The Strange Fate Of Yuan Shikai

He was, according to Encyclopedia Britannica, a "Chinese army leader and reformist minister in the twilight of the Qing dynasty (until 1911) and then first president of the Republic of China (1912-1916)." Yuan Shikai was more, though. With his defeat of the Nationalist Party (including the murdering of the party chairman) and declaring of a new imperial dynasty, he killed off efforts towards parliamentary democracy in China. As self-proclaimed emperor and president for life he soon found himself facing widespread opposition. He was eventually forced to terminate his dynasty in early 1916. Shortly thereafter he died.

Here is the interesting part. An Australian newspaper article from the October 17, 1914 contained the following:

It will be interesting to see whether the Chinese soothsayer is a true prophet. Yuan Shi Kai is reported as now assuming the title of "Divine Majesty" (Shen Wu), with a view to the imperial purple to follow. Now, when Yuan was Viceroy of Chi Chi his favorite wife persuaded him to consult a famous soothsayer. The prophecy was that Yuan would one day become emperor, and then soon lose his life.

Yuan was so annoyed at this forecast that the prophet prudently withdrew. Then Yuan summoned him back for another little talk. But the soothsayer, fearing to lose his head, was smuggled away by the favorite wife. So Yuan left with the reflection that the paths of glory may lead but to the grave.   

Strange, yes, because it appeared almost two years before Shikai died. He died in an untimely manner of uremia on June 6, 1916. The prophecy fulfilled.

Who this mysterious Chinese soothsayer was I have not yet been able to determine. However, I am keeping this file open as I continue to investigate. I include here a link to the newspaper prophecy.  In this post I will just report and not speculate on the fascinating subjects of prophecy and fate. But is this type of thing not unsettling, to say the least?

Halloween And Houdini: The Strange Synchronicity

Nearly nine decades after his untimely death, Houdini is still remembered as a magician extraordinaire and original escapologist. Perhaps not as well remembered was his crusade in his final years to expose fraudulent mediums and spiritualists. And that provides the basis for what I consider the synchronicity between Houdini and Halloween - that time of year traditionally thought to be when the veil between this life and the next is at its thinnest.

It wasn't so much that Houdini disbelieved in the spirit world or those who had crossed over being able to reach out to those still on this side of the veil,  but after having been disappointed time and again in his efforts to contact his beloved mother after her death, he grew angry over those who would prey on the grief of others.

For years he investigated, challenged, lectured against and exposed mediums, and towards the end of his career/life made demonstrations of fraudulent mediumship a part of his magic show. The battle he waged was so fierce that spiritualists began to curse him and predict his demise. Evidently Houdini began to suspect the spiritualists were seriously out to get him.

Many years after Houdini's death his friend and associate wrote a newspaper column which tells of a premonition Houdini was having concerning this. In his article How Did Houdini Know? Fulton Oursler revealed:

One Saturday in early autumn, Houdini called me on the telephone. He was very excited.

"Listen," he began, I'm leaving on a tour in a little while. Probably I'm talking to you for the last time. They are going to kill me."

"Who?"

"Fraudulent spirit mediums. Don't laugh. Every night they are holding seances and praying for my death. "

Oursler goes on to relate how a few weeks after that phone call he received a visit from a lady he called Mrs. Hartley, who claimed to have a message she received in a trance. It was allegedly from Professor James H. Hyslop, founders of  the American Society for Physic Research, and read:

"The waters are dark for Houdini. He thinks he has only broken his ankle, but his days of attacking spiritualism are over."  

The waters were indeed dark for Houdini. Shortly after Oursler received this message Houdini developed a case of appendicitis that he ignored. It soon progressed into a full blown peritonitis. This was fairly a death sentence in those pre-antibiotic days of the 1920s.

Struggling for days and surviving two surgeries, Houdini finally gave up the ghost on Halloween, 1926.

His widow, Bess, tried for a decade to make contact with him through seances, finally giving up and turning off the light for good at her personal shrine to her husband. She became convinced that communication with dead was not possible.

But that did not keep his admirers from continuing the Halloween seance tradition. I remember well as a teenager the hoopla in 1976 - the fiftieth anniversary of his death - when once again Houdini disappointed his fans. And you can bet that somewhere there will be those trying again to reach him this Halloween. The two forever seem to be connected.

When William Jennings Bryan Lay Down And Died

William Jennings is certainly one the United States most colorful historical figures. He was a politician, serving as Secretary of State in the Woodrow Wilson administration. A position his convictions forced him to resign from. But perhaps most amazing of all concerning his political career are his three failed attempts to become president. He ran and was defeated in 1896, 1900 and lastly in 1908. But Bryan was also an outspoken Christian fundamentalist who waged war against "Darwinism" during the latter part of his life, the last battle being his assistance in the defense of John T. Scopes at Dayton, Tennessee's infamous "Monkey Trial."

Strange and perhaps fitting as it seems, Bryan died at Dayton shortly after the trial ended. Stranger still is the premonition Bryan had of his exact manner of death.

In reporting his death, the July 29, 1925 edition of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle had this bit of reportage:

Bryan Last Summer Had a Premonition He Would Die in Sleep

Macon, Mo., July 29 (AP)--William Jennings Bryan had a premonition he would die in sleep.

Last summer he said to Dr. A. C. Hildreth of Macon: "My heart has not been treating me just right. Some time after a big meeting, or an occasion where I have been engaged in some sharp contest, I will lie down to rest and sleep a sleep that will be eternal." 

Nailed it exactly, I would say. Perhaps Bryan having a premonition of dying was not so strange.  After all, he was 65 and tired, suffering from diabetes and heart trouble.

But no, he had a premonition of dying peacefully in his sleep. Exactly the way his premonition had it, after a "sharp contest," which is an accurate description of his toe-to-toe exchanges with prosecuting attorney Clarence Darrow during the Scopes Trial.

It is a strange world....

Miracle Bill

I suppose I should start with my usual disclaimer that by miracle I mean an extremely outstanding and unusual event and not necessarily something against the known laws of nature. Whether one thinks of events such as the one that is the subject of this as post touching the divine or not depends on one's worldview.

Anyway, this story was widely written about and covered in the media a few months back. Just Google Peter Bilello and you can find out all about it.

 Peter and Grace Bilello had been married for fifty years. Peter was by Grace's side through her fourteen-year-long battle with cancer, which, sadly, she lost last year.

Back in 2009 Peter came up with the idea of he and Grace signing dollar bills. He kept Grace's signed bill in his wallet, but was distressed to find out one day that he had inadvertently spent it somewhere along the way. Disappointed, he assumed he would never see that bill again.

Time went on and his beloved wife died. He had regular "visits" with her at the cemetery, but of course he missed her terribly. Then one day in June of this year - five years after he lost the special dollar - he had taken his granddaughter  to a local Subway restaurant where she had received that very dollar in change.

The family now feels that this was Grace coming back to them. And Peter has put the dollar in a special place so he doesn't lose it again.

Peter considers this a miracle. I think that to say the least it is a very meaningful coincidence or example of synchronicity. I love these kinds of stories. I've experienced many of these meaningful events in my life. To me they are little indicators that maybe - just maybe - things are not just a mishmash.

Fireworks Display Predicts Ascent Of A President

The study of coincidence, I believe, is fascinating in itself. But when you plumb the possibility of meaningful coincidences - Synchronicity, as it is known - you go beyond the fascinating into the uncanny.

Below is an old newspaper clipping I found. While the story it tells is easy enough to dismiss as mere coincidence, it yet proved to be an eerie prediction of the future.

At that same Pan-American Exposition in 1901 President William McKinley was cut down by assassin Leon Czolgosz. fulfilling the fireworks prediction; for when that tragic event occurred, the presidency fell to Vice-president Theodore Roosevelt.

Interestingly enough, just as the fireworks display gradually dissolved from Our Vice-President into Our President, President McKinley did not die at once after being shot but lingered on for a week. At that point Theodore Roosevelt was "Our President."

A Dream Speaks

The purely material worldview leaves me cold, I must say. As a metaphysical idealist I think there is much more going on behind the scenes than reductionist materialism can adequately account for. I feel this way because of my own experiences (which is the best "proof"), but also because - when you take the time to look around - others report these uncanny happenings. A case in point is a story I caught quite by accident because my television was still on after the news (which is hardly ever the case) on the show Inside Edition.

Seems that 20-year-old nursing student Emily Clark, from my home state of Georgia, was killed in a tragic car accident in April of this year. Four other nursing students also perished in the crash. The crash was fiery and devastating and a story about it can be found at this link.

The strange part of the story is Emily's younger sister Haily, who became convinced Emily's iphone was intact and somewhere near the crash site. Her parent's could not conceive such a thing and insisted the phone had been destroyed in the crash - not an unreasonable assumption at all, if you clicked the link above and read the details.

But Hailey insisted otherwise. In fact, Hailey went to the crash site and looked for the phone. She had a dream; a dream she felt was Emily attempting to guide her to the phone. "I could see the phone and it was at the crash," Hailey stated.

Then, as Inside Edition reported:

Like a bolt from the blue, six months after Emily's death came a call from police investigators. A cellphone had been found at the crash site, exactly where Emily had told Hailey where it was in her dream.

The phone not only was intact but just dirty. And with the iphone came a cache of photos Emily had taken - a priceless treasure for her family. It was as if a piece of her was still alive.

Some folks deny that dreams can convey knowledge of things or foretell the future, that the departed can communicate with us through them. I understand. The skeptic's worldview will not allow such things. But for those of us who have experienced meaningful dreams, no amount of naysaying will dissuade us.

Calling All Nostradamites

Pejoratives, I suppose, are inevitable when anyone takes a firm position on an issue. For example, the case of the "prophecies" of Michel de Michel de Nostredam, popularly known as Nostradamus. Those who take his prophetic quatrains seriously are dismissed as Nostradamites. 

On the other hand, there are those who take such a cut-and-dried skeptical position about Nostradamus, preferring to "debunk" rather than seriously weigh the words of the old magician and astrologer - and this because, according to their worldview, such things are impossible to begin with - they often catch a lot of flak.

So I wondered: is there a middle ground between being a Nostradamite or a hidebound Nostradamus skeptic?

So much friction has resulted from debates over whether Nostradamus was using an anagram (Pau, Nay, Loron) to refer to Napoleon, called out Louis Pasteur by name or was simply referring to an unknown priest or "pastor," used the noun Hister to refer to the Danube River or the notorious madman Adolph Hitler, among many interesting things, that I believe something has been lost here.

The suggestions of the Nostradamites are often no more strained than the some of the explanations offered by the skeptics.

However, I also feel those who sincerely feel Nostradamus was a prophet have stuck out their necks so far and so often that they have done considerable harm to their cause. This is especially true when they attempt to use the prophecies to foretell the future.

 

The number one response from the skeptics is: How come it is only after the fact that the alleged prophecies can be understood?

Can that challenge be met by those who take Nostradamus seriously?

What if something like the Jewish pesher hermeneutic were used on Nostradamus' quatrains? That is, for those unfamiliar with that method of interpretation, what if there were both a common meaning and at the same time a deeper, hidden meaning to be found?

The well-known skeptic of all things occult and paranormal James Randi wrote a book about the subject, The Mask of Nostradamus. In it he helpfully, in my opinion, provides some historical and cultural context for the old seer.

The question I feel has to be asked is, is that all there is to it? Could the so-called Nostradamites be employing pesher interpretations? That is, the Randian approach might be okay as a starting point, but might there be deeper, fuller meanings to be culled?

Perhaps so. But if so, we must be careful to be consistent in our approach. If we are dealing with pesher interpretation let us not make the mistake of pretending Nostradamus was speaking only to a distant future.

Think about it. If the present is understood so incompletely, how much more murky might visions from the future be? Might it then be the case that the deeper meaning is only fully comprehendible after the events have fully unfolded? Perhaps history is cyclical and there can be recurring fulfillments of visionary material.

It seems to me that World War ll brought a revival of interest in the prophecies of Nostradamus. MGM produced a little Nostradamus propaganda with a series of shorts on the subject produced by Carey Wilson (who also brought us Andy Hardy and Dr. Kildare). Wilson's first short in his Nostradamus series came out in 1938.

 

Finding Hitler and the rise of Nazism in Nostradamus seems to me to be pure pesher interpretation. Those same lines had been applied to other historical situations beforehand, naturally enough.

Perhaps the critics who find Nostradamus' quatrains vague and subject to numerous interpretations miss the point. Ancient wisdom seems to find a home among the more idealist minded people because it is always relevant. 

The Warlock And I

As a teenager my hobby was magic. Chattanooga, the city where I grew up, had only one magic shop and I soon became friends with one of its demonstrators. There was another fellow who worked there - a dark, brooding character who not only was a sleight of hand artist (and a good one), but a warlock as well. At least that was his claim. He was a male witch.

After awhile my friend had the opportunity to purchase the magic shop. He was a young man but his parents believed in him enough to mortgage their home in order to raise the funds to make the purchase. Briefly I worked for him in his shop part-time.

Mr. Warlock, I will call him, had a creepy persona. He also was a man of few words, but I always found a connection with the underdogs in life. Unfortunately his personality didn't lend itself well to his job and he soon was dismissed. Which is how I got hired.

One day when I stopped by the magic shop I found the regulars and the other employees in a huddle. They were discussing Mr. Warlock. Seems he had placed a curse on the shop in retaliation for his dismissal. This was taken quite seriously.

To make a long story very short, several months after taking ownership of the shop my friend was forced to go out of business - because of lack of sales ... or because of the curse. Believe me, many took the latter very seriously indeed.

The successful magician must be a good actor in order to put his magic over. Anybody can be taught to perform tricks. It is the ability to act the part that causes one to stand out.

Mr. Warlock was quite mysterious. There is no doubt about it, he made a convincing warlock. There was something uncanny, even uncomfortable about being in his presence. People took the curse thing seriously.

I didn't, but timing is everything, and Mr. Warlock's timing couldn't have been better. The magic shop my friend bought was an established shop. My friend didn't change the way the shop operated in any way. Yet still the curse at least apparently came to pass. Coincidence?

Dream Warns Of Death In "Unseen Way"

Robert J. Grier II was the attorney for Andrew J. Nestler and he filed with probate court his client's handwritten will based on a dream. The will, dated November 17, 1952, stated:

The reason I am writing this statement Nov 11-17-52 (is) what happened tonight at a little after 3 a.m.

I was sudden awaken up by a dream of mother.

It was more like a warning than a dream. It was so clear to me.

So I bought this tablet for five cents at corner drugstore at Atwood and Forbes Street and I wrote down this statement.

Mother was close to me. One could believe she was still living. But I know she is dead. This is the third time she came to me.

She show (told) me in this dream I must write or make a paper. I must make a will or some kind of statement of all my affairs if (because) I Andy J. Nestler by some unseen way would not be here on April 1, 1953.

I used the transcription the newspaper provided because Mr. Nestler's note was a bit hard to decipher.

This interesting newspaper story, along with a picture of the handwritten will and of Mr. Nestler, can be found at this link.

The story goes on to relate that Mr. Nestler "was found unconscious by a guard in the washroom of the library." Nestler lived for only three more days.

A police report stated that all Nestler could tell them was he was hit on the head with some kind of instrument and he did not see who struck the blow, except for the assailant's feet.

This warning dream is fascinating because of its detail. Nestler was not "here" on April 1, 1953, as he died on March 1. His death was in an "unseen way" because he never saw who or what hit him the blow that directly led to his demise.

Dream insight fascinates because I feel I have been directed and informed by my dreams - although nothing as dramatic as this. But history is replete with dream warnings and information delivered through dreams.

Some feel we can communicate with spirits via the dream realm. My own personal theory is that during the dream state our normal filters are off and we are better able to connect with the great Cosmic Mind that undergirds reality.

The Beatrice Nebraska Church Miracle

The tiny city of Beatrice, Nebraska was the scene of a most fascinating incident for those of us who study life's synchronicities.

It was a chilly late winter evening in 1950. It would soon be time for the 7:30 choir practice at the West Side Baptist Church. The choir was in the habit of arriving early, usually  by 7:20. Pastor Walter Klempel earlier had lit up the furnace in preparation.

At 7:25 p.m. it happened. An explosion inside the church blew the walls outward, bringing down the heavy roof. But oddly enough nobody was injured because the choir's habit of punctuality had been broken - all fifteen people - because of a string of seemingly at the time trivial incidents.

Life Magazine is the my primary source for this story. The details were provided by George H. Edeal in his article Why The Choir Was Late in the March 27, 1950, issue.

Reverend Klempel was detained because his daughter, Marilyn Ruth, had soiled her dress. The time it took for his wife to iron a different dress for their daughter was the time it took to avert tragedy.

Ladonna Vandergrift was a high school student working on a difficult geometry lesson. Because she stayed put and worked on her homework, she was spared.

Royena Estes had car trouble. She and her sister Sadie called Ladonna Vandergrift for a ride, but because Ladonna was running late working on her homework the trio remained safe.

Mrs. Leonard Shuster and her young daughter would normally have arrived for choir practice at 7:20, but this time they were delayed because Mrs. Shuster had stopped by her mother's house to assist her in readying for a different meeting.

Herbert Kipf was composing a letter and finishing it meant he was  late. The Life story quotes him as saying "I can't think why."

Joyce Black admitted to being "just plain lazy," not wanting to leave her warm home and venture out into the cold. She lazed around long enough to put her arrival after the explosion.

Harvey Ahl was caring for his two sons whom he planned to bring along to practice. He simply lost track of time while in conversation and when he looked at his watch saw he was late.

Marilyn Paul was pianist for the choir. After eating supper she fell into a slumber. Her mother, Mrs. F. E. Paul, was the choir director. She tried unsuccessfully to awaken her daughter but was unable to do so until 7:15. It took Marilyn long enough to get herself back in order that they were late.

Neighbors Lucille Jones and Dorothy Woods were high school girls who were in the habit of going together to choir practice. Because Lucille became interested in a radio program that did not end until 7:30, and because Dorothy waited for her, they were both late and avoided the explosion.

Many of us can think of times when we would have been in harm's way had circumstances not altered our course. I believe this is common place. But it isn't common place for this to happen in a cluster the way it happened at West Side Baptist Church in 1950.

Is it possible there is a guiding hand that can either be heeded or ignored? What if Joyce Black had heeded her sense of duty rather than being "lazy"? What if Herbert Kipf had simply laid aside his letter to finish later? It wouldn't have been illogical for Ladonna Vandergrift to put aside her homework for later, perhaps allowing for a clearing of her head. Had she done so and picked up the Estes sisters they might all have been gone. What if Mrs. Paul had tried harder to awaken her daughter? What if Rev. Klempel had simply decided to go on to practice by himself. What if Dorothy had not waited for her neighbor. What if Lucille had simply turned off her program? What if Harvey Ahl simply had been more attentive.

But no, somehow everything conspired to spare the choir. They say that hindsight is always 20/20. But I wonder: can mindful living, following one's intuition, going with the flow avert catastrophe? 

The Strange Tale Of The SS Serendipity

 Reading the latest issue of Reader's Digest last night as I awaited drowsiness to overtake me, I landed on one of Your True Stories that captured my attention. It was sent in by Vernon Magnesen, Elmhurst, Illinois. You can read that story online here.

The now mostly forgotten capsizing of the passenger cruise ship SS Eastland in 1915 provides the backdrop. 

It seems Vernon's grandparents were slated to take a cruise on the Eastland, when on the evening of their trip, Henry, his grandfather, got into a ferocious argument with his landlord. This made him ill enough to cancel the trip and save his and his family's lives. Vernon Magnesen refers to this as a "miracle" argument that allowed 22 descendants a shot at life.

Upon further research I found that a young George Halas, had he not missed boarding due to a delay as recounted in this video about the disaster, would not have become Papa Bear of Chicago Bear's fame. Halas, who was twenty years of age at the time of the Eastland tragedy, lived on for another sixty-eight years, establishing himself as a legend in professional football.

Serendipity? I've noticed that disasters are often sources of stories of such "miraculous" tales. And often premonitions are involved.

Novelist Marian Manseau Cheatham parlayed her family lore of her grandparents' premonition about danger for those who boarded the Eastland in the novel Merely Dee.

Cheatham explained it this way:

I discovered that my paternal grandmother had a ticket to that 1915 Western Electric picnic, but the night before the big event, my great-grandmother had a premonition of danger and begged my grandmother not to go. Grandma listened to her mother's pleas and remained safely at home. That weird twist of fate changed our family's destiny, and mine.

In Merely Dee the titular character ignores her mother's premonition and sets off anyway for more of an adventure than she could have imagined.

Finally I want to reference Jay Bonansinga's nonfiction book The Sinking Of The Eastland: America's Forgotten Tragedy in this connection. Having access to firsthand and eye-witness accounts, as well as archival material, Bonansinga is able to flesh out several premonition stories.

In chapter 2 he relates the story of newlyweds Paul and Louise Jahnke. Louise had a sudden premonition that "Something would happen to the boat." They went anyway, but not before leaving instructions with their landlord about what to do with personal belongings and such in case they didn't return. They didn't.

Also related is the story of a Mrs. J. B. Burroughs, who had a visit from a friend who had a horrible dream of a "ship turned over on its side, and hundreds of corpses lying in a row." The dream was laughed off at first but Mrs. Burroughs later came to recognize it as a divine warning. The details of the dream were uncannily accurate.

Bonansinga's Chapter 2 ends with an account of Western Electric employee Josie Markowski, who endured a week of feelings of dread about her company's picnic trip on the Eastland to the point of having second thoughts about going.

On the morning of departure her mother ironed the dress Josie was to wear, and Josie was struck with the thought that she would never wear it again. Her mother urged her to go anyway and put the bad thought out of her mind lest she "bring it on the boat."

Like many disasters the SS Eastland disaster seems to have left a legacy of warnings heeded and unheeded and quirky twists of fate - all part of the strange world in which we live.

Why Study The Paranormal?

After confessing a fascination with "the soft edges of science" biologist Lyall Watson wrote in the introduction to his book Beyond Supernature:

I am not wedded to the proposition that the supernatural must exist. If one defines supernatural experience as - the experience of something unusual, something which exceeds the limits of what is deemed possible - then there is clearly a vast field of experience, of repeated experience, from all over the world, just waiting to be explored. The fact that such reports are, by their very nature, largely anecdotal, has led to their being discarded as unacceptable to science. Which is a pity and a waste, because I suspect that answers to some of the riddles of the paranormal might well lie in the pattern and contents of such reports.

Words such as supernatural and paranormal trouble me somewhat because they often become mingled with an unfortunate superstition to the point of ridiculousness. Perhaps nature and normal are so incompletely and poorly understood that we are drawing false lines.

For my part I collect personal anecdotes of unusual experiences - what some call "glitches in the matrix" - and study them. As suggested by Watson, I look for patterns. Premonitions, near-death experiences, visions, etc., all interest me because they are so common. Drawing too hasty a line between what is natural and what is supernatural doesn't help here.

I have come to accept that mind is primary in the universe. In my thinking it is impossible to start with matter and make sense of the universe and life without acknowledging the primary role of mind and intelligence. Nothing makes sense without sense in the first place. Or else all is a very long string of meaningless coincidences beyond human comprehension.

Closing thought: The unusual really is usual if we are paying attention. 

Déjà vu: A Strange World Experience

A strange world experience I am very familiar with - and I believe most everyone else is as well - is what the twentieth century parapsychologist Emile Boirac termed Déjà vu. That is, the weird feeling that one has previously experienced the present moment or memory before. In French Déjà vu means "already seen."

Most of us feel there is something mystic, or at least uncanny, about the experience. Materialists, who have no room in their worldview for mysticism, tend to dismiss this phenomenon as "reintegration." Psychology professor and professional skeptic Ray Hyman explains reintegration as the memory of an event or place resurfacing upon the appearance of part of the stimulus that formerly aroused the memory.

Among the more mysterious-inclined explanations for Déjà vu are legitimate memories available through reincarnation, or perhaps precognition.

I lean towards the latter. Inasmuch as down through the years I have had flashes of insight (not always experienced as Déjà vu) that illuminated my future, I tend to find precognition more in line with my experience. I have had many premonition as precognitive dreams.

Coming as I do from a Christian background, the concept of reincarnation is unfamiliar and strange - although I am fascinated by and open to it.

Then again, for those who are familiar with the Matrix movie franchise, Déjà vu could be something akin to what Neo called a glitch in the Matrix.

My personal Déjà vu experiences have tended to be about situations that I suddenly find myself in and knowing what is about to happen just before it happens. I don't dismiss Hyman's explanation out of hand, but sometimes it just doesn't seem to fit - at least not for me.

I have often pondered if time is not an illusion. Is it possible that the past, present and future somehow all exist simultaneously?

In all this I have to say that the one suspicion that Déjà vu arouses in me is that reality is not exactly what it appears to be. Perhaps reality is a many-layered thing and the mind has to be prepared to look more carefully at these various layers.

My Strange Life As A Blogger

Always I've considered my blogging efforts an  outlet, even as therapeutic at times.  A writer I'm not, so I never thought I was creating literature. I enjoyed reading other blogs and thought to myself, "what the heck, why I don't do that to sort things out in my own mind." I tend to be very introspective but I've never been consistent with my diaries and journals - until blogging made that easy.

When I started I believe I was at a very low place emotionally. I titled my first blog The Blushing Animal. My inspiration was a Mark Twain quote: "Man is the only animal that blushes - or needs to." I believe I had intended to collect evidence of the many ways we humans fall short of common  decency.

Then a strange thing happened. I soon realized that while I did basically agree with Twain's assessment, perhaps the majority of us (certainly I think it true of myself)  try to be decent humans. Oh yes, we fall short often and sometimes even tragically. I'm still not sure if the majority of us should be blushing or just redoubling our efforts to be nice, however, I just couldn't endure focusing on the negative. So that blog was very short-lived.

A more open approach was needed so Groping The Elephant was born. The little parable of the six blind men and the elephant by John Godfrey Saxe was my inspiration for this one. Gee, we all see things differently and all tend to be certain we are right - and we are ... in our own minds!

Groping was my first attempt to reconcile the spiritual person I originally was with the more nihilistic person I had become. Personal pain led to my bitterness. Scientific materialism was a great springboard for my cynicism. No matter how much I looked at the stranger side of life, always there was an effort to rationalize it all away.

I groped the elephant of life for quite a while before I decided I had changed.  I wanted to ease up a bit and show more openness to ideas I had pushed into the back corners of my mind. Though I always made it clear I thought of myself as just another blind man groping at something I was in no position to fully comprehend, I realized I was at times heavy handed.

So I scratched that one as well.

By now I was having trouble being consistent in my blogging. So Doug's Dribblings was born. The dribbling part referred to my infrequency. There also was a secondary image in my mind of slobber and drooling. I refuse to take myself too seriously. I know I turned off a lot of my cynical blogging friends (who probably wouldn't consider themselves so much cynical as realistic) who found me during my agnostic-on-the-way-to-atheist phase. (In the spirit of groping at the elephant I never thought it necessary to break my ties with these folks, and still don't if they are inclined to agree to disagree.)

Now I have a new internet service and I consider it yet another opportunity to start afresh. That is the why of The Strange World Of Doug B. So now my hair is let down even more.

There is so much I don't know about life and the Cosmos, but that's okay. It's always liberating to step outside of narrow confines that have either been imposed on you or that you have imposed on yourself.

I urge everyone to try it sometime. You may find you like it.

My job has kept me and has hindered my efforts to launch this current blog. I'm having to work at it as I find the time. But I foresee more time in the future (hopefully). In the meantime I'm keeping notes on the strange things I encounter and want to share with my readers, in my own life as well as those strange things that happen to others.

As always, I'm a bit uncomfortable with words like supernatural and paranormal. But sometimes it's confusing to define terms. I suppose I'm skipping slowly towards the fortean label. Really I dislike labels but can't deny their occasional usefulness. And I suppose I should add a note about my use of the word God or god. If when you see me use that you think of the popular or common  Jewish/Christian/Muslim concept, you will be misunderstanding me. I do believe everything - no, EVERYTHING - is divine and I believe there is a Supreme and divine mind back of EVERYTHING. Exactly what that means, I don't pretend to know. This blog isn't an effort to proselytize.

Five (Odd) Facts

My cyber friend Alice G of Whatsoever Is Lovely blog recently tagged me and some of her other blogger friends to give five facts about ourselves. So here goes and I hope I don't bore anyone:

1) I am a high school dropout. This one I'm not proud of. After my parents divorced when I was eleven, my school work took a back seat to other things, like goofing off and playing hooky from school. I swiftly fell from the top of my class to passing on a D average. I failed the ninth grade for excessive absenteeism, but was later passed into high school via social promotion, where I promptly developed an uneasy and unpleasant relationship with school guidance counselor. I had improved my attendance and my grades, but any time I did miss a day he was right there at the front door to hassle me. I was out sick on my seventeenth birthday (which in my state was the legal age to drop out of school), and even though I had not given thought to dropping out, promptly did so when my social worker snidely told me over the phone that he assumed I was going to quite now that I had turned 17. "Yes, you're right," I told him and slammed down the phone. (Maybe fact number one should have been that I was an impulsive smart aleck when I was a teenager; really I think I was just hurting really bad inside.)

Addendum: In my twenties I obtained a GED and enrolled in business college, graduating with honors.

2) I have memories of being a child and occasionally seeing otherworldly creatures, quite vividly. Up until my late teens I often (but not always or even usually) would be overcome when alone with a feeling there was another presence with me. I haven't experienced that so much in recent years, but do still have occasional auditory and, less frequently, visual hallucinations. I now tend to think of this as my personal muses.

3) My mother always related the story of how when she was pregnant with me she felt God had a hand on me in a special way. Although she was prone to miscarriages and had a dozen or so, even having to take to bed at some points in the pregnancies of my two brothers, she came through her pregnancy with me in fine fashion, actually having to be careful about her weight gain. When I was born she chose Nathan for my middle name, after the biblical prophet, and all my life that is what she mostly has called me. And she is the only one who calls me that. It is a special name between us and doesn't sound right coming at me from anyone else. (Now I don't think I'm any kind of prophet, but do confess to having had more than a few premonitions or examples of clairvoyance throughout my life.)  Really.

4) I am a habitual and vivid dreamer. My dreams are often intricate. My dreams have often served as guides in my life. I view them as a window into my soul. My waking filter, I'm convinced, hinders me from seeing more of what lies deeply hidden in my psyche. Consequently, I'm a big believer in the value of dream analyses.

5) My mother began buying toy guitars for me when I was five years old. Seems I always had one around when I was kid. When I was twelve, she took down her old Gibson acoustic and began teaching me guitar chords for real. At the time I took to it like a duck to water. Right away I wanted to use the guitar as a solo instrument. We were poor and couldn't afford lessons, so I wasn't sure how to accomplish that. But after a while I began to, as it where, pull the music out of the wood. I have always heard what is in there but often had to search to find it. Later I benefited from books on music theory and guitar. I can read music, but prefer to close my eyes and listen with my inner ear. Playing solo guitar has been symbolic of my loner lifestyle and individualistic way of doing things. I have never been comfortable following recipes for anything, but prefer to follow my instincts, to make changes and create variations. 

Strange Attraction

I've never read the secret or seen the movie. I have heard a bit about it on Oprah (not that I was a regular viewer, but before she started her own network her show was on just before the local news when I got home from work and I would often catch her).

However, I have read just a tad (a very little bit, actually) in some old New Thought books about it the Law of Attraction.

Sure it is a lot to swallow. And you would think - judging by the mess this world is in - that either it is a bunch of hooey or else most people just don't know about it or maybe do know and just aren't applying themselves. (I believe its adherents think most people don't know much about this alleged law of the universe, hence it is often referred to these days as The Secret.)

Okay, be all that as it may, I just want to relate a strange little incident that I experienced it goes back to what my thinking about Synchronicity - or meaningful coincidences - offers me. And strange though that concept is, it does make sense to me and even offers some explanatory power for my understanding.

Anyway, I have this little vacuum cleaner that I've had for nearly two decades. I've always loved it because it's small - just right for my small home. It is bag-less and it's easy to empty the storage bin. Also, it has good suction, but not so good that it chews things up and pulls things loose.

Over years of use the black plastic handle cracked and became loose. When I searched for a replacement I sadly discovered that company no longer makes that particular model, and I don't like the newer ones.

Not wanting to give it up until I absolutely had to, I decided to "jury rig" the handle part. But how? Tape is sticky and probably wouldn't be long lasting. Then I hit upon the idea of securing the crack with a zip tie. I have these at my place of employment but never could think about bringing one home as I was leaving.

Now I will add here that finally, after a very long delay, I upgraded my internet service to fiber optics. The power company was here last Saturday to install it for me. After this was done and the service man left, I decided to clean up behind him and vacuum. It was then that I looked down and saw that the installer had dropped a small black zip tie - just the size I wanted. Had I got one from work it would have been bright white on a black handle. Now that would have really looked redneck.

The "law of attraction" brought me just what I wanted, and I all I had to do was think about what I wanted. Yeah, I kept forgetting to grab one from work, but in the end I ended up with something better.

Coincidence you say? Well sure. But I have increasingly noticed that when I am looking for coincidences I find them, and when I follow a path seems to be laid out ahead of me, I come out at a clearing.