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I of my own knowledge…
Perception versus story
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by Frank DeMarco |
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You never know when or where a useful concept is going to appear that suddenly makes sense of things that may have been bothering you for years.
For 20 years, I have been wrestling with questions involving past-life recall, centering around the question -- the perpetual question, in matters of psychic research -- "am I making this up?” Finally, with the help of a concept that jelled while I was taking a program in remote viewing at The Monroe Institute, I have been able to answer that question with a definite "yes and no." You see, in a way it depends upon your definition of `making it up.’
Back in 1987, I attended Shirley MacLaine's first Higher Self Seminar, and as a result of that very enlightening weekend, I met a man who did hypnotic regressions. A long session with him came up with what purported to be several past lives. Two of those lives had supposedly written books, and I had the titles of those books. How hard could it be to find the authors, and hopefully the books themselves?
Nonetheless, I couldn’t. In those pre-Internet days, perhaps it should not have been surprising that I was unable to find obscure books that were not listed in standard reference books. However, later searches were no more successful.
Worse than that. In 1992 I met an undoubted and very powerful psychic, who talked to me extensively about these two lives and others. We got what seems to be more than enough information to search with, but I have still been unable to track down books or authors.
Worse than that. One of the men I am looking for, a Joseph Smallwood, supposedly was born in Massachusetts in the 1820s, went to Oregon in the 1840s, fought in the Civil War, and ended the war as a brevet general. Not only do I have his name, I actually saw a hand writing out his surname on a blackboard, the only time I have had such a vision. So I know the name I am looking for. Can’t find a Joseph Smallwood from Massachusetts who served in the Union Army and mustered out a colonel, brevet general.
Worse than that. Joseph supposedly graduated Harvard College in the early 1840s. Harvard informs me that no one by that name graduated from Harvard in 300 years.
Worse than that. I am in direct contact with Joseph. Beginning in December, 2005, I was in daily contact with him for an hour to an hour and a half at a time, talking with him (he and I writing back and forth in my journal, actually) as though he were still in a body. He talked about going west and returning, and he talked quite a bit about the Civil War as he had experienced it. He talked about living with the Indians. The only problem is -- I have nothing to demonstrate that any of his story is real.
Yet I don't think that Joseph -- and the others -- are merely the offshoots of my imagination. Joseph's wisdom and experience and point of view are very convincing. The same is true of several of the others. But if they are real, how can it also be that some or all of their story is mistaken? People don't get the major facts of their own life wrong.
Research into past lives poses many questions, but this is the only one I want to go into here. How can a true perception be accompanied by erroneous detail?
The answer, as I say, came to me in the context of a course in remote viewing. What I saw there was that, in attempting to perceive and report upon a target unknown to me, I had made sketches, and written words, and had added my interpretation of these sketches and words. Looking backwards, I saw clearly that the accuracy of the story did not necessarily correlate with the accuracy of the perceptions. In other words, it is quite common to perceive accurately and interpret quite inaccurately.
It occurred to me that this is what we do in ordinary life. We are all faced with the task of making sense of the world, if only unconsciously. We connect the dots in ways that make sense to us, and then we attach story to those perceptions. In the process, it is easy and common to confuse the persuasiveness of the story with the accuracy of the perceptions. And the more acute the perception, perhaps the greater the temptation to find the story persuasive. The paradoxical result is that the more you learn about something, the more background you get, the more connections you are able to draw that are not in the common understanding, the farther afield you may wind up going.
Where our story overlaps with that of others, we share a point of view. Where the stories diverge, we think that we know more than others do, or they know more than we do, but in any case there is an unbridgeable gap.
Once we realize this, we are in the uncomfortable position of knowing that we cannot know. Perception left as a raw perception would be as meaningless as my taking notes and saying “parallel lines, parallel lines.” Yes they were parallel lines, but what did they mean? But as soon as we begin to interpret, we begin to create story, with all the pitfalls that involves.
Probably this great insight amounts merely to the fact that no one can understand the world. We can build models, and in fact in order to function we have to build models, but the map is not the territory.
This realization ought to remind us of the need for tolerance and charity in dealing with others, and of the need to cheerfully live with ambiguity in ourselves. I get the sense that at the end of our lives we may look at the record and say, “my God, the perceptions were pretty good but look at all that story I built!”
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Frank DeMarco,
Author
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Frank DeMarco holds an M.A. in History from the University of Iowa and a B.A. in History from George Washington University.
His work as co-founder and (for 15 years) chief editor of Hampton Roads Publishing Company brought him into close association with many brilliant and insightful minds, including psychics, remote viewers, channelers and mystics, and showed him the human side of extraordinary abilities.
In 1992, his psychic abilities opened up at a Gateway Voyage at The Monroe Institute in central Virginia. Since then he has been engaged in first-hand exploration of the nature and limits of all things psychic, especially including such areas as healing and guidance, direct access to knowledge, communication with past lives, and the integration of the spiritual dimension into everyday life.
His autobiographical work Muddy Tracks: Exploring an Unsuspected Reality describes the first stages of his discovery of the key to expanded awareness, and offers pointers for those just beginning their quest. In his weblog, www.frankdemarco.
wordpress.com, he shares the journey and the results of continuing explorations. His blog, “I of my own knowledge…” investigates what individuals can know first-hand about the purpose and conduct of life.
Contact info
blog: http://frankdemarco.
wordpress.com/
email:
muddytracks@
earthlink.net
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