My membership with the Association for Research and Enlightenment is something I am always very proud to declare, and to promote.

So when I saw that Venture Inward, the prodigious A.R.E. quarterly membership magazine, was petitioning for submissions of personal stories involving psychic phenomena, my choice became not whether to submit something, but rather which one should it be!?!

Out of the categories listed there, I have interesting stories for 8 of these. And yet, there are other experiences, which I have already shared in these pages, that were of other psychic phenomena not specifically listed in the above image.

So I chose to focus on the Out-of-Body-Experience (OBE) theme, by condensing a portion of How I Got Down the Rabbit Hole.

It feels a bit strange to be edited!

Here in this space I have total liberty, and I love it this way. But to have an editor takes the pressure off to create a piece worthy of the reader’s time spent.

The submitted version was edited for the readership. To be honest, I understand why they edited what they did. To be more specific, it was the reference to the sacramental use of plants, which saw the cutting room floor.

The unofficial stance of the organization seems to be that such shortcuts have no place in the current A.R.E. discourse and canon. But as drug laws change, members of the new generations, who are seeking out these keys which serve to unlock the doors of perception, will want to understand the universe into which they are venturing forth, and the Cayce Readings, in my heavily biased opinion, best provide the answers being sought.

Anyway, that sacred Soma, which Mahadeva Shiva brought down from the Himalayas as a gift to humanity, was such an inextricable aspect to the process of my personal awakening, that not only will I refuse to shy away from the subject, but rather will be outspoken in terms of best-practices, with regards to sacramental use v. hedonistic abuse.

So… here is the screenshot as proof that I was, in fact, published.

When I was nine years old, I attended a swim camp where our coach led us through a creative-visualization hypnosis exercise. He had us lie down on the floor with the lights dimmed, relax from toe to head, then visualize swimming a 100-meter race in world-record time. Guiding us through the first three laps, he had us focus on the most minute details required to win the race, and then swim the last leg on our own. For me, this final leg of the race was spent outside of my body, observing the scene from a distance. What I most remember is watching the coach, stopwatch in hand, counting off the seconds until the first swimmers reached the end of the pool.

While I never got to compete in a real world-swim-record race, the experience of leaving my body was so enjoyable that I continued to practice relaxation and visualization techniques. Eventually, after reading a book on chakra meditation, I realized that I could accomplish something more. Initial attempts to learn this technique were always confounded by my falling asleep, but with persistence, I was finally able to unite what’s called Heaven and Earth, which is the goal of the meditation. And I found myself floating in the stratosphere!

Recognizing this extraordinary opportunity for what it was, I decided to take advantage of the moment. My thoughts went to the first Superman movie when Christopher Reeve flies around the earth fast enough to turn back time and save the life of Margot Kidder’s Lois Lane. My goal was different, however. I wanted to fly ahead of the rotation and travel into the future. Next thing I knew, I was zooming around the globe. At perhaps the 15th time around, I realized that it was far enough and that I had to go back. The return trip to the present came up a few circumnavigations short of the original number. Strangely exhausted from the experience, I chose to return to my body. 

The next day it felt as if everything had changed. Suddenly, I was seeing, or knowing, around corners. I knew, for example, who was coming to the door before they arrived or knocked, or when playing baseball, I knew that the ball would be hit to me on the next pitch and where it would go, or while driving, I knew when there was a hazard up ahead.

Eventually, I developed my own remote viewing technique. Before setting off on a drive, I would send my awareness along the path to my destination. Without any doubt, this saved me from numerous speeding tickets and a few potential accidents. Imagine my surprise when, years later, I learned that techniques for remote viewing were being taught to soldiers in the U.S. Army and that experiments were or had been conducted at major universities as well as the A.R.E. Thirty years after attending that swim camp, I salute that coach and what he taught us!

Full disclosure: there was an ulterior motive behind establishing this as my takeoff point. The truth is that my Fourth-dimensional Superman-imitation was but the first, in a series of three Spirit Walks, which happened within the span of one month, in the last few months of sixteen years of age.

The second Spirit Walk had remained mostly forgotten for these thirty years, and only recently has the unpacking process been triggered. The only aspect about this one, which I will reveal now, is that I met with a fabled group of enlightened gurus. These beings are directly related to the tradition of Chakra Meditation… the practice of which allowed me to meet with them in the first place!

But it is, was, and has been the third Spirit Walk which most determined the path my life would take, at least up to now. This is the composition currently under construction, It is an amazing story, which I hope to do justice.

Permission was given for the editors at Venture Inward to use any of the entries, here at Making Manifest, should the need arise.

Well then… imagine my surprise when I saw this:

That they would have chosen to use Kochevar’s Saloon does not surprise me in the least, as it fills a category of psychic phenomena which is very uncommon in today’s world.

To be published in the pages of Venture Inward is such a tremendous honor.

It feels like an unexpected item has been checked off from a Bucket List.

Thank you so much Sid and Nancy!