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| The Lovers, Gemini |
Last weekend, I drove
with my wife through Los Angeles on our way to San Diego. At two in
the afternoon, we were inching along on a freeway and decided to
consult SIRI to find another route. We ended up in the LA area for
five hours. On every freeway and city street, gridlock was
inescapable. For hours, on ten lane freeways we were creeping between
one and five miles per hour as more and more traffic streamed in, and
I grew more and more dumbfounded that millions of people have agreed
to participate in total insanity on a daily basis.
Once, as the car came
to a standstill for the umpteenth time, I remembered a Saturday when
I was fifteen, sitting for hours in a lawn chair, staring at the
wall, paralyzed by the realization that I could be obliterated any
second by a nuclear weapon. What did the other members of my family
tell themselves to keep from going insane? How did they maintain a
sense of normalcy? How could anyone take life seriously if everything
could end up as smoke and ashes with one push of a button? How could
we claim to care about each other and allow the threat of global
annihilation—or the policy of mutually assured destruction (MAD)?
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| Eight of Swords, Gemini |
When I was growing up
my father was caught in a cycle of changing jobs every few years,
which eventually required him to make long commutes in the LA area.
He would come home exhausted, filled with quiet rage after a long day
at work and an hour and a half of maneuvering through traffic jams.
He would occasionally vent his rage in long diatribes against
communism. We escaped in the early 1970s by moving to Fresno.
All of the men in my
life as I was growing up were persistently quiet, as if shocked into
an inability to express themselves by some unspeakable trauma or
defeat. My grandfather had survived being gassed by the Germans in
World War I, then had lost his job in Chicago when the Great
Depression hit. My father and uncles had grown up in rural Illinois
and joined the military the first chance they got. Two of my uncles
were shot down, one over Germany, the other over the Pacific, both
surviving the crash. As I was growing up, neither the men nor the
women in my family hardly ever said a word, as if the women were
taking their cue from the men to remain quiet. I am still not sure
what kept them so silent, but it occasionally inspired me to question
authority and say crazy things about global annihilation, especially
at the dinner table.
While we were
fishing, I sensed my father moving beyond thoughts of raw prejudice
stemming from fear and anger and frustration. I felt our connection
as he cast his line in the water, the dark thought-forms flowing
away, the wind slightly ruffling the leaves and the surface of the
river. I could sense his love of the water and the rocks and the
trees—I could feel it just like when I know that friends are going
to call or send a letter. Some people, even though they are silent or
rough and intolerant form a bond with you that cannot be broken, a
bond that transcends appearances and petty prejudices.
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| Chinese Houses, Tarweed, Ithuriel's Spears near Fence |
My father has been
gone almost forty years. In that time, we have edged even closer to
the brink due to the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction
combined with perpetual destabilization of economies and societies,
as well as global warming, overpopulation, ecocide, dwindling
resources, species extinction, pollution...and we keep scrambling
around rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. The question
remains: How can a society become sane?
One day a few years
ago, I was swallowed up by eternity. I had a vision: In the middle of
the desert, the wind started whipping around the rocks, lifting away
the sand. I was afraid that the wind would carry all the sand away,
and suddenly there was nothing left, only a golden snake biting its
own tail in a deep blue sky. Suddenly I was inside the snake. At
first, I was afraid, but then the darkness comforted me. I realized
that I could change perspective anytime. With one thought, I could be
outside of the golden snake again. When I was outside, I discovered
that I was a mere atom compared to the snake and the sky, so after
awhile I shifted back inside.
Oddly, like most of
my visions, but unlike most of my memories, the golden
ouroboros remains crystal clear, as if symbols from the archetypal
plane are more real and enduring than experiences of daily life. That
vision seems like a pretty good symbolic depiction of eternity, which
suggests that maybe I shouldn't worry about the end of the world, but
I don't live on the archetypal plane—I live with a family and a
community that I need to protect, so the problem remains: How can
anyone help their own culture get a little saner?
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| Nine of Swords, Gemini |
I wasn't on drugs
when I had the vision. Once, though, a long time ago, a friend handed
me a tiny tab of paper as we were finishing a meal at a restaurant
and commanded, “Put this under your tongue. It'll dissolve in a few
seconds and will take affect in about ten minutes.” I was still
young enough to try new things. The simple act of placing that tab
under my tongue resulted in a crazy, indelible memory from an
otherwise ordinary night in America. Oddly those few hours of
insanity give me some perspective on what it means to be sane.
My friend had never
taken any drugs in front of me, nor had he ever shared drugs with me
before, and I wasn't exactly sure what he had handed me, but we had
just finished a grueling week of canvassing for environmental and
social justice. I trusted him completely after struggling in the
trenches with him for several months. After we left the restaurant,
suddenly the breeze on my skin induced ecstasy. My friend drove us to
a gas station, and it seemed like pumping gas was one of the most
magnificent acts that a human being could perform. We ended up at a
local club, and the rock and roll was astounding, every note
absolutely perfect, lifting me into greater and greater heights of
exaltation.
At the club, we
hooked up with another canvasser, then drove out to a reservoir at
about two in the morning. We kicked back in the car for awhile, and I
noticed a fly between the dashboard and the windshield. I wondered
what it was like to be a fly, and my sight suddenly broke up into
numerous facets. I heard a great buzzing, which annoyed me until I
realized the sound was coming from me—I was the fly, but my
consciousness wasn't processing the fly's perspective in a way that I
could comprehend. However, even though I had become the fly, I didn't
feel different, as if one overarching consciousness was experiencing
life from countless perspectives. I suddenly felt trapped, so I
stepped out of the car, and human sight immediately returned to me.
The grass was breathing, each blade aware of me. I hiked toward the
woods and felt many eyes watching me in the darkness. I sensed a
great hatred toward people emanating from the forest. I didn't
understand why until I turned back: The reservoir had eaten away all
life from the hillsides.
I told my friends
that I was going to the car because I needed sleep, and they nodded
at each other knowingly. One of them chirped, “Okay, go ahead, but
you're not going to sleep.” I stretched out on the back seat and
realized that I was dreaming with my eyes wide open. I knew that I
would not get to sleep for a long time. I would just have to deal
with it, possibly, I remember thinking, for the rest of my life.
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| Ten of Swords, Gemini |
When dawn finally
arrived, we drove back to town. I stepped out of the car onto some
gravel and suddenly knew that an absolute logic exists behind
everything in the cosmos. Forces beyond my comprehension and control
had operated throughout the ages, eventually depositing pieces of
gravel on the dirt for a parking lot. Complex processes had
occurred so that one piece of litter was resting upon the gravel at
the exact moment that I stepped out of the car. Each atom was in a
particular time and place for a reason that as a human being I would
never be able to fathom. At the same time, I understood that all
processes were linked and that I was part of every thing that had
ever lived or would ever live. I felt so exhausted that I almost lost
my balance.
Back at the apartment,
I tried to sleep but started hallucinating. When I went to the
bathroom, everything synthetic on the sink—hair brushes, toothpaste
tubes, toothbrushes, combs—elongated and twisted and wiggled and
bent as if the plastic in the bathroom had gone crazy, unable to stay
still for a second. I went back to bed and finally fell asleep after
many hours. The odd thing is that I didn't feel frightened by the
hallucination, only trapped in a bizarre reality.
My friend had
subjected me to an acid test, which shook me to the core. I would
never knowingly take LSD again because of its potential for inducing
psychosis. I eventually came out of it, but others have not. However,
if I had not placed that tab under my tongue, I would never have
experienced some of the potentials of the human mind. I felt
indescribable ecstasy while performing the most mundane acts, such as
walking down the street and pumping gas. I experienced the reality of
a humble fly and recognized that its consciousness is probably not
very different from my own. I understood that everything is sentient
and perhaps keenly aware of the damage that people have done to this
planet.
While hallucinating,
I understood that chemicals in my brain made all synthetic items seem
alive and totally insane, just as before taking the drug, chemicals
in my brain had provided me with “normal” human consciousness. My
experiences seemed to be more than the result of a chemical reaction,
though. The drug seemed to suppress normal brain consciousness and
allow another dimension of my psyche to surface, some part of me that
could experience absolute joy in the smallest acts and connect with
the humblest of creatures and understand the absolute logic of the
cosmos, a logic that extends all the way back to the beginning of
time and will continue to the very end—if indeed there is a
beginning or an end—an absolute logic that usually appears like
randomness to my very limited human brain.
I felt trapped in a
strange reality for many hours, but then again I have been trapped in
the bizarre, collective reality of the human race my entire life. I
have trusted relatives, friends, teachers, politicians, doctors,
capitalists, and authorities on this or that, believing in our
accepted collective reality even as our species continues to lurch
toward global destruction.
After my trip, I
understood the meaning of “turn on, tune in and drop out.” In
other words, tune in to the vast, living cosmos and drop out of
meaningless behaviors. Cut through the bullshit and live a meaningful
life.
A psychic once
suggested that the acid trip woke me up to the spiritual nature of
things. That experience, along with paranormal experiences that I've
had since that time suggest that consciousness is essentially
nonlocal. In other words, consciousness is not limited to what my
physical senses perceive or to what my brain processes in one
particular place and time. My soul can experience and know things
that my physical senses cannot perceive, such as the consciousness of
other creatures and people and spiritual entities, and the future and
the past, and other dimensions of the cosmos (such as the archetypal
plane).
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| Four of Cups, Cancer |
Based on my
experiences, I must conclude that consciousness is limited by the
physical senses and the brain, not created by the brain. The part of
consciousness that transcends brain consciousness has been known by
different names in different cultures throughout the ages: daimon,
genius, holy guardian angel, higher self. If consciousness is only
created by the brain then the key spiritual experiences of my life
are unreal and absurd, in which case many of my clearest, most
meaningful memories are merely a sign of insanity.
In quantum physics,
nonlocality describes the ability of objects to know about each
other's state, even when separated by large distances, potentially
even billions of light years, as if the universe instantaneously
arranges particles in anticipation of future events. The cosmos
consists of field upon field of entangled, interconnected energy, and
consciousness, like physical matter, is energy.
Spiritual development
should take place under the supervision of a master, just as the use
of hallucinogenic drugs should only occur under the most controlled
conditions. If one is not careful, authentic spirituality and drugs can both lead to
insanity. I, unfortunately, have experienced baptism by fire in all
aspects of life, never affording the luxury of expert assistance. I
do not recommend embarking on any journey into the unseen without at
least the most dedicated commitment to the highest good, for anyone
traveling through the unknown will eventually encounter evil or the
incredibly bizarre. If you encounter angels you will more than likely
also encounter devils, and you will need to choose your next step
with great care when you do.
The genius or daimon (not demon) or guardian angel is the nonlocal aspect of the self that transcends
space and time. Intuition, sympathy, telepathy, precognition,
retrocognition, psychometry are all capacities of the higher self. I
can't help but believe that we will edge closer to a sane society
when the average person recognizes the transcendent aspect of the
self and its connection to all things, past, present, and future.
For the past few
days, at work and at home and even at a restaurant, I have envisioned
myself as the Archangel Raphael, with
a golden sun at my crown, my
hair on fire, and masculine and feminine forces balancing each other
within my aura in naked white light, all doubt and suffering and
regret cleansed from my mind. During a recent ritual, I was focusing
on the feminine principle of the cosmos and suddenly envisioned the
Tarot card known as Three of Swords, associated with the supernal
sphere of the Goddess. Then I saw the path of The Lovers extending
from my heart center to the right side of my brain, the path on the
Tree of Life from Tiphareth, the Christ center, to Binah, the
supernal sphere of the feminine principle. Then I unexpectedly took
on the God form of Raphael, represented on the Tarot card The Lovers,
and the powerful living image has stayed with me everywhere I go.
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| Three of Swords, Libra |
Raphael means “Healer
of God.” One of the most basic forms of healing is the integration
of the self. During ritual as I move from one quadrant to another, I
often recover a sense of the different dimensions of the self: the
spiritual dimension, associated with the higher will (Fire); the
conscious mind, associated with the intellect (Air); the subconscious
mind, associated with the emotions (Water); and etheric background
energies of matter, associated with the physical body (Earth). But
the Tarot card known as The Lovers reveals that there is another way
to look at the self that includes a distinction between the lower
self, the personality within a specific incarnation; the evolutionary
personality, or soul, which develops over many incarnations; and the
divine spark, or spiritual core of the individual. The card
represents great healing—paradise regained—because the lower
personality, the soul and the divine spark are integrated into a
unified whole.
As insane as it
sounds, the living image of the Archangel Raphael has made me feel
more sane than I have ever felt before. I feel integrated and free of
negativity. How an Archetype has such a powerful influence on me I
don't exactly know, but I do have the sense that the Archetype chose
to help me, and I was open enough to the possibilities of nonlocal
consciousness to allow it to happen. I have always, at least since I
found my spiritual path, felt a great kinship with Raphael. Perhaps,
once the soul becomes entangled with healing influences from spiritual
dimensions, they remain connected, just like a particle remains
connected over great distances with other particles, like one person
can remain connected with another, no matter how far away they are.
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