God Series - Automatic Typing No3

More 'channeled' information. Here I describe my early concerns re authenticity

Chapter Three

 

 

In the days which followed my initial contact by “beings not of this plane” my mind was in a state of chaos.   Suddenly, irrevocably, my beliefs were shown to be wrong.   Not that those beliefs had been strong.   I was a that time thirty-two years of age.   Death and the hereafter concerned me little.   Death was a subject which rarely, if ever, entered consciousness.   Up until my experience with the upturned tumbler, if ever I thought of death, it was as an ending, a void, a nullifying of life-  nothing.   And how could anyone fear or even be concerned with nothing?   Nothing is nothing, and when your consciousness is gone what’s to worry about?

 

            At thirty-two I was a half-hearted atheist.   My feelings weren’t “anti enough” to be classified as a full unbeliever.   You see, I occasionally wondered about creation and this mighty universe we live in; felt intuitively there must be some sort of Universal Intelligence.   But I doubted that Universal Intelligence had any personal truck in the affairs of Mankind.   Billions of galaxies, trillions of stars-  how could such an Intelligence concern itself with us.   But the prospect of having no “personally-caring” God didn’t depress me.  I expect, if pushed, I’d have identified myself as an “agnostic.”   Maybe there was something to all this religious stuff.   Maybe not.  Spirituality held little importance.   Indeed, I shied away when approached with this subject.   I hated to be preached to.   Especially by “Born Again Christians” and such.   Still do.   However, my opinions on matters pertaining to philosophy were but lightly framed.  Amenable to suggestion, I could find comfortable agreement with almost any line of argument.   It was not that I was weak, simply not interested.

 

            Yet I could, on occasion, get quite emotional when people spouted religion at me.   As previously mentioned, I hated to be preached at.  I remember once becoming quite heated when someone was attempting to point out to me the “Goodness of God.”  My retort was:  “If God is so concerned and so good; so powerful and omni-present, why doesn’t He right the wrongs of this world?    Why does He allow some people to be born maimed and sick?    Why does He allow poverty, crime and injustice?    I think religion is a lot of bullshit!”

 

            These things are mentioned to show the reader that I was, at the time of my self-introduction to the supernatural, what I regard as an average man.   I was neither religious, or particularly interested in spiritual matters.   Like many an Australian, the thoughts which occupied my mind for the most part were: family, career, friends, cars, sex, booze, sport, and the usual interests in local and world events.

 

            Today, my thoughts are different.   Today, I no longer feel that I am just a conscious flotsam on the ‘Stream of Time’; living but temporarily in a completely unconcerned universe; coming from nowhere and going to nowhere.  I now realise a lot more of real value than I did prior to my introduction to Automatic Writing.   Perhaps I can prove no revolutionary truths.   But in my heart there is now conviction that my life has a purpose.    Moreover, I am certain that I am more than my body.   I am more than my thoughts and emotions.    To me, nowadays, my body, thoughts and emotions are of me, but not the essential me.   But let us return to my next attempt at Spirit Communication.

 

            Once again it is night.   A light breeze billows the curtains behind me.   The wan light of the street lamps shines dimly as I sit by the glass-topped table.   Beneath the glass atop the table are letters and figures, written in around the outer edge of a circle of paper.   The little plastic tumbler is upturned.   On it rests the outer tip of my little finder.    It is once again well past midnight and my family are fast asleep.

 

            The tumbler scrapes to and fro.   It moves.   It hesitates, as if it is seeming to consider how to answer the questions I put to it with my mind.    Mostly it answers, “Yes, or “No.”   Sometimes, as if confused, it goes first to one direction then the other.   Then it moves in a circular motion as if it means to cancel out both answers.    It squeaks across the glass as it attempts to tell me all.   And yet, in retrospect, it told me very little.

 

            I did not keep records of these early practises.   Moreover, it seems that most of the information I did glean was quite inaccurate.    However, there were one or two exceptions to this.

 

            On this second evening I did ask-  in my mind- who the communicator was.   A woman’s name was given.   The spirit entity claimed to be this woman.   She told me that she had once been the occupant of the house in which I live.   She told me that she had died in the house.   She’d had terminal cancer.

 

            Now I’d heard this story before.   It was not news to me.   My immediate reaction was that some part of my subconscious mind had remembered this.   Perhaps the information was being cleverly presented in a way which would indicate that I was being contacted by a spirit.   In other words, I was getting what I wanted.   Perhaps it was simply another part of my own mind.

 

            A quotation came to me.   “We believe that easily, which we hope for earnestly.”    I knew that I wanted something to come of these attempts at communication.   I was aware I’d have felt some disappointment if the communications had failed.    Right throughout the many months that followed I was never able to entirely get rid of the idea that I might have been the victim of my own wishful thinking.

 

            Even as the months passed, and I progressed from the upturned tumbler, to Automatic Writing, then Automatic Typing, to Body Manipulation, there was this scepticism.   Was I fooling myself?   Was I giving myself what I needed?   Were these so-called entities parts of myself?  sub-personalities, maybe?  At times these doubts were very strong.   It took many years to convince myself it had to be something more than that.

 

            But to get back to the actual experiences.

 

            I practised regularly every night for a week.   The practices ranged from thirty to forty-five minutes.   I had read somewhere that it is not wise to continue too long at any one particular session.   In tiredness, harm can come.   The harm, apparently, is of a psychological nature.   There is the danger of opening oneself up to the “hearing of voices,” to “possession,” even!    Certainly, I am glad that I had the good sense to heed the advice.

           

            But let us go back in time, to the cause of my interest in this subject.  

 

            It began when I was a shift-worker at Australia’s Sydney Airport.  I then worked for the now defunct Department of Civil Aviation in their huge telecommunications centre.   It was an extremely busy place.   But in the late evening the intensity of the work would slacken.   There was time to read, time to talk.   And talk we operators did-  on all manner of subjects.

 

            Around this time a book came into my possession.   It was called “Theosophy” and was written by a couple by the name of Leighton.    Fascinating.  Intriguing.   So different.   To me, in 1968, it was one of the most exciting volumes I had ever read.   It spoke of Karmic Law, Reincarnation, and all manner of things I’d hardly heard about.    Naturally, I discussed the book with my friends.  

 

            “It works,” you know, said one of my colleagues.   “ All that spirit communication stuff.    Usually it works more easily with a group.   More energy.   But some people can do it by themselves, I’m told.    Why don’t you try it?”     So I did.

 

            Some weeks into my experiments with the upturned tumbler I mentioned to a work mate- and lone confidant- how things were progressing.   My friend, Rex Bunn, now long dead, was not a medium.   Nevertheless, Rex did appear to know a lot about things metaphysical.   Like myself, he was ex Royal Australian Navy.   We’d been sailors.   Now, he was working with D.C.A. and studying part time to become an osteopath and homeopathic healer.   It was Rex who suggested I try Automatic Writing.

 

            “What’s that?” said I.

 

            “Automatic Writing?    Well, it’s much the same thing as you’re doing now.   Except, you hold a pen or a pencil.    You hold the pen or whatever lightly in your hand as if you were going to write.    Only you don’t write.   They, or whatever the power is, does the writing.”

 

            Rex then went on to explain that it is a fairly common phenomenon.  

 

“You think I could develop it, then?

“I’d say so.    You’re a natural sensitive, I think.”

“A sensitive?”

“Yes.   People who like writing, poets, artists, creative people-  most of ‘em are natural sensitives.”

“Is that right?”

“In your case I’d say, ‘ yes.’   There are not many people who can have an upturned glass move just under their own steam.   Usually it takes a group.”

 

            Thus began my experiments with Automatic Writing.   Experiments which were to continue on and off for the next thirty-odd years.    From a simple, wavering upturned glass I moved on to become capable taking down messages like this:

 

                        “You are God.   I am God.   All of us are God-   but only

            at our very deepest levels where our autonomy as a human being

            ceases.  When our personal will has gone, is blended completely

            into a non-existence with something so indescribably powerful that

            we no longer think of ourselves as separate entities but as The Whole,

            then we are free of any concern.    This is real freedom, Tom.   This

            is what the sages and saints aim for.    This is what they become.

            Complete and utter surrender is required, and this takes faith.   A

            great deal of faith.”