Doug Dillon's Blog, page 73

Meditation and the Supernatural

 

A quest for understanding dips into the unknown and plunges into haunting coincidences.

Even though I’ve been meditating for quite a number of years, I also attend meditation retreats periodically. They are a wonderful time to get away from it all, deepen my skills and learn more about myself than I could in any other way.

And although I have been studying and investigating the paranormal for a very long time, I never made a connection between meditation and “things that go bump in the night.” That all changed when I went on an extended retreat near Brooksville, Florida.

Florida is notoriously flat, but our retreat center turned out to be on one of the tallest hills in the state. A beautiful place, built in 1842, it was originally a plantation, now turned conference center. That location is one of the few in Florida where you can actually look down on a sunset.

The administrative offices were located in the manor house, behind which were smaller buildings, guest quarters, meeting space and, of course, a cafeteria. The rooms where we slept were comfortable and the wooded surroundings were wonderfully peaceful.

While driving to the retreat from my home near Orlando, I smiled at the fact that the manor house of the plantation was built right after the end of the Second Seminole War. Why? Because of a series of three circumstances that came together to form an interesting set of coincidences.

First of all, I had just completed the first novel of my young adult paranormal/historical series titled The St. Augustine Trilogy.

The book, Sliding Beneath the Surface, plunges two teenagers back in time, right into the middle of the horrific battle that began the conflict, a place not far from the retreat center. Every year there on the anniversary of the Dade Battle, as it is known, reenactors stage an incredibly accurate portrayal of what happened.

So for me, staying at a place built during the same era as the nearby battle as described in my book made for interesting speculation about how all three things could fit together so neatly. You see, long before that day, I had concluded, as had Carl Jung in his theory of synchonicity, that such coincidental events often point to something deeper in the nature of our existence.

But as interesting as the coming together of those three things were, I had a retreat to attend. And before long, I became thoroughly engrossed in my meditations. Engrossed, that is until one day everything changed.

It started after breakfast, two days into the retreat. After each meal, we were given a period of free time, and on that day,  I chose to take a leisurely walk around the grounds of the old plantation. My little jaunt started out on what had once been an old road with tall trees still on either side of it.

And as I studied my surroundings, I looked up at the trees all around me and noticed how each one of them had a lot of dead branches at the top. Immediately, I became afraid, worried that one of those branches could come crashing down and hit me or one of my companions.

Fear? The likelihood of being clobbered in that way was very low and I had walked under many such trees in my time. So why the apprehension? I asked myself, trying unsuccessfully to shake off that sensation.

Instead of giving in to such thoughts, I started wondering what the original owners of the surrounding plantation might think if they encountered such modern day intruders on their property. And true to my writer’s inclinations, I suddenly conjured up this vision of a man in period dress in front of me.

In my imagination, this gentleman and I then had an interesting conversation about the past Vs. the present. And at the end of that chat, the man said, “And remember. Suffer the little children to come unto me.”

What? Those words were so inconsistent with what was being said, that it totally blew my little day dream apart. My companion disappeared, and I continued walking, this time past the manor house in an area I hadn’t visited before.

But those words spoken by my imaginary friend still made me wonder. That whole conversation was just me talking to me in an imaginative way, right?

Yes, I was raised a Christian, but I had long ago found Christianity unable to fulfill my spiritual needs. In fact, my retreat was based on Buddhism. Why that quote from Jesus would suddenly popped into my head made no sense, but I let it go.

Looking to my left, I was surprised to find a small cemetery dating back to the early days of the plantation. Obviously, it was the final resting place of long forgotten family members, containing only five or six tombstones.

One of those stones lay flat on the ground. Attached to the top of it was a carved lamb. The inscribed dates showed that a child was buried there who died at the age of one year. And under the date were the words, “Suffer the little children to come unto me.”

Okay then. That really made me think. In fact, it made me wonder if, when I was communicating with my imaginary companion, was I somehow tapping into something else?

Or, could it be . . . Nah, the guy couldn’t have had some sort of reality that I didn’t understand. Or could he? A ghost? No way.

Telling myself that I was l letting my writer’s creativity run away with itself because of the coincidental circumstances relating to the retreat location, I spent the rest of the day deeply immersed in meditation.

Then came dinner. And after dinner, I decided to just sit on one of the many benches strategically set between our cafeteria and living quarters. It had been a good day, even though part of it was a bit weird.

And, of course, my mind went back to my fear of those tree branches, the encounter with my ghostly friend, and the inscription on that poor child’s tombstone. What a strange set of events, I thought, just as something huge and heavy crashed to the ground about ten feet to my left.

When I say huge and heavy, I’m not kidding. The impact made the ground shake and immediately, one of my meditation friends came running over wondering if I was OK. Together, we surveyed the large branch that had fallen out of a tree. If it had hit me, I might well have been killed.

Did I have a premonition? And if so, why? I mean, did looking up into those trees and thinking how a branch could fall somehow influence me to sit on that bench instead walking under the branch that actually fell? I don’t know, but it certainly is food for thought, as are those other happenings during my retreat.

Could my meditations have somehow opened me up to such occurrences? Was there some sort of residual energy in that historic location ready to connect with me just then because of that openness? Beats me. Maybe.

Since that retreat, I visited the same location multiple times but without another recurrence of similar events. What I learned through those experiences though, was not to so easily dismiss those things I might normally consider as imagination.

The Dade Battle reenactment .

Oh, one more thing. The day the retreat ended, I felt compelled to visit the little cemetery one more time. And when I got there, a car was parked very close to the tombstones. A license plate on the front of the car said, “Seminole Wars Foundation.”

End of story, but if you are interested in premonitions, coincidental events, ghosts, Carl Jung and synchonicity, you might want to take a look at the book on your left.

 

I wrote it because I am fascinated by not only Carl jung’s theories but also by his own paranormal experiences. And in studying all that I decided to combine what I had learned with my own experiences and those of others. That’s the package.

You can find the book on most large online bookstores, but below is the link to Amazon.com where you can see the reviews by those who have read it.

Carl Jung, Hauntings, and Paranormal Coincidences.

Sliding Beneath the Surface: Book I of the St. Augustine Trilogy

Supernatural Musical Coincidences?

Strings of odd coincidences create a fascinating paranormal pattern.

Back in 2009, my wife and I went to a concert at The Hard Rock Cafe here in the Orlando area. David Garrett, the great violinist was playing.

The guy is really terrific. He can shift from classical to rock and then into country in a matter of seconds.

In watching him though, my analytical mind started working overtime. Because the man moves that bow so incredibly fast, I wondered what temperatures his bow strings reached with all that friction. Then I started wondering if he replaced those bow strings before each concert to make sure they wouldn’t break.

Not satisfied with those mental meanderings, I continued to wonder if his bow strings broke very often during a concert and if that affected his performance greatly. Finally, I realized I wasn’t enjoying the show because of all that internal questioning.

As a result, I made a very concerted effort to focus just on the music. Didn’t happen. My obsession with the guy’s bowstring’s wouldn’t leave me and, in fact, they strengthened. That really irritated me because I can usually let my thoughts go when I tried but no this time. The compulsion was really getting to me.

In tremendous frustration, I immediately started working diligently to refocus my mind. The thing is, less than two minutes after launching into that effort, Garrett actually broke several bow strings. I couldn’t believe it but there they were just flailing away in the air as they guy continued to play. People all around me pointed and took pictures as Garrett courageously went on playing and ended that set with a flourish.

As soon as the music ended, he studied his broken bow-string, fondled them a bit, looked at the audience, grinned, shrugged, and then went on playing.

With all of my questions somewhat answered, I enjoyed the rest of the show and ignored the bow strings still flopping in the air.

My son, Greg Dillon, graciously allowed me to use the picture he took of a violin for this blog. It pays to have a professional photographer in the family. Thanks Greg. It fit perfectly.

If you are truly interested in paranormal phenomena, you might be interested in read my book, Carl Jung, Hauntings, and Paranormal Coincidences.  You can find it in most online bookstores. Listed below, however, are direct book links to some of the larger retail outlets in the English speaking world:

Amazon.com, Amazon Canada, Amazon UK, Amazon India, Amazon Australia, Barnes and Noble, Kobo (Canada)

 

Did Carl Jung Believe in Out-of-body Experiences?

Carl Jung’s breakthrough hospital events threw him into an out-of-body condition.

In 1944, Carl Jung broke his foot. Not only that, he also had a devastating heart attack. Near death in a hospital, he proceeded to have visions that changed his life.

These visions that came and went were so strong he knew he must be close to dying even though no one said this to him . His outlook got reinforced when a nurse told him she saw a bright glow all around his body.

Photo courtesy of NASA

At one point in his visions, Jung found himself high in space, looking down at the earth. Put simply, this is what he saw:

The blue light of earth and the deep, rich colors of the land areas
The continent of Asia below him
Snow on top of the Himalaya Mountains
The Arabian Peninsula
Part of the Mediterranean

Remember, this was 1944, way before the age of orbiting space craft and artificial satellites. When Jung later asked a friend in the scientific community about what he saw, the friend told him that the only way anyone could actual see such things would be from 1000 miles in space.

Space art courtesy of NASA

Into his vision a gigantic, dark  chunk of stone appeared. As he stared at it, Jung noticed an entrance. Attracted to the entrance, he went through it and found a room where an Asian man dressed in white was meditating. There were little niches in the walls all around the room containing oil lamps.

As Jung approached the man, all sorts of strange things occurred:

His entire earthly existence seemed to wash away as if the essence of who he was had  been annihilated.
Everything he had ever done, seen or planned left him completely.  An extremely painful experience at first.
Finally, as he realized he had been stripped of his identity, he also understood that he no long needed or wanted anything at all.
At that point, he accepted what was happening and realized the loss of his identity didn’t matter.

Suddenly, Jung’s awareness shifted and he found himself about to enter a huge temple. He knew without a doubt he would soon be meeting people inside the temple who had the answers to all of his questions. Finally, he would truly understand his existence.

Photo courtesy of NASA

Again, Jung had his  awareness yanked in another direction before he could actually get inside the temple. Once again, he saw the earth far below him. But as he stared at it, he noticed something odd in the region of Europe.

Something seemed to be between him and that portion of the earth. Whatever the “something” was, it appeared to be getting bigger and coming towards him.

When :it” finally arrived, the object turned out to be the doctor who was treating Jung in the hospital. Immediately, Jung recognized the strength of his doctor’s spirit that allowed him to make the journey all the way from earth.

Instantly, the doctor and Jung began to communicate–telepathically. The doctor told Jung that the earth had asked him to be its representative. This, the doctor said,  was a protest against Jung’s impending death.

As soon as the doctor delivered his message, the vision collapses and Jung was back in his hospital bed and back to his very painful illness.

It took three weeks for Carl Jung to really make up his mind that he truly wanted to live. In fact, he initially developed an almost violent resistance to his doctor because Jung blamed the man for spiritually pulling him away from death’s door. When he was finally able to let that blame go, Jung started worrying about his doctor. He came to believe that the man’s life was in danger because his spiritual trip up into space from Europe had drained so much of his life force.

After listening to Jung’s  description of the vision and the possible danger, the doctor dismissed it all as hallucinations. Angrily, Jung argued with the man, trying desperately to save his life.  Those discussions went nowhere.

Turned out that Carl Jung was his his doctor’s last patient. Once Jung had fully decided to live and was able to sit on the edge of his hospital bed, his doctor died.

According to Jung, the time after his illness was the most insightful and productive of his career. He died in 1961.

###

The blog post above, and the others like it, became so popular that I created a book using them as the basis for particular explorations of the paranormal. Titled, Carl Jung, Hauntings, and Paranormal Coincidences, it combines the Jung material with supporting information from my own experiences and those of others.

If you are interested in reading that book, you can find it in most online bookstores. Listed below, however, are direct book links to some of the larger retail outlets in the English speaking world:

Amazon.com, Amazon Canada, Amazon UK, Amazon India, Amazon Australia, Barnes and Noble, Kobo (Canada)

But if you would like to just browse through some of those postings on Carl Jung’s paranormal experiences, you can find those links below.

Happy reading.

Excellent Carl Jung Book: Synchronicity & Paranormal

Fascinating new book by paranormal author and investigator, Doug Dillon, brings to life Carl Jung’s personal supernatural experiences. Backed up synchronistic events and strange happenings in the lives of a large variety of other very reliable people.

Praise for Carl Jung, Hauntings, Paranormal Coincidences:

“This book is a part of all of us. The journey that we are all taking is inherently connected to those stories told in this book, written with so much joy, curiosity, and intelligence . . .”

Steven Ballou, 

Psychotherapist and Adjunct Faculty/Psychology, Southern New Hampshire University

“Wow! As an experienced and seasoned paranormal investigator (24 years), I really loved this book!”

Jill Borter,

Operations Manager and Electronic Voice Phenomena Analyst, Orlando Paranormal Investigations

“Doug Dillon’s work helps one better appreciate the magnificence of all that surrounds and defines our existence.”

Jim Caccavo, 

former NEWSWEEK, Vietnam war correspondent/photographer

“What a journey. What a litany of experiences. If you like ‘the Paranormal’, you’ll love Carl Jung, Hauntings and Paranormal Coincidences.”

Chuck Dowling, 

author of The Hammer of God Series, the Story of Arthur

“I could hardly put this book down. For anyone who has questions about what happens when we pass from the living world, I recommend this book.”

Mary Jo Fister, 

Lead Investigator and Case Manager, Offthetrails Paranormal Investigations

“This book illustrates the relationship of spirituality in everyday life with a curiosity about things we may experience and never understand.”

Kitty Mendoza, 

Psychotherapist in private practice, Longwood, Florida

“Each vignette is crafted so well that I couldn’t stop reading.”

Diane Ross, 

Hypnotist and author of Meditations for Miracles

If you are interested in reading this book, you can find it in most online bookstores. Listed below, however, are direct book links to some of the larger retail outlets in the English-speaking world:

Amazon.com, Amazon Canada, Amazon UK, Amazon India, Amazon Australia, Barnes and Noble, Kobo (Canada)

This book is based upon a series of very popular blog posts Doug did on Carl Jung’s paranormal adventures. See links to all postings on the following lead article titled, Carl Jung Part 1: Paranormal, Coincidences and Synchronicity.

Ghosts of the Russian Revolution

Reincarnation? Can you dream about past lives? The following came from my dream journal written years ago.

“I was in Russia, near the turn of the century, say, early nineteen hundreds. I could feel the bitter cold through the heavy clothing I wore.

“Snow covered the streets where I was standing. The day was dark, as if again, it was about to snow. The building in front of me, and those up and down the streets, appeared massive and grey in the gloom.

“My comrade lay crumpled at my feet, dead from a hail of bullets. I knelt before his body. The snow crunched beneath my knees. The firing squad was behind me. I knew that I would be executed also.

“Seconds later, the rifles exploded, ripping through my body, tearing my lungs apart. Strangely, there was no pain. With total serenity, I toppled over my friend to join him in death.

“Then, almost as an observer of the entire scene, I casually realized how the shredding of my lungs by those bullets, in that lifetime, was a direct cause of recurring asthma in my childhood this lifetime.”

That dream was so very real, I went to the library to see if I could find anything that might match what I saw. It didn’t take long.The picture you see above is the initial stages of the Russian Revolution in St. Petersburg–very similar to my dream. It gave me chills when I found it.

Czar Nicholas II

Background:

Russian workers and religious leaders trying to serve a petition to Czar Nicholas were gunned down in the square in front of the Winter Place. At least 100 people died and many more were injured. The year was 1905 and the event became known as Bloody Sunday.

Yup, that photo is pretty much the scene from my dream. When I found it, I tried to reason it away because I always liked Russian history. “Just a little creative nighttime tinkering with something you like,” I told myself.

Even so, I realized, my interest always focused on the 1917 revolution that actually toppled the Czar and paved the way for the establishment of the Soviet Union. I had seen that photo of the 1905 massacre but I had no deep interest in the earlier St. Petersburg event. Besides, the instant connection I had in the dream in relation to my asthma told me something more than dream fiction was at work.

Did I actually live and die back then? I don’t know, of course, but I tend to think that’s a good possibility.

In looking for the photo I used here, I “happened” to find a short video showing a dramatized version of the 1905 event. When I watched it, those chills came right back, even after all those years. Click here  if you would like to see it. Take a peek and you’ll definitely get a flavor of what I experienced.

If you are truly interested in paranormal phenomena, you might be interested in read my book, Carl Jung, Hauntings, and Paranormal Coincidences.  You can find it in most online bookstores. Listed below, however, are direct book links to some of the larger retail outlets in the English speaking world:

Amazon.com, Amazon Canada, Amazon UK, Amazon India, Amazon Australia, Barnes and Noble, Kobo (Canada)

A Paranormal Raod Rage Vision

Premonitions can happen anytime but when they happen as you’re driving, they can be especially disconcerting. This short story is about once such paranormal incident.

I was on my way home after having visited a patient in my duties as a Hospice volunteer. As I scanned the four lanes of traffic around me, I suddenly had this vision of two guys fighting in the street in front of me. As soon as that picture flashed through my mind, I wondered why it had happened.

Almost immediately, I had at least a partial answer. A number of years before that event, I was driving on the same highway with Barb in the car. When we stopped for a traffic light, two men came out of nowhere, wrestling with each other and even bouncing off cars, including ours. My conclusion? Umm, maybe just being on the same road, perhaps at the same time of day, created the “fighting” vision. A weak conclusion, admittedly, but nothing else came to mind.

Seconds later, the traffic ahead of me thickened considerably. As it did, a black pickup truck swerved dangerously to the left, barely squeezing between two cars. The guy in the car now behind him slammed on his brakes and then he swerved dangerously to his right, caught up with the trick and matched speeds with it.

The next thing I know, both car and truck stopped dead in the middle of the highway. Luckily, I was in the far right lane, so I was able to zip past those two stopped vehicles without incident. But as I looked back in my mirror, car and truck were still unmoving as the drivers obviously raised hell with each other through their open windows. Traffic backed up behind them and people slowed to gawk–a dangerous situation all around.

Luckily, one or both of the drivers broke off their confrontation before it could escalate any further. Car and truck roared past me and out of sight and I breathed a sigh of relief.

Had I been warned about that confrontation? If so, for what purpose? Was it just to show me how valid premonitions can be or was it something else? The only thing I can think of was that after having the vision, I was highly vigilant in my driving. Maybe through such hyper awareness I was able to avoid having an accident. What do you think?

If you are truly interested in paranormal phenomena, you might be interested in read my book, Carl Jung, Hauntings, and Paranormal Coincidences.  You can find it in most online bookstores. Listed below, however, are direct book links to some of the larger retail outlets in the English speaking world:

Amazon.com, Amazon Canada, Amazon UK, Amazon India, Amazon Australia, Barnes and Noble, Kobo (Canada)

Animal Hauntings?

Is there an animal afterlife? My experience says yes.

I find that paranormal events aren’t always recognized as such at the time. For me, odd or strange events only get defined as paranormal after further thought and investigation. This happened a number of years ago when I saw something in the road on my way to work.

Way back then, I was teaching at Ocoee Middle School in the western part of Orange County, FL. To get there, I had to take a country road. Beautiful drive in the early morning. So much nicer than fighting I-4 traffic going into and out of Orlando on a daily basis.

On this particular day, about half way to school, the road ahead stretched out into the surrounding light mist but wasn’t obstructed by it. Quite a distance ahead, something flickered ever so slightly. It seemed to be a small flashing of light on the road itself. At first, I thought I was imagining it because the thing was so small.

I blinked my eyes a couple of times but whatever it was didn’t go away. In fact, it got larger and more distinct the further I drove. Then at about 100 feet away, it looked like a shimmering, flickering spark about a foot or two high and maybe six to eight inches wide. Astounded, I lifted my foot off the accelerator. As soon as I did, the spark vanished. In it’s place, I could see a dead animal. When I got there, I saw that it was a large raccoon. No sign of the spark.

Weird, right? But I didn’t have time to dally and figure it out. School awaited so off I went.

That evening though, I shared my experience with my wife Barbara. Intrigued, she offered to do some channeling and see if we could get an explanation. Our book on the paranormal, An Explosion of Being, had just been published and Barb was still channeling from what we had come to call, The Source.

In this instance, The Source said the raccoon had been so freshly killed that its spirit had not yet adjusted to its death. The essence of the creature was simply hanging around the body trying to figure out what happened. I had read stories about such things happening to humans but it never occurred to me animals might have similar experiences.

That’s it. End of story except to share two Youtube videos with you. I share these for two reasons. One reason is show how animals can actually grieve. Sometimes I think we humans think we are the only ones with such emotions. The other reason is that when I watch these videos, it makes me think that just possibly a freshly killed animal might well react to its own death in a similar manner. Just food for thought. Here you go.

Click here for cat grief.

Click here for elephants in mourning.

If you are truly interested in paranormal phenomena, you might be interested in read my book, Carl Jung, Hauntings, and Paranormal Coincidences.  You can find it in most online bookstores. Listed below, however, are direct book links to some of the larger retail outlets in the English speaking world:

Amazon.com, Amazon Canada, Amazon UK, Amazon India, Amazon Australia, Barnes and Noble, Kobo (Canada)

Did Carl Jung Believe in an Afterlife?

Carl Jung’s breakthrough experience showed him an afterlife connection.

In 1944, Carl Jung broke his foot. Not only that, he also had a devastating heart attack. Near death in a hospital, he proceeded to have visions that changed his life.

These visions that came and went were so strong he knew he must be close to dying even though no one said this to him . His outlook got reinforced when a nurse told him she saw a bright glow all around his body.

Photo courtesy of NASA

At one point in his visions, Jung found himself high in space, looking down at the earth. Put simply, this is what he saw:

The blue light of earth and the deep, rich colors of the land areas
The continent of Asia below him
Snow on top of the Himalaya Mountains
The Arabian Peninsula
Part of the Mediterranean

Remember, this was 1944, way before the age of orbiting space craft and artificial satellites. When Jung later asked a friend in the scientific community about what he saw, the friend told him that the only way anyone could actual see such things would be from 1000 miles in space.

Space art courtesy of NASA

Into his vision a gigantic, dark  chunk of stone appeared. As he stared at it, Jung noticed an entrance. Attracted to the entrance, he went through it and found a room where an Asian man dressed in white was meditating. There were little niches in the walls all around the room containing oil lamps.

As Jung approached the man, all sorts of strange things occurred:

His entire earthly existence seemed to wash away as if the essence of who he was had  been annihilated.
Everything he had ever done, seen or planned left him completely.  An extremely painful experience at first.
Finally, as he realized he had been stripped of his identity, he also understood that he no long needed or wanted anything at all.
At that point, he accepted what was happening and realized the loss of his identity didn’t matter.

Suddenly, Jung’s awareness shifted and he found himself about to enter a huge temple. He knew without a doubt he would soon be meeting people inside the temple who had the answers to all of his questions. Finally, he would truly understand his existence.

Photo courtesy of NASA

Again, Jung had his  awareness yanked in another direction before he could actually get inside the temple. Once again, he saw the earth far below him. But as he stared at it, he noticed something odd in the region of Europe.

Something seemed to be between him and that portion of the earth. Whatever the “something” was, it appeared to be getting bigger and coming towards him.

When :it” finally arrived, the object turned out to be the doctor who was treating Jung in the hospital. Immediately, Jung recognized the strength of his doctor’s spirit that allowed him to make the journey all the way from earth.

Instantly, the doctor and Jung began to communicate–telepathically. The doctor told Jung that the earth had asked him to be its representative. This, the doctor said,  was a protest against Jung’s impending death.

As soon as the doctor delivered his message, the vision collapses and Jung was back in his hospital bed and back to his very painful illness.

It took three weeks for Carl Jung to really make up his mind that he truly wanted to live. In fact, he initially developed an almost violent resistance to his doctor because Jung blamed the man for spiritually pulling him away from death’s door. When he was finally able to let that blame go, Jung started worrying about his doctor. He came to believe that the man’s life was in danger because his spiritual trip up into space from Europe had drained so much of his life force.

After listening to Jung’s  description of the vision and the possible danger, the doctor dismissed it all as hallucinations. Angrily, Jung argued with the man, trying desperately to save his life.  Those discussions went nowhere.

Turned out that Carl Jung was his his doctor’s last patient. Once Jung had fully decided to live and was able to sit on the edge of his hospital bed, his doctor died.

According to Jung, the time after his illness was the most insightful and productive of his career. He died in 1961.

###

The blog post above, and the others like it, became so popular that I created a book using them as the basis for particular explorations of the paranormal. Titled, Carl Jung, Hauntings, and Paranormal Coincidences, it combines the Jung material with supporting information from my own experiences and those of others.

If you are interested in reading that book, you can find it in most online bookstores. Listed below, however, are direct book links to some of the larger retail outlets in the English speaking world:

Amazon.com, Amazon Canada, Amazon UK, Amazon India, Amazon Australia, Barnes and Noble, Kobo (Canada)

But if you would like to just browse through some of those postings on Carl Jung’s paranormal experiences, you can find those links below.

Happy reading.

Poltergeists? Ghosts? Hauntings? Coincidences?

A scary paranormal events made my aunt and uncle wonder.

I’m willing to bet that if most people talked with members of their families, they would come up with stories of all sorts of paranormal activity. I’m not just talking about immediate families, I’m talking about grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins.

In my case, my mom’s relatives were the ones who told such tales. For me, I found those stories so interesting because they came from people who never usually expressed an interest or even belief in such things.

Here’s a picture I took of Mom in St. Augustine with Matanzas Bay in the

background. I took her there before her death in 2007 to show her some of the locations I would be using in Book I of The St. Augustine Trilogy, Sliding Beneath the Surface. She was always fascinated by the paranormal

Her family all came from the New York City, Connecticut region. One summer when I was a teenager, we had a big family gathering and I got a chance to speak with one of her cousins and her husband. Both were involved with real estate and told a story about visiting a particular house they were trying to sell for some clients. It was nighttime and the owners were away.

The place was dark and they approached using flashlights. But just as they got to the front door, noises exploded from inside the house. Frightened and thinking vandals must be inside, they rushed back towards their car. They told me it sounded like a group of people was destroying everything they could find. As quickly as it started though, all those noises stopped.

After waiting a few minutes, they crept back up to house. No more sounds, and in fact, looking through the windows with their flashlights, they couldn’t see any damage. Thinking that rather odd, they decided to go in and look around. Pretty brave if you ask me, but they did it. Once inside, they found no damage whatsoever and nothing out of place. That frightened them even more than the sounds themselves and they had no explanation for what happened. Now we would probably identify such an experience as poltergeists.

So, the next time you have any kind of family gathering or reunion, ask people about their strange experiences. You might be very surprised with who comes up with some very weird but interesting tales.

If you are truly interested in paranormal phenomena, you might be interested in read my book, Carl Jung, Hauntings, and Paranormal Coincidences.  You can find it in most online bookstores. Listed below, however, are direct book links to some of the larger retail outlets in the English speaking world:

Amazon.com, Amazon Canada, Amazon UK, Amazon India, Amazon Australia, Barnes and Noble, Kobo (Canada)

A Meditation Retreat Odyssey

 

A quest for understanding dips into the unknown and plunges into haunting coincidences.

Even though I’ve been meditating for quite a number of years, I also attend meditation retreats periodically. They are a wonderful time to get away from it all, deepen my skills and learn more about myself than I could in any other way.

And although I have been studying and investigating the paranormal for a very long time, I never made a connection between meditation and “things that go bump in the night.” That all changed when I went on an extended retreat near Brooksville, Florida.

Florida is notoriously flat, but our retreat center turned out to be on one of the tallest hills in the state. A beautiful place, built in 1842, it was originally a plantation, now turned conference center. That location is one of the few in Florida where you can actually look down on a sunset.

The administrative offices were located in the manor house, behind which were smaller buildings, guest quarters, meeting space and, of course, a cafeteria. The rooms where we slept were comfortable and the wooded surroundings were wonderfully peaceful.

While driving to the retreat from my home near Orlando, I smiled at the fact that the manor house of the plantation was built right after the end of the Second Seminole War. Why? Because of a series of three circumstances that came together to form an interesting set of coincidences.

First of all, I had just completed the first novel of my young adult paranormal/historical series titled The St. Augustine Trilogy.

The book, Sliding Beneath the Surface, plunges two teenagers back in time, right into the middle of the horrific battle that began the conflict, a place not far from the retreat center. Every year there on the anniversary of the Dade Battle, as it is known, reenactors stage an incredibly accurate portrayal of what happened.

So for me, staying at a place built during the same era as the nearby battle as described in my book made for interesting speculation about how all three things could fit together so neatly. You see, long before that day, I had concluded, as had Carl Jung in his theory of synchonicity, that such coincidental events often point to something deeper in the nature of our existence.

But as interesting as the coming together of those three things were, I had a retreat to attend. And before long, I became thoroughly engrossed in my meditations. Engrossed, that is until one day everything changed.

It started after breakfast, two days into the retreat. After each meal, we were given a period of free time, and on that day,  I chose to take a leisurely walk around the grounds of the old plantation. My little jaunt started out on what had once been an old road with tall trees still on either side of it.

And as I studied my surroundings, I looked up at the trees all around me and noticed how each one of them had a lot of dead branches at the top. Immediately, I became afraid, worried that one of those branches could come crashing down and hit me or one of my companions.

Fear? The likelihood of being clobbered in that way was very low and I had walked under many such trees in my time. So why the apprehension? I asked myself, trying unsuccessfully to shake off that sensation.

Instead of giving in to such thoughts, I started wondering what the original owners of the surrounding plantation might think if they encountered such modern day intruders on their property. And true to my writer’s inclinations, I suddenly conjured up this vision of a man in period dress in front of me.

In my imagination, this gentleman and I then had an interesting conversation about the past Vs. the present. And at the end of that chat, the man said, “And remember. Suffer the little children to come unto me.”

What? Those words were so inconsistent with what was being said, that it totally blew my little day dream apart. My companion disappeared, and I continued walking, this time past the manor house in an area I hadn’t visited before.

But those words spoken by my imaginary friend still made me wonder. That whole conversation was just me talking to me in an imaginative way, right?

Yes, I was raised a Christian, but I had long ago found Christianity unable to fulfill my spiritual needs. In fact, my retreat was based on Buddhism. Why that quote from Jesus would suddenly popped into my head made no sense, but I let it go.

Looking to my left, I was surprised to find a small cemetery dating back to the early days of the plantation. Obviously, it was the final resting place of long forgotten family members, containing only five or six tombstones.

One of those stones lay flat on the ground. Attached to the top of it was a carved lamb. The inscribed dates showed that a child was buried there who died at the age of one year. And under the date were the words, “Suffer the little children to come unto me.”

Okay then. That really made me think. In fact, it made me wonder if, when I was communicating with my imaginary companion, was I somehow tapping into something else?

Or, could it be . . . Nah, the guy couldn’t have had some sort of reality that I didn’t understand. Or could he? A ghost? No way.

Telling myself that I was l letting my writer’s creativity run away with itself because of the coincidental circumstances relating to the retreat location, I spent the rest of the day deeply immersed in meditation.

Then came dinner. And after dinner, I decided to just sit on one of the many benches strategically set between our cafeteria and living quarters. It had been a good day, even though part of it was a bit weird.

And, of course, my mind went back to my fear of those tree branches, the encounter with my ghostly friend, and the inscription on that poor child’s tombstone. What a strange set of events, I thought, just as something huge and heavy crashed to the ground about ten feet to my left.

When I say huge and heavy, I’m not kidding. The impact made the ground shake and immediately, one of my meditation friends came running over wondering if I was OK. Together, we surveyed the large branch that had fallen out of a tree. If it had hit me, I might well have been killed.

Did I have a premonition? And if so, why? I mean, did looking up into those trees and thinking how a branch could fall somehow influence me to sit on that bench instead walking under the branch that actually fell? I don’t know, but it certainly is food for thought, as are those other happenings during my retreat.

Could my meditations have somehow opened me up to such occurrences? Was there some sort of residual energy in that historic location ready to connect with me just then because of that openness? Beats me. Maybe.

Since that retreat, I visited the same location multiple times but without another recurrence of similar events. What I learned through those experiences though, was not to so easily dismiss those things I might normally consider as imagination.

The Dade Battle reenactment .

Oh, one more thing. The day the retreat ended, I felt compelled to visit the little cemetery one more time. And when I got there, a car was parked very close to the tombstones. A license plate on the front of the car said, “Seminole Wars Foundation.”

End of story, but if you are interested in premonitions, coincidental events, ghosts, Carl Jung and synchonicity, you might want to take a look at the book on your left.

 

I wrote it because I am fascinated by not only Carl jung’s theories but also by his own paranormal experiences. And in studying all that I decided to combine what I had learned with my own experiences and those of others. That’s the package.

You can find the book on most large online bookstores, but below is the link to Amazon.com where you can see the reviews by those who have read it.

Carl Jung, Hauntings, and Paranormal Coincidences.

Sliding Beneath the Surface: Book I of the St. Augustine Trilogy