I rarely get a chance to read the "other" journal that I brought with me to WVA because of a feeling that I have to stay at FSR if I'm ever going to make a dent in it. But today was an exception, and the exception was
Exceptional Human Experiences, edited by Rhea White. EHE reviews many anomalistic publications, mainly in the parapsychological field, but it is quite wide in its scope. Most of the material is in the form of short review thumbnails of serious journal articles, and this is usually inadequate to do more than whet your appetite for the whole paper. But there are also full essays, and occasionally a re-telling of an EHE by a real witness. That latter is the cause of this post today, as I think that the EHE that I read is interesting and worth passing on. It is some kind of mystical communion [in my opinion] had by a woman in the silence of the awe of the mountains.-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The woman reporting the "encounter" was a teacher at a college, and for purposes of this narrative went by the pseudonym "Dr. Jean Smith". She and her husband were camping in Arizona and hiked into the mountains where nothing was to be heard except for the occasional calls of birds. --- "I was standing in front of a wall of granite boulders of all sizes and shapes when all of a sudden I heard the most beautiful singing I have ever heard. There were no words but the joyous music just kept on. I stood there rooted to the spot, entranced, hardly daring, literally, to believe my ears. The music came from the boulders.----I looked around, and as I did it was as if I became a truly genuine part of the universe. I had the wonderful feeling of sharing or being shared with. It was as if the sky above and the clouds, the breeze, the bushes--everything realized I could participate. I felt somehow as if I really
belonged. ---- All restlessness in me was stilled and I was filled with a glorious sense of peace and love. Gradually, the other occupants of the universe became aware that this stranger (I) was becoming part of the experience, they (sky,clouds,rocks,desert,bushes) moved over, as it were, and gave me place among them. 'She is aware, she knows' seemed the communication, and I was humbly grateful for this quiet acceptance. They kind of moved over and let me in joyously, as if happy to have me............all the while, the beautiful voices singing from the boulders kept on............I really can't find the right words.No words can truly relate the wonder and joy of that time--the music, the singing kept on..........."------------------------------------------------She went on to feel the possibilities that we humans could indeed get our own acts together, simply because these "others" can. The Unity there held hope for a better world than our dis-unified one. Her husband, meanwhile, was completely mystified. He couldn't hear the Music. All he could see was his entranced wife. He almost had to drag her away from the spot, not knowing what was going on. "Dr. Smith" was in her fifties when she heard the singing in the mountains [in 1978]. In the nineties she still wondered if she should return to the wall of granite and re-meet whatever was/is there. ------------------------------------I can add nothing to her wonder-filled experience. What lay at the base of it who can say? Rhea White knew this lady and gave her bona-vides. Was it GAIA, Spirit Guides, Little People, the Manitoug of the Superstition Mts, ghosts, angels.....you can build your own model. It certainly does not seem to have been "ordinary". And I wish that I had been there and heard the boulders sing too.
I rarely get a chance to read the "other" journal that I brought with me to WVA because of a feeling that I have to stay at FSR if I'm ever going to make a dent in it. But today was an exception, and the exception was Exceptional Human Experiences, edited by Rhea White. EHE reviews many anomalistic publications, mainly in the parapsychological field, but it is quite wide in its scope. Most of the material is in the form of short review thumbnails of serious journal articles, and this is usually inadequate to do more than whet your appetite for the whole paper. But there are also full essays, and occasionally a re-telling of an EHE by a real witness. That latter is the cause of this post today, as I think that the EHE that I read is interesting and worth passing on. It is some kind of mystical communion [in my opinion] had by a woman in the silence of the awe of the mountains.-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The woman reporting the "encounter" was a teacher at a college, and for purposes of this narrative went by the pseudonym "Dr. Jean Smith". She and her husband were camping in Arizona and hiked into the mountains where nothing was to be heard except for the occasional calls of birds. --- "I was standing in front of a wall of granite boulders of all sizes and shapes when all of a sudden I heard the most beautiful singing I have ever heard. There were no words but the joyous music just kept on. I stood there rooted to the spot, entranced, hardly daring, literally, to believe my ears. The music came from the boulders.----I looked around, and as I did it was as if I became a truly genuine part of the universe. I had the wonderful feeling of sharing or being shared with. It was as if the sky above and the clouds, the breeze, the bushes--everything realized I could participate. I felt somehow as if I really belonged. ---- All restlessness in me was stilled and I was filled with a glorious sense of peace and love. Gradually, the other occupants of the universe became aware that this stranger (I) was becoming part of the experience, they (sky,clouds,rocks,desert,bushes) moved over, as it were, and gave me place among them. 'She is aware, she knows' seemed the communication, and I was humbly grateful for this quiet acceptance. They kind of moved over and let me in joyously, as if happy to have me............all the while, the beautiful voices singing from the boulders kept on............I really can't find the right words.No words can truly relate the wonder and joy of that time--the music, the singing kept on..........."------------------------------------------------She went on to feel the possibilities that we humans could indeed get our own acts together, simply because these "others" can. The Unity there held hope for a better world than our dis-unified one. Her husband, meanwhile, was completely mystified. He couldn't hear the Music. All he could see was his entranced wife. He almost had to drag her away from the spot, not knowing what was going on. "Dr. Smith" was in her fifties when she heard the singing in the mountains [in 1978]. In the nineties she still wondered if she should return to the wall of granite and re-meet whatever was/is there. ------------------------------------I can add nothing to her wonder-filled experience. What lay at the base of it who can say? Rhea White knew this lady and gave her bona-vides. Was it GAIA, Spirit Guides, Little People, the Manitoug of the Superstition Mts, ghosts, angels.....you can build your own model. It certainly does not seem to have been "ordinary". And I wish that I had been there and heard the boulders sing too.
Thank you for posting this. It's beautiful.
ReplyDeleteHello, Prof.
ReplyDeleteLovely post. It seems almost voyeuristic to peek into this lady's private, religious reverie. A character in 'The Milagro Beanfield War' has an event like this happen to him while viewing snow-capped mountains. So similar it is eerie. The author Mircea Eliade has researched this type of event exhaustively. Very interesting and hopeful at the same time. Thanks for sharing.
Dear Professor,
ReplyDeleteI had an experience several years back where, laying in bed, I heard a beautiful female voice singing the words "I'm on my way" over and over.
The voice was coming from my television...which was turned off.
I was definitely awake at the time, as far I as I could tell (and that's an important caveat, as an altered state of consciousness is, well, altered, and the true state may not be apparent to the person having the experience).
There's not a lot a person can do in a situation like that, and the voice was simply beautiful, so I rolled over and went to sleep in a state of the most perfect calm I'd ever felt.
My experience was not a world-shattering paranormal case by any means, and probably not much more than a data point. But to me it seems as if the 'meaning', if there is one, is that there's more to the world than meets the mind's eye.
It's nice to know other people have had similar experiences
You are all most welcome, and I loved it too.
ReplyDelete"I was standing in front of a wall of granite boulders of all sizes and shapes".
ReplyDeleteProf, this is what I call a boundary feature, a point where the geographical continuity is interrupted in some way, and a prominent feature of many fairy tales, not the least example being bridges under which trolls live.
The Wailing Wall of the Jews derives at least some of its power from the same idea, as does the circle the magician draws around himself to hold at bay the demon he summons.
In A Midsummer's Night Dream - a play in which the barrier between this world and the worlds of faery and dream temporarily come down - Shakespeare seems to make the esoterically charged paradoxical suggestion it's the wall which holds Pyramus and Thisbe apart which creates and sustains their love. This is also one of the paradoxes of the Wailing Wall, that even though it marks a point in history where a terrible event befell the Jewish people, it's also a means of reconnecting to the time before that event.
Everything in Jean Smith's recounting of her experience is saturated in that same paradoxical idea - even the endless sweeping music, dependent as it is on different, discontinuous notes - the idea that continuity is only possible through discontinuity.
This, I'd suggest, is the esoteric implication laying behind the seemingly banal god of doorways, Janus.
I'd also suggest - and I suspect you're not unamenable to this idea, yourself, Prof - FSR and EHE are much more closely related than some might allow.
Well, God, Christ and his angels don't behave this way and that only leaves . . the other. All of you can get in bed so to speak with those things but not this old boy. I would have said the Lord's prayer and told it to get away from me in the name of Jesus Christ.
ReplyDeleteThe more soothing, inviting and well, ENCHANTING the experience, the more the warning flag should go up. Suit yourselves.
Randel Smith
Texas
To Mr. Smith: you are certainly welcome to that interpretation of reality, and you and I will find out some day if you are correct. My relationship with GOD contains many happy peaceful interactions with the Creation that I find very difficult to see in terms of the Demonic. I view all of the Creation as made by a good GOD and that there is opportunity for there to be light or dark in any of it---that is the design of things---it is what we bring to experiences that matters most. I see GOD Creator in all things, even when something's bad choices have turned them into something dangerous. I am not a fool and will assess the nature of the specific thing which confronts me, but I'm not going to reject whole categories of things out-of-hand. You can refer back to my study of people's Ouija experiences to see me in warning-and-disapproval mode. Trance control mediumship is another area where I believe evidence shows a greater danger than most. But Saints like Kevin of Ireland had mystic spiritual communions inspired by Nature, and I believe many others do as well. But there's no use us fighting about it, since neither of us really knows and must just feel our way towards or away from such things as we intuit. Pat Robertson [one of the world's greatest deposits of scum in my opinion] stated very clearly that UFOs are the work of Satan and anyone who had a UFO experience should be stoned. We seem to come to different views despite similar data all the time--it must be because of other things we're carrying around with us. I encourage you, in all seriousness, to continue to caution us if you think something is verging on the foolish---just do it with calmness and substance, as you did above.
ReplyDeleteI encourage you, in all seriousness, to continue to caution us if you think something is verging on the foolish---just do it with calmness and substance, as you did above.
ReplyDeleteWill do.
Bizarre! "God, Christ and his angels don't behave THIS way. . ." ??? WHAT way? Singing? Giving a joyous peace, unexpectedly, to someone who was open to worship the Creator? What claptrap! Just after telling His disciples that His crucifixion was near, the Lord Jesus Christ sang an hymn with them. Matthew 26:30. Where was Randel Smith when the morning stars sang together? Job 38:7. The Lord Jesus Christ is still the bright and morning star, according to Revelation 22:16; but the "son of the morning", Lucifer, has fallen. I can't even count how many times the Father and/or the Son comforted humans with "Fear not". Maybe Mr. Smith needs a little 'hallelujah chorus' so he can enjoy some psalms and hymns and spiritual songs?
ReplyDeleteOk, folks, let's agree to disagree and let it go. In all basic ways, we are probably much more alike than we are different, and I'm sure can find that in the flow of real life [rather than theory] we are good people and would enjoy one another's company and knowledge [as long as we didn't discuss politics or a few points of personal religion]. We have many more wonderful ideas ahead of us than we have problematic ones, if we choose so. When I can squeeze out a little time, I'll try to construct another interesting post and we'll be on our way again.
ReplyDeleteWow! Dr. Smith's experience is surprisingly similar to that of an experience by this man, who may be an abductee (along with his identical twin brother). Coincidence or not....
ReplyDeletehttp://www.mysterious-america.net/reality210.html
The great student of parapsychology (and other anomalies, D. Scott Rogo wrote two books on "Nad"--this very sort of experience of "the music of the spheres." It's sort of a bridging between apparitions/visions and the transcendent, true-mystical experiences of "unity with the all," "unity with God," and so on. I know Rogo even somewhat scants the experience of "celestial music" of Bayard Taylor, a 19th century journalist/poet/author/diplomat of great repute in his time, which happened when Taylor covered the California Gold Rush. So there's quite a literature, of which our contemporary American culture is of course ignorant.
ReplyDeleteFrank John Reid
I am ashamed to admit that although I own copies of Rogo's NAD, I have barely skimmed them. But if Frank says that they relate to this cosmic unity music, then you can believe him. Thank you, my friend.
ReplyDeleteFrank John Reid, I'm not familiar with those books by D. Scott Rogo, however I do have his book that he co-wrote with Ann Druffel - The Tujunga Canyon Contacts, penned several decades ago. An ahead-of-its-time book about close encounters/alien abductions. I remember Rogo displayed an ability to detect negative energy (spirits/entities/aliens...never really parsed them out) when approaching the house of the two subjects involved. I assume he'd learned metaphysical knowledge combined with a natural, keen awareness. An excellent read.....
ReplyDeleteFrank, although I don't usually like to start a side dialogue on this blog, if you want to answer this post by "Brownie", then go ahead. Just remember that this system has a character limit on individual comments so don't go on too long or you'll have to break it up in segments.
ReplyDelete^ I'm sorry to have aided in created a "side dialogue", which was not my intent. My curiousity was piqued with what I personally experienced as synchronicity - re. reading a nearly identical description of your fascinating entry. Then poster 'anonymous'' comment about D. Scott Rogo, who's written work[only on Ufology/Abductions] that I am familiar with reminded me of what poster Randal was cautioning about ( I'm not a practicing Christian, just a cynic).
ReplyDeleteYour comment was welcome, especially because I can evaluate such matters and make a choice which I think our readers might like to listen in on....so no problem on that at all. If it was not someone like Frank Reid [or perhaps Jerry Clark, etc] I wouldn't recommend that the original commentator respond. Still, it's always their choice [in a busy world] as to whether they want to or not. As an aside, I doubt that you're just a "cynic". Most people who follow this blog seem to have at least open minds to something in all of this big creation beyond the mere reductionist model of physics. And that openness is what we're all about here, regardless of any further "dogma".
ReplyDelete^ Thanks! Regarding calling myself a cynic... By that I mean I'm cynical about happenings such as these. I do think they occur but believe they're not originating from a place of 'love and light'.
ReplyDeleteI think we (humans) are manipulated (pyschologically and genetically) and have been since our beginnings. Along with my own experiences Charles Forte, John Keel and Jacques Vallee have influenced me for a very long time (since the early 1970s ) in developing my cynical p.o.v.