THE
HIDDEN HAND OF GOD
CHAPTER
THIRTEEN:
INTO THE MYSTIC
Written by Rick Archer
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OCTOBER 1969,
SOPHOMORE YEAR At johns HOPKINS
THE HOPKINS
DANCE MIXER
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The cruelty of Carol's
turnabout left me reeling. Train
Station Emily had set me up and now Kansas City
Carol had finished me off. If it was
not for Aunt Lynn, I don't know what I would
have done. Ask me how much I trusted
women at the moment. On second
thought, don't ask. It was becoming
increasingly clear that I was woefully inept
when it came to women. With great reluctance,
I forgot about Rice and returned to Hopkins for my
Sophomore year. As the timeline stood,
I was nearing the one year mark since my
last date. Back in early November 1968
Emily had joined me for a visit to Dick and
Lynn's house. Two weeks later came the
crushing Train
Station event. I did not date during the
Second Semester of my Freshman year nor the
ensuing summer.
Why
date someone in Baltimore or Northern
Virginia when I had a dream girl waiting for
me in Houston?
But then Carol pulled the rug out.
I paid
a heavy price for my last-minute decision to return to
Hopkins.
In addition to betraying me,
she set me up to live in squalor. All
available housing near campus was already occupied.
After a
desperate bulletin board search, I ended up sleeping on
the living room couch of a run-down apartment shared by
four Juniors I had never met before. They wanted
my money, but not my friendship. The place was a
pigsty. The bathroom had an odor, roaches
everywhere, trash was overflowing and I did not get
along with anyone. Sleeping in the living room, I
had no privacy. I was constantly awakened by
nocturnal visits to the nearby kitchen refrigerator and
honking horns from the busy street below my second-story
window. Without a doubt, this was the worst living
arrangement I would ever encounter.
Swiftly
growing
to despise my roommates, I spent as little time as possible in that
apartment. At this
point, I became
extraordinarily lonely.
At least in the dorm there had been guys I saw on a regular basis.
No more of that. I rarely saw the friends I had made the
previous year. They were all living together and having a great
time. If not for Kansas City Carol, I would have been a part of that, a
fact that angered me up no end.
Afternoon games of Basketball wasn't getting it done nor were my occasional
trips to see Lynn and Dick. What I needed was
friends, people I could hang out with, people I could laugh with.
Forced to sleep on a couch in a place where I wasn't wanted,
this loneliness was killing me.
It was
now October 1969.
A year had passed since I had been anywhere
near a girl my age. I was
so desperate for companionship, I considered
attending an upcoming dance mixer to be held on campus.
Considering my lack of experience with
dancing, this
idea was way out of my comfort zone.
It was not just my dance shortcomings that stopped me.
After an entire year of avoiding women, I did not know the
first thing about breaking the ice with some girl I did not
know. What do I say? Where do I begin? Of
course I know the answers now. You say hello, you ask
where they're from, what's their major, do you like your
school, etc. You try to find something you have in common.
These practical approaches may come naturally to some people, but not to a
kid who had grown up alone without anyone to explain it to
him.
Besides, Emily and Carol had done great harm to my
confidence. Once
bitten, twice shy. Out of practice for a year, I had
become unusually afraid of a woman's rejection.
Bottom line, I was fearful of approaching any girl who was a
stranger.
I
had talked myself out of going when a
very strange experience changed my mind about the mixer.
Hopkins had a large
population of gay men. It had something to do with
being a men's school.
I
learned the hard way that some
gay men can be very aggressive.
Every two or three months I was approached in the library
by some stranger who invited me to have sex. I
turned them down, but after the fifth time it happened I began
to wonder why I was so popular. I got my answer in a
very awkward way. It had nothing to do with me; it was
a numbers game. One night I turned a guy down only to
see him walk five feet and ask the next guy who also
turned him down.
I
was astonished at the man's nerve. At the same time, I
was curious about his boldness, so I got up and
followed him around. He hit on seven men before
the eighth said okay. As things stood, I
had never propositioned a woman in my life.
If I
got shot down by seven women in a row, I would have looked for the nearest
cliff.
Nevertheless, I had learned a lesson. If someone had a
skin thick enough to handle multiple rejection, this
random approach was fairly certain to work eventually.
Given my desperation find a girlfriend, I
vowed to go to the mixer dance and refuse to quit
until some girl agreed to dance with me.
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When
I walked in the door to the gym, I
was pleased to note plenty of girls
among the crowd of 200. However I was
unsure how to approach them since they were all strangers. Given
my problems with Emily and Carol, I was very tense.
For one thing, the lights were
too bright. This made me worry about having my acne scars illuminated.
Whenever I felt insecure, I always worried about being ugly.
I was not
the only person who was nervous.
There
was a total absence of revelry.
Everyone, boys and girls alike,
had their arms crossed. Part of the problem was lack of an emcee to
encourage ways to mingle gracefully. Other than free
beer, we were on our own inside this massive gym. As a result,
there was
very
little 'mixing' going on.
As we waited for the band to begin,
the girls talked to each other while the
boys mostly wandered around.
I was very worried. Making the
first move was a real challenge. Even if I worked up the
courage to approach, how do I start a
conversation with a girl I don't know?
Nor did
I have a clue how to dance. Where was Prom Queen Cheryl
when I needed her? The beer was not helping my
courage at all.
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At the
time my
self-esteem hovered around 1 on a 10-point scale. I have a bad
tendency towards self-criticism. Over the
past year I had berated myself
constantly for lacking the courage to approach women.
As
a result, tonight I feared rejection in the worst
way. It was one thing to fantasize about asking girls to dance,
but another
thing entirely to find the courage to approach when it counted. Nor
did the visiting
girls help.
After arriving on buses, they
huddled together in the gym
for reassurance
and conversation. This
was very disconcerting. I would have fared
better one on one, but
there was not
one woman in the gym brave
enough to stand
alone.
This forced me
to approach three or four women to seek the approval of one.
I was very intimidated at the thought.
This event was
more or less an awkward beauty contest.
The
only criterion to go on was looks and I felt
lacking.
Well
aware that every peak and valley of my scarred
face was exposed in the harsh light, why would a girl pick me over another boy?
I could not get past my fear of rejection. Back in high school
when other boys were learning how to chat with girls
and asking them to
dance, I hung back in the
shadows and sulked. Tonight I seriously regretted
never taking the time to learn the most basic dance step or ways to
make small talk. I had no
idea how to make conversation,
I had no idea how to dance, and I was handicapped by my fear of ugliness. This
made my decision to approach the girls quite a
challenge. Certain they would say no, no doubt my lack of
confidence
was written on my face.
Compounding the problem was a simple alternative. If I avoided approaching a girl,
then I would not
have to feel anxious. However, if I chickened out, I would
continue to suffer this indescribable
loneliness. Plus I would hate myself
even more for my cowardice. Teetering
on the edge of despair, I recalled my solemn vow
that no matter what happened I would keep asking until some girl
danced with me. This desperation
explains how I summoned more will power to
approach unknown women than at any other
time in my life.
Just
then the band began to play. It was the
Chamber Brothers, a one-hit wonder psychedelic rock band riding the
success of their song 'Time has Come Today'. I
figured the music was my cue to
make a move. Steeling myself, I cautiously
made my way over to a clump of girls. No luck.
The girl said 'no thanks' as her three girlfriends stared at
me stone-faced. I went to the other side of the room and tried
again. The next girl said 'not right now, but
maybe later' as her two friends
giggled at my obvious discomfort. I did not have much courage
left, but I had promised myself to continue. At that
moment, I noticed a pretty girl looking straight at me. We made
direct eye contact and she did not flinch. I
took that as an invitation, but I was mistaken. Her
expression changed to a frown when I walked up, so I became
hesitant. Afraid she had
seen my scars as I came closer, she probably regretted
making eye contact.
I was already apologizing for my existence by
the time I got there.
However, I had made it this far, so I didn't back down. Her name tag said 'Connie'.
It was difficult asking Connie to dance with her two
girlfriends watching intently, but I uttered the
all-important words
nonetheless. With my
heart in my throat, I managed to blurt out, "Would you like to dance, Connie?"
Connie
glanced at the other two girls in a way that made me cringe. But
then she looked back at me and stuck her hand out. I felt like
Connie was taking pity on me. I could read her mind... "Oh hell, it's
only one song. Let's get this over with."
I did
not recognize the song that was playing, but I was too nervous to care. We got out
on the floor and I attempted to dance. This was awkward because I had no idea where to start. I
watched the other guys, but that didn't help.
They didn't know what they were doing either. So I
waved my arms around and shuffled my feet. I felt like
an idiot. As for Connie, she
looked bored out of her wits. She turned her back
and looked elsewhere as we
danced. I assumed she looked away to avoid being forced to
face me. For some reason, Connie suddenly got the biggest grin on
her face. Curious, I followed
her gaze. When I realized Connie was looking at her
two girlfriends standing 20 feet away, I froze. One of her girlfriends was pointing
directly at me
and the other was convulsed with laughter. I was
positive they were laughing at my dancing. No doubt
they thought it was hysterical that poor Connie was stuck
dancing with a spastic. I was mortified. The contempt of those
girls really hurt. Feeling
like a pathetic joke, I wanted to die on the spot.
Suddenly the girls realized I was
staring right at them as they made fun of me.
Oops!
Embarrassed at being caught, first they covered their
mouths, a tell-tale sign. Then they whirled and made a beeline for
the restroom. Their rapid exit confirmed they had been
laughing at me. I turned back to face Connie.
She had already stopped dancing, probably due to the hostility
on my
face. We locked eyes and she replaced her smile with
a smirk.
I stared
at Connie. "What was that all about?"
Connie
knew what I meant. She just shrugged, a gesture I took
to mean 'deal with it.'
"Who do those girls think they are?"
I demanded. "Do they think it is funny to laugh at me?"
Connie
laughed contemptuously. "What's your problem, buddy? Those
girls are my friends. They can do whatever they want."
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Connie's
snotty reply triggered my temper. I felt my embarrassment turn
to rage. I wanted to slap Connie senseless with every ounce of my being.
Except that boys don't hit girls. Realizing I was on the verge of
making a terrible mistake, I turned and stormed out of the
gym. I was too upset to go home, so I decided to walk off my anger. I
had made
the right decision. Barely under control, one more sneer
and I was certain to lose it. Seething with rage, I walked for
two hours. Geez, I never had a
chance. What was the sense of asking Connie to dance
if I couldn't dance in the first place? Asking her
to dance had been as pointless as the Charge of
the Light Brigade. I was certain to fail, so what was
I thinking? Did I believe I could magically learn to
dance on the spot? I blamed Connie for
unnecessary rudeness, but I blamed myself for
recklessly trying something that had no chance of success.
Nor did my
self-criticism stop there. I was frustrated to admit I had no
clue how to initiate a conversation with a girl I did not
know. I had always been shy around women, but that
stunt Carol pulled
had created a tremendous
amount of self-doubt. For crying out
loud, I had six letters from Carol begging me to return to Houston.
Six goddamn letters! Thanks to Carol, I had transferred to another school on her
behalf only to see the young woman turn her back. Wallowing in a
deep well of misery, I decided what Carol had done was far more
serious than Emily breaking a date to see another guy.
I despised going to a
men's school because it was impossible to meet women in a less
stressful way. And what about those women at the mixer?
They had gotten off a bus with the intention of meeting men, so what
was the point of making it so difficult for me to approach? Would it
hurt to help a little? Right now I was so
angry at women I scarcely knew how to behave around them
anymore.
The mixer confrontation was the Kill Shot.
The cruelty of
Connie and her snotty girlfriends
had activated the rawest nerve in my fragile psyche. My self-esteem was
way too thin to handle a put-down of this magnitude. As far as I was
concerned, this college mixer had turned into an Extinction-level
Event.
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February 1970,
second semester, sophomore
year, Age 20
ALIENATION
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Alienation: The experience of being isolated from a
group to which one should
be
involved.
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Connie Kill Shot did a
number on my head. It seems odd that a
woman I met only briefly and knew nothing
about could have such a serious effect on my
confidence. I chalked it up to bad
timing. After going an entire year of
avoiding women, my confidence was already
running on empty. It was a shame that
her rebuke caught me at a time when I was
too beaten down to rally. Once Connie
pushed me over the edge, I refused to try
again.
I felt
so utterly unattractive and powerless around
women, I saw no reason to bother seeking a
girlfriend.
Loneliness
is an acid on the soul. It makes
people become twisted and mean. I had
been depressed ever since returning to
Hopkins, but Connie instilled a hopelessness
I could not seem to shake.
I did do one smart thing. I moved out of
that awful row house over Christmas break. Unwilling
to sleep on that living room couch one minute
longer, I rented a room in a row house within walking
distance of campus.
Two ladies in their 70's lived together. They
spent most of their time watching TV
downstairs and slept in separate
bedrooms on the second floor. I had the
third floor all to myself.
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Since the
ladies who owned the house saw no reason to speak to me, it was the same as
living alone.
I was
completely on my own. Other than the guys I played
basketball with in the afternoon, I had virtually no
interaction with the human race. No
drinking with the guys, no partying, certainly no
girlfriends. I had always been a loner, but never
quite to this extent before.
I retreated into the same shell I
once inhabited during my 'Paint it Black' period in
high school. I was not bitter towards anyone, just
lonely.
It was late
February
1970. Four months had passed since Connie Kill Shot
turned me into a Walking Dead. On a freezing Saturday
morning, I went to my work-study job at the Graduate
Reading Room. My presence guarded various manuscripts
from theft. A student had two choices. They could read
the article in the room I supervised or they could sign it
out, take it into another section of the library, then
sign it back in later. I never spoke to anyone unless
they spoke to me first.
All I did was watch. On this particular
morning everyone seemed to be in a bad mood. I noticed how grouchy the
first graduate student was. Then I saw another student
enter the room with a huge frown on his face. Then I
saw another one enter with a frown on his face as well. And another
one. As I sat there
leaning back in my chair with my arms crossed,
I could not help but notice how depressed all these young men
appeared
as they passed by. This went on all morning. Isn't
there anyone around here who is happy?
Is the whole world miserable?
This went on for
half an hour when suddenly I had the most curious thought.
It was not my thought, more like someone had placed the
message in my mind. It was not these young men who were
depressed, it was me. I was the one who was depressed.
I was seeing my own depression in their faces. I
suppose I was using a
psychological defense known as 'Projection'. My
loneliness had taken its toll on me. I had become so
cold and remote that I had lost touch with my own
feelings. Rather than reveal the disturbing fact
that I was absolutely miserable, my mind would
only let me see that feeling in the
faces of the other students.
The first thing
I did was wonder where that curious insight had come from.
To be perfectly honest, it was almost like someone had
spoken that message to me, a whisper of sorts. The mind is a strange thing indeed.
The second thing
I did was panic. I had the worst sense that my life
was in crisis. I was stunned.
How was it possible to be so deeply depressed and not even know it? I could not believe how blind I was to my own state of
mind. Now that I thought about it, I had been going
around feeling numb for weeks.
I was shocked to
realize just how unhappy I was. This was exactly how I
felt during the toughest part of my senior year in high
school. Unfortunately there was no Mrs. Ballantyne
to save me this time. I had to work the entire weekend, so
there was no chance to drive down to
Northern Virginia in search of sanctuary with Aunt Lynn.
What was I going to do?
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Sunday,
FEBRUARY 22,
1970, JOHNS HOPKINS
BALTIMORE QUAKER MEETING
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Thanks to the mysterious
whisper, I had been warned that something
was seriously wrong with me.
What should I do? Raised a Quaker, I recalled how
the kindness of several adults in the Houston Quaker Meeting had
meant a lot to me during my parents' divorce.
Right now I needed human warmth more than anything else in
the world. Unsure where else to turn, the Baltimore
Quaker Meeting was literally the only door I could think of
to seek comfort on short notice.
There was a Baltimore phone directory
at my desk. I pulled it out and looked to see if
Baltimore had a Friends meeting ('Society of Friends'
is another name for Quakers). To my surprise, the
Baltimore Friends Meeting was directly across Charles Street
from the library. It was so close I could hold my
breath in the time it would take to walk there. Even
better, tomorrow was Sunday. I nodded. This idea
gave me just enough boost to get me through the night.
Many Quakers belong to a branch
that includes singing and a pastor who delivers a
prepared sermon. I grew up in the smaller
'No Frills'
branch.
No singing, no preaching, no leader. Instead the
members sit quietly for an hour and meditate.
Quakers believe if one can silence their
mind, they open themselves up to God's inspiration. Hopefully the
still small voice of God will offer a suggestion on problems
as well as spiritual development.
Every
once in a
while someone will stand up and offer a brief thought, but
this is not common.
Mostly the members
meditate and pray for guidance.
On a cold winter morning, February 22nd, I
visited the Baltimore Quaker Meeting for the first time. I was
relieved to see they practiced the same silent meditation
I had grown up with.
One hundred people
sat quietly in hopes that God would share an insight.
About halfway through the service, an older man
rose to get our attention.
He said, "Are you confident the way you view the world is the way it really
is?"
That's all he said.
Then he sat down.
His words
left me mesmerized. I immediately recalled the six
coincidences of 1968. Sad to say, these events had taken a back seat
during the loneliness and
depression of the past year. As I sat there in the Quaker
Meeting,
I could not
get the memory of Mrs. Ballantyne's grocery store appearance out of my mind.
Nor could I forget how weird it had been to see Emily in the train station.
I had just listened to a man stand up and ask if
I was confident that the way I viewed the world was accurate. To be
perfectly frank, t he answer was No. I had been suspicious
about this thing called Reality for some time now.
Feeling spooked,
I
sat there wondering if the man would speak to me. I was very curious, so
I approached
him after Meeting concluded.
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Richard, 75,
exuded exactly the
warmth I needed. I was very drawn to this man, so I
asked him to explain what he had meant by his question.
Richard smiled
and said, "I had a sudden urge to remind my friends
to retain their sense of Curiosity. Who knows,
maybe my
message was meant for you."
Feeling on
guard, I asked suspiciously, "What do you mean
by that?"
"You strike
me as a young man who is very curious."
I blushed.
I never
realized it was that obvious. 'Curious'
should have been my middle name. Taken aback, I
demanded to know what Richard was talking about.
We ended up speaking for 30 minutes. I don't
remember the conversation word for word, but it
revolved around
Columbus and Copernicus.
Richard
had a problem with people who refuse to challenge
their views in face of contradictions.
"The
advance of Civilization is dependent on people
who see things differently and have the courage
to act upon their instinct. I call them
pioneers. Copernicus
suspected the Sun was the center of our solar
system.
Columbus
suspected the Earth was round.
Both men
were dismissed as complete fools.
There
is great irony here. Humans like to
think we are the dominant
species due to our intelligence, but sometimes the
people who think they are the smartest turn out
to be the most ignorant of all. It grates
my soul to see
men like
Columbus and Copernicus written off by
closed-minded bigots.
Take Columbus for
example. He was widely vilified for
defying
scientists who assured everyone the Earth was flat.
They were
so sure they were right.
All people had to do was look in the
distance and see for themselves how flat the
terrain was. Indeed, many of the sailors who went with Columbus on his fateful
first voyage were terrified they might actually fall off the edge
of the
Earth.
Copernicus
was scorned
when he
theorized the Earth revolves around the sun. No one believed him! Incredibly, the Catholic
Church actually put people to death for the crime of
agreeing with Copernicus. If that doesn't
prove the
existence of human stupidity, nothing does.
If we
fail to challenge our view of the Universe
every time we find a situation that defies
explanation, we cut off any chance to further
advance human
knowledge."
Until
I met Richard
I had no idea
that many Quakers have an interest in Eastern
religion. Since the Quaker religion revolves
around meditation, it is natural that some are drawn
to Hinduism with its tradition of spiritual
development through yoga and meditation.
During our conversation, Richard drifted into
subjects I had never seriously considered before
such as Reincarnation.
Seeing my eyes
grow wide, he recommended a book, Autobiography of
a Yogi. Then he suggested a bookstore where I
could find a copy. I thanked Richard and
thought about him on my way home.
To my surprise, I noticed I was
smiling. Wonders never cease.
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FEBRUARY
1970,
SOPHOMORE
year at johns Hopkins
INTO THE
MYSTIC
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When I reached home, I
threw myself on the bed and let out a deep
sigh. Looking up, my eyes fixated
on the caption of my wall poster.
"I can see
nothing plain, all is Mystery..."
That pretty much
summed it up. I began to think about
Emily. This tailspin I was in had
started with her. Although the
pain of her betrayal had never really gone
away, it had
finally dulled to the point where I could
try to make sense of the train station
coincidence. I had no business being
at that remote location. I had only
been
there because Jake had asked me for a
last-minute favor.
The timing at the train station was remarkable. I estimated
there was at most a two-minute window of
opportunity for me to spot them. Hmm.
That reminded me of
Bob Franklin and his identical two-minute
window of opportunity.
Or for that matter Prom Queen Cheryl and Mrs.
Ballantyne's unexpected arrival at my grocery
store. I had four definite events that could be attributed to
the Hidden Hand of God and two more, the
college scholarship and surviving a serious
car accident, that were suspicious.
What conclusions should I make? "All
is Mystery..."
The Supernatural
Rollercoaster of 1968 had suddenly become the most
important thing in the world to me. Haunted by the long odds against
spotting Emily and Eric, I felt like God had delivered a
sledgehammer to my head. I
also noticed the nature of Divine Intervention was
unpredictable. While Cheryl, Mrs. Ballantyne, and
my college scholarship were lucky breaks, Bob, Emily and the car
accident were unlucky breaks. Driven to distraction by
six
challenges to my sense of Reality, I could not ignore these
freak events any longer. And so I began a journey
into the Mystic. I would not rest until I answered
one important question to my satisfaction.
Does God exist? If
so, then I had my explanation for these strange events.
If not, then Life was even more grim than I ever
imagined.
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I have
Richard's suggestion
to thank for initiating my spiritual journey.
That same afternoon I drove to the Aquarian
Age Bookstore and bought a copy of Autobiography of a Yogi.
In his book,
Yogananda claimed that a Soul chooses his
life path before he is born. If this
was true, it meant I picked my lousy parents, I
picked my blind eye, I picked my scarred
face, I picked my problems with women.
This meant I was no longer a victim. I
could complain about my problems as much as
I wished, but only if I accepted my own Soul was
responsible for choosing these obstacles.
This led to a very strange thought. How
could I be mad at my own Soul?
I do not expect my
Readers to agree with this concept.
Far be it for me to tell people what to
think. However, I liked the idea
because I no longer felt angry at the world
for being mean to me. If my Soul chose
my Destiny, then these problems
were my own damn fault... and it is high
time I do something about them. In
other words, the pity party is over.
Take responsibility for my problems and find
ways to overcome them.
This
had been my fourth trip to Rock Bottom. I
had my spiritual journey to thank for my
rescue. The more I became interested in mysticism,
the more my depression lifted. I was
still lonely, but it was something I could deal
with. The crisis was over.
Looking back at
this difficult period of my life, I
recall being consumed with uncertainty
about the existence of God. I
don't know why, but Faith did not come
easily to me. There was some part
of me that was deeply fearful of being
tricked by my own mind. When a
person desperately wants something to be
true, there is a danger of interpreting
each clue as support for one's dream.
Yes, I had an impressive collection of
circumstantial evidence, but was it
enough to take that final step to
complete certainty?
Faced with six incredibly strange
events, it crossed my mind that each
Coincidence could be dismissed if it
stood alone. However, I was
dealing with a serious cumulative effect
after being hit
rat-a-tat
by six in a row. The phrase 'United
we Stand,
Divided we Fall'
came to mind.
If
these six events had been properly
spaced apart, I might have dismissed
them one at a time as some sort of freak
happenstance. But six in a row?
Come on now, maybe one or two could be
written off as a weird accident of some
sort, but there was no way all six were
accidents. I ran across a quote
that summed up my feelings exactly.
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" The
more frequently one uses the
words
'Just a Coincidence'
and 'Luck'
to explain bizarre
happenings, the more obvious it
becomes that one is not seeking,
but
rather evading the real explanation."
-- Robert Anton
Wilson
There are two
kinds of Coincidences. Most of
them are meaningless and easily ignored.
However, every one of my 1968 Coincidences
had been striking. In fact, based
on a lifetime of observing Coincidences,
I can report the events of 1968 were
among the most startling Coincidences I
would ever encounter. At this
point it was getting harder and harder
to resist the call of my heart.
I was almost certain the Hidden Hand of
God was involved. However I was still
not totally convinced. There
was still some doubt left. What
should I do? Since
Hopkins was the Land Without Women,
there was no day-to-day temptation to
cause me to reconsider my decision to
swear off women for the time being.
And so I dedicated myself to solving the
mystery of the six coincidences.
Over the next year and a half, I read
every book on Mysticism I could get my
hands on. What exactly do I mean
by Mysticism? Although Mysticism
is considered a synonym for the Occult,
I was not interested in Alchemy, Magic,
witches, the Devil or Voodoo spells.
That stuff gave me the creeps. The
topics I studied were Telepathy,
Telekinesis, Predestination, Fate,
Divine Intervention, Miracles, Life
after Death, Reincarnation, Meditation,
Yoga, Intuition, Coincidence, Astrology,
and the possibility of a Hidden World
that coincides with what we refer to as
Reality. More than anything else,
I wanted to see what other people had to
say about the existence of God and how
the existence of Evil could be
reconciled with my belief in a kind and
just God.
One book had a joke I
really liked.
A lady named Agnes is forced to the
roof by a rising flood. A
giant log floats by. She
ignores it. An empty canoe
floats by. She ignores it.
A helicopter comes by. She
ignores it. Each time she
exclaims, "I will put my Faith in
God to save me."
One hour later Agnes drowns to
death. When Agnes reaches
Heaven, she indignantly asks God why
He did not save her.
God replied, "Gosh, Agnes, I sent
a log, a canoe, and a helicopter.
Is it asking too much to work with
me a little?"
I got the point.
Red-Handed Bob, Miracle Maria, Prom
Queen Cheryl,
Train Station Emily,
a near-death experience, a college
scholarship materialized from thin air.
I interpreted
these events as God's way of asking me
to work with him a little. How could
Agnes ignore a helicopter? In a
very odd way, the helicopter analogy
reminded me of Emily. I had faced
five of the strangest coincidences
imaginable at St. John's
only to COMPLETELY FORGET ABOUT
THEM when I began chasing girls in
college.
What, God must
think, will it take to get a
thick-headed boy like Rick Archer to sit
up and pay attention?
As we
recall, my brief romance ended in an
unusually cruel way. Emily never
imagined I would show up at the train
station to discover her duplicity.
Be that as it may, due to a vicious
quirk of Fate, I was forced to watch in
horror as Emily entered the train
station hand in hand with her new
boyfriend.
I am one of those
"things happen for a reason"
people. Here is the question I
asked at the time.
Why would
God rub this vivid demonstration of
my girlfriend's betrayal in my face?
Many people end a relationship by ceasing to
communicate. If Emily had done
that, I would have been hurt.
However I would not have suspected the
Hidden Hand of God was involved. I
decided God had organized this painful
demonstration of Emily's deceit as a way
to get my attention. Trust me, it
worked.
Yogananda stated that
Suffering is an
intentional part of existence.
Obstacles are not necessarily Evil, but
rather events placed in our path to act
as learning experiences. Without
Suffering, would we have any reason to
seek the Divine? This thought
struck a chord. I was embarrassed
to admit I had given little thought to
God until this year. Without
incidents such Emily's betrayal and Mrs.
Ballantyne's intervention, I would have
lacked the desire to undertake my
spiritual search. Now I
interpreted these incidents as
a deliberate
wake-up call from the Universe to turn
my attention to God.
Given the pain I
was in, I had no choice.
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I was very drawn
to Yogananda's explanation of Karma and
Reincarnation, its counterpart.
"Each soul reincarnates with a general
plan for the upcoming life.
Whatever actions you performed in the
past, you will experience their results
now.
Based on one's past Karma, certain
things are Fated to happen and nothing
can be done to prevent it.
The
pending Karma you have not
yet
experienced is called Destiny.
Those who have made mistakes in the past
will have a large debt to pay.
Those with positive Karma will often
choose a Mission to fulfill."
"A Mission to
fulfill." My thoughts raced to
Mrs. Ballantyne. Knocked down
early in life, she became a near-orphan.
Then the unexpected gift of a college
education had given her the break she
needed. From that point on, Mrs.
Ballantyne made sure to be the best
parent possible while finding ways to be
of service wherever called upon.
Feeling a strong kinship to my mentor, I
hoped one day to find a mission of my
own to fulfill. This was the first
cheerful thought I had in ages.
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The description of
Karma in
Autobiography of
a Yogi brought thoughts of Fate to
the forefront.
My childhood
had been marked by one bad break after
another. Neglectful parents, sense of
inferiority, loneliness, chipped tooth,
blind eye, scarred face, the German test cheating
incident, and so on.
I would prefer not to
admit this, but given my tendency towards
self-pity and self-criticism, I was not a
very good friend to myself. Hence my
frequent battles with depression.
Despite my long list of bad breaks, I
had never really viewed them from the
perspective of Fate. That changed the
moment Bob Franklin caught me cheating on
the German test and Mrs. Ballantyne showed
up at my grocery store.
After that, the existence of 'Fate'
seemed a real possibility. This
caused a dramatic shift in my outlook.
The more I pursued
answers to mysteries of the Universe, the
less I felt sorry for myself. I was
drawn to Yogananda's idea that my Soul may
have charted my Destiny before birth.
If it was true
my own Soul had made these unpleasant
choices, that meant I had chosen my
lousy luck with women such as Emily and
Carol. A truly radical
thought, yet there was logic to it.
Through suffering, I was forced to examine
the Meaning of Life in ways that never would
have occurred to me otherwise.
"The
strongest and most evil spirits have advanced mankind
the most. Orderly arranged society lulls the
passions to sleep while Suffering compels man to
consider untried paths in search of answers."
-- Friedrich Nietzsche
As much as I detested
Evil, I could see Nietzsche's point.
With a grim smile, I recalled how my
father's mistress was responsible for my
incredible education. Good Luck or Bad
Luck? Who can say. The lines
between Good Luck and Bad Luck were becoming
increasingly blurred. Maybe the
purpose of suffering is to force us to learn
lessons and look for solutions.
Reading
Autobiography of
a Yogi
restored my sense of
hope.
The less I felt like a
victim, the more determined I became to
overcome my problems.
Stop wasting so much time feeling sorry for
myself! If Mrs. Ballantyne could
overcome her rough start, then I could too.
Furthermore, if
the
world described by Yogananda was in fact the
way things really are, then the Universe is
not such a bad place after all.
However, there was one catch. And it
was a very serious catch indeed.
Just because I liked the Universal
Order as described by Yogananda did not
prove it was true.
I
refused to automatically accept the
principles laid out by a man I had no
personal knowledge of. Why should I
trust him? Another book I had read
discussed Harry Houdini, the famous
magician. During his fabled career,
Houdini explored the Occult. He was
disgusted by charlatans who claimed to be
mind readers and mediums. Upon his
death bed, Houdini conducted one last
experiment. After giving his wife Bess
a secret phrase, she posted a $10,000 reward
for the first medium who could transmit the
code. The money went unclaimed.
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As
the skeptics say, the danger of
being open-minded is the risk of having
your brains fall out. Before I
could take Yogananda's message to heart,
I needed a way to further convince
myself on the existence of God. As
it turned out, I found a path that
suited me.
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The key suggestion was
supplied by Dr. Carl Jung, a well-known
Swiss psychiatrist. As far as I could
tell,
Dr. Jung
was the only Western scholar of any
importance willing to give public credence
to Yogananda's far-fetched mystic ideas.
Carl Jung's mother was said to have spoken
with the dead. His mother's embrace of
the Occult had influenced Jung and formed
the basis of his controversial conclusions.
Jung suggested paranormal events such as
precognitive dreams, premonitions, ghosts,
ESP, and weird coincidences might turn out
to be natural events for which science has
not yet advanced far enough to comprehend.
In his autobiography,
Memories, Dreams, and Reflections,
Jung placed great 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 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."
Unsure what Jung meant by 'Synchronicity', I
decided this was his term for 'Meaningful'
Coincidence. A Synchronicity occurs when events
that seem unconnected suddenly point to one another in a
jaw-dropping way. Jung
believed Meaningful
Coincidences implied the presence of a Divine
intelligence who used His power to coordinate certain
events for His own purpose.
In the absence of a 'Realistic' reason, to some it
would appear as if the Universe was sending a personal
message.
Aha! I knew exactly what Jung was referring to.
When it came to Meaningful Coincidence, I had an entire
collection. Mrs. Ballantyne was never far from my
thoughts. Over the past two years I never was able
to shake the sense that an invisible being had led her
to my side that day. If our meeting wasn't
Synchronicity, then what was it?
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Carl Jung said if you look close enough,
there are connections and eccentricities in
life that are difficult to explain.
Unfortunately, since Synchronicity is a rare
phenomenon, the isolated nature of these
exceptional events keeps most people from
seeing the connection. Another problem
is the frailty of memory. Major events
will surely remain fixed in one's mind.
However, smaller, inconsequential
curiosities will fall by the wayside.
Jung said this is a problem because we
usually do not know the Impact of an event
until much further down the road. In
other words, if the "Cause"
disappears from memory before the "Effect"
takes place, any suspicion is bypassed.
Jung said if we paid better attention to
seemingly random coincidences and added them
together, we would develop a sense of awe.
Jung was very serious about this. In
his opinion, the majority of the human race
remains blind to the existence of a Hidden
World. Jung believed if we knew the
full truth about how perfectly the Universe
is constructed, we would realize no one but
God could possibly organize the intricate
phenomena in such a profound way.
Nothing is happenstance in Jung's world.
He said 'Meaningful' coincidences are
very important because they provide a
tell-tale clue regarding events coordinated
beyond our awareness. Since most
people remain unaware of the significance of
unusual events, their sense of Divine
involvement remains dormant.
At this point, Carl Jung made a suggestion.
Keep a List.
If people would keep better track of each mysterious
event, they would begin see Reality in a much different
way. By gathering these seemingly random
coincidences together and putting them in one spot, we
might just see a pattern emerge. Thinking of my
six coincidences, I knew exactly what Jung was talking
about. With that, I decided to take his advice.
I sat down and compiled a List of all the curious things
that had happened to me over this past year.
I agreed that any one
of my so-called Supernatural events by
itself could have been an accident.
But six in a row within a seven month
period? Carl Jung had said a pattern
would emerge and he was correct.
Once is an incident. Twice is a
coincidence. Three times is a pattern.
Staring at all six events listed
side-by-side, I could feel my skepticism
melt away. It was difficult to accept the
existence of a hidden world I could not see,
but at the same time, the evidence was
mounting fast.
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RICK ARCHER'S LIST OF SUSPECTED SUPERNATURAL EVENTS
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1968 |
| |
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one |
Ultra Serious |
Coincidence
Unlucky Break
Cosmic Blindness |
1968 |
| |
Caught cheating on German test
due to a very improbable coincidence
(two
minute window of opportunity), the
unacceptable loss of Rick's common sense led to the development of his
Cosmic Blindness theory |
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|
two |
Ultra Serious |
Coincidence
Lucky Break
Heartfelt Wish |
1968 |
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Mrs. Ballantyne fails to notice Rick at SJS for 9 years only to
magically appear during the most serious crisis of his life. The
ensuing parking lot conversation gives Rick the hope necessary to carry
on. |
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three |
Suspicious |
Lucky Break
Heartfelt Wish |
1968 |
| |
Out of the blue, philanthropist Ralph
O'Connor hands Rick a full scholarship to Johns Hopkins University
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four |
Suspicious |
Unlucky Break
Lucky Break |
1968 |
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Despite a near-brush with death, Rick walks away unscathed after
a close call car accident |
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five |
Ultra Serious |
Coincidence
Heartfelt Wish |
1968 |
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The Cinderella appearance of Princess Cheryl as Rick's date for
the Senior Prom |
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six |
Ultra Serious |
Unlucky Break
Coincidence |
1968 |
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Rick has a narrow two minute window to spot Emily and Eric get
out of a taxi at the Baltimore train station |
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THE HIDDEN HAND OF GOD
Chapter
FOURTEEN:
SEANCE
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