SUBCHAPTER 173 - THE RED STAR ANTARES

Dr. Hilton looked up as I entered.  "Good morning, Rick.  Let's get started.  Last week you explained that  you were pretty upset when 14 boys who did not agree with you about Edgar Cayce and Yogananda.  Where did your Magical Mystery Tour take you next?"

"I was depressed because no one believed a word I said.  It took a dramatic accident to snap me out of my doldrums."

"And what might that be?"

"I suffered an astrological eye injury."

"Are you referring to the Astrology of the morning newspaper where I can learn my fortune for the day?"

"No, not the silly kind of Astrology, but serious Astrology.  Silly Astrology is when the newspaper claims the daily fate of billions of people can be neatly divided into twelve vague predictions.

"What is serious Astrology?"

"Serious Astrology takes into consideration the different planetary interactions that affect our moods, our health, and our fortune.  The Zodiac divides the sky into twelve equal sections in which the positions of the sun, moon, stars, and planets are believed to influence human behavior.   I was interested in Astrology, so I learned how to cast a chart and interpret it.  Unfortunately, I got more than I bargained for.  Curiosity nearly killed the cat."

"Why did you get interested in Astrology in the first place?  I thought your main interest was Reincarnation."

"In several of the Edgar Cayce books, he made a convincing case that the planets play a major role in shaping our Destiny.  Considering that Yogananda said the same thing, I decided to investigate Astrology.  My Astrology book said it was important to know the influence of all planets on one's Birth Chart.  When I got to the chapter on Fixed Stars, I noticed the fixed star Antares sat right beside my Scorpio Sun in my birth chart. 

Curious, I looked up 'Antares conjunct Sun' to see what influence the giant red star might have.  I froze on the spot.  According to the book, this particular relationship was said to make the individual liable to blindness and eye injuries.  Since I was already blind in one eye, this odd coincidence struck way too close to home. 

At the time, I had just learned how to do a Progressive Horoscope.  This is where one starts with the Birth Chart and advances it to future dates to determine what might happen to the individual over time.  Progressive horoscopes are said to be a way to predict the future.  Using the set of Star Charts I had purchased at the occult bookstore, I took a look at Antares and calculated the next time I might be at risk.  The result was April 24, the opposite date in the Zodiac of my Scorpio birth sign. 

I immediately panicked.  April 24 was just three weeks away.  What should I do?  Half of me thought this whole thing was utter nonsense, but the other half of me was really spooked.  With one eye gone, was I looking at losing the other?  The thought of being blind was tough to deal with, especially now that I had been given this warning.  Common sense suggested I should play it safe, so I swore off basketball for three weeks since that was my only activity which carried any sort of risk. 

Unfortunately, the moment I gave up basketball, I realized I was in trouble.  Daily basketball was the only thing that kept me from going off the deep end.  As the days passed, my frustration mounted.  I had recently rented an upstairs room on the third floor of a row house.  The house was owned by two elderly women who lived below me.  I was totally alone in my room with not a close friend in the world.  As I stared at those walls, my loneliness was unbearable.  I could not study, I could not read and I could not sit still.  It was a Friday night and I was going stir crazy sitting alone in my room.  For the millionth time, I wished I had a girlfriend.  Women?  Yeah, right.  Where was I going to find one considering my non-existent social skills in the Land of No Women?

Finally I couldn't take it any more. I had to do something.  Telling myself I was being overly superstitious, it was time to quit taking this Astrology nonsense so seriously.  So I went over to the gym.  Thrilled to be back on the court, I made virtually every shot I took.  As they say, I was in The Zone.  Thanks to my success, I left the gym feeling pretty good about myself.  As I walked home in the brisk spring air, I was glad I had come to my senses.  Enough with this stupid Astrology nonsense and to hell with Antares.

Early the next morning the phone rang.  It was Rob, my basketball friend from back in my Freshman year.  Over the past two years, we had often played basketball together. 

"Rick, I am so glad I caught you!  I know you swore off basketball for the month of April, but my team has a game scheduled for this morning and we need a last-minute stand-in.  Our substitute went home for the weekend and last night one of our players got sick.  I don't have anyone else I can call on such short notice.  Can you help us out?  What do you think?"

"It is a funny coincidence that you called.  Your timing is perfect.  Last night I changed my mind and began playing again.  I'll be happy to play with you guys.  What time?"

Two hours later I was back on the court playing for Rob's team.  In the middle of the game, there was a long rebound.  As I chased down the bouncing ball, a player from the other team raced along beside me.  Just as I turned to grab the ball, the other guy made a desperate lunge to beat me to it.  He lost his balance in the process and our heads collided.  His forehead smashed hard into my right eye, the good eye.  I was horrified to feel the impact jam my thick plastic glasses directly into the eye socket.  The pain was intense.  As I fell to the floor, I shut my good eye and refused to reopen it out of fear that it had been injured. 

As I lay there on the floor reeling from the powerful collision, I felt a burning pain in the area of my good eye.  The guys rushed to me and said I was bleeding pretty badly.  With my eye still closed, their comments scared me to death.  A wave of nausea surged through me.  Was I blind?  Was my eye injured?  If my eye was injured, would opening my eye damage it further?  It took a full minute to steel myself, but finally I decided to open my good eye and learn my fate. 

Thankfully, I could see just fine.  The relief I felt was indescribable.  But I also saw blood on the floor.  Where was the blood coming from?  I asked one of the men to look closely.  He said there was a giant gash cut deep into my right eyebrow.  Apparently the upper rim of the thick glasses I wore had punctured my eyebrow.  That is what caused the pain.  Rob took a look.

"Rick, that's a really bad cut.  You're going to need stitches."

Without hesitation, I pressed a towel over my eyebrow and proceeded to walk four blocks to the nearest emergency room where they gave me 8 stitches.  The nurse, a pretty girl tantalizingly close to my age, exclaimed, "Gee, you sure are cheerful for a guy who just got his eyebrow split wide open.  Where do you get your positive attitude?"

I smiled at her.  "You have no idea."

Noticing how friendly she was, I was feeling lucky.  I was just about to ask her out when I noticed the wedding ring.  Darn it.  I really liked this girl.  So much for my fond hopes.  Oh well, time to return to the Land of No Women. 

When I returned home, I quickly got out the star charts.  The accident had taken place one day after I had predicted, but that was still close enough to convince me this accident was somehow related to Astrology.  That was very freaky.  One part of me had trouble believing the position of the planets and stars could create an eye injury, but it was hard to deny what had just happened.  This had been a serious coincidence.  My Astrology prediction had come to pass more or less exactly when I feared it would."

"Assuming your math was accurate, that was a strange coincidence indeed.  What conclusion did you draw?"

"I was stunned.  The more I thought about the implications of being able to predict the future, the more I was overcome by a sense of foreboding.  Was there another eye injury scheduled to happen in the future?  If so, I did not want to know about it.  Based on the foreboding I had felt all month long, I did not want to go through this again.  If I knew in advance something bad was about to happen to me, I would worry myself to death.  Deciding I could not handle the anxiety of knowing the future, I put the Astrology books away for good.  I have never touched an Astrology book since.  That stuff is way too spooky for me."

SUBCHAPTER 174 - THE OBSERVATION LIST

Dr. Hilton gave me an odd look, but said nothing.

"Okay, what is it?"

"I have a hard question to ask, but first I want to preface my question.  During our last two visits, we have discussed the difficulty of knowing who to believe.  I realize I have asked you this before, but is there a chance you embellish these stories to bolster your claims?  Please don't be offended, but some of the things you tell me stretch the limits of credulity."

"Dr. Hilton, I am not offended.  Do you have any idea how grateful I am to finally have someone to talk to about these weird experiences?  To answer your question, I have not embellished this story or any other of my unusual events.  If you want, I will place my hand on the Bible and swear this is the truth." 

"That won't be necessary, I just wanted to confirm that you tell these stories correctly.  I might ask you the same question again sometime.  Now I have another question.  You said an accident snapped you out of your doldrums, so I assume you meant this eye injury.  Where did you go from here?"

"The eye injury coincidence was so weird that it prompted a lot of thought.  Actually, there were two coincidences.  The fact that an Astrology book said my chart predicted blindness and eye injuries was the first coincidence.   The injury itself coming so close to the predicted date was the other.  Including last year's Emily-Eric Taxi coincidence and the recent strange voice from beyond that warned me of my precarious mental state, these incidents were starting to really add up.  In my opinion, these incidents seemed to corroborate the alternative view of Reality that I had acquired from Cayce and Yogananda. 

Or maybe it was the other way around.  At this point, I was so used to having weird things happen to me that I was already inclined to accept Cayce and Yogananda's Hidden World.  In my case, I quickly accepted that Cayce was telling the truth.  However, then came the day when 14 young men challenged me to prove what Cayce said was legitimate.  To my chagrin, I had no proof to offer, just my own belief.  Their skepticism served to pop my bubble in a serious way."

"What did you decide to do?"

"I required some way to show other people why I believed in the existence of Cayce and Yogananda's Hidden World.  People like you, for example.  There had to be some way to demonstrate that there is more to this world than meets the eye, but how?  Considering I possessed not one ounce of psychic ability, I was pretty dejected.  How was I supposed to discuss the existence of something no one could see without evidence?  I was about to give up when I thought of Carl Jung."

"Really?  Why Carl Jung?"

"I had read Jung's Memories, Dreams, and Reflections, an autobiography of sorts, and really liked what he had to say.  Carl Jung was the only scholar with any public credibility who gave strong nod to mystic ideas.  Jung's mother was said to have spoken with the dead.  Her embrace of the supernatural had influenced Jung and formed the basis of his controversial ideas.  Carl Jung suggested paranormal events such as precognitive dreams, premonitions, ghosts, ESP, and coincidences might turn out to be natural events for which science has not yet advanced far enough to comprehend.  In particular, I noticed his emphasis on coincidence. 

"The problem of Synchronicity has puzzled me for a long time, ever since my middle twenties when I was investigating the phenomena of the collective unconscious.  I kept on coming across connections which I simply could not explain as chance groupings.  What I found were 'coincidences' which were connected so meaningfully that their chance concurrence would represent a degree of improbability that would have to be expressed by an astronomical figure.

Dr. Hilton spoke up.  "What is the difference between Synchronicity and Coincidence?"

"To the best of my understanding, they are roughly the same thing seen two different ways.  Coincidence is what a Reality-based person would conclude as chance or luck.  Synchronicity implies the presence of a Divine intelligence working a hidden magic to coordinate the event. 

When it came to Coincidence, Mrs. Ballantyne was never far from my thoughts.  I had never been able to shake my certainty that some invisible being had led her to my side that day.  If our meeting wasn't Synchronicity, then what was it?

At this point, two separate trains of thought collided in my mind.  The more I read, the more I found Jung's ideas overlapped with Edgar Cayce's ideas on linked souls.  Cayce asserted that we travel in 'soul groups'.  These are people who incarnate together so they can work on whatever life lesson is necessary.  Using Cayce's perspective, everyone with whom we have a strong emotional tie, be it positive or negative, is invariably a Soul Mate.  To Cayce, a Soul Mate is an individual with whom we've been together in the past, and someone to whom we are drawn in the present.  It is predestined that these connected souls will meet at a specified time. 

I could not help but relate to Edgar Cayce's concept of soul mates.  According to his idea on connections born of previous lives, it was no coincidence I was drawn to Mrs. Ballantyne and Mr. Salls.  Cayce's explanation helped me understand why I had mysteriously focused on Mr. Salls and Mrs. Ballantyne without the slightest knowledge they would one day become my benefactors.  I had always thought it was really weird that my two heroes ended up rescuing me without being asked.  Now I had my answer.  Karma.  What will be will be.

I could very easily believe I had shared a previous lifetime with both people.  Imagine my surprise on the day I discovered they were close friends outside of St. John's.  Together, the three of us formed a fascinating triangle.  How was it possible that here at St. John's, the land of wealth and high birth, three people who came from distinctly impoverished childhoods ended up linked to one another?  Carl Jung and Edgar Cayce handed me my answer... Synchronicity, linked soul mates. 

Carl Jung focused on the mysterious events we call 'Coincidences'.  Jung said if you look close enough, there are connections and eccentricities in life that are difficult to explain.  Furthermore, since Synchronicity is a 'relatively rare' phenomenon, the isolated nature keeps most people from putting two and two together.  However, Jung said if we focus our attention on these seemingly random coincidences, we will witness one small facet of a much greater reality. 

Jung believed if we knew the truth about how perfectly the Universe was constructed, we would realize no one but God could possibly organize the phenomena of our world in such a profound way.  Nothing is happenstance in Jung’s world.   Jung claimed that coincidences were very important, but that most people don't realize their significance.  He said that if people would keep better track of these mysterious events, they would see their world in a much different way. 

Jung had a suggestion.  If we could somehow gather all these seemingly random coincidences together, we might just see a pattern emerge.  With that, I decided to take his advice.  I decided to keep careful track of every coincidence, every event that felt improbable to me.  I sat down and compiled a List of all the curious things that had happened to me so far.  I started with the recent Astrology eye injury coincidence and worked backwards."

"How many events were on your list?"

"My initial total was 15.  I was surprised the total was so small.  I had expected more, but then recalled that Carl Jung had used the words 'relatively rare'.  However, as I gave it more thought, one by one the total grew to its current total of 20."

"Why did your list grow?"

"Every now and then, I would think of something and see it in a different light.  As I began to review events from my past, I noticed certain curious events that never meant anything at the time."

"Can you give me an example of an event you added after the fact?"

"Sure.  When Vanessa first approached me in the hallway last October, she told me she was moving to Portland, Oregon.  By coincidence, I happened to know the words to a song called 'Portland Woman'.  She got such a kick out of my song, she wrote me a poem the same day.  That's how our relationship started.  I never gave it a second thought until I started to create my list.  At the time, I just shrugged it off.  Only in hindsight did I see how curious it was that the only song I knew the words to became the spark that started a bonfire.  Now that 'Portland Woman' had become 'Meaningful' in a Jungian sense, I added it to my list of observations.

"How did you happen to recall the significance of the 'Portland Woman' song?"

"As part of my new Observation project, I began to keep a diary.  One day when I was re-reading the events of the Vanessa tragedy, I ran across that story."

"Is that diary the reason you remember so many details?"

"Yes.  In retrospect, those 14 boys did me a favor.  By making fun of my belief system, they made me angry.  So, thanks to an idea I got from Carl Jung, I decided I would build a case based on observation that there is more to this world than meets the eye.  And with that, I dedicated my life to proving that Fate exists."

SUBCHAPTER 175 - PAY IT FORWARD

"That was an interesting point you made about the Salls-Ballantyne-Archer Triangle. Did you uncover any other patterns?"

"Yes.  I thought long and hard about my father.  Both Cayce and Yogananda suggested we have a powerful hidden link to certain people born of previous lifetimes.  Carl Jung appeared to agree when he suggested we can be in contact with one another without consciously knowing why our connection is so important.  Pointing to his increasingly adversarial relationship with Freud, a one-time friend, Jung said he expected the two men would meet again in the next lifetime to resume their argument.  Jung may have been joking, but probably not.

Now that Cayce's 'soul mate' ideas were part of my belief system, I was convinced Mrs. Ballantyne and I must be linked.  One of my books on Reincarnation spoke about life scripts, how we follow a predestined path.  I concentrated on how bizarre it was that Mrs. Ballantyne had a near identical life script to mine, how she climbed out of poverty and despair thanks to the help of a stranger sending her to college.  That got me to thinking about my father because he and I shared virtually the same childhood. 

Like me, Dad had no father.  His father died of appendicitis when he was six.  My father more or less died the moment he met my evil Stepmother when I was eight.

Like me, Dad had only one eye.  A falling brick from a stone wall had struck him in the eye as he walked home from school. 

Like me, Dad had a battle with acne.  His scars weren't as bad as mine, but he evidently had a rough time of it at a similar age.  

Like me, my father was an only child and a lonely child.  No siblings, no extended family. 

Like me, Dad lived alone with his wacko mother Dorothy, the one fond of fondling. 

Like me, money was always a serious problem in the home. 

Like me, my father turned to academics for salvation. 

Like me, he was deeply worried about how to afford college. 

However, at this point our stories diverged.  Fortunately for Dad, he found his own unique way to get college paid for.  A very handsome man, marrying the homely daughter of a wealthy man became my father's ticket out of poverty.  Were it not for the acne, I might have matched my father's good looks, but that was not meant to be.  Now that I had turned into the Phantom of the Opera, my chance of attracting a wealthy bride was negligible." 

"Rick, let me say this again.  You are a good-looking young man.  No one sees those scars but you.  You need to get this stigma out of your mind once and for all."

"I know, Dr. Hilton, I know.  My buddy Jason tells me the same thing.  But let's talk about that some other time.  What is important here is that I could not get over how similar my childhood had been to my father's.  Given my admitted tendency to seek the supernatural in every shadow, I was understandably very curious about these uncanny parallels. 

One thing I could not get out of my mind was my father's abandonment.  Have I told you Dad was high school valedictorian?  God gave him a superior brain, but forgot to add the heart.  Since my father suffered virtually an identical childhood to mine, surely he had to understand how much pain I was in.  However, instead of reaching out to me, he turned his back on me.   Knowing what he went through himself, why would he do that to me?  In doing so, he doomed me to the same lousy childhood he had suffered.

On the other hand, due to her own painful childhood, Mrs. Ballantyne recognized on the spot how much I was suffering.  Two people, one my father, one a total stranger.  One turned his back, the other did not hesitate to reach out.  It made no sense that my own father would do that to me.  However, now that I believed in Fate, I assumed my father's abandonment was linked to our mutual Karma.  Who knows, maybe I did the same thing to him in our previous lifetime.  With my luck, I was doomed to meet him again in the next lifetime until we worked it out.  No doubt my mother too.

As for Mrs. Ballantyne, I was convinced her timely intervention had been a Fated moment.  Full of gratitude for her kindness, I wondered how I could ever repay her for what she had done.  One day I read about a concept known as 'Pay it Forward'.  When someone does me a good deed and I cannot repay that person, the next best thing is to find someone who needs my help and pay my debt forward.  

In the case of Mrs. Ballantyne, I believe she took a special interest in me specifically because my struggles reminded her so much of her of own problems as a child.  Recalling how people had helped her at the right time when she was young, she had the empathy to pay that kindness forward when she met me.  Now I wanted to do the same thing for someone else.

Call it my 'Susan and the Witch' moment.  The memory of the story where a young girl reached out and helped an old woman regain her health and sanity was riveted in my mind.  Wasn't Susan's decision to help a broken old woman the same thing Mrs. Ballantyne had done for me?  Nor was Mrs. Ballantyne alone.  Considering the kindness of all the people who had guided me this far... Mr. Salls, Mr. Curran, Mr. Ocker, Mr. O'Connor... I was understandably very drawn to this Pay it Forward philosophy.  There was no way I could ever repay any of those people who had helped me, but I might be able to help someone else.  Now that I realized how many times I had been helped by the kindness of others, wouldn't it be nice if I could return the favor? 

This was a very important moment for me.  I call it the birth of my social conscience.  My 'Susan and the Witch' moment prompted the realization that I had never actually helped someone out of a jam in my entire life.  I was a little ashamed of myself to realize I was 20 years old and this was this first time I had ever given serious thought to helping other people.  One thing about being a loner, I didn't have to worry about anyone else's well-being.  I was far too preoccupied with my own problems to worry about other people too.

At the moment, I was in awe of Edgar Cayce.  Here was a man who had devoted his entire life to helping people through his trance-inspired advice.  I could not get over how unselfish he was.  These trances took a lot out of him, so he limited himself to doing two a day.  However, when World War II broke out, there were so many people with worries that he did eight a day for five long years.  With his health deteriorating rapidly due to exhaustion, he died pretty much the moment the war ended.  Here was a man who sacrificed his own life in service of others. 

Based on my admiration for Edgar Cayce and Mrs. Ballantyne, I made a very important decision.  This was the moment I abandoned my career in computers, something I was actually good at, and decided to become a therapist instead.  Considering I had just suffered a serious bout with borderline mental illness at the Graduate Reading Room two months earlier, this was the worst career decision since Einstein briefly chose to become an office clerk.  Although my decision did not turn out very well here at Colorado State, my desire to help other people at least shows my heart was in the right place." 

SUBCHAPTER 176 - OBSERVATION 20

INTRO

001