Past-Life Connections with Depp

Over the years, I have found myself drawn to specific people, especially when it comes to my "career" (for lack of a better word). As crazy as it may sound, one person in particular that I've felt myself consistently drawn to has been the actor Johnny Depp. 

Back in the late 1990s, Depp immediately became my favorite actor as soon as I saw Edward Scissorhands and Ed Wood for the first time. I couldn't believe how great he was in two roles that were completely opposite from each other. Shortly after, I saw movies like Dead Man and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and Donnie Brasco. I was, again, completely amazed by how well he played all these roles that were so different from each other. He was the most versatile actor I had ever seen. 

While it was his movies and unique role-choices that initially drew my attention to Depp, the more I learned about him, the more interesting he became. I particularly admired his deep appreciation for literature and his close friendship with Hunter S. Thompson. I knew there was something very unique about this guy that set him apart from most movie stars. 

For a while, I thought I was simply just a Depp fan or an admirer of his work. However, as more years passed, I felt myself more and more drawn to him. I didn't know why I had this feeling, but it felt like something more than simply being a fan. I mean, at the time I was just about as big a fan of the Beastie Boys, yet I did not feel at all 'drawn' to them like I was to Depp. 

For whatever reason, I felt compelled to get Depp's attention, get my own work to him...my novels, scripts, poetry, movies etc. As insane as it may sound, I felt like Depp was the only person with influence out there who was going to 'get' me and 'get' my work and maybe the only person of his stature who would actually maybe HELP me.

Little did I know that there was possibly a very good explanation as to why I was so drawn to Depp...

Part of this explanation came about two years ago when I learned from a psychic medium named Micheal (the spelling h-e-a-l is correct) that Johnny and I may have had past lives together, which would explain why I felt so drawn to him. Here is an exact quote from an email Micheal sent me...

"While it's possible your connection to Johnny Depp is through his native lineage, it's more likely the connection is farther back, say French Huguenot. Your lives definitely intersect in a couple of places."

Micheal's insight was, indeed, intriguing and resonated as truth deep down in my gut, but it still felt very 'out there', not to mention a little vague. Besides, one medium saying I had past lives with Depp wasn't enough to convince me (or anyone else for that matter). I needed more insight from maybe another source unrelated to Micheal. 

Flash-forward two years. In late December 2014, I won a holiday writing contest (read the story I wrote HERE) and first prize was an hour-long reading with a well-respected psychic medium named Jill. It was with Jill that I received more convincing confirmation of my past-life connections with Johnny Depp. 

Jill said that I 'helped' Johnny in the past and that's why I'm seeking his help now in my current life. People often "switch roles", as Jill put it. I essentially assisted him in some way in the past. Now there was maybe the possibility of him offering me some assistance. Spirits sometimes go from incarnation to incarnation as a kind of tag-team, helping one another out.


Jill also said that my new friend Amanda (read about Amanda in my previous article) was close to Johnny in the past as well. In fact, Jill said that - although we were only friends in our current life - Amanda and I were "together" in a past life and all three of us (i.e. Amanda, myself and whoever Johnny was) were very close.

In my previous article, I wrote how Amanda and I discovered that Amanda had an (alleged) past life as Zelda Fitzgerald. In that article, I also wrote how - soon after the Zelda discovery - we discovered I had an (alleged) past life as her husband F. Scott Fitzgerald. It's possible that the Fitzgerald life was the life Jill was referring to when she said Amanda and I were 'together' in the past. It's also possible that it was in the Fitzgerald life that Depp was close to us. In fact, when Jill said that "all three of us were close" in the past, I immediately started to think about the close relationship between the Fitzgerald's and the writer Ernest Hemingway (I talk more about the Fitzgerald/Hemingway relationship in my previous article). F. Scott was very close with Hemingway and helped him get his first novel - The Sun Also Rises - published at Scribner's. A recent article in literarytraveler.com explains this 'help' in better detail:

"Fitzgerald and Hemingway first met in April 1925. At the time, Hemingway, who had been working as a journalist, had only published a handful of stories and poems, a total of eighty-eight pages. Fitzgerald on the other hand was the author of three published novels, two short story collections and countless individual stories. The meeting between the writers led to a tumultuous friendship often characterized by insecurity and jealousy – a friendship that would affect not only the two men, but their writing as well.

As the senior writer, Fitzgerald’s commitment to Hemingway went far beyond friendship. In the coming months and years, Fitzgerald counseled Hemingway, served as his agent, ensured his association with Maxwell Perkins and Scribner’s, and acted as a buffer between Hemingway’s rough exterior and the outside world.

Perhaps the most significant thing Fitzgerald did for Hemingway was to edit a much less-publishable The Sun Also Rises, helping to pave the way for Hemingway’s prolific writing career."

Was the help that Fitzgerald provided Hemingway with the 'help' that Jill was referring to when she said I helped Johnny in the past? Did Johnny Depp have a past life as Ernest and I helped him when I was F. Scott? This could be possible because Hemingway died a few years before Depp was born. Depp's good friend Hunter Thompson never met Hemingway, but he wrote a National Observer article in 1964 where he visited Hemingway's Idaho home and investigated the reasons for the writer's suicide. Hunter was always very drawn to Hemingway in general - in fact, it's said that Hunter had a 'man-crush' on the writer. Could it be that Hunter and Depp were so drawn to each other because Depp was actually Hemingway in the past?

Depp, of course, doesn't really seem to resemble Ernest that much in his current life, so saying he had a past-life as Ernest seems like a stretch. It's possible that Depp was close to Amanda and I in a different life; after all, I've supposedly had about 30 past lives. As you will hear in the reading (below), Jill said that she saw Johnny and I in a place that looked like Rome. Maybe Amanda was in this Rome life, too. When you're dealing with 30 lives, there are many possibilities.

Whether Depp can be linked to the Fitzgerald life or some other life that Amanda and I shared, I may never know. However, one thing is definitely for sure: Depp can easily be linked to the Fitzgerald's via his close friendship with Hunter S. Thompson. The links are easy to follow: The Fitzgerald's were close with Hemingway; Hunter S. Thompson's two favorite writers and overall heroes were Fitzgerald and Hemingway; and Hunter, of course, was very close friends with Depp; oh, and both Hunter and Hemingway are 'with me' as spirit guides (as explained in the previous article). So even if Depp wasn't Hemingway or at all part of the Fitzgerald life, it's still very possible that Depp, Hemingway, Hunter and the Fitzgerald's are part of a close soul family that have been crossing paths off and on throughout several human incarnations.

Confusing, right? You bet it is! Past lives, soul families and spirit guides are all very complicated concepts that are probably not incredibly easy to digest all at once, especially if you aren't already familiar with these concepts. So, before I complicate things any further, I will bring this article to a close, but not before leaving off with an 8min audio clip from my reading with the psychic medium Jill. In the clip, she goes into further detail regarding my possible past-life connections with Johnny Depp.

A Past Life Healed: F. Scott Reunites with Zelda

NOTE FROM MATT BURNS:

The story below involves the spirits of several ex-writers from the 20th century, but this story never would have started had it not been for one spirit in particular: Dr. Hunter S. Thompson. 

Over the years, various legitimate psychic mediums (unrelated to each other) have informed me that Hunter S. Thompson is “with me” as a spirit guide and he helps me with my writing. I have written about this discovery in a previous article entitled "Meeting Hunter S. Thompson and Nathanael West". In the article, I talk about how Hunter and West are part of a close team of writers on the 'other side' and they both have assisted me with various writing projects over the recent years. Yes, I realize this all sounds very unbelievable so far and you may be raising your eyebrows. But there’s actually more…

Hunter’s spirit has recently reconnected me with an old friend of mine whom I hadn’t seen in about 15 years. My friend Amanda (name changed) had been experiencing ‘paranormal’ activity in her house and I suggested that she see a medium in order to obtain an explanation as to what was going on. To make a long story short, she ended up having a reading with a Los-Angeles-based medium named Tracey (name changed) whom neither of us had ever met or associated with before. Not only did Tracey reconfirm that Hunter was with me as a spirit guide, but she also said that Ernest Hemingway was with me as well. Both writers were making their presence known and trying to bring Amanda and I together because we had a very important past life together. See, I was (allegedly) one of Hunter’s favorite writers/Hemingway's former writing buddy F. Scott Fitzgerald while Amanda was F. Scott’s wife: Zelda Fitzgerald.

I do realize this sounds like an extremely wild story and you’re more than likely skeptical (believe me: I would be, too). However, I encourage you to have an open mind and read all the details below. Please feel free to visit my Amazon author page and hopefully this will show that I am a rational, logical and grounded individual. I have volumes of writing material there. 


Without further ado, here is the story:

...

A Past Life Healed: F. Scott Reunites with Zelda
by matt burns

The following story may sound rather unbelievable and, to be honest, I don't blame anyone who finds it far-fetched. There is unfortunately no way to conclusively prove the discoveries that you will hear about below. I did my best documenting the events as accurately as possible, but it's up to the reader to decide whether they believe in any of it. My hope is that - if nothing else - the discoveries will at least provoke thought and discussion.

First off, let me give you the back-story...

About two months ago, I was out at a local bar and I ran into a friend I hadn't really seen in about 15 years. Amanda (name changed) is about ten years older than me and she helped run the backstage at a theater troupe I used to be involved with when I was a teenager – she was in her twenties at the time. We started chatting and realized we both had an interest in writing and seemed to get along quite well. The encounter felt really strange, but in a good way. We both agreed that it seemed serendipitous and "meant to be".

Amanda and I started hanging out more and more to talk about writing. During this time, she learned that I had an interest in the paranormal and she informed me that she was experiencing paranormal activity in her home. She was hearing voices, names whispered and also seeing shadows. One night she even saw the full-bodied apparition of a big, burly man at the bottom of her attic steps and the man said aloud, "You have to keep moving". The paranormal activity itself was strange enough, but what Amanda found even more strange was that the activity seemed to intensify after hanging out with me, as if it were somehow linked to me. She had no idea what was going on and she wanted some sort of explanation for it all.

I suggested that Amanda see a medium to help shed some light on what was going on. She agreed that it was a good idea and I, of course, had participated in my fair share of psychic readings over the years (read about my various readings HERE), but none of the mediums I had crossed paths with seemed like the right fit for Amanda. There were one or two people that I thought MAYBE might be able to help, but I didn’t feel too strongly about them. The timing still didn’t feel quite right. So we kind of sat tight for a while.

Meanwhile, the paranormal activity kept happening and Amanda was really starting to get concerned about what was going on and she was even more concerned about her psychological wellbeing. She really needed somebody to shed some light on what was happening in her house or at least tell her she wasn’t insane, but the question was “WHO?”

A week or so later, an LA-based actress by the name of Tracey (name changed) contacted me out of the blue saying she had read some of my writing on my website - particularly the paranormal stories - rather interesting. We chatted back and forth and added each other on Facebook and it didn't take me long to notice that she was experienced in psychic and Tarot readings. In my gut, I thought it may have been serendipitous that Tracey contacted me when she did, right around the time that Amanda was experiencing the paranormal activity and was looking for a medium who could help explain what was happening.

I told Amanda about Tracey and that she was a medium and did psychic readings. Amanda checked out her web page and felt that she should drop her a line to get more details. To make a long story short, Amanda liked what she heard and, about a week or two later, she set up a time for a reading with Tracey that would take place over the phone. 

Amanda felt strongly that I should be present during the reading and I agreed that it felt right, too. So we met at 2pm on a Tuesday (July 15, 2014) at a peaceful park, sat at a picnic table and did the reading with Tracey by phone (Tracey was in Los Angeles). Amanda had her phone on speaker and I brought two different devices that could record the audio of the session: a Sony digital audio recorder and my video camera.

Amanda had only paid for a 30 minute reading so Tracey didn't waste any time delving into what Amanda was most interested in: the paranormal activity she was experiencing in her house. Tracey could see that there was a man in the house and she said, almost right away, that this man was a famous writer. Both Amanda and I were surprised to hear this, but at the same time we weren't completely shocked. We had actually suspected that either one or two of my (alleged) spirit guides were making their presence known to her, particularly Hunter S. Thompson and Charles Bukowski. (I never confirmed that the latter writer was a guide but have always suspected he was around me, especially ever since I started writing poetry about a year and a half ago. You can read more about Hunter as my spirit guide HERE.)

Tracey went on to describe the writer in greater detail. She said that he was an alcoholic, had a very dark side to his personality, and struggled with depression. There was a lot of trauma in his life and he died young, somewhat tragically. In fact, he may have even committed suicide. He had brown hair, wore reading spectacles, was very tall and was around during the earlier part of the twentieth century because Tracey kept seeing images in black and white...

I listened to the description of the writer and none of my spirit guides seemed to fit, but I have to admit that for some reason a name kept popping into my mind: F. Scott Fitzgerald. I didn't say anything about it at the time, mainly because the name seemed too far-fetched and very out of left field; plus, I never knew Fitzgerald to be one of my guides. I kept quiet and listened for more clues...

Tracey explained that this writer was "with me" but I brought him to Amanda and Amanda had a past-life connection to this man. She thought that they were likely lovers - maybe even married - and that there was some unfinished business at the time of the man's premature death; words left unsaid or confusion as to what happened because they weren't together at the time. The man was also apologizing to Amanda for something…

Tracey went on to address some other issues in Amanda’s life, but by the end of the reading, I felt compelled to ask some of my own questions, particularly regarding the writer who was trying to connect with Amanda. I told Tracey that I (allegedly) had some famous writers with me as spirit guides and I thought one of them may be this man she was trying to describe. The first two names I threw her way were the only two guides that I knew were alive during the time period Tracey was describing: Henry James and Nathanael West. But Tracey said that, according to her psychic sources, it wasn’t either one of them. I then told her that Hunter S. Thompson was also with me and I also believed Charles Bukowski to be with me - at least to some extent - but it wouldn’t really make sense that this mystery spirit haunting Amanda was any of them because both Thompson and Bukowski died fairly recently (Bukowski in 1994 and Hunter committed suicide in 2005). Tracey asked about Bukowski and Thompson and, for some reason, came up with a 'yes' for both of them. However, this didn’t necessarily mean that either Thompson or Bukowski was the male spirit Tracey was seeing in her psychic visions, though it still seemed like the two writers were making their presence known. 

As I mentioned before, both Amanda and especially myself had suspected that Bukowski and Thompson were around us, though we were still surprised to obtain outside confirmation from a neutral third party. We had suspected that Thompson may have been around when, one day, Amanda happened to mention to me that her mind seemed unusually haunted by Hunter S. Thompson’s writing and this was before she even knew that he was supposedly with me as a spirit guide. Then, about a week or two later, Bukowski popped into my head and I started thinking he could have been the apparition Amanda saw in her house, so I mentioned that to her and she was shocked because she had been talking to her husband about Bukowski and his poetry earlier that day. Amanda started reading a bunch of Bukowski’s poems and I re-read a lot of them myself. We were both obsessed with the poet for a good 24 hours.

So, yes, it made sense that both Hunter and Bukowski were around and Tracey seemed to confirm our suspicions of this. But, like I said, these writers were pretty contemporary and it wouldn't make sense that Amanda would have had a past life with them because she was currently in her early 40s and Thompson/Bukowski were alive so recently that it just didn't seem to add up, especially seeing that Amanda was supposedly married to this mysterious male writer spirit. Tracey seemed to feel that the link was more with Hunter than with Bukowski, but she couldn't necessarily explain why. Maybe it was possible that they had a past-life connection two lifetimes ago and - although that may have been true - I felt like there was more to it than just that.

The session with Tracey eventually ended with these questions unanswered, but Amanda, myself and (I think) Tracey were all pretty blown away that some amazing writers were revealing their presence to us. We all went our separate ways and I went to grab an iced coffee at my favorite café - mainly to clear my head - but I eventually made it home, sat at my computer and opened some new emails that had just come in from Tracey. She reiterated that the spirit of Hunter S. Thompson was definitely around, making his presence known, and somehow connected to Amanda through past lives. This still didn't seem to make too much sense to me but then I thought about the connection more deeply and that was when I remembered a name that had popped into my mind earlier in the reading but dismissed as irrelevant:

F. Scott Fitzgerald

F. Scott Fitzgerald.

I remembered that Hunter S. Thompson idolized F. Scott Fitzgerald and he basically taught himself to write by copying out pages of The Great Gatsby, which was his favorite book. I looked up F. Scott Fitzgerald and all of a sudden everything started to come together. Almost on a telepathic level, I instantly realized that Fitzgerald really did sound a lot like the man Tracey was describing during her reading (brown hair, alcoholic, died young, tragic end to life) and then it immediately popped into my head that Amanda was Fitzgerald's wife: Zelda Fitzgerald. Yes, it just came to me, pretty quickly, like a spirit had telepathically implanted the information into my mind.

Zelda Fitzgerald

Zelda and F. Scott Fitzgerald had a very tumultuous marriage and Zelda didn't get to see her husband for the last year and a half of his life because he was in Hollywood writing movies, having affairs and drinking himself to death. During this time, Zelda had been committed to a mental institution and diagnosed (perhaps falsely) with schizophrenia. Zelda never had a chance to heal the damaged relationship she had with her husband because he had a fatal heart attack on December 21, 1940 in Hollywood while she was still a resident at a mental institution in Asheville, North Carolina. Zelda had a tough life after her husband's death - she was in and out of the hospital, a recipient of shock therapy - and she died eight years later when the Asheville hospital burned to the ground.

Although the history books have always considered Zelda to have been schizophrenic, there are new revisionist perspectives that see her as – if anything – a bipolar writer/artist. These revisionists also claim that Fitzgerald treated her very poorly, mentally abused her in the form of gaslighting (read about gaslighting HERE), stole ideas from her and even sometimes outright plagiarized some of her stories (read more about what the revisionists say HERE). Tracey said that the man haunting Amanda was desperate to apologize for something. Perhaps the spirit of F. Scott Fitzgerald wanted to apologize to Zelda for treating her so poorly while he was alive? This was very possible.

So, yes, all the pieces were starting to fit, but, hell, it seemed REALLY far-fetched. I mean, F. Scott Fitzgerald was one of the most famous modern American novelists of all time who had written one of the greatest American novels of all time: The Great Gatsby. And my friend Amanda, whom I had recently re-connected with, was...well…quite possibly Zelda Fitzgerald in her past life? This sounded pretty insane, but on a gut level it resonated as being the truth. The troubled relationship between Zelda and F. Scott sounded very similar to the one Tracey was describing between Amanda and the man in her past life.

I ran my theory by Tracey and it wasn't long before she got back to me. She had Googled F. Scott Fitzgerald and got intense chills. Then she looked up Zelda Fitzgerald and got even more chills. Not only did all of this information match up with what she had been feeling during the reading (especially in regards to the relationship between Zelda and her husband), but Tracey also pointed out that Amanda uncannily resembled Zelda in physical appearance. Tracey agreed that it was extremely possible that Amanda may have been Zelda Fitzgerald in her past life and now F. Scott Fitzgerald's spirit was visiting her to heal their damaged past-life relationship.

As I mulled the incredible discoveries over in my head, I remembered how, at one point during her reading, Tracey said that she saw a male spirit hugging Amanda and telling her he loves her. Tracey also said that there was so much this spirit wanted to tell Amanda about what happened to him leading up to his death and that she needed to understand. Not only did he want to set the record straight to Amanda but he also wanted to set it straight for the entire world as well. 

But if this spirit was, indeed, F. Scott Fitzgerald, then what did the world not yet know about him? What misconceptions do we have about his life? Well, I had already uncovered that Fitzgerald potentially had a much darker side to him than the history books would indicate, but I wanted to dig a little deeper. And while I didn’t learn anything too groundbreaking about Fitzgerald, I did end up making another shocking discovery:

The night after the reading with Tracey and Amanda, I started watching a documentary about Fitzgerald, something pretty simple that the "Arts and Entertainment" channel produced back in the 90s. At one point, it talked about Fitzgerald’s time as an expatriate in France and how he met/started hanging out with the writer Ernest Hemingway. Fitzgerald and Hemingway were solid friends but supposedly Zelda and Hemingway didn't get along (Hemingway told Fitzgerald he thought Zelda was crazy and Zelda thought Hemingway to be a 'bogus' phony). The documentary showed some photographs of Hemingway and it suddenly struck me that the writer strongly resembled Amanda’s description of the apparition she saw in her house. I immediately messaged Amanda and told her to look up pictures of Ernest Hemingway. Her response came only minutes later:

“Holy shit!”

She had Googled photos of the big, burly, overly-masculine Ernest Hemingway and he looked almost EXACTLY like the apparition she saw in her house, the one that told her to “keep moving”. She was dumbfounded. Without a doubt, Ernest Hemingway was the man she saw...

Ernest Hemingway

The next day we both messaged Tracey who said a chill ran up her arm when she looked up Hemingway. He definitely resembled the spirit she saw in her visions, but – then again – so didn’t Hunter S. Thompson and Fitzgerald. “It’s like we’re dealing with a whole posse of writers here,” she said. “Very strange.” All three writers seemed to be making their presence known to all of us.

So, yes, I do think Amanda saw Hemingway that night in her house and it's very possible that - like Fitzgerald - Hemingway's spirit was also trying to apologize to Amanda. The more I researched Hemingway and Zelda, the more I realized that Hemingway wasn't nice to her either and kept trying to convince his friend Fitzgerald that she was crazy. Both spirits seemed to be trying to heal some rough past-life relations and they both seemed to feel sorry for calling Zelda crazy, mentally abusing her, gaslighting her and contributing to her tragic downfall in and out of mental institutions. 

Now, do I really feel that Amanda was F. Scott Fitzgerald's wife Zelda? It still sounds pretty crazy, but the connections all seem to make sense, so, yes, I strongly do believe it's a good possibility. But Fitzgerald wasn't the only spirit around Amanda; it turned out that there were a handful of writers making their presence known and they are all linked somehow - Hunter with Fitzgerald and Fitzgerald with Hemingway. In fact, upon doing a little more research, I was shocked to learn that Hunter considered Hemingway one of his literary heroes as well. Just like he did with Gatsby, Hunter copied Hemingway’s novel A Farewell to Arms, word-for-word, when he was trying to teach himself the craft of writing novels. I feel like all three of the writers are a closely-knit soul group hanging with one another in the spirit world, perhaps with Bukowski, too. They were all alcoholics and all great American writers writing about very similar things (the hollowness of the American Dream, essentially). I think all of them were making their presence known but Fitzgerald was the one who had the major past-life connection with Amanda. I also believe all four of the writers have been with me, off and on, through the years, because I basically write about the same subject matter as they do (the hollowness of the American dream). So maybe I was the bridge to connect them (especially Fitzgerald) with Amanda and that’s why we so serendipitously crossed paths that one night at the bar. 

Timing is everything and I feel like it was time for Amanda to open her eyes to these spirits, learn about her past as Zelda Fitzgerald and think about how those past issues relate to certain issues in her current life. I feel like I dropped into Amanda's life when I did because I was needed to help her make sense of everything, connect her with Tracey and also help pick up where Tracey left off and put more of the pieces together after the reading. 

In fact, I think that this entire experience was meaningful for both Amanda and myself. For me, it was nice to get so much more confirmation that Hunter S. Thompson was with me in spirit and it was even more awesome to know that Fitzgerald, Hemingway and maybe even Bukowski were also with me, most likely helping out with my writing on varying levels. I think - more than anything else - this experience was about giving both Amanda and myself confidence. Amanda and I needed to know that these awesome people were around us so we, in turn, felt more awesome about ourselves and - for a lot of reasons that I won’t get into - it was important for both of us to gain this type of confidence at this point in our lives so we could "keep moving", as the apparition of Ernest Hemingway stated aloud to Amanda that one eerie night in her house.

…

A few days after discovering that Hunter S. Thompson, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway were around, I was trying to document the whole experience while writing what you’ve read above. I printed out an early draft of what I had written so far and went onto my screened porch to go over it with a pen and make notes/changes. It wasn’t long before I looked down and saw a Boston Globe newspaper on the table with a headline looking up at me that said “Old Man and the Sea”. It took a moment to register in my brain, mainly because I wasn’t expecting anything of the sort, but then it hit me: 

“Wait! That’s the title of a Hemingway novel!”

This is the headline I saw...

Indeed, it WAS the title of a Hemingway novel…or novella, to be precise. It was the last significant piece of writing he published before his death in the early 1950s and it was this novella that heavily contributed to him winning the Nobel Prize for literature in 1954. Was it a coincidence that I saw this headline? No way. I didn’t think so. Hemingway seemed to be saying hello.

About an hour after seeing the Hemingway headline, I needed to go out and grab something at the Whole Foods supermarket a few towns away. There are actually two Whole Foods stores nearby - one in Dedham, MA. and one in Bellingham, MA. - but I felt something pulling me to go to the one in Bellingham because I knew there was a Newbury Comics record store in the same plaza as the Bellingham store and I had the urge to browse through some CDs and DVDs. So I went to get what I needed at Whole Foods and then proceeded to Newbury Comics as planned. As soon as I walked into the store, I found myself looking at a display right in the front-end of the store – immediately inside the entrance - and on this display there were copies of both THE GREAT GATSBY and FEAR AND LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS as well as other merchandise for each book and there was a TON of it. It was staring right at me, thrown in my face (see pictures below).

It was after my experience at Newbury Comics that there was no doubt in my mind. Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Thompson…they were all saying hello and confirming that they were, indeed, with both Amanda and I in spirit. It wasn’t all in our imagination. It was all as real as can be.



THREE WEEKS LATER…

Yes, almost three weeks had passed since we had made the discovery that Amanda most likely had a past life as Zelda Fitzgerald. What we didn’t know was that there was one more shocking discovery we were going to make… 

It was early on a Friday morning that I got a message from Amanda saying that it sounded crazy, but she thought I might have possibly been F. Scott Fitzgerald in a past life. She said she was in bed the night before – trying to sleep – and the thought kept haunting her, almost as if a spirit were implanting the information into her head. F. Scott Fitzgerald was not a separate spirit guide helping us. I was F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Although I never thought too much about it, the idea of me having been Fitzgerald had definitely crossed my mind during the weeks following Tracey’s reading. Why? I'm not sure. Maybe because Hemingway was the only spirit to make his presence known while Fitzgerald never really seemed to manifest himself. It always felt like Fitzgerald was reaching Amanda through me and, when I wasn’t around, he didn’t seem to be around her either. I always thought I was simply channeling him, but maybe there was more to it than just that…

I borrowed the recent Great Gatsby movie from the library (the one starring Leonardo DiCaprio) and also started reading the novel. I hadn’t read Gatsby since college and had forgotten much of what the story was about, but what struck me this time around was how familiar it seemed. Watching the movie was a very bizarre trip to say the least. I admit I was a little buzzed on beer while I was watching, but it wasn’t just the booze messing with my mind. I couldn’t believe the kind of stuff that was coming into my head and I felt compelled to write anything and everything down as it came to me. It wasn’t a thought or two – it was a FLOOD of thoughts and feelings. Either the spirit of F. Scott Fitzgerald was right there with me telling his story (sort of like how Gatsby does to Nick at one point in the story) or maybe I was tapping into a very deep part of my soul where past-life memories are stored. Either way, I was getting all these crazy thoughts and I wrote them all down. Here they all are. You will notice that they’re in the first person, as if I’m channeling Scott... 

I harbored some passive aggression towards Zelda.
She only likes me now that I’m successful.
She came back when I got my first novel published.
Otherwise she'd be with that other guy.
I have no respect for her.
I love her, but deep down I harbor disgust towards her.

Think Johnny Cruise (Note: at this point during the “channeling”, I wanted to take note of the parallels between The Great Gatsby and my first novel JOHNNY CRUISE. They were totally different novels with different characters and settings and time periods, but the theme/subtext/tragic characters were all eerily similar).

Johnny’s hang-up with Heather in JOHNNY CRUISE strongly resembles Gatsby’s hang-up with Daisy.

Johnny thinks Heather will only like him if he’s successful. This is what Gatsby thought about Daisy.

Heather haunts Johnny just like Daisy haunts Gatsby. Both characters are haunted by lost (potential) love. It’s the girl that drives them to create a life/persona for them that is hollow and phony.

Johnny/Fitzgerald harbor deep misogyny, a hatred towards the woman that only comes back after success.

I have deep disgust and hatred and disrespect for women who only like you when you have success, money and security. You take them and you have sex with them but you NEVER lose the disrespect and disgust and hatred towards them...

This MISOGYNY was Fitzgerald’s “dark side”...
Women like Zelda gravitate to the success...
You (Zelda) were a product of the times.
You lived for the world, not for yourself.
Easily swayed and tickled by the success devil.
Her downfall was her karma.
But I still feel guilt and I still feel sorry for what happened to her.

Part of me is also mad that I still feel sorry and guilty for something she brought on herself. But I can’t shake the guilt. Part of me knows I shouldn’t be guilty, but another part of me is haunted by the guilt. I’m mad that I’m guilty. My mind has been messed with. Maybe I was gaslighted and I gaslighted back. Maybe it was an endless cycle of gaslighting...

This is where I’m coming from. It doesn’t excuse any of my actions but it at least shows where I was coming from and where my head was at. Being mean or being an asshole sometimes has a complex foundation to it...

When Gatsby tanked you (Zelda) seemed to love me less, or maybe I thought that in my head because you only seemed to love me when my first book was published, so I assumed that once I became a failure, you wouldn’t love me anymore. (NOTE: The Gatsby novel was not successful when it was first published. It only became as popular as it is today well after Fitzgerald's death).

Your love for me was conditional, or that’s what I thought in my head.
I thought everybody’s love for me was conditional.

See BLOWTORTURE: the main theme is conditional love. (Note: BLOWTORTURE, my most recent novel, has parallels with Gatsby and also Fitzgerald’s life. The novel is very much concerned with the idea of conditional love in America, particularly Hollywood).

I never felt like I had unconditional love.
I felt like I needed to be a success in order to have love.
When Gatsby tanked, I felt I lost love.
I went to Hollywood to be a success again, thinking maybe I could win back love.

Hollywood was even worse. The town is America run through a film projector at triple-speed. The conditional love was three times as worse there than in general America. 
In Hollywood, they only love you if you are successful. If you’re a failure, the love disappears.

My drinking became three times worse in Hollywood.
And then I died.
In the end, who’s at fault? Who’s the victim here?
Nobody is to blame, nobody is at fault.
It’s just one big American tragedy.
Both of us put our priorities in the wrong place.
Both of us cared about the wrong things.

Both of us replaced our God with success - we worshiped the latter when we should have been more concerned with the former.

The world was our God. We lived for the world and not for God.
I need to release this from my soul.
This has been tormenting my soul.
The world needs to know this tragedy.
And this tragedy is in JOHNNY CRUISE.
I subconsciously expressed the tragedy in all the stuff I have written.
This isn’t just my karma, but Amanda's karma, too.
We’re currently both picking up the pieces of the aftermath to a tragedy.
Many pieces have been picked up, finally, just about every last one.
It’s time to move on.
Nobody is the victim here, nobody is the perpetrator.
Each of us are merely characters in one big tragedy.
Nobody is ever just a victim.
Nobody is ever just a perpetrator.

The world doesn’t need to know that Fitzgerald was bad guy and Zelda was an angel or vice versa.

We don’t need to know who’s crazy and who’s not crazy, who did the gaslighting and who didn't, who mentally abused who.

We need to know the tragedy.
That’s the truth that needs to be told.

This isn’t necessarily “karma”, but just something we both needed to go through to grow into a better soul. Zelda was no more a victim than Fitzgerald and no more a perpetrator. Both figures were equally a tragic character who made tragic errors. 

…

The night after I had all of the above revelations, I met up with Amanda at the bar and read aloud to her everything I had written down. She wasn’t upset or insulted or offended. In fact, she felt it was rather illuminating to listen to “Fitzgerald’s side of the story”. Up until then, she had mostly been viewing Zelda as the sole victim of a mentally abusive relationship. She never stopped to think that maybe Scott was a “victim” too, or maybe she was just as much of a “perpetrator” as Scott was. Maybe there was no good guy and bad guy– it wasn’t that black and white of a situation. Both Fitzgerald and Zelda were two tragic characters who each made certain tragic errors in their lives. In the great scheme of things, there is no victim and villain, just complex souls. We go through several different incarnations – some as the victim and some as the perpetrator – and, in the end, we’re all the more spiritually evolved because of it. Pointing fingers at each other isn’t important. But pinpointing certain tragic errors and learning from them IS important. That’s all that is worthwhile to do in life…

After I read Fitzgerald’s perspective to Amanda in the bar, I noticed how much lighter I seemed to feel, like something had been released from my soul that I’d been carrying around with me for a long time. Surprised by the noticeable catharsis, I really started to wonder whether I was, indeed, Fitzgerald in my recent past life. I realized it would be nice to have some definitive outside confirmation so I wasn't always wondering if it were true. While I didn’t want to bother Tracey about it because she had already done so much for Amanda and myself, after about a week of wondering, I felt compelled to bother her just one more time and ask the big question. Was I F. Scott Fitzgerald in a past life? Here is how she responded to the message I sent to her over Facebook:

“Well I asked the universe and record keepers if you were in fact the soul of F. Scott Fitzgerald. I got yes 3 times very strongly. So that feels right to me. And now I got other body sensation confirmations. Yup. I do believe you are him.”

So there it was. The last piece of the puzzle had potentially fallen into place. It looked like I was quite possibly F. Scott Fitzgerald and Amanda (formerly Zelda) and I had crossed paths at the bar that night in order to heal our troubled past-life relationship. Perhaps we both needed to expunge the negativity that was trapped deep in our souls because it was this negativity that was preventing us from “moving forward” (Hemingway’s words) with our current lives. 

Meeting Henry James

For your reference, you may want to read the three blogs listed below if you haven't already. They will provide all the necessary backstory to this blog:

http://mattboourns.blogspot.com/2010/01/meeting-my-guides.html

http://mattboourns.blogspot.com/2010/03/meeting-lillian-gish-and-dw-griffith.html

http://mattboourns.blogspot.com/2010/05/meeting-hunter-s-thompson-and-nathanael.html

Basically, I don't have a whole lot to say other than I have identified a seventh (non-family member) spirit guide who apparently helps me with my work. He is Henry James.

James, if you are unfamiliar, was one of the great American novelists of the late 19th/early 20th century. He was known for such novels as The Portrait of a Lady, The American, Washington Square, as well as his short stories like The Beast in the Jungle and The Private Life. His work dealt with how the human consciousness functioned and often focused on how 'New World' Americans interacted with 'Old World' Europeans.

The manner in which I identified James as a guide was a little roundabout. About a month ago, I randomly started getting interested in Pragmatism, which was a philosophy developed by William James. In fact, it was William whom I initially suspected as being a spirit guide of mine, because I had remembered Liam Galvin saying I had philosophers "with me" in spirit (see the videos in the first blog). But upon researching William a bit, I came to realize that he was brothers with Henry James, which is something I hadn't realized. I had always been drawn to Henry James' work, especially The Beast in the Jungle, The Lesson of the Master and The Private Life. So I thought..."hmmmm...maybe he's a guide, too." And for some reason this started to feel that it was likely to be true. Call me weird, but I had a gut feeling about it. It seemed right.

A month went by before I really felt the need to seek confirmation. Like usual, I asked my medium friend Jan to dowse for me (read about dowsing in my second and third bog) and the results were interesting. Here is our unedited correspondence:

----- Original Message -----

From: Matt
To: Jan
Sent: Monday, July 26, 2010 12:34 AM

Subject: Hi Janet

Hi Jan:

I think two more of my spirit guides have been making their presence known to me and I just thought it might be nice to possibly get some confirmation. If you have any moment in the near future, could you dowse and check to see if philosopher William James and novelist Henry James are with me as spirit guides? Their names have been in my head for about a month now and I thought it might be nice to get some sort of confirmation. Again, no rush on this whatsoever. Please don't go to any trouble. Just curious if they are, indeed, "with me." Thanks so much!

-- Matt


----- Original Message -----
From: Jan
To: Matt
Sent: Thursday, July 29, 2010 1:04:52 PM
Subject: Re: Hi Janet

Yes - on Henry James, but no - on William James. But I think that you are supposed to read some of William James' writings. I hope this helps. Enjoy your week in Falmouth! : )

Jan

---

So, according to Jan, Henry was a guide, but William wasn't (though I guess I was supposed to read his writing, which made sense). I thought this was interesting, because I would have thought William was my guide before Henry, seeing that I was so drawn to Pragmatism at the time. But this apparently wasn't the case. Maybe attracting me to Pragmatism was just Henry's indirect way of revealing his identity to me. Who knows?

I also find it interesting that Jan's results proved to be a bit more complicated than just providing affirmative responses, like it did with Hunter Thompson and Nathanael West (see third blog). This time around, I felt that getting a 'no' for William James added to the validity of her dowsing skills. In other words, I wasn't just getting 'yessed' to death. There was something more complex happening other than simply telling me what I wanted to hear.

So, yes, as of this date I have identified seven non-family-member spirit guides who, I guess, help me with my creative endeavors. They are John Cassavetes, Alfred Hitchcock, Lillian Gish, D.W. Griffith, Nathanael West, Hunter S. Thompson, and last (but not least) Henry James. When he gave me my reading in January, Liam Galvin had actually told me there were seven main guides who helped me with my work (see videos). Were these the seven guides? Will I identify anybody else? I suppose time will tell.

But, again I find myself wondering how it was that I lucked out and got such great guides (if it's all, indeed, true). I was actually watching an interview with "Jane's Addiction" front-man Perry Farrell not too long ago (click HERE to view), and he was talking about his "spirit" and, specifically, a spirit guide of his who visited him in his dreams. One interesting thing he started talking about was the "law of attraction," which is a concept that most people are familiar with these days, what with the whole "positive psychology" movement and what-not. The law of attraction, if you're not familiar, says that positive people attract other positive people to them in life, like friends, lovers, colleagues etc. Farrell, however, insinuated in his interview that positive people also attract positive people in spirit: that is, positive spirit guides.

So this is kind of an interesting concept: the more positive our endeavors, the more positive energy we attract to us, both on earth and in the spirit realm. And maybe the bigger endeavors we attempt to pursue in life the better guides we get to help us. In other words, we ALL have the ability to attract some really awesome people to us, if only we have the courage to go out and do awesome things. This isn't to say that I'm awesome and this is why I've attracted awesome guides. But I do feel I've taken certain atypical risks in my life that not a whole lot of people take, so maybe it paid off. I don't know.

This is all food for thought, anyway. There may be no truth to it whatsoever, but it makes you think a little bit.

Meeting Hunter S. Thompson and Nathanael West

Perhaps a brief recap of this whole story is in order:

Last January, I was attempting to make a documentary about metaphysics. The film was meant to be a sort of sequel to my short documentary "A Parallel World", which was about a haunted house on Cape Cod (click HERE to view). I didn't know what I wanted the so-called sequel to be about, but I essentially wanted to further explore the possibility of a spiritual dimension coexisting with our physical world, one comprised of spirits (deceased humans), more intelligent energies (what we would refer to as 'angels') and a most intelligent energy (what we would refer to as 'God').

My attempt to film such a documentary ultimately led me to a medium named Liam Galvin. Galvin is renown for his mediumship and has written several books about the so-called "spiritual world". I met Galvin through a friend of mine and he was kind enough to schedule a reading with me, both for the purpose of my documentary but also for my own personal interest. Although it usually takes about three months to get a reading with Galvin (because he's so good at what he does), he was actually kind enough to fit me in within two weeks time.

So on January 25, I sat down with Liam at a place called "The Healing Moon" in Norwood, MA., and it wasn't even five minutes into the reading that I was essentially shocked by what was happening. Not only did I end up talking with my two dead grandfathers but Liam also identified two of my "spirit guides" as being Alfred Hitchcock and indie film director/ex-Hollywood actor John Cassavetes. Liam also said I had a beautiful actress with me from the 1920s or 30s, as well as writers, musicians and philosophers. You can read the full story and listen to the audio tapes of my reading with Liam by clicking HERE.

The night after the reading, I went home and had a very strange experience while in bed trying to fall asleep. The name "Lillian Gish" suddenly popped in my head and then a B&W image of D.W. Griffith flashed in my mind's eye. Gish, if you're not familiar, was an extremely famous actress from the silent film era and Griffith was one of the first big directors of the early Hollywood days (his films Birth of a Nation and Intolerance were among the most significant of the silent era). I didn't know why these two people came into my mind, but, with the help of another medium friend (Jan), I eventually came to identify them as two more of my spirit guides. To read the full story of this particular discovery, click HERE.

After identifying Gish and Griffith as spirit guides - in addition to Cassavetes and Hitchcock - I basically tried to forget about all this spiritual stuff. Although I believed in everything that was happening, part of me was still kind of weirded-out by it all. I mean, it's not exactly normal to be walking around thinking you're haunted by the spirits of four ex-famous people. Though I was excited by my discoveries at first, I felt a little stupid in the long run. Kind of delusional. Maybe even a little crazy. So I basically tried to put it all in the back of my mind in hope of returning to a state of mental normalcy.

But my guides weren't through talking to me. Only a week or so after "meeting" Gish and Griffith, another random name entered my mind: Nathanael West.

West, if you're not familiar, was a big writer from the 1930s. His novel Miss Lonelyhearts (1933) is considered his masterpiece while The Day of the Locust (1939) is considered to be one of the best novels about the early years of Hollywood (the latter novel is often said to be on the same level as F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Last Tycoon).

I actually read The Day of the Locust a year or two ago as research for my own Hollywood novel, so I was somewhat familiar with West, but I found it odd how - all of a sudden - his name kept echoing in my mind. At first I kind of just said "All right, maybe this is significant," but, to tell you the truth, I didn't really care all that much. Maybe Nathanael West was my spirit guide or maybe I randomly had Nathanael West in my thoughts for no significant reason -- the bottom line was that I was more or less tired of all this spirit stuff and wanted to concentrate on other things.

West, however, wouldn't let me forget about him. A couple days later, I was paging through the Boston Sunday Globe newspaper and I suddenly saw the name Nathanael West staring at me from one of the inner pages of the "Ideas" section. Apparently there was a new book that had just come out about the life of West and his wife Eileen McKenney (entitled Lonelyhearts: The Screwball World of Nathanael West and Eileen McKenney). I read the article on the book and it gave me a really weird feeling. There seemed to be something significant about this Nathanael West guy. The idea of him being a spirit guide felt a little more possible...but, still, I didn't feel any real need to confirm my feelings. I could have gone to one of my medium friends for confirmation - like I did with Jan when I was curious about Gish and Griffith - but I decided not to. I didn't want to bother her any more.

A month or two passed and West remained in the back of my mind, though my immediate thoughts were on other things. I probably never would have gone to any effort of confirming him as a spirit guide if it wasn't for another development in this whole story. About six weeks later (i.e. two weeks ago), I was polishing my novel for probably the five-thousandth time when a thought suddenly entered my mind. For some reason, I started acknowledging certain affinities between my work and the work of Hunter S. Thompson's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Then I remembered how Liam Galvin had told me I had five writers with me as spirit guides, which is something that - for some reason - didn't interest me too much at the time (I basically figured the writers were unknowns from way back in the past). But, suddenly, I started to think "Hmmm...maybe Hunter's one of those five."

But, of course, the idea seemed rather far-fetched. First of all, I've always like Hunter's work (Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is one of my favorite books of all time), so I kind of chalked up the whole idea of him being my guide as "wishful thinking". Plus, Hunter has only been dead for five years; I mean, he friggin' committed suicide in February 2005, for Christ sakes. The idea of a guy shooting himself and, sometime within a five-year period, attaching himself to me as a guide, seemed like a really wacky idea. So I kind of laughed off the whole thing and tried to forget about it, kind of like I tried to do with West.

But Hunter wasn't going to let me forget about him either. Day after day passed and I had extreme difficulty getting him out of my mind. For some reason, I felt compelled to go on Youtube and start watching Hunter S. Thompson interviews and other video clips. I looked up photos of him on the Internet and read little tidbits about his life. Looking at him and listening to him struck a chord within me. There was something strange going on.

About a week later, I finally came to the point where I started to seriously consider the idea that maybe - just maybe - Hunter was actually with me as a guide, and I stress 'maybe'. Possibly. Conceivably. There was a one-percent chance. But, still, I wasn't quite ready to consult with someone like Jan, mainly because I didn't want to make a complete ass of myself if the answer was 'no'. I wanted to, first, try and confirm my suspicions via a few methods I could perform myself.

The first thing I did was 'dowse', just as I did with Gish and Griffith. I explain the concept of 'dowsing' in my last blog but let me give you a brief explanation here: What you essentially do is hold a pendulum in your hand and ask your spirit guides 'yes' or 'no' questions. Usually your guides start moving the pendulum in a clockwise direction if the answer to the question is a 'yes' and in a counter-clockwise direction if the answer to the question is a 'no'. However, I find that you can calibrate the pendulum in any fashion you want to. For example, sometimes I ask that the guides show me a 'yes' by simply moving the pendulum and a 'no' by not moving it.

Anyway, by means of dowsing with my (home-made) pendulum, I was able to further confirm my suspicions that Hunter was with me as a guide. Basically, when I asked if Hunter was present, the pendulum would move like crazy, without my help or the help of any external stimulus. In other words, the pendulum's movement was entirely 'paranormal'.

Watch the video below for a demonstration of this phenomenon:



So, yes, the dowsing - once again - yielded some interesting results and I was one step closer to being convinced Hunter may have been with me as a guide. But I still had my doubts. After all, the pendulum could have moved from my own subconscious energy, especially if - deep down - I really wanted to believe Hunter was my guide. Clearly I needed more evidence before I drew any conclusions, but I still felt foolish consulting with a third party like Jan. I mean, think about how silly I would have sounded: "Hey, Jan, could you just check and see if the spirit of Hunter S. Thompson is haunting me? Thanks a bunch." And if the answer turned out to be 'no' I'd feel like a royal schmuck. "Who do you think you are, Matt, thinking a dude like Hunter S. Thompson is with you as a guide? Get off your high horse, ya stupid hediot!"

Yes, I needed a little more convincing before I consulted with my medium friend. So I tried one other experiment, a method that paranormal investigators refer to as an "EVP session". "EVP" (if you've never watched the shows "Ghost Hunters" or "Ghost Adventures") stands for electronic voice phenomenon. What you do is basically take a voice recorder and ask spirits questions in hope that they provide answers. Metaphysical theory suggests that it takes less energy for a ghost to communicate through the audio frequency recorded on an audio tape than it does through the frequency we hear with our own naked ears. This means that we may not hear the ghosts respond to our questions, but they may still turn up on the recorder.

Anyway, I managed to get my hands on a digital audio recorder and I began an EVP session by simply asking Hunter to say something I would be able to hear when I played the tape back, so that I would know he was with me. However, after a couple of tries, nothing turned up - no voices as far as I could hear.

So I altered my approach a bit. I began another EVP session where I asked Hunter to knock or click or make two sounds twice, as confirmation that he was, indeed, with me. And it was after this request that something rather interesting happened. About five seconds after I asked the question, I felt as though something flew past my eyes, kind of like a bug, but it wasn't solid. The best way to describe it is that it was like a ball of energy...sort of like an orb, though it wasn't illuminated. And, then, about a second or two after I saw the orb (call it what you will), I heard a noise that I'm still having trouble finding an explanation for. Listen to the audio clip below and hear for yourself:

(Note about this clip: the reason why I specify that Hunter only communicates with me if he is "in the light" is because I was afraid of attracting any kind of negative energy to myself. Hunter, after all, committed suicide, so I was concerned that he may not have made it into the light after passing. Spirits who aren't in the light are not good to have around you, not necessarily because they're negative or evil, but because their intentions are often misguided, even selfish, and they may influence you in ways that are not in your personal best interest.)





Now, the above audio clip is played at regular speed and - to the the naked ear - the noise sounds like it is one single 'click'. However, upon slowing the clip down, the noise is actually two distinct clicks that come right after each other. Here is the same clip played at a slower speed:





So, yes, there seems to be two distinct noises in the above audio clip, but why are they so close together when played at normal speed? Why wouldn't Hunter (if it WAS Hunter who made the noises) have spaced them out more? Well, there is one possible explanation for this. Metaphysical theory suggests that many spirits (especially those who are in the light and not earthbound ghosts) are operating at a higher energy vibration than human beings. What this sometimes means is that their method of communicating can be much faster than our kind of communication. EVPS from these particular spirits will sound sped-up, like they are in fast-forward. In other words, the two clicks in the above audio clip may sound fast to the human ear, but to a higher spirit like Hunter S. Thompson, they may be slower, more spaced out and not sound like they're layered on top of each other. This is a possible explanation.

Anyway, all this talk about EVPs and vibrations may sound strange and complicated to the everyday layman, but the fact of the matter is that I seemed to get an appropriate response when I asked Hunter to make two noises. Surely the 'clicks' could have sounded out of sheer coincidence, but I have to say I never heard the noises again and I really couldn't identify the source of them. Plus, there was that weird orby-thing that flew in front of my eyes only seconds before I heard the noise, which only adds to the strangeness of it all.

Paranormal or not, the results of the EVP session were undeniably interesting. But I STILL was nervous about consulting with Jan and asking her to see if Hunter was with me. The whole idea seemed too far-fetched, and if the answer was 'no' I would have felt like the biggest ass in the friggin' world.

Days passed and I, again, tried to forget about the entire situation. But I had great difficulty doing so. Hunter simply wouldn't get out of my mind, and, eventually, I came to realize that, if Hunter was with me, I really needed to know, one way or the other...literally, for my own peace of mind. I needed confirmation.

So I finally caved and wrote an email to Jan. As I mentioned in my previous blog (click HERE to read), Jan is an experienced dowser with both psychic and medium abilities. Keep in mind that I don't pay her for her services. She is simply a friend kind enough to help me out with my metaphysical questions. She has nothing to gain by telling me what I want to hear.

Anyway, here is our email correspondence. It's brief, simple, and pretty damn straight-forward. Also, you will notice that I asked her about Nathanael West as well. I figured I might as well try and get both names out of my head while I was at it; you know, kill two birds with one stone.

---

----- Original Message -----
From: Matt
To: Jan
Sent: Tuesday, May 25, 2010 3:30 PM
Subject: Re: question

Hi Jan,

Just another question to run by you if you have any free moment. Absolutely no rush.

The medium I went to a while back said I had five writers with me as spirit guides and two names have been in my mind lately that I just wanted to run by you: Hunter S. Thompson and Nathanael West. If you have a moment could you dowse to see if these people are with me as guides, just to rule them out and get them out of my mind? Again, absolutely no rush.

Thanks a lot. I really appreciate the help.

--Matt


----- Original Message -----
From: Jan
To: Matt
Sent: Thursday, May 27, 2010 8:44:17 PM
Subject: Re: question

Yes on both counts! : )


----- Original Message -----
From: Matt
To: Jan
Sent: Friday, May 28, 2010 3:44:17 PM
Subject: Re: question

Wow hahaha. Thanks again for your help! I really appreciate it!!!

---

So, indeed, the answer, according to Jan, was simple: YES...both Nathanael West and Hunter S. Thompson were with me as spirit guides. Now, I'm not saying that Jan's dowsing results are one-hundred-percent accurate, but I do have to say that she's usually right. I mean, her results combined with my own dowsing results (not to mention the EVP session) have basically convinced me that, yes, it's probably true that both Hunter and Nathanael are two of my spirit guides.

Needless to say, this is all pretty crazy. I mean, knowing that a guy like Hunter is with me is a really intense feeling. This is the guy who wrote The Rum Diaries (the inspiration behind my "Natty Ice Diaries") and Hell's Angels and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. He worked and became good friends with Johnny Depp and Benicio Del Toro while making the Fear and Loathing movie. He was a pop-cultural icon in the 70s, writing for Rolling Stone and Sports Illustrated and covering the disillusioning Nixon era with his unique "Gonzo" journalism. It's very surreal that Hunter is actually with me right now. I mean, he knows who I am! That's a really weird thought.

And then, of course, there's Nathanael West, one of the great novelists of the early twentieth century. The Day of the Locust was an ingenious novel, probably one of the best Hollywood novels I read while researching my own novel. I'm sure he provided a lot of assistance when I was writing my book.

So, yes, discovering Hunter and Nathanael are with me as guides is an incredible feeling; however, what's even more incredible about the whole experience is how, again, my guides were able to telepathically reveal their identities to me (just as Gish and Griffith did). I mean, their names just popped into my head in a very weird way and haunted my thoughts until I finally got some confirmation that they were, indeed, with me as guides. For some reason, they felt it was time to reveal their identities. Why now? I don't know.

What's also interesting about the situation is how both Hunter and Nathanael experienced really tragic deaths at the end of their life, but are now (apparently) alive and well in the spiritual dimension. I mean, Hunter, of course, committed suicide, so it's interesting to see that he made it to "the other side" in one piece and is still doing his thing. And then there's Nathanael who actually died in a tragic car accident while driving to his friend F. Scott Fitzgerald's funeral in 1940.

Hunter's situation, in particular, raises some interesting questions about the concept of suicide. Is killing oneself really the ultimate sin? Was it wrong for him to do it? Was it his fate? Maybe Hunter's helping me out now for Karmic reasons, because he cut his life as a writer on earth too short. In fact, maybe Nathanael is helping me out for similar reasons: that is, because his own life was cut too short (for reasons outside of his control, of course). Or maybe everything was meant to be. They were meant to die when they did. It was all part of God's grand design.

Whatever the reasons, I am honored to have Hunter and Nathanael helping me out. I'm sure there's more spirit guides to identify, but I have no idea who they are at this point in time. Liam said I had three more writers with me, not to mention musicians and even philosophers. It will be interesting to see if these people ever decide to reveal their identities; maybe, over time, they will. But, frankly, I'm happy enough knowing Hunter and Nathanael are with me, not to mention John Cassavetes, Alfred Hitchcock, Lillian Gish and D.W Griffith. It's nice to know that these people are endorsing my endeavors. They give me a feeling of validation, especially during the times when I start doubting myself and the creative life I lead.

Now, one thing a lot of people are probably wondering right now is where the hell all these spirit guides are? I mean, if they're "with me", where are they in relation to my physical self? And, to be honest with you, I don't really know how to answer this question other than to say that the spirits exist in a completely different (i.e. non-physical) dimension that we can't see with our own eyes and therefore have a difficult time comprehending. But it's important to remember that our eyes are only designed to process a very narrow spectrum of light, which means that we only see a fraction of what is actually in front of us. If our eyes were designed to process a much broader spectrum of light (one that would include infra-rays and ultra-violet rays) then we would probably be able to see a lot more spirit activity, as spirit energy usually only makes itself visible in the higher portion of the light spectrum. This, incidentally, is why so-called "Ghost Hunters" have more success capturing spirits with "full-spectrum" cameras (i.e. cameras with lenses that can process both infra-red and ultra-violet rays).

The bottom line is that our concept of reality is unavoidably limited because we can see very little of what's in front of us. So, in the end, who is to say that our guides aren't around us all the time? Maybe they are, but we just don't know it. Maybe an entire world of spirits surrounds us on a 24/7 basis, but we're just completely blind to it.