lyrics:

"And it's whispered that soon, if we all call the tune,
Then the piper will lead us to reason."

I kept getting this song from multiple sources, and I'm not alone: John DeSalvo got it too. Maybe a spirit, reaching across the barrier of death, is trying to "lead us to reason", by making us "call the tune." So for the sake of argument, we should call him (or her) "the piper".

What does this song have to do with out-of-body experience, you ask?

"There's a feeling I get when I look to the West and my spirit is crying for leaving."

I mentioned in my first book, Out of Body Experiences, that I've had my best luck inducing OBEs when my head was pointing to the west. And yes, my spirit is crying for leaving: leaving the body!

"In my thoughts I have seen rings of smoke through the trees, And the voices of those who stand looking."

To me, that sounds an awful lot like hypnagogic imagery, a precursor to OBE. It's very common to see things and hear voices when you get to that stage.

 "And a new day will dawn for those who stand long"

Translation: if you're persistent and keep at it, OBE can change your life and your way of thinking.

"Sometimes all of our thoughts are misgiven."

Translation: While inducing an OBE, you need to focus. Stray thoughts will interfere and kill your attempt. Stray thoughts lead to other stray thoughts, and pretty soon you're no longer in the right frame of mind.

"Your head is humming and it won't go."

That sounds a lot like the vibrations, doesn't it? It often feels like your head, and sometimes your whole body, is humming.

"In case you don't know: the piper's calling you to join him."

If "the piper" is a spirit with a message, perhaps he is "calling you to join him" in the spirit world. How can that happen? Only in an out-of-body experience.

"And as we wind on down the road, Our shadows taller than our soul."

That reminds me of how our fears can outweigh our ability to leave the body. It's only after conquering our fears that we can start to leave the body.

"Dear lady, can you hear the wind blow, and did you know
Your stairway lies on the whispering wind?"

In other words, the stairway to heaven is not a real stairway, but a stairway in your imagination. It's very common to use intense visualization to achieve OBE.

"And if you listen very hard, The tune will come to you at last."

The act of "listening very hard" is a trick I mentioned in my article "OBE Class Notes". Pretend there is a sound that's about to be played, and just listen for it. It's a trick to "quiesce" or silence your mind.

"To be a rock and not to roll."

Perhaps this is a reference to the stillness required to achieve OBE?

Well, maybe I'm reading too much into the song. 'Cause you know sometimes words have two meanings. But remember the song Kashmir? "I am a traveler of both time and space to be where I have been." Perhaps that was another hint.

Maybe the song is nothing more than poetry. Still, being reminded of OBE is never a bad thing. It can plant the idea of OBEs into your subconscious. Or should I say "Plant" with a capital P?

2013 July 5

Wishmaster

Wishmaster

by Bob Peterson

Something strange happened to me today. I was sitting on my computer, working at my day job as usual, when all of a sudden, a wild hawk flew down from the sky and landed outside the window. There are seven windows in the office, but the hawk chose the one next to me. There is 52 feet of fence, but the hawk chose to sit closest to me. In fact, the hawk was only ten feet away from me, and it just stood there and looked me in the eye.

I admired its beauty and tried not to move, so I didn't spook it. It turned and cocked its head a bit. I thought, That's odd; I wonder what it's doing. Then it occurred to me: it was listening to my music. The windows were closed, but I had the music kinda cranked, so you could still vaguely hear it outside.

Some days, when I'm working on something simple, I listen to music while I work. In this particular case, I was listening to the song Wishmaster by the band Nightwish. I've mentioned in other posts that I have a strange taste in music; here's another good example. Nightwish is halfway between opera and heavy metal, and the song Wishmaster is the first one I heard of the entire genre. I liked the song so much, I bought the CD. Then I bought all of Nightwish's CDs. Then I bought dozens of CDs from just about every band in the same genre of female-fronted metal: Epica, Within Temptation, Amberian Dawn, Coronatus, Warlock, Dark Moor, Stream of Passion, Edenbridge, Evanescence, Holyhell, Hydrogyn, Leaves' Eyes, Delain, Lyriel, Lunatica, Visions of Atlantis, Xandria, Amaranthe, you name it.

Now I'm not trying to extol the virtues of female-fronted metal; everyone has their own taste in music. In fact, there's a lot of negativity in that style music, and I don't want to spread that negativity. But there was just something about that one song--Wishmaster--that embodies how I like to think of myself.

The song itself is difficult to understand; I think the lead singer, Tarja, sang the song before she learned to speak English. :) It's about Lord-of-the-Rings style fantasy, and talks about Elves and such. That's not really important; I just like the music and the refrain. The refrain goes like this:

Master!
Apprentice!
Heartborne, 7th Seeker
Warrior!
Disciple!
In me the Wishmaster.

We're all masters, teaching one another. We're all apprentices, learning from one another. I like to think of myself as Heartborne: carried onward by my heart. I think to think of myself as a seeker. Having studied Tai Chi, Chi Kung, and the writings of Carlos Castaneda, Dan Millman, Ken Eaglefeather and others, I also consider myself somewhat of a warrior. I've studied the religions of the world, so I consider myself a disciple. And yes, even a wishmaster; one of the chapters in my latest book, Answers Within is about manifesting, so the title seems fitting.

As the hawk flew away, my inner voice said that the hawk came to remind me of who I am, which was all those things.

I'm here to remind you: you are all those things too.

Click here to listen to the song Wishmaster

26 Jun 2013

Review: Avenues of the Human Spirit by Graham Nicholls

Review: Avenues of the Human Spirit

by Graham Nicholls

Book review by Bob Peterson

Sunday night I finished reading Avenues of the Human Spirit by Graham Nicholls and here's my review.

A few months ago, I discovered and read the book Navigating the Out of Body Experience by Graham Nicholls, and I enjoyed it very much. Later, I discovered it was actually his second book, and that he had written an earlier book called Avenues of the Human Spirit. Naturally, I had to get it.

Avenues is not about out-of-body experiences, so if that's what you're looking for, get his second book instead. This book is about the author's personal journey to discovery. It's about spirituality, and where his OBEs have led him. It's about his rejecting the distractions, the violence, and the "noise" that fills so many people's lives, to discover the spiritual, the sacred, the silence.

This book really resonated with me. The reason is: My path was very similar and I did a very parallel thing. Like Nicholls, I too started out with OBEs, and they led me on a journey of learning, spirituality, and discovery. I chose to write my OBE book first, and my "journey of spirituality" book, Lessons Out of the Body second, whereas Nicholls did it in the opposite order, writing Avenues of the Human Spirit first.

The book starts out with an ordinary kid, growing up in inner-city London. (I grew up in inner city Minneapols). He had a few decidedly paranormal experiences as a child (do did I). He gets mixed up in decidedly worldly problems and distractions (so did I). Then he discovers OBE, and it turns his life around. Suddenly he starts to see the importance of spirituality. He begins to read books and engage spiritual teachers. He starts to reject the social norms of his parents and community; embracing things like meditation, OBEs and vegetarianism.

In some ways, Nicholls reminded me of the young Parmhansa Yoganada, the famous author of Autobiography of a Yogi, who eschewed the ways of his parents and kept running away from home at an early age to find God and pursue a spiritual life.

There's another way Nicholls and I are alike: although he had friends along the way, much of his spiritual discovery was done alone. He didn't inherit his spirituality from other spiritual or psychic traditions. He didn't study under a spiritual master. He took guidance from a few sources, like Herbie Brennan, but it wasn't the focus of the book. Much of his spiritual path was carved out of the forest by his own hand (and sometimes in a literal forest).

I liked his prose. The book was well-written, insightful, and mature. A better word might be "deep". I like "deep." It was chock full of notable quotes. So many quotes that I could scarcely choose. Here's one:

When we reclaim our awareness and walk the streets and byways with open eyes we shift ourselves into a new way of being. There is no technique to spiritual transformation, there is only a revolution within the life we lead, a tangible move towards liberation. There is a choice to remove the unnecessary, the stuff we have learnt to depend upon, and to embrace the things that awaken something deeper in your life.

That, in a nutshell, is part of why I loved this book: Nicholls's never-ending quest for something deeper in life. Here's another notable quote:

It is not through a philosophical change that spirituality truly grows, it is through direct contact with something greater than we could imagine before.

There is the value of direct spiritual experience; not being content with reading someone else's philosophy or going to someone else's church; not being a follower, but finding your own path.

Part of the charm of this book is the references to travel. Like Nicholls, I've been on many trips (physically as well as astrally!). In fact, I've got many travelogues and photos on my website. And his book captures the charm of travel, within a spiritual context. Here's another quote:

Travelling holds the key to renewal and inspiration; the new and the unknown open our perceptions, challenge and mould us into new forms.

I also like his attitude towards knowledge and ignorance:

In my own attempt to outline a spiritual philosophy I have held in the forefront of my mind the belief that these ideas will grow and evolve over time. I also remember the humility of not knowing. When we approach any knowledge I believe it is extremely important to have the humility to say you don't know. There are many ideas about spiritual and psychical reality but the best position is to be aware that we might not be correct in our perception of reality. In fact we should be aware that it is actually highly likely that we are wrong.

Very well put! Or as the Styx song "Borrowed Time" puts it, "The more I learn, well, the less that I know." We all start out young and innocent. When we find "The Truth" it's tempting to think that you've got all the answers.  And it's tempting to want to teach others. But the deeper you probe, the more you discover your own ignorance. Eventually you reach a point where you want to throw up your hands and think, "It's useless for me to teach anyone anything, because the truth is so far beyond me, it's impossible to comprehend." Later, you come to the realization that you've been travelling along the same road as millions before you, and you've just been reading the signposts. Later still, you see the value of sharing what the signs say to others, with the full knowledge that the story will change. The signpost you read ten years ago will be made obsolete by another, and another, and another. And yes, it makes you humble to realize your own ignorance.

It boils down to what the Tao Te Ching says: "Those who know do not teach. Those who teach do not know." And "The Way that can be taught is not the Way." Still, there is value is shining a light to illuminate your path for others to see, even if you know it will be useless to both you and them in ten years.

Do I agree with everything the author says in this book? No, of course not, but that's not the point. The point is to see beyond the entrapments of this physical world and reach for something deeper.

Avenues of the Human Spirit is a very good book, and I recommend it. If you're expecting it to be an OBE book, it is not. But I can say the same thing for my own book, Lessons Out of the Body. In both books, the OBE may be a catalyst, and can provide lessons, but both books are collections of personal spiritual tales. They put an emphasis not on OBE, but on the spirituality and where the OBE can lead us. It's not about the experience, but the journey along the way.

2013 June 11