This blog is an update to my past-life regression blog that I wrote almost a month ago (click HERE to read). In the blog, I explained how Donna Ciaciarella (a gifted regression therapist) told me that I was indirectly involved in the massacre of around 1,000 Polish intellectuals that occurred in Nazi-occupied Poland during WWII. After doing some research, I believe I've identified the massacre that I was more than likely involved with. After Germany occupied Poland in 1939, the Nazis wanted to be sure that the 'Poles' wouldn't organize and start any sort of resistance. The best way they thought they could prevent this from happening was by rounding up all of Poland's intellectuals and exterminating them - people like lawyers and professors and doctors and politicians, and journalists, and poets and bankers etc. The Nazis figured that if they eliminated the Polish intelligentsia, they would eliminate all potential "leaders" who would be able to organize any sort of revolt. A Nazi government official by the name of Hans Frank consequently developed the "AB ACTION", which was the official name for the German campaign to eliminate the Polish intellectuals. The Nazis basically made a list of people who they saw as a threat, imprisoned them for a while, and gradually executed the prisoners in a series of well-organized massacres that started in December 1939 and continued well into 1940. Most of these massacres occurred in a cleared section of the Kampinos forest (in Poland) called 'Palmiry' (see above photo). The Nazis would pack the Polish prisoners in tarp-covered lorries, assuring them they were only being transported to concentration camps, which (of course) was a lie. Sometimes the Nazis would even blindfold the prisoners so they wouldn't know what was happening to them until the last minute, when it was too late to run or even panic. The truck-loads of blindfolded prisoners would then roll into the Palmiry forest, where they were executed by a firing squad and buried in mass graves. This is where I more than likely came into the picture. When Donna Ciaciarella regressed me, her description of the massacres I was involved with almost identically matched the ones that occurred at Palmiry. When she said my job was "to clear land" it's likely that I was the man hired to clear the area of the Kampinos forest and dig the graves, which the Germans initially lied and told me would function as "anti-aircraft trenches". Donna's description of the trucks with tarps and blindfolded prisoners was eerily similar to what occurred at Palmiry. Donna also stressed the fact that the prisoners who were executed were Polish intellectuals, not Jewish people. Furthermore, she described how "hush-hush" the whole operation was, how the burials were covered up, both figuratively and literally. In other words, all signs pointed to Palmiry as the place where my past-life experience occurred. It was exactly what Donna had related to me through her vision. If this is true, I am essentially the man who created Palmiry, which is kind of a disturbing thought, though while I was creating it I had no idea what it was going to be used for. After more research, I was unable to find the name of the person who was hired to clear the Kampinos forest and dig the graves. I assumed that if I did find the name, then this person probably would have been me. I'm not sure if I'll ever be able to attain such information. I'm not even sure it's in my best interest to know exactly who I was. It would be a strange discovery to make, because then I could potentially locate my family - my children, grandchildren etc. Perhaps "living in the past" like this wouldn't be a good thing. Maybe it's more important to focus on the present, to move forward and concentrate on my current life. Time will tell.
For the past year or so now I have become incredibly curious about the possibility of past lives and reincarnation. I became especially curious after visiting a renown medium named Liam Galvin back in January (read about this visit HERE). Among other things, Liam informed me that I had a past life in California and I couldn't help but wonder who I may have been. Seeing that I am into film and writing and I'm an overall creative individual, I wondered if maybe I was in Hollywood and maybe I was a famous actor or director or musician or somebody like that! How cool that would have been! I looked all over the place for somebody who could help me find answers to these questions. But for some reason, I didn't have too much luck. First of all, many of the people I approached charged a lot of money for their services and they also wanted to regress me by means of hypnosis. To be frank, hypnosis kind of freaked me out and I was skeptical of whether it would actually work on me; plus, I feared my conscious mind would interfere with the results and I would purposely start describing a life in California/Hollywood that never occurred. One day, however, I stumbled upon the website of a lady named Donna Ciaciarella who is based in South Carolina. Donna specializes in "regression therapy" but she doesn't use hypnosis. Instead, she is a kind of medium who is able to have extremely detailed visions of an individual's past life and then she describes everything she sees on an audio recorder. This was a method of regression that immediately struck me as a better way to go. With Donna doing all the work, I wouldn't have to worry about my mind skewing the results. I could just sit back and listen to the vision. I looked over Donna's website (click HERE to visit) and determined that she seemed pretty legitimate, so I gave her a call and spoke to her personally. The first thing she wanted to know was my intention in wanting to be regressed. And I didn't beat around the bush. I told her that a well-respected medium said I was in California in a past life and - out of sheer curiosity - I wanted to know who I was! Donna, however, politely told me that she wasn't interested in helping me. Regression, she explained, was a very serious thing, not an amusement ride; sheer 'curiosity' wasn't a good enough reason to want to be regressed. Needless to say, I was disappointed by Donna's refusal to help me, but I completely respected where she was coming from. In fact, I was glad she was so picky about who she helped, because it went to show that she wasn't running any sort of a scam. She seemed to be the real deal. Anyway, five whole months went by and I still couldn't stop thinking about my past lives. I had a near-obsessive desire to know who I was...what kind of person, when I was last alive, if I was anything like I am now etc. So, finally, about a week ago, I decided to get back in touch with Donna...only, this time, I was sure to state my intentions to her differently. Basically, I decided to forget about the whole California past-life thing. I told Donna that all I wanted was to learn about a past life that was in my highest and best interest to know about. I wanted to know something that would help me understand my purpose in my current life, something that would possibly help me clear any negative emotions, thought patterns or other energies that were carried over into my identity as Matt Burns. This time around, Donna was willing to help me. As I mentioned before, Donna is located in South Carolina, but she does all her readings over the telephone. All she needs to know is your birth date and to hear your voice (over the phone) and she is able to have visions of certain past life experiences. She begins each session with a prayer and asks that she be shown a certain life that is in the person's best interest to know about at the given time. In my case, it took Donna about a minute or two to start having a vision. I expected she would maybe go to my California life or at least go to some other life where I was a creative individual (like I am now). I assumed she would start talking about Hollywood or entertainment or vaudeville or theater or something like that. But this was not the case at all. Donna began her vision by saying that I was "stuck between a rock and a hard place". I was a non-Jewish man living in Nazi-occupied Poland in the 1930s or 40s. I had a very large family with about nine children and we had fallen on hard times. Money was a big problem and I was very concerned about how I was going to keep feeding my family. After much worry, a well-paying job came along and I thought it was a gift from God. I was a mechanics engineer or machine operator of some sort and I was hired to clear out large areas of land and excavate very large holes. "This is it," I thought. "My family is going to be OK." It wasn't long after I started the job, however, that red flags started to arise. First of all, it was never made clear what, exactly, I was digging the holes for, and whenever I asked any questions I was either lied to or told to keep my mouth shut. In other words, the whole operation was very shady, but I kept on doing the job, anyway - for my family's sake. I needed the money, or at least I thought I needed the money. Then came the day that I realized what I was doing. I was basically clearing the land and digging the holes so that massive amounts of bodies could be buried within them (around a thousand to be exact). Some of these bodies may have been Jews, but most of them were members of the Polish elite, like professors, bankers, high-ranking officers and other intellectuals who were a threat to the Nazi agenda. These people were bussed to the digging sight, shot in the head by German soldiers and then buried. It was a very well-organized massacre. According to Donna, I witnessed many of the executions with my own two eyes - hundreds and hundreds of people getting shot in the head. And it was actually my job to bury the bodies right after they were killed. Of course, I knew that what was happening was incredibly wrong and evil, but I ultimately still went along with it. Because if I didn't, I would have been shot myself. And my family would have (potentially) starved to death. Needless to say, I was never the same person after I had this "job". According to Donna, it changed me forever and haunted me for the rest of my life. I felt so much sadness and guilt, and also anger towards the Nazis (for putting me in such a tough position). I had recurring nightmares and I was, overall, a very disturbed individual. My children would always do a good job cheering me up, but I was never the same person. I lived for about thirty years after the massacre occurred, which I guess means I must have died in the late 1960s or possibly the early 70s. I was fortunate to be able to watch my children grow up, but my guilt haunted me every day until my death. Looking back on the situation, I wonder if I could have done anything differently. Like Donna said, I was "between a rock and a hard place". I think most people would have done the same thing if they had a family of nine to feed. But was this really the right thing to do? No, I don't think it was. I think the main mistake I made in this past life was in allowing fear to influence my actions. I was so afraid that my family would starve that I compromised all morals for the sake of ensuring their survival. I should have risen above the fear, refused to bury the bodies and, thus, refused to partake in the evil. Yes, I would have been shot and killed if I did all this, but at least my soul would have had a clean conscience. And maybe my family would have starved, but maybe they wouldn't have. Maybe they would have found a way to survive after I was dead. Maybe a miracle would have occurred. Maybe God would have helped them out in some way. The fact of the matter is that I was living in the future, with a "what if" mindset. Basically, I was thinking, "if I don't comply with the Nazi's, awful things will happen to my family." But I should have been acting more "in the moment" and taken a leap of faith. If I stood up for what I believed and took the bullet (literally), maybe God would have helped my family survive. And even if they ended up starving to death, at least it was all done for the sake of truth and morality. Anyway, the lesson to be learned from the experience is that you have to always exist in the present. You have to take each event in life one step at a time, do the right thing, and possess the faith that everything is going to work out well in the end. FEAR (of things going wrong in the future) is literally the seed to most evil in the world. If I wasn't afraid that my family would starve, then I wouldn't have participated in doing something that was so very wrong. And I'm sure I wasn't the only one in this situation. I'm sure many of the German soldiers who were doing the ACTUAL killing were committing such heinous atrocities out of fear as well. A lot of them probably had families that they wanted to make sure were safe and financially sound. They were stuck between a rock and a hard place. Incidentally, I would argue that the fear I experienced in my past life is something very similar to what many people in America are feeling right now, especially with the economy being in the shape that it's in. The question is how are we going to deal with this fear as the future becomes more and more uncertain? Will we allow it to manipulate us into carrying out immoral acts, like it did with me and countless others during the Holocaust? Or are we going to take the high road, so to speak, and stay true to ourselves, even if that means financial ruin (or even death) for us and our families? I recently watched a documentary entitled TEENAGE PAPARAZZO by Adrian Grenier (star of "Entourage"), which was essentially about the paparazzi in Los Angeles. One thing I found incredibly interesting about the film was how the paparazzi justified their professions. Many of them knew that feeding distractions and disinformation to our celebrity-obsessed culture wasn't a healthy thing for the human family, but they still did it because "they had mortgages to pay and families to feed". But is this right? Whoever said survival was of utmost importance? Isn't it better to starve (and, perhaps, die) then to live your life doing something immoral? Isn't this what Jesus taught us? Surely being a paparazzo isn't the same thing as exterminating people, but it's still a job that is unhealthy for the human family and, thus, something I'd consider immoral. And the paparazzi, of course, aren't the only Americans working immoral jobs out of fear. Think about the people working for the shady credit card companies or drug companies or the people in the entertainment industry making unhealthy "Reality" TV; think about all the people who work for companies that have oversea sweatshops or companies guilty of profiteering during wars; think about all the politicians who want to build casinos in communities to "create more jobs for people"; think about the people who work for ANY corporation where the 'bottom line' is of utmost importance, where profit is valued over people. All of these people would justify what they do in saying they have a family that they have to support amidst an insecure economy. But is this a reasonable justification? I don't think so. Please keep in mind that I'm not judging anybody here, because - if my past life is any indication - I'm as guilty as anybody of selling out my morals for the sake of me and my family's survival. But I still feel that we need to start thinking long and hard about our jobs and how they affect humanity as a whole. With the economy being in the shape it's in, people are more and more desperate to bring home the bacon. But is it right to compromise our morals for the sake of survival?
...
Donna told me that much of my guilt and sadness from my past life in Poland was carried over into my current life. This actually explains a lot about my overall temperament, which I would describe as generally melancholic, although I usually don't show it to others. Hopefully I can begin to clear the sadness through the process of writing about it like I am now, and also by thinking about where I went wrong. And hopefully I don't make the same mistake in my current life. I mean, I doubt I'll be placed in a similar position as I was during the Holocaust but I'm sure I'll come to many points in life where fear will try and influence me into making bad choices. Hopefully I will be more conscious of my fear now and I'll be able to go down a better path. On a brighter note, I have to admit that - apart from everything else - it was heartwarming to learn that I had a really big family in my most recent past life. According to Donna, I had about nine children. It's very likely that many of them are still alive today, not to mention all my grandchildren. I mean, there are actual people out there in the world today, thinking of their dead father or grandfather, and that guy...is me! That's a messed-up thought. Crazy. I can't help but wonder what these children are like - if they're all still in Poland or somewhere else. In fact, I can't help but wonder if I stayed in Poland after the Holocaust. Maybe I ended up moving to California in attempt to escape my nightmare. Maybe I moved my whole family out there. Or maybe it was in another past life that I was in California. Who knows? I think it's also interesting to learn how (completely) different I was in my past life. I mean, I would never be a mechanics engineer or machine operator in my current life. I'm so different from that kind of a person. Today, I'm a writer, filmmaker, wedding videographer, actor, percussionist...in short, I'm not your normal, working-class fellow. So I think it's true when meta physicists say the soul incarnates itself in many shapes and forms. The purpose, they say, is to go through several types of experiences, so that our spirit becomes well-rounded and ultimately ascends to the wisest and most enlightened level possible. And throughout our many incarnations, it is essential that we learn from our mistakes. Hopefully I will learn from mine...if I haven't already. I ended my session with Donna feeling rather dazed and, frankly, sick. In fact, I kind of felt like puking after I got off the phone with her. But I feel like my traumatic past-life memory was something I needed to come to terms with. Over time, I will hopefully be able to clear some of the guilt and sadness that I'm still carrying with me. Writing this blog is my first step in trying to do this. Hopefully, in time, I will begin to feel better, like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders. To be completely honest, I think I feel a tad lighter already. The videos below are the actual recordings of my regression session with Donna Ciaciarella. Please note that I edited areas where there were long periods of silence or parts that I thought were superfluous. Donna's voice comes in loud and clear, but my voice is a little more difficult to hear, so you may need to adjust your volume accordingly. POST-SCRIPT: There is a new update to this blog that identifies the exact massacre I was involved with. Click HERE to read. PART ONE
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:
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.
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.
A couple of months ago, I visited a renown medium named Liam Galvin who, among other things, informed me that I not only had my two dead grandfathers "with me" as spirit guides, but also the spirits of John Cassavetes, Alfred Hitchcock and a beautiful actress from the early 1900s whom he wasn't able to identify. (To read about this story, visit this link:
http://mattboourns.blogspot.com/2010/01/meeting-my-guides.html) Curious about the actress' identity, I went home that night, lied in my bed and thought about who she could possibly be. Little did I know that I wasn't going to have to wait very long for an answer. As I was laying against my pillow - trying to get some sleep - a name suddenly entered my mind: Lillian Gish. Now, when I say the name 'entered' my mind I mean, literally, it seemed to just pop into my head. The best way to describe the sensation is that I felt as though I didn't think of the name myself. As corny as it may sound, it was almost as though the name was inserted into my mind, like from some unseen force. Oddly enough, Lillian Gish wasn't even an actress who I was very familiar with. I remembered hearing the name here and there while I was in film school and when I used to research the history of Hollywood, but I actually thought she was an actress Charlie Chaplin used in a lot of his movies. In fact, I was literally saying inside my head, "Hmmm...Lillian Gish...wasn't that the actress in all of Chaplin's movies?" And it was at this point that another name immediately entered my mind, as though it were a response to my question: D.W Griffith. Griffith, if you're not familiar with the name, basically started Hollywood. I mean, obviously there were several different pioneers involved with putting Hollywood on the map, but Griffith was a sort of godfather of the Hollywood film movement. His film Birth of a Nation in 1915 was the highest-grossing movie of its day and revolutionized the art of filmmaking with its innovative cinematic techniques. Birth was the film that inspired Louis B. Mayer to enter the movie business and start MGM studios. It was the film that made people realize the pictures was not some superficial fad or silly novelty but a serious art; the wave of the future; a respectable means of individual expression (and, in the eyes of people like Mayer, a way to make some serious cash). Anyway, Griffith's name came into my head differently than Gish's did. Where with Gish I simply got the name in my head, in Griffith's case, an actual image of his face entered my mind. It was a B&W photograph that flashed in my mind's eye for about one full second and I immediately identified the person in the photograph as Griffith. Just like with Gish's name, it was as though some unseen force planted this photograph into my mind. I did not consciously think up this image. It was very different from how I knew my brain and thought processes to operate. I realize this may sound wacky and somewhat crazy, but I do not know how else to explain it. The next day, I woke up, Googled the two names and discovered that Gish and Griffith (much to my surprise) had a big connection with one another...like, a really big connection. In fact, Gish starred in pretty much all of D.W Griffith's significant films, including Birth of a Nation, and also films like Intolerance and Broken Blossoms (two other Griffith masterworks). The director and the actress were like how Scorsese and Deniro were in the 70s/80s, or how Tim Burton and Johnny Depp are today. They were basically a package deal. Needless to say, I was intrigued by this discovery: how odd it was for these two names to pop into my head when I wasn't even consciously aware that they had such a connection with each other. What did it all mean...if anything? Was Gish the actress who Liam Galvin thought was with me as a spirit guide? And how did Griffith fit into this picture? Was the image of Griffith in my head just Gish's way of helping me identify her as a spirit guide? Or was there something more to this? Was Griffith another one of my guides??? There were a couple of ways I went about finding answers to these questions. First of all, I tried a method that is commonly used by meta-physicists to communicate with the spirit world; it is a technique called 'dowsing' (read about it at this link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dowsing). There are several tools one can use when they 'dowse' but I find that the one that works best for me is a pendulum. What you essentially do is hold the 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 pendulum, I was able to come to the conclusion that Lillian Gish and D.W. Griffith were, indeed, "with me" as spirit guides. As you will see in the video demonstration below, I simply asked my pendulum to move as much as possible if the spirits of Gish and Griffith were with me; and sure enough, the pendulum moved like crazy - on its own - without my help or the help of any force in the real world. In other words, the movement of the pendulum was completely "paranormal". Watch and observe the phenomenon in this video. And, by the way, anybody can do this. All you need is a pendulum of some sort and an open mind:
So, yes, the dowsing yielded some very interesting results, but I still didn't see it as conclusive evidence proving Gish and Griffith were my spirit guides. First of all, I didn't completely trust my dowsing skills. And I also worried that the movement of the pendulum was potentially created by my own subconscious energy, not by the energy of a spirit guide independent from myself. What I needed to do was get a neutral, third-party to dowse for me. This way, I could definitely rule out the possibility of my subconscious skewing my results. So I consequently consulted a more experienced dowser (and also a medium) whose full name I cannot publish right now, so I will simply call her Jan. Jan has significant psychic abilities and has been dowsing for several years now, almost always with successful results. I contacted Jan via email, told her my dilemma and had her dowse for me. Here is our email correspondence:
----- Original Message -----
From: Matt To: Jan
Sent: Monday, March 22, 2010 9:29 PM
Subject: two questions
Hi Jan,
I have two random questions that I thought your dowsing may be able to shed some light on. Please understand there is no rush in answering, as it's no emergency. I'm just trying to fit some pieces into a puzzle here and I thought you may be able to help. I don't even know if these questions are answerable but I thought I would give it a shot.
1. Is the former actress Lillian Gish "with me" as a spirit guide? 2. If so, do I have a past life connection with her?
I ask these questions after seeing a medium and he said I had an actress from the early 20th century "with me". He also said I had a past life in California. I was just curious to see what kind of answers you could get for me. Again, no rush. Just curious if you have a moment.Thanks so much!-Matt
----- Original Message ----- From: Jan To: Matt Sent: Thursday, March 25, 2010 5:06:41 PM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern Subject: Re: two questions
Hi Matt,
If I'm dousing correctly, yes on #1 and no on #2. I hope this helps with the puzzle pieces. I think you also did have a past life in Calif. I don't know how to explain past lives. I don't think it's reincarnation, but I don't know that we can truly understand what past lives means. I'm glad you weren't in a rush because I was busy this week and didn't see your email right away.
Take care!
Jan
----- Original Message -----
From: Matt To: Jan
Sent: Friday, March 26, 2010 1:16 PM
Subject: Re: two questions
Thanks, Jan! That's a good source of confirmation for me. Lillian Gish popped into my head the night after I saw the medium and I felt that she was the actress who was with me. There's just one other name that's been popping into my head, a former director named D.W. Griffith (i.e. David Llewelyn Wark Griffith). I'm not sure if it's because he worked with Gish a lot or if he is also a guide. If you have a spare moment could you ask if he is with me as a guide? Griffith is the last name that has been puzzling me. I'm probably going to try and talk to Beverly about the past life stuff.
Thanks so much! Matt
----- Original Message ----- From: Jan To: Matt Sent: Saturday, March 27, 2010 10:25:06 AM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern Subject: Re: two questions
He's one of your guides too. But no connection in a past life. I'm glad to be able to help!
----- Original Message ----- From: Matt To: Jan
Sent: Saturday, March 27, 2010 2:02 PM
Subject: Re: two questions
Thanks Jan! That's incredible. Very flattering to have these people at my side. The medium told me I had Alfred Hitchcock with me as well, which basically shocked the both of us.Thanks so much for your help! I really appreciate it. ----- Original Message ----- From: Jan To: Matt Sent: Saturday, March 27, 2010 2:15:24 PM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern Subject: Re: two questions
I guess you should keep writing - with an entourage like that behind you!!! Good luck and may God bless your work - and you!!
----------
So there it was: confirmation from a reliable third-party source that Lillian Gish and D.W Griffith were two of my spirit guides, in addition to John Cassavetes and Alfred Hitchcock, not to mention others whom I have not identified and am not sure if I ever will. As I mentioned in the above emails, I felt extremely flattered by such a discovery. First of all, Lillian Gish is an icon of the silent screen. She was the star of some of the most significant films of the silent era. Hell, Smashing Pumpkins named their first album after her (Gish)! She was an absolutely beautiful woman (just look at her photo above). It's like having a beautiful metaphysical girlfriend with me all the time, which probably sounds like a pathetic thing to say, but it is kind of a cool feeling I must admit. And then, of course, there is Mr. Griffith, who is basically Mr. Hollywood. His film Birth of a Nation was essentially the Titanic and Avatar of its day (only much better). And his film Intolerance - a huge and enormously expensive epic film - will always be remembered as being Hollywood's most ambitious project in the industry's history. How honored I am to have this man as a spirit guide. So, yes, identifying Gish and Griffith as my guides is an incredible feeling, but I think what's even more incredible about this whole experience is seeing how my guides were able to telepathically communicate their identities to me. I mean, never in my whole life would I have ever thought that Gish and Griffith were two of my spirit guides, but then their names randomly popped into my head while I was in bed that night. Honestly, at first I thought my brain was just getting wacky on me, but I guess I was actually experiencing a form of direct communication from the spirit world. My guides were speaking to me. Furthermore, it's nice to know that Gish and Griffith are together again on "the other side". Gish has actually only been dead for seventeen years - she died in 1993 - but Griffith died way back in 1948. In fact, his death was rather sad and tragic. Supposedly, he was somewhat depressed, still in debt from Intolerance (one of the most expensive films ever made in Hollywood) and also disgruntled with the direction in which the film industry was going at the time. One July night he was drinking at the bar in Hollywood's famous Knickerbocker hotel, got up to go to his room and was found a while later unconscious on his floor. He died on his way to the hospital from what was reported to be a cerebral hemorrhage. Anyway, it's somewhat comforting to know that Griffith is OK, still alive (in spirit form) and has seemed to have reunited with one of his soul mates. They may not like me saying this, but there were actually rumors of Gish and Griffith being romantically involved at one point or another, though they never admitted to being an official couple. Neither of the two ever married anybody, so maybe they were secretly in love with one another but didn't know it...or just couldn't make the relationship work during their time on the earth. Romantic or not, one thing is for sure: Gish and Griffith were extremely good buds. And if they are, indeed, my spirit guides, I guess it's pretty safe to assume that they're still really good buds in the spiritual dimension. So now the question lingers: why the hell have these people chosen to be my guides? I mean, we're talking John Cassavetes, Alfred Hitchcock, Lillian Gish and D.W. Griffith. These are some really big names. They were really good at what they did. Why did they choose me? Or why did I choose them (many theories suggest that we choose our guides before we are born)? Who really does the choosing? How does all this stuff work??? I have so many more questions, but the fact of the matter is that I'll probably never get them all answered...not while I'm alive, anyway. My guess is that they're with me - more or less - because of one particular project I've been working on that I won't say too much about other than that it does involve Hollywood, the film industry, the media, our celebrity culture and just the American culture in general. Judging from what I know about Griffith, Gish and the others, I think they would probably believe in the project and be supportive of my purpose in doing it. Hopefully - some day - I will be able to get this project out to the public; but until then, I simply appreciate the fact that I'm having some great people help me with it. At the risk of sounding looney and weird, I would like to now thank my invisible friends. Thanks, dudes! I appreciate your support. Now I really only have one more thing bothering me: who I was in my past life. In her emails, Jan told me I didn't have any past life connection to Griffith or Gish but confirmed what Liam Galvin told me about having a past life in California. Honestly, I don't really know who I could have been. It's possible I was just some anonymous Native American or Mexican or something. I'm not sure if I will ever find out. Maybe I'm not meant to find out. Who knows.... To be continued. Maybe.
On March 18, 2010 I witnessed something very fascinating that I think people will also find rather fascinating. A circle of mediums congregated at a place in Easton, Massachusetts to cross a woman's (her name is Linda in the video) grandmother over to the "other side". Linda's grandmother had been pestering her for two years after passing and refused to "go into the light". She was afraid of having to face God and look back on what she had done during her time on earth. I was fortunate to be able to videotape the 'crossing' and I share it here for others to view. Among other things, the video begins to answer our questions about what happens to us after we die. It also explores concepts such as "life reviews" and "life contracts", the importance of forgiveness, and the soul versus the body. The 'crossing' is conducted by a renown medium named Liam Galvin. His voice may sound strange at times because he is actually channeling his spirit guide who is helping with the ceremony. Enjoy! PART ONE PART TWO
The roots of this particular story go back several weeks to when I was attempting to shoot a documentary about metaphysics. I had wanted to do a "follow-up" to my short documentary "A Parallel World" which consisted of me investigating a haunted house and communicating with an intelligent entity through knocks (go to my previous "Parallel World" blog to watch). After "Parallel World", I became fascinated with the possibility of some sort of spirit world coexisting with our real world, and I wanted to further explore this phenomenon. I didn't know exactly what angle I was going to approach the subject from, but I knew I wanted to explore anything and everything metaphysical, especially the possibility of past lives and the existence of spirit guides (a concept which I'll explain in a minute). Anyway, along came Liam Galvin, a renown medium who's written a couple of books and is so popular with people that it takes about three months to get an appointment with him. I actually met Liam through a female psychic friend whom I planned to initially focus my documentary on. Liam is my friend's "spiritual mentor" and I filmed him reading her at a place called "Women of Wisdom" in Easton, MA. And when I say he "read" her I mean he explored her past lives, her spirit guides, her health, her love life and her general future. Although I was skeptical at first, I must say that it didn't take long for me to be absolutely blown away with what I saw. Within minutes of the reading, Liam was talking to the girl's dead father like he was right in the room with us (which he supposedly was). After the reading, Liam approached me (sitting in the corner of the room with my camera) and said I had "very interesting people with me." "Really?" He also told me I was "intense" and that I "got stuff done." I'm not sure what that meant but it sounded good to me. Then he said that there was "California energy" all around me and that I'd definitely be going there. "Really? Interesting." Needless to say, I was rather intrigued, but not necessarily sold on the idea that this guy was reading my future. I mean, maybe he just figured that since I was into making films that I obviously would want to go out west - to Hollywood - eventually. I asked Liam whether he could do a reading on me sometime and he said "Sure! Absolutely! Just call and make an appointment!" So a couple days later I called "Women of Wisdom" and was surprised to learn that Liam was booked for the next two or three months. I didn't really want to wait that long, so I made a few more phone calls, pulled a few strings and eventually managed to land a reading with Liam two weeks later at a place called "The Healing Moon" in Norwood, MA. Like "Women of Wisdom", "The Healing Moon" is a "wellness center" where people do yoga and Reiki and engage in other holistic healing practices. There is also a small gift shop where they sell New Agey sorts of things, like crystals, rocks, minerals, angelic figurines and other items that would probably make the common Joe Six-Pack raise some eyebrows. I met up with Liam in the gift shop and he led me into a peaceful room with dim lighting and an artificial fountain that sounded like a small brook running deep in the middle of the wintry woods. I don't know if it was because of the fountain sounds or maybe the good Feng Shui, but the room was seriously one of the most relaxing environments I had ever been in. "All right, let's get started," said Liam as we sat down at a small table with cushioned chairs. And so we began.... The session started with Liam introducing me to my main "spirit guides". In layman's terms, a spirit guide is basically like a guardian angel. The theory (proposed by meta physicists) is that these guides help us with our endeavors and also protect us from harm. Oftentimes, guides are family members who have died either far back in the past or during our lifetime. But many of our guides are also non-family members who help us with our work or hobbies. A musician, for example, is likely to have ex-musicians as guides, as well as writers to help them write lyrics, and maybe even philosophers who help them convey complex ideas through their music. Anyway, Liam introduced my first spirit guide as being a "maternal" figure who didn't sound very familiar to me, though Liam ultimately determined that it was probably my great grandmother on my mother's side (whom I had never met). He said she was on the short side, had great skin, was very pleasant and uplifting, and also very religious. "OK," I thought to myself. "I guess that could be true." But so far I wasn't very impressed. In order for me to take Liam as legit, he needed to talk about somebody I actually knew, not some person who may or may not be a great grandmother of mine. I needed something more concrete before I definitely took this guy for real. Liam proceeded to skip over my second guide (whom he had trouble identifying) and went immediately to my third guide, whom he identified as my dead grandfather (my mother's dad)! And just as he started to speak with him my other dead grandfather (my dad's father) supposedly "came through" to talk as well! Yes, both of my grandfather's were supposedly in the room with us! Needless to say, I was pretty damn shocked about all this, though still very skeptical. After all, Liam could have just taken a shot in the dark and guessed that one or both grandfathers could be my guides. Maybe he got lucky. I didn't want to feed into it too much, so I remained stoic and conservative with my reactions. But then Liam proceeded to describe each respective grandfather's personality/physical build/interests/quirks in detail and with eerie accuracy. He told me one grandfather was more social and the other one was very military (true). One was bald and the other had a full head of hair (also true). The military one was surrounded by water (yes, he was the captain of a ship) and the other one liked the beach (true). He even described the different ways in which the two grandfathers passed. One "went the way he wanted" while the other had a "tougher passing". Although I tried to maintain my composure, I was completely blown away by what I was hearing. Liam was dead-on with his descriptions! Here is the video of this section:
After listening to my grandfathers speak for a while, another shock came my way: "Who's John?" asked Liam. "They keep on saying, 'Say John. Say John. He'll know what we mean.'" And, indeed, I did know what they meant...or at least I thought I did. See, for the past few months I had been thinking about the possibility of spirit guides and also thinking about who mine would be (if they actually existed). For some reason - and don't ask me why - I always thought the ex-filmmaker John Cassavetes, the so-called "godfather" of the American Independent Film movement, may have been with me. This was partly because I was so drawn to him as a filmmaker and also because I felt that we thought eerily alike. Now, of course I never told anybody about this. They would have thought I was nuts. But if I had to (I mean HAD TO) guess who one of my spirit guides was, I would have probably said it was Cassavetes...possibly. So when Liam said "Who's John?" the first person to enter my mind was, of course, John Cassavetes. But I didn't want to admit it right away. I wanted Liam to describe this "John". And he did...with more eerie accuracy. He said John was a young, good-looking man who died too early (Cassavetes died at 59), loved women and was very flirtatious (true, Cassavetes made women the main focus of much of his work), worked hard and played hard (very true), didn't take good care of himself (also true, as he died of cirrhosis), smoked like a fiend (he was a chain smoker, basically), and was an artist (of course). He also said that I admired this "John's" work and there were shades of his work in my own work (incredibly true). Overall, it sounded a lot like Cassavetes. The only thing that threw me off was that Liam said he saw a lot of music with him and that he thought he might have been a musician. This was not true. Cassavetes was a filmmaker and an actor (you may remember his role as the husband in ROSEMARY'S BABY), though he loved music and listened to it all the time, which is what Liam may have been picking up on. Whether it was Cassavetes or not, this "John" was ultimately identified as being my spirit guide number-two, right behind my great grandmother and in front of my grandfathers. Crazy stuff. Here is the video for this section. There is more about Cassavetes in parts three and four where it is more definitively confirmed that the "John" is, indeed, Cassavetes:
After the introduction to Cassavetes, Liam started to talk about my future and my work and how he saw me in California. He also told me there was a beautiful actress with me as a guide, somebody from the 1920s or 30s. Apparently a book I had written (about Hollywood) attracted a lot of ex-Hollywood spirits to me and they helped me out with it. Why me? Who knows... Oh, and apparently I was in California before. In a past life.... Here is the video for this section:
After discussing my future in California and Cassavetes some more, Liam gave me shock number three. All of a sudden - out of the blue - Liam said, "You have Alfred Hitchcock with you!" "Alfred Hitchcock????" "Yeah, he hangs out with you." Of course it goes without saying that I was completely knocked on my ass by this (figuratively speaking). I mean, at least with Cassavetes I sort of had a tiny inkling that he may have been a guide of mine, but Alfred Hitchcock?! Legendary director Alfred Hitchcock?! The guy who made PSYCHO and VERTIGO and THE BIRDS and God knows what else??? This was pretty intense. "You must be all about detail," explained Liam. "There are a lot of parallels between you and him. He's philosophical like you and you try to get messages across like he did. He's going to help you with Lighting and color." "Yeah, well...I guess that makes sense," I said to Liam, but I wasn't really sure if it actually made sense. "Wow, that one really shocked me," said Liam. "He's all around you." Here is the video for this section:
The reading eventually came to an end and I told Liam I was incredibly impressed with what I had seen. I mean, this guy was so dead-on about so many things it would have been extremely difficult for me to call him a phony. I subsequently left "The Healing Moon" feeling...well, incredibly weird. If what Liam said was true, I am not alone when I am alone. I am supposedly walking around with the spirits of John Cassavetes and Alfred Hitchcock (not to mention the spirits of my grandfathers and a bunch of other people) by my side. It's pretty hard to comprehend, but at the same time it's a really cool feeling. And maybe it all sort of makes sense. I mean, what really happens to us when we die? If there is an afterlife, then do we just sit on our ass, like in a hot tub or something with tons of babes around us (or hunks if you're a woman)? Surely we would want to make ourselves useful in some way. So maybe this is what we do. We help others who are alive. Why? I'm not really sure. Some meta physicists view life on earth as a sort of school where we constantly come down here (over the course of several lifetimes) to learn certain lessons, go through different types of experiences, all with the ultimate intention of growing into the most intelligent and wisest soul we can possibly be. In other words, the meaning of life is to learn and experience, so that in the greater scheme of things our soul grows to the most advanced level possible. So maybe our "guides" help us with this growth. And we help our guides with their own growth. It's, like, something we HAVE to do if we want to progress on a spiritual level. After all, Clarence didn't get his wings until he helped George out with his problems on earth (allusion is to IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE if you didn't get it). Maybe we're both helping each other in a way. And we switch roles as the guides and the guided. And we grow in the process of playing both roles.... Anyway, this is all food for thought, but not necessarily something I one-hundred-percent believe in at this point in time. I feel the need to investigate further. In part three of the video, Liam told me I had been in California during a past life of mine. I'm curious as to who I was and whether I was there recently, like within the past 100 years when the film industry was alive and kicking. Was I a filmmaker or director? Actor? Musician? Or maybe I was a Mexican or Native American who was there a long time ago. Maybe a dude in the gold rush. Who knows?
...
On my way home from "The Healing Moon" I zoned out for a second in my car and took a wrong turn onto a web of side streets. I suddenly found myself on a street that looked very familiar. It was the street where my grandparents lived before they moved into a condo many years ago. In fact, most of the memories I have of my grandfather are products of the time he spent at this house. And the weird thing is that I had actually forgotten how to get to it! Perhaps I'm being a tad melodramatic, but it's almost as though my grandfather led me to the house, as a sort of sign. It was a way of telling me that everything that had just happened with Liam REALLY just happened.
