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THE DANCE CURSE
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079 |
Serious |
Strange Accident
Dance Curse 5 |
1979 |
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Victoria's inadvertent Karate Chop at Annabelle's nearly puts a spectator in the
hospital. This was the 5th serious dance accident in a row for Rick, the
3rd in a row for Victoria. |
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077 |
Serious |
Strange Accident
Dance Curse 4 |
1979 |
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Victoria's Greased Lightning Disco pants cause her to go flying at Foley's and narrowly
miss serious injury |
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076 |
Serious |
Strange Accident
Dance Curse 3 |
1979 |
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When a
ceiling fan blade nips Victoria's toes at the Lighthouse, Victoria narrowly
misses serious injury |
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075 |
Serious |
Strange Accident
Dance Curse 2 |
1979 |
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When a drunk woman shoves Rick in the back during a dance contest at
Spats, his elbow gashes the inside of Patricia's lower lip, thereby ruining the
performance |
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064 |
Suspicious |
Cosmic Blindness
Dance Curse 1 |
1978 |
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The Ritz Debacle is caused when the Ritz DJ loses his mind and
turns out the lights during Rick's performance |
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Rick Archer's Note:
The Karate Chop incident
really got under my skin. Just as Victoria predicted, the Dance Curse
had struck again. Not only was this my fifth performing
accident in a row, it was irritating to know I had
done everything in my power to prevent something from going
wrong only to see it go wrong anyway. As we took the
floor on Sunday, the prevailing thought in my mind was to be careful. I mean that.
I repeated the words 'Be careful' several times. But
what good did it do? Imagine how helpless I felt
when I saw that my sense of
caution had not done
a bit of good. Thinking back to Rachel's unexpected phone call
several years ago, this was
the second time I
had unsuccessfully tried to outwit Fate. I decided that if something is meant to be, there
is not a darn thing I can do about it.
This Dance Curse was beyond weird. Five
accidents in a row? Something very strange
was going on in my life. I felt surrounded by the presence of
Fate. If so, what did it mean? What I supposed to do?
I cannot prove
that Fate exists, at least not scientifically.
However, through observation, I was more convinced than ever before
that these strange things were not easily
explained as random chance. We all agree
that Accidents happen. However, most accidents can be
traced to negligence. Not my accidents! My accidents were
so weird no one could have anticipated the danger. What
were the odds that five dance performances
in a row
would be ruined without a
mistake on my part?
 For the
Ritz to fail, the Deejay had turned out the
lights thereby blinding us. An incredibly stupid thing to
do.
For Patricia to get hurt at
Spats, a woman had to shove me in the back
the exact instant my elbow passed by her face.
For Victoria to be hurt at Lighthouse, someone
had turned on the ceiling fans without our knowledge. In addition, we had
to be standing in the exact spot for the curved blade to
barely graze
Victoria's toe. Wrong
place, wrong time. The frustrating thing is that we had
actually tested to see if the ceiling fans would be a problem.
For Foley's to fail, Victoria had
worn ultra-slippery pants. I never anticipated her shiny
new pants would cause a problem.
For Benita to get hurt at
Annabelle's, she
had to be standing in the wrong spot at the
worst possible moment.
I
could overlook one mishap. But five in a row? This was
weird beyond weird. Over the past
year and a half, I had visited a dozen dance contests. Not
once... repeat... not once had I witnessed a
problem. There were flubs of course, but so what? No one
ever got hurt. Meanwhile I had five performances in a row that
stopped suddenly due to mishaps over which I had no control. The bottom line is that
serious dance accidents did not seem to
occur to anyone but me.
They say that 'Superstition'
is a 'widely held but
unjustified belief in supernatural causation'. I
took umbrage at the word 'Unjustified'.
I felt completely justified in believing something very
weird was taking place. To me, the odds against five consecutive failures seemed
astronomical. So I did a little math. I
pretended the odds
of a serious dance accident were 1 in 20.
If
so, the odds
of five serious accidents in a row would be somewhere around
one in
64 million.
Someone was trying to tell me something.
When Victoria informed
me she did not wish to perform anymore, I took that as a good
reason to throw in the towel as well. From
here on out I would stick to teaching. As for dancing in
public, I expected to dance for the fun of it, but promised myself I
would skip any
opportunity to "show off" or "perform".
Did I stick to my guns? No. Although I should not get
ahead of my story, I will make an exception. I tried twice
again and got burned both times. That made "Seven failures
in a row". Very strange. I mean "Very Strange".
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WHY A BELIEF IN FATE IS IMPORTANT |
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To me, the
existence of Fate is not necessarily a bad thing. To
me, Fate implies
a Divine Order to the
Universe.
While I believe in Evolution and the laws of Natural
Selection, I cannot imagine a phenomenon as
complicated as Fate can happen by accident. If
Fate exists... and I believe it does... I
am convinced the Hidden Hand of God had to be responsible for
creating Fate.
I also believe
in Karma, the principle of cause and effect. Karma
implies there are consequences to every action.
“What goes around comes around” and “what you sow
is what you reap”. A belief in Karma is important
because it encourages people to act in accordance with
divine rules that bring order and harmony to the Universe.
Not only do people have a duty to uphold this order, Karma
encourages people to believe in a higher purpose such as
compassion and empathy for our fellow man. "Do unto
others..."
Some say Fate
and Karma are not the same thing. While both concepts
deal with the future, Fate implies a predetermined course of
events, often outside of one's control, whereas Karma is the
principle that actions have consequences, shaping one's
future through their own deeds. I disagree. The
way I see it, Karma determines our Fate. In other
words, Fate is created by our current actions. In my
mind, Karma and Santa Claus are the same thing. Santa
is keeping a list. Good boys and girls are rewarded at
Christmas, bad boys and girls are punished.
What we do today
will affect us somewhere down the road. Karma is the
cause, Fate is the consequence.
Why is a belief in Karma
important? Because it gives us a strong reason
to
control our actions with an eye to negative consequences, to
make choices based on what’s right, and to take
responsibility for our actions when they do harm.
I can attest
that my belief in God, Fate and Karma have made me a far better
human being. Given the prevalence of evil in the
world, I suspect if more people seriously believed they
would one day be punished by the Force of Karma for their misdeeds,
the problems facing mankind would be reversed in short
order. For example, I made a serious mistake
in high school. I cheated on a test because I thought
the world was being unfair to me. To my astonishment,
I got caught due to an incredibly unlikely coincidence.
Convinced that the Hidden Hand of God was involved in my
downfall, I assumed I was being taught a lesson.
Consequently I made a
vow never to do that again. I am proud to say I have kept this vow.
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CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE:
HOW I CAME TO BELIEVE IN FATE |
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One day I sat
down with an old friend named Ted. His name pops up
periodically in three of my books. Out of curiosity, I
asked him a question. "Ted,
do you believe
in Fate?"
"No, of
course not, I am an atheist.
I don't
believe in predestination, fate, chance or luck. I
believe that a combination of
free will and random chaos controls our destinies. Nor
do I believe in a God who is going to rescue me when I
get in trouble. I believe I need to stay
awake and alert at all times, be
ready and able in order to exercise
my free will in a dangerous
environment."
Ted paused for
a moment. "What about you?"
I smiled.
"Due to my belief in Fate, I am convinced a Higher Power
exists. Fate is far too complex to have occurred by
accident."
"Okay, so
why do you believe in Fate?"
"Because a lot
of very strange things have happened to me during my life.
It started when I was five years old.
My father and
I were at a carnival headed to see a stock car race.
We were close enough that I could hear the cars warming up
behind a nearby fence. A sudden thought stopped me in
my tracks. Two seconds later a giant racecar lost
control and broke through the wood fence. It came
within inches of killing me and my father. The whoosh
of air knocked us to the ground, but we were not hurt.
Without that unexpected impulse, my father and I would have
been goners. That was just the start of things.
Throughout
my childhood various odd things happened. Every now
and then I would make an off-hand wish and be surprised to
see my wish granted."
"Can you be
more specific?" Ted asked.
"Oh,
small
things, but
important at the time. A chess book, a book about
football that I could not afford, a set of weights at a key
time. Then there were big things, a scholarship to my
private school, a scholarship to college, a last-minute date
for the prom. The biggest event came when a woman I
had admired for years showed up out of nowhere to help me
survive a crisis. Thanks to all these weird things
that happened, I became very suspicious that there was more
to this world than meets the eye. So I began to read
books on mysticism and the occult. The key moment came
in college when a book written by Carl Jung suggested we
keep a diary or a list of things that seem out of the
ordinary. I was 20 at the time. Considering I
could think of 26 events off the top of my head, I
immediately pulled out a piece of paper and started writing
them down."
Ted smiled.
"How big is your list now?"
"In 2025, it
stands at 122 events."
"And you
are sure every one of them was divine in origin?"
"Of course
not. Half of them are suspicious. This means
there could be a Realistic explanation. Half of them
are serious, which means they are very improbable based on
the Rules of Reality. And five of the events are so
profound I cannot imagine any rational explanation.
Either the Hidden Hand of God was involved or I was looking
at the most improbable coincidence of all time."
"What do
you mean by Rules of Reality?"
"I have
three strong examples of telepathy, or ESP if you prefer.
I have a ghost story. I have three stories that
strongly suggest the existence of Predestination plus a slew
of mind-bending coincidences. The thing to understand
is that any one of my so-called Supernatural Events can be
dismissed as a fluke or a statistical anomaly, but..."
Ted
interrupted. "What is a statistical anomaly?"
"Asteroids do
not collide very often in space, but there are so many
asteroids, it is bound to happen sooner or later. For
example, in 2009 two space satellites collided. The
skeptics say that with billions of people on our planet and
trillions of interactions, weird stuff is bound to happen.
That is the scientific explanation for coincidences that
make no sense."
"I agree
with that."
"Yes, so do I.
I also agree that one strange incident by itself does not
prove anything. However, each time something strange
happened, I could feel my sense of doubt starting to weaken.
By the time the 60th event took place, I was so used to
having weird things happen I got tired of looking for some
reason to doubt the supernatural authenticity of my List.
Sure, not everything that happened was 'Supernatural'
in origin, but if even 10 of the events were legitimate, the
cumulative improbability began to approach Infinity.
That was the moment I made my Leap of Faith."
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Does God exist?
Does Fate exist?
Today's
Religions revolve around an Invisible Man in the Sky
who is said to have created the Universe. For the past six
million years, man has developed complex belief
systems to explain strange events such as Miracles
that elude understanding. Unfortunately, some
people have a harder time believing in Miracles than
others. When it comes to the question of God's Existence,
there will always be Doubt. The next time God
parts the Red Sea, some scientist will suggest an
earthquake in the nearby Sinai Desert caused a
tsunami. And of course the Jews just happened
to be walking by. Okay, so maybe parting the Red
Sea is not enough proof. Why not look for more evidence?
How about walking on water or Jesus returning from
death?
Unfortunately, since
the miracles described in the Bible are so far in
past, modern man has trouble taking them seriously.
According to those who live by the code that Seeing is
Believing, blaming the mysteries of Life on an
Invisible God is sheer folly.
These skeptics require hard evidence like DNA or Fingerprints.
In the
absence of jaw-dropping Miracles, many people such
as myself look for more subtle signs of God's
existence. Many
people have been quoted as saying "Coincidence is
God's way of remaining anonymous". This suggests that seemingly random events might be
examples of
divine intervention where God guides events
without making His presence obvious. What we
perceive as random or chance occurrences might
actually be the unseen actions of a God who prefers to
work behind the scenes. This idea can be
applied to situations where things seem to fall into
place unexpectedly, or when seemingly impossible
events occur, thereby suggesting God's invisible
hand at work.
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Perhaps someday
Science will evolve to the point where we can find
fingerprints on the Hand of God, but that day is not
here yet. In the meantime, the best we can do
is look for Circumstantial Evidence.
Unfortunately, Circumstantial Evidence often leaves
room for doubt. Sometimes we reach the wrong
conclusion, a fear that plagues us all. Just
ask Richard Kimble, a doctor wrongly convicted for
the murder of his wife in the classic TV show
Fugitive. If you consider
the facts, of course Kimble was under
suspicion. Everyone
knows half of all murders involving a wife are
committed by the husband. Many suspect the percentage is even
higher. Kimble was seen arguing
at a party with his wife, the real killer left no
trace of his presence, his wife's skin was under
Kimble’s fingernails, he had a fat insurance policy
on his wife. Nor did Kimble have a credible
alibi. No one
in authority believed the one-armed killer existed.
Consequently an innocent man was found guilty.
The
Fugitive was fictional, but not the O.J.
Simpson case. Simpson was not caught
red-handed, but most people believe the
Circumstantial Evidence should have been enough to
convict Simpson. Ex-wife Nicole Brown had a
long history as the victim of Simpson's domestic abuse. Who
can forget the recordings of her frantic telephone
calls to the police for help when Simpson beat her?
Bloody footprints found at the crime scene were
consistent with a Bruno Magli shoe owned by Simpson. A
left-handed glove found among Simpson's belongings
matched a bloody right-handed glove found at the
crime scene. A letter from Simpson given to a
friend indicated his intention to leave the country
in disguise. And, if that was not enough,
Simpson's televised two hour escapade in the Ford Bronco
screamed 'guiltY'.
To most people, there was not a shred of doubt, but
the jurors thought otherwise. Here is my
point. If we try hard enough, we can find
something to Doubt on any issue, any piece of
evidence.
We all have a different threshold when it comes to
Doubt.
In my mind, if I can prove that
Fate exists, then by extension God exists.
The best way to
reveal the presence of an Invisible Man is to throw a bucket of paint on him.
Why not do the same with an Invisible God?
It is human
nature to wish for indisputable evidence to prove
the existence of Fate, but I don't think that can be
achieved. However, if we throw enough
Circumstantial Evidence at
the issue, or 'paint', I believe we can convince most people.
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By surrounding Fate with clues, a pattern would begin to
take shape. Will two incidents be enough? No.
Three? No. How about Four? No, but at
least an outline begins to form like one of those 'Connect
the dots' puzzles. Five, Six, Seven, Eight.
With each new event, a picture of Fate will start to take
shape. As the number of clues increase, our curiosity
grows, our doubt diminishes.
By the time I
reached my 60th event I was totally convinced. At this
point I no longer questioned the existence of God. In
fact, I was so certain that I no longer felt awestruck when
something highly out of the ordinary took place. I
would simply wink at God and add it to my List.
However there was one particular moment that did shake me
up. It came two years after my retirement from
teaching.
Bing Crosby once
said, "Honestly, I think I've stretched a talent which is
so thin it's almost transparent over a quite unbelievable
term of years."
I identified
closely with that statement. Considering
my shyness, my lack of experience as a dance
teacher plus a glaring lack of natural dance ability, I
estimate I had a 1% chance of
success at the start of my dance career. Nevertheless, a series of
lucky breaks stretched my 'talent so thin' just
enough to allow me to overcome my
obstacles and shortcomings. My success was so surprising that I came to
believe I was being guided by Destiny. When Fate is involved, anything is possible.
Two years after
my retirement, a golden opportunity to open a new studio
came along. Although I was not particularly
interested, I accepted due to my belief in God's Will.
I assumed this 'too good to be true' opportunity had
been handed to me because God wanted me to resume my dance
career. This was not much of a gamble. Due to my
experience, Vegas odds put my chance of success at 99%.
Nevertheless I failed miserably. Why? Because
everything that could go wrong went wrong.
To be frank, I
blamed God for my failure. Under normal circumstances
I would have succeeded. However, based on all the
things that went wrong, I assumed God wanted to teach me a
lesson. And what would that be? God had
demonstrated that all the talent, experience and hard work
would never succeed unless 'God's Will' was involved.
The message was
clear as day. Back when I knew little, I succeeded
anyway. Back when I had experience, I failed despite
long odds in my favor. As J.K. Rowling put it, "Talent
and intelligence have never inoculated anyone from the
Caprice of the Fates."
Although I still
felt it had been God's idea to give this comeback a try, I
did not think God was trying to punish me. I barely
lost any money. Mostly I felt embarrassed. So
what would be the purpose? I decided God wanted me to
understand that I needed God's blessing to succeed.
Since God clearly did not wish for me to resume my teaching
career, what did He want me to do? The more I thought
about it, perhaps God wanted me to share this important
concept with the rest of the world.
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If so, this might explain why I had been handed all these
lessons and all these weird stories. I
had a strong hunch that God wanted me to use these
stories to prove the existence of
Fate. However, it would not be effective
to single out one event in particular, even if it was one of
my favorite Reality-Bending events.
Long ago I
realized talking about one or two
events was
insufficient.
A
cumulative effect was necessary. That was the
moment I decided to put my lengthy List of Suspected
Supernatural Events to good use.
The only way to do justice to subject as complex as Fate
would require a series of books to discuss each unusual
event in careful detail.... which is what I have done.
A Simple Act of Kindness
The Hidden Hand of God
Magic Carpet Ride
Year of Living Dangerously
Fate and the Texas Twostep
Gypsy Prophecy
Brother and Sister
One more thing
before we move on to the next chapter.
In 2006,
Elizabeth Gilbert wrote a best seller titled Eat,
Pray, Love. Gilbert's memoir chronicled her
trip around the world after her divorce. During this
time, she made several spiritual discoveries, including one
incident where she met God. Given that her experiences
closely resembled some of my own, I asked myself if I have
ever met God. Perhaps, but if so, it was too subtle
for me to be sure.
I point this out
so my Readers know that I do not claim spiritual authority.
Given that I have never heard voices, had visions,
visitations, or an undeniable religious experience, who am I
to tell people what to think or believe? The best I can do is
describe
my experiences, let people take a walk in my shoes, state my
conclusions, then let my Readers make up their own mind.
In other words,
like I told my friend Ted, I cannot prove the existence of
Fate BEYOND ALL DOUBT. But I am willing to say I base
every decision I make on the belief that it does.
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