Doug Dillon's Blog, page 170

Carl Jung and the Paranormal, Part 10: The Flood

This post is one of a 12-part series on the paranormal experiences of Carl Jung, founder of Analytic Psychology.

For the initial posting that began this series, click here.

It was early fall in 1913 and Carl Jung had a definite feeling that something was about to happen. The feeling evolved into a deep sense of oppression that intensified daily.

In October of that year, during a trip he took alone, Jung has an hour-long vision that showed:

A flood covering much of Europe
The flood contained the debris from civilization
There were bodies of drowned people everywhere

At the end of the vision, all of the water turned to blood.

Two weeks later, he had the same vision, only a more vivid version. At the same time, an inner voice told him that what he was seeing was real. Of course, as a psychiatrist, he was constantly analyzing himself through all this but he also wondered if his vision might be precognitive in nature. If his vision was showing him something of the future, all Jung could conclude was that perhaps a revolution was coming to Europe.

No revolution occurred and Jung’s visions subsided until the summer of 1914. At that time, he had a very intense dream that started in April and was repeated twice more in May and June. In this dream, he saw:

Europe frozen over – snow everywhere with lakes, rivers and canals frozen solid
Europe appeared deserted
There was no green anywhere

The third time he had this dream, it ended with the understanding that the cold actual came from outer space.

At the end of July in 1914, Jung was invited to speak to the British Medical Association. The subject? “The Importance of the Unconscious in Psychotherapy.”

On August 1, World War I broke out in Europe and immediately Jung realized what his dreams meant and that they had come from his unconscious. The timing of the topic for his speech to the British Medical Association, he felt, was simply an additional “synchronistic” event that showed how series of paranormal coincidences can lead to an understanding of ourselves and the world around us.

For other postings about Carl Jung’s supernatural journeys, go to the blog category titled, “Paranormal and Carl Jung.”

Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within

A Book Review

Author – Natalie Goldberg

A long-term Zen practitioner , Goldberg has taught seminars in writing as a spiritual practice
Book has old over 1 million copies and has been translated into 12 languages

Shambhala, 200 p.

Writing Down the Bones has been around for a long time but it is still a classic guide for writers. Following her Zen philosophy, Goldberg offers what she calls an “uneducation process” to her readers. Essentially, this is method of throwing out the old rules in order to stimulate creativity. Just in how she presents her own ideas she continuously demonstrates how this outlook actually works for her.

Immensely readable, Goldberg merges Zen meditative outlook with the craft of writing. With wonderfully named chapters like, “Man Eats Car”, “Beginner’s Mind, Pen and Paper”, and  “Tap the Water Table”, she stimulates the reader not only to keep reading but to look at how they deal with words. In this short book, they are sixty such chapters which shows they are definitely bite-sized.

Natalie Goldberg is the ultimate “Writing Cheerleader” who helps writers to not only realize their innate talents but to unleash them from an inner spiritual perspective as well.

Click here to find this book online.

“I Couldn’t Put the Book Down Last Night.”

YA, Paranormal and Historical.

Sliding Beneath the Surface

The St. Augustine Trilogy: Book I

A review placed on Goodreads and Amazon by

Sarah Frost from Australia

Before I comment on the story, I want to compliment whoever was in charge of the choice of paper used in the creation of the book. The pages have a wonderful, satiny feeling and are nicely heavy, giving the impression of a lot of thought and care going into the choosing of the paper (it almost feels like what I would imagine vellum feels like). Very impressed with the quality of the book itself (you can’t get that with a kindle copy) and the cover art is great. It looks just like what is described in the story and what I would have imagined if I hadn’t had a picture to see.

Now, onto the story…I am really enjoying Jeff’s voice. Although at the start he says that he is going to tell us what happened, it feels more like a series of diary entries, with Jeff telling the story in an unedited kind of way. It doesn’t feel like an adult wrote it, it feels like Jeff wrote it, sort of as a stream-of-consciousness. Sometimes he goes off on a tangent and talks about unrelated or mostly unimportant topics, just like a teenager who’s telling a rambling, complicated story would. I have read a lot of fantasy/sci-fi books and often when I’m reading a new one, I can see what’s going to happen next, but not with Sliding Beneath the Surface. It … kept me guessing through all of part one. I have no idea how it might end.

Sometimes when you read a book it is unclear, just from the writing, who is telling the story. The voice of the book is bland and nondescript, without the narrator telling you who they are you can’t tell man, woman, girl, boy. Not so with Jeff Golden’s voice in Sliding Beneath the Surface. Jeff is so clearly a teenage boy that if I didn’t know better I would think that Doug Dillon had only recently left his teenage years behind. While I’m reading, especially the dialogue, I see a shaggy-haired, not particularly neatly dressed, lanky teenage boy who has trouble believing in the supernatural, despite all the evidence dumped in front of him. I couldn’t put the book down last night, or at least not until I nodded off in bed and lost my page, after I found my page I decided it was definitely time to go to sleep.

Now, I’m wondering about what the sequel’s going to be about, will it be more supernatural problems in St. Augustine for Jeff, Carla and Lobo; or will it be Lobo helping out a different couple/group of teens with their supernatural worries; or maybe Jeff and Carla will have gotten a few years older and will have to deal with the supernatural on their own this time. Whatever the plot is, I am really looking forward to reading it.

To see Sarah’s full review on Amazon.com, click here.

 

Carl Jung and the Paranormal, Part 9: The Scarab Beetle

This post is one of a 12-part series on the paranormal experiences of Carl Jung, founder of Analytic Psychology.

For the initial posting that began this series, click here.

One of Jung’s patients was a young woman, very educated and intelligent, who seemed to feel she knew more than anyone else, including her therapist. This proved problematic, obviously, because Jung couldn’t get through to her even after multiple sessions. Finally, he realized that the woman would never listen to him or solve her problems unless something highly unusual shook her world enough to dislodge her sense of superiority. What that might be, he had no idea.

During their next session together in Jung’s office, he sat opposite the woman with his back to a window. As usual, she rattled on, this time about a dream she had the night before. She told Jung that in the dream someone gave her a gold scarab.

While the woman was speaking, Jung kept hearing something hitting the window behind him. The sound continued even after the woman stopped talking, so Jung turned around to look.  What he saw was a large bug. It kept bumping the window as if trying to get in.

Jung thought it strange enough that he got up, walked to window and opened it. Somehow he caught the bug and then recognized it as a type of scarab beetle. Realizing he might have something unusual enough to truly grab the woman’s attention, he brought her the beetle and said, “Here is your scarab (from her dream).”

After that event, as Jung predicted, the woman became an excellent patient and worked on her problems. In his writing, Jung uses this story a perfect example of how synchronistic events can emerge from the paranormal world and impact peoples’ lives.

For other postings about Carl Jung’s supernatural journeys, go to the blog category titled, “Paranormal and Carl Jung.”

“If You Like a Ghost Story and History, This is a Great Read”

Young Adult, Paranormal and Historical.

Sliding Beneath the Surface

The St. Augustine Trilogy: Book I

Placed on Goodreads and Amazon by

Cynthia Williams from New York

“The author did a great job of using historical facts to create this paranormal book. Jeff is connected to an ancestor that he must help with the aid of his friend Carla and a somewhat scary and intimidating shaman, Lobo. Lobo will be the only one who can possibly help the two teens out of this situation.

“The author brings the reader into the story and you feel like you are actually Jeff going through these horrible situations. The descriptions of what is seen is very disturbing as you think of yourself seeing what they are seeing. I enjoy history so finding out this is based on real historical facts is very interesting to me.

“As this is a trilogy I look forward to more work from the author and to discover Jeff’s abilities, as he does, in future books. A great first book of this trilogy! Thank you to the author who gave me an opportunity to read the book for an honest review. If you enjoy the paranormal genre and history this is a great combination! Enjoy!”

To see Cynthia’s review on Amazon, click here.

“A well-written, suspenseful ghost story.”

Young Adult, Paranormal and Historical.

Sliding Beneath the Surface

The St. Augustine Trilogy: Book I

A review placed on Goodreads and Barnes and Noble by

Michelle Mcroberts from Illinois

“A well-written, suspenseful ghost story. The reading was perfectly timed (as it was leading up to Halloween), and I found the book haunting. It explores the psychic realm, while incorporating the rich history of St. Augustine, FL.

“The protagonist is unschooled in the psychic realm, but he is having dreams that seem very real since he was involved in an accident that left him with a head injury. He has just moved to St. Augustine and made friends with a cute girl. She is outspoken and pretty, and she and her grandmother take him into their lives since his own mother isn’t around much. When he tells them about the terrible nightmares he has been having, they introduce him to their scary neighbor. He learns that his dreams aren’t just dreams, and his very life will be in danger sooner than he might be ready for. He must learn about and start to believe in the psychic realm, come to understand it, and learn to trust a man who’d scare almost anyone who might run into him in broad daylight – let alone a dark alley – in an effort to save his own life.”

Click here to see Michelle’s full review on Goodreads.

 

 

A Message from a Paranormal Realm, Part 5

In our paranormal nonfiction book, An Explosion of Being, my wife Barbara and I decided to include a chapter channeled directly from another realm of reality. The title of that chapter was, “To the Reader from a Source with No Name”. Actually, we did have a name of sorts. We simply called it The Source.

The idea was to give readers a more personalized, direct link in the unknown. Now, after many years, I am extending that connection to readers of my blog in series of 11 bite-sized portions. Your inclusion into our private network of communications is offered openly, with hopes that you might feel just a touch of your own infinite connections.

If you would like to find the other 10 postings in this series, just look for them in the blog category titled, Paranormal Communications.

“Be patient with yourself, as this attribute is one which will require a long endurance record. Your patience is accelerated only through love, as love is the prime motivator for the entirety of all structure within all souls. Your patience is thus being linked to your love as a part of that entirety. In order for progression to occur, patience must play a part. Each lifetime incorporates many circumstances that will require such patience.

“The learning process, by which you are presently accustomed, has been crystallizing since your birth. At that time, your entity began swirling with a weakness of physical form, but at the same time, was overwhelming its spiritual parts of the actuality of another conception.

“Your inability to cohabit both planes is indeed an inaccurate perception. At birth, your spiritual body is a part of your physical one. However, you place the importance of this division does not matter, ultimately. Your entity begins at a level that has become self-adjusting. Your birth was akin to the variety of soul perceptions that may remain throughout its existence. Your present life will always have a sustaining effect on the soul, but will not drive its power continually. Therefore, be reluctant to advise yourself of the permanence of each flaw that develops within your present period.

“As you alternate the ego with the spirit; your remembrance of other times during physical life will come to pass. Other realities also will begin intermingling through your eyes of acceptance. If your rejection of this seems appropriate, that is all right, now. However, you will again anoint your own thinking, purposely replacing it with another pathway at a later time.

“You are not only a dual personality, but also actually many, many more. As you see, your abilities to find other placements in each realm have no ends, therefore, the connection of these abilities with each other. Your points of learning are at these connections. As your beginnings here have taken on a new meaning for you, be aware that this choice was yours, not ours, entirely.

Isolating yourself from these principles will only help to preserve another angle of yourself, which may unravel in a later course of time. After your physical death, you will begin to see a mirror of earthly images, recreating a particle of your entire being. Each of these images will teach you to be freer with your thoughts, thereby learning from each experience.

To find our book online, just click on the title, An Explosion of Being: An American Family’s Journey into the Psychic.

 

 

 

“A Really Original Book.” YA, Paranormal and Historical.

Sliding Beneath the Surface

The St. Augustine Trilogy: Book I

A review placed on Goodreads and her blog by

Erfa Tahir from Pakistan

Sliding Beneath The Surface is a really original book in the young-adult genre. There’s a bit of everything: history, paranormalcy, superstition, even romance. The plot revolves around the legend of St. Augustine. This was the first time I came across the legend and I thank Doug Dillon for putting in so much research and presenting the myth so excellently in his book. It is commendable.

Jeff Golden is the fifteen year old main character, Carla Rodriguez is his spunky friend for whom he happens to have feelings, and Lobo is the shaman who appears tough and scary initially but eventually reveals the wise side of himself. The shamanism aspect of the novel really delighted me because I have never come across it before. As you can see, Sliding Beneath The Surface provided a really refreshing reading experience. It was not stereotypical as many young adult books these days. The plot was very original and interesting, and I think Doug Dillon did a great job in writing it.

Sliding Beneath The Surface was a very good read that I personally enjoyed… I recommend it to not just young adults, but kids and adults as well.

To see Erfa’s full review on Goodreads, click here.

 

A Message from a Paranormal Realm, Part 4

In our paranormal nonfiction book, An Explosion of Being, my wife Barbara and I decided to include a chapter channeled directly from another realm of reality. The title of that chapter was, “To the Reader from a Source with No Name”. Actually, we did have a name of sorts. We simply called it The Source.

The idea was to give readers a more personalized, direct link in the unknown. Now, after many years, I am extending that connection to readers of my blog in series of 11 bite-sized portions. Your inclusion into our private network of communications is offered openly, with hopes that you might feel just a touch of your own infinite connections.

If you would like to find the other 10 postings in this series, just look for them in the blog category titled, Paranormal Communications.

“While not bothering with others’ ideals, you will seem to flourish rapidly. Thus, your angles of thought shall remove any obstacles that had previously become deterrents to your adherence to this spiritual growth.

“Idolizing your counterparts (past and future lives) will not become a productive force for your beings. These counterparts are directly involved with their own beings. As their time periods eject themselves, they will want to become a more epitomized entity. However, as your own source will tell you, they will not change every angle of growth for you.

“As your re-birthing process occurs each lifetime, your periodic counterparts will remain intact. They are ahead in certain ways, yet your replacement of their negative growth periods are equally important for the total function of each soul’s existence. Nurturing all of these pasts will become a most acceptable way of working with your soul. Become familiar with this lesson.

“As due to you, your basic knowledge of this realm has intensified already, through an adjusting period of sleep. This information has been given more credence. Your own abilities to seek a higher spiritual level will come as quickly as you progress through any of the physically negative roadblocks. Actually, physically visualizing your growth may be different, however.

“These preliminary steps may be taken as a guide for further development:

1. Listen to your own inner chords of strength. They will be mostly directed in the pattern by which you maintain your development.

2. Be sure that your involvement with anything spiritual has no negative setbacks. If your areas of strength become so affected by any spiritual wisdom, then temporarily withdraw, as it will not benefit your present path.

3. As a lesson to this world, you will be a teacher also. Rejecting this point is not valid, so be willing to trade your thoughts through your counterparts. Each soul will give its own current direction, according to the absorption level.

4. Ask yourself to maintain a high need of understanding. Through a higher developing question system, you will seek to annoy your mind for internal answers. Be aware that these answers are within you and expect their wisdom to help your spiritual understanding of yourself.

“Through these steps, you will decipher the areas of importance for your maintenance. The avenues are open constantly for your own surfacing. At times, you will work through doubts of loneliness and wariness from others. Your abilities are each so profound that, without advancing physically, you are always advancing anyway, on a level that your development as a way of helping others, also. Then they will thrive through this connection with you.

“As your children become more windows of light for you, be a good listener. Be attentive, as their minds are attentive to you. The nurturing of family guidance is always a beautiful lesson for others to perceive. However, as this nurturing dwindles, your constancy in spiritual understanding has to encompass a working relationship with each side. If your understandings are free of negative insight, your trust levels within each member will be enhanced. With truth, these vibrations will be felt through each child, as you will feel theirs’ also.

“A connection device, here again, should be mentioned. Your internal ways of promoting unity are always unlimited. The physical lessons provide a withholding period in order to chance yourself upon various thresholds of negativity. These thresholds will act as retainers in some cases. The agonies that many people go through are again linked within this inner connection of thoughtful existence. Your indulgence of others within your realm is a critical acclaim for your soul’s habitation of that realm. lifetime incorporates many circumstances that will require such patience.

To find our book online, just click on the title, An Explosion of Being: An American Family’s Journey into the Psychic.

 

“A Fantastic Read.” Young Adult, Paranormal and Historical.

Sliding Beneath the Surface

The St. Augustine Trilogy: Book I

Placed on Amazon, Goodeads and her blog by

Theresa Nowaczyk, from Michigan

This book has so many elements to it – a perfect blend. I enjoyed Doug Dillon’s writing style* the book was well written and consistent- with likeable characters.

A week or so has passed since reading this story and it’s still on my mind. Although this book is aimed for younger readers I was able to stay fully engaged in this story- The Author managed to keep the pages turning while keeping the story clean. I loved the history in this book. (I liked that the Author added a page giving links to pictures of the real life cemetery where some events took place in the book) The ending of the book had just the right amount of mystery and suspense added. This is now a favorite of mine and I plan to have my 12 yr old give this book a try. I’m glad I was able to read this book it has become a favorite of mine for 2012. I cannot wait to continue on with this trilogy.

Click here to read Theresa’s full review on Amazon

Click here to see this review on Theresa’s blog