If the work of one man stood out from the rest, it was that of John Ellis McTaggart. At the age of twenty-five McTaggart had been acknowledged as the most distinguished dialectician and metaphysician since Hegel. C. D. Broad, who succeeded McTaggart as lecturer in the Moral Sciences at Trinity College, Cambridge, said that McTaggart was “in the front rank of the great historical philosophers [who might] quite fairly be compared with the Enneads of Plotinus, the Ethics of Spinoza, and the Encyclopaeda of Hegel.”
Needless to say I was not familiar with any of these heady works. But I found what Mr. McTaggart himself had to say in his Human Immortality and Pre-Existence made a great deal of sense:
Even the best men are not, when they die, in such a state of intellectual and moral perfection as would fit them to enter heaven immediately.… This is generally recognized, and one of two alternatives is commonly adopted to meet it. The first is that some tremendous improvement—an improvement out of all proportion to any which can ever be observed in life—takes place at the moment of death.… The other and more probable alternative is that the process of gradual improvement can go on in each of us after the death of our present bodies.… The absence of memory need not destroy the chance of an improvement spreading over many lives … a man who dies after acquiring knowledge—and all men acquire some—might enter his new life, deprived indeed of his knowledge, but not deprived of the increased strength and delicacy of mind which he had gained in acquiring knowledge. And, if so, he will be wiser in the second life because of what has happened in the first … we cannot doubt that character may remain determined by an event which has been forgotten. I have forgotten the greater number of the good and evil acts which I have done in my present life. And yet each must have left a trace on my character. And so a man may carry over into his next life the dispositions and tendencies which he had gained by the moral contests of this life.…
There remains love. The problem here is more important, if, as I believe, it is in love, and in nothing else, that we find not only the supreme value of life, but also the supreme reality of life, and, indeed, of the universe.… Much has been forgotten in any friendship which has lasted for several years within the limits of a single life—many confidences, many services, many hours of happiness and sorrow. But they have not passed away without leaving their mark on the present. They contribute, though they are forgotten, to the present love which is not forgotten. In the same way, if the whole memory of the love of a life is swept away at death, its value is not lost if the same love is stronger in a new life because of what passed before.
If McTaggart’s philosophy made sense to me, I found there were those who were concerned—as I was discovering of myself—with a use for past life recall: not just simply believing in it, but finding a purpose for it. In particular, psychologists had been using regressive hypnosis to uncover past-life traumas which were showing up in this life. A certain Dr. Helen Wambach had conducted a series of experiments, not in fact originally designed to assist patients, (although, in several instances, this was one of the results) but rather to establish the validity of past lives. In her book, Reliving Past Lives, she fully describes the genesis of her experiments, how each of them was conducted, and the extraordinary results of her investigations into past-life recall of over one thousand subjects, each of whom made at least three “trips,” each of whom was asked the same questions on each trip. The results, written down before they had discussed each trip with anyone else, were then correlated by time period, social strata, race, type of food eaten, clothing, architecture, and other cross-reference points.
This book, perhaps more than any other, left no doubt in my mind that we have indeed lived past lives. For me it became a matter of exploring further for myself—when I could take the time to do so. For I was still in the midst of my tour, accompanied by bags full of books …
I played Europe, Australia, Canada, Scandinavia, and America. I played in the theaters at night, and read and scanned, and skimmed and read during the day. I found I was meeting people who, over drinks and dinner after the show, professed hidden interests of their own in reincarnation and memory feelings that they couldn’t define or explain. Some had had out-of-body experiences, some had done trance channeling themselves, some had had past-life recall that they were sure was real but were reluctant to discuss for fear of appearing weird.
I talked with Gerry from exotic parts of the world but it was difficult to discuss my growing interest in spiritual metaphysics on long distance lines, or indeed in any way at all. I wished that we could meet, but my schedule never fitted into his availability, and vice versa. With each stilted conversation I was aware of how deeply grounded in his politics he was, and also that my attitude toward his reluctance to express any interest in my concern for expanded consciousness was one of growing impatience. I found myself remembering that “John” had said I should allow people in my life to conduct their awareness capacity at their own pace: allow the skeptics their skepticism. In fact, I didn’t necessarily believe all I was reading and learning—but I longed for someone I was really involved with to be interested in the possibilities of other dimensions. Reality was a subjective truth and I knew my reality was expanding. I felt more aware and more able to cope with ideas of my own inner reality: and I sure as hell wanted to talk to someone about them.
The tour was a joy. The work was hard but rewarding, and some of the people I met along the way seemed quietly involved with their own search for deeper identity. Many told me that psychiatric help did not go deep enough: that there were events and traumas even earlier than the lifetime they found themselves in today. Many said they felt their childhood conditioning and experience did not explain some of their deep-seated fears and anxieties. I listened with guarded astonishment that there could be so many people thinking that way.
One episode in particular struck me as it was both coherent and touched off very unexpectedly. An old friend of mine from Ireland whom I hadn’t seen for years described a recent trip he had taken to Japan; he said he was calmly strolling along a street in Kyoto when he spotted a Samurai outfit in the window of a Japanese antique shop. He stopped as though riveted and stared at the outfit that he “knew” had belonged to him. He said he remembered the sword, how the material had felt next to his skin and the way in which he swaggered as he wore it. As he stood staring at the ancient garments, scenes of battle flooded through his memory until he remembered having died wearing that uniform. He said he walked in to inquire about buying it but it was not for sale. As he related the story to me he said he was surprised that he felt free enough to actually express what he believed about having lived a lifetime in Japan. I nodded and listened, wondering when I myself would possibly begin to remember lifetimes that I may have had before.
And so for about three months I toured, talked to people, and read. I tried on new thoughts and new assumptions with each country I visited. I began to be more free in applying my new ideas to the life and work around me. I was selective with whom I discussed what I was feeling, but more often than not I found this wasn’t necessary.
I returned to Malibu for a rest and to reexamine my notes and try to sort out my thinking. I wasn’t sure how to approach what was on my mind. When one first discovers new awarenesses it can be confusing. So I did a lot of walking on the beach, and sometimes, with one of my books, I would sit under a tree in the small park near the health food restaurant in Malibu.
One afternoon after carrot juice and a tofu burger, a friend of mine with whom I had had a deeply personal love affair happened by and found me under my tree. He was a writer and TV director from New York and he could be extremely caustic and cynically witty. I knew him well—in fact his quirky brilliance had been a major factor in keeping me interested in him for quite a number of years.
At first I felt a tap on the head which had usually been the way he said hello. I knew it was Mike right away, He was puffing on his pipe, casually clad in jeans, T-shirt and leather jacket. You coul
d tell he was intelligent from this costume—the I’m-just-a-bum-who-doesn’t-care look.
Without any preamble he said, “What’s happening? Where have you been for the past year?”
“Oh, around,” I said. “I’ve been on tour all over the world. Got back a few days ago.”
“Ahh,” said Mike, “still have that mystical wanderlust, eh?” He surprised me a bit with this insight. But he was continuing, “You’ve really combined your work with your wanderlust pretty well, haven’t you? That’s good. I could always tell when you wanted to get out and look around.”
I sat up on my knees as he plopped down beside me. “Did you really always know that about me?” I asked, seeing an aspect to him that had not been evident to me when we were together.
“Sure,” he said. “But I didn’t want you to go, so I never mentioned it. Honest, eh?”
We sat for a moment and smiled at each other. “It’s good to see you,” he said, really meaning it, and immediately went on. “Something’s on your mind. I hear you’ve been keeping to yourself a lot, except for some secret guy you keep making trips to Europe to see.
Oh, brother, I thought. Sometimes the world was too much of a golf ball.
But I laughed. So did Mike … not really expecting me to go into my love life.
“Tell me something, old friend,” I said, “do you think I’m naive? I mean do you think I’m the kind of person who believes everything I’m told?”
Mike puffed on his pipe, suddenly serious, as though understanding (as he always had) that I was concerned about character traits in myself that I was unaware of.
“No,” he answered, “I wouldn’t say you were naive. You’ve got a really tough inquiring mind. But I do think you sometimes read good into things that isn’t really there.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, for example, when you went to China you wanted the revolution there to be successful so I think you tended to overlook areas which were a problem. Of course I know you only saw what they wanted you to see so I can understand your positive assessment of what was happening there. But that’s what I mean.”
“Well, what did you mean a moment ago when you called me mystical?”
“Shirley, you always had an understanding somehow that sounded like Eastern philosophy to me. I don’t know. I called it abstract for a while there but you seemed attracted to ideas that weren’t exactly meat and potatoes. You know I always wanted to know who collected the garbage, and you wanted to know what was underneath the garbage collector’s mind.”
“Yeah,” I said, going over other relationships I had had where I had heard the same complaint. “Is that a complaint, Mike?”
“No,” he answered, “not at all. It’s just the way you are. You always wanted to get underneath everything, looking for a deeper meaning. I admire that. It can drive a guy nuts but it made me look deeper too.”
I smiled. He smiled. A pair of ex-lovers smiling about appreciating each other. Mike leaned over me and picked up my book.
“What’s this?” he asked.
“Oh, just a book.”
“On reincarnation?”
“Yeah.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.” I swallowed, deciding whether or not to get into the discussion. “I think it might be true. And I’m just reading a lot about it.”
Mike looked into my eyes. “So you’ve gone California, eh?”
“California?”
“Yeah. Everybody out here is into that stuff. Only California could elect a Governor Moonbeam, right?”
“I guess so,” I answered tentatively. “But I’ve found it lots of other places too.”
“Yeah? Where?”
“Oh, Mike. All over the world.”
“For example?”
When Mike decided to interrogate, you felt like you were on trial.
“Well, on tour I talked with lots of people in Europe, Australia, Canada. Wherever.”
“Yeah? What did they say?”
“They told stories. Sometimes they remembered real past-life experiences. Sometimes it was just a feeling they had—or sometimes the déjà vu thing.”
“Yeah,” he said, “I have proof that there is life after death.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, pleasantly surprised that maybe we could have a dialogue here. “What proof?”
“The Congress of the United States,” said Mike.
I laughed but my tummy turned over. Oh God, I thought, I might as well get the full treatment. “That’s funny,” I said.
“I’ll tell you,” he said, “I think we’ve got enough trouble in the world here and now. I’m not too interested in whether I was an Egyptian slave five thousand years ago.”
Of course I found myself wondering why he came up with that particular image but I let it go. “Have you ever heard of trance channeling?” I asked.
“You mean that stuff Oliver Lodge wrote about at the turn of the century in England? He got in touch with his dead son or something?”
Mike floored me. I knew he read nearly everything there was to read but I couldn’t imagine him haunting the occult bookstores.
“Yeah,” I answered, “Lodge did a lot of psychical research which was never explained—other than the fact that it must have happened.”
“So what have you got to do with that? Are you getting in touch with Chou En Lai through a medium?” Mike knew that I thought Chou En Lai was attractive and that I would probably have gone to any lengths to meet him!
“No,” I answered, “not Chou. But maybe it’s possible to get in touch with disembodied spiritual guides who were once in the body and are not any longer.”
Mike leaned back on his elbow and chewed on his pipe. “You want to tell me about it?” he asked.
I took out a cigarette and lit it. Very carefully I outlined what had been happening. I told him about Ambres in Sweden, about John and McPherson and Kevin in California. I told him that many people were learning through trance channeling all over the world. And that I realized some mediums might be phony but that did not rule out all of them. I told him about the past-life information I had heard about myself, along with the teachings of spiritual love and God and extraterrestrials having supposedly brought the same message. I told him how I had read and read about other people in the world, past and present, who also felt an affinity toward having lived before. I mentioned all the famous, intelligent, artistic, philosophic, scientific, and even religious leaders I could think of to whom reincarnation was an accepted part of their lives—and I was defensive enough to conclude my presentation by reminding Mike that I was in pretty good company.
He took his pipe from his teeth and sat up, hunched over.
“Shirl,” he said, “I’m Mike, remember? I’m on your side, right?”
I said nothing. Just looked at him.
“I mean,” he went on, “a person goes into a trance and another voice comes out of their mouth and you sit there and believe what you’re hearing?”
I kept quiet.
“Look,” he went on, “people would have to say what’s happened to our Shirley? They tell you about past lives, they tell you about extraterrestrials, for God’s sake! It’s preposterous! You sound gullible and ridiculous. I don’t like to see you put yourself in that position.”
I sucked on my straw, making a grating sound on the bottom of the empty cup. “Who is ‘people’?” I said. “That’s why I asked you if you thought I was naive. You see, Mike, I don’t feel naive, or gullible. I feel inquiring. I want to know. I feel that anything is possible—and why the hell not?”
“But do you believe it?”
“I don’t know. I’m just about convinced on the matter of past lives, and hence reincarnation—just on empirical evidence. I’m in the middle of finding out a bunch of other new stuff. It’s a process of considering new dimensions. It’s a whole damn fascinating world that I’m not willing to throw out the
window and I don’t see anything naive about that. I’ve always been open-minded, right?”
“Right.”
“Well, I guess that’s what I’m continuing to be. The only thing is right now I’m a bit confused about whether there is such a thing as actual ‘reality.’ I mean reality seems to be so relative.”
“Wait a minute,” Mike protested, “just hang in there a minute. When a Hollywood producer screws a writer out of his salary—that’s real.”
“Sure. It’s real to him. Maybe it becomes real to his kids because for the first time in their lives they become conscious of want, or deprivation. But being screwed out of a house, car, TV set, clothing, warmth, food—all that is absolutely meaningless, not real, don’t you see, to millions of people who have never, ever had those things. And it is just as unreal to a handful at the other extreme who have always had everything. So maybe it isn’t the money part that’s important. Maybe there’s a lesson in that. Maybe life is about lessons and that’s reality.”
“Well, what’s the lesson in a man not being able to feed his kids?”
“I don’t really know, Mike,” I answered. “It didn’t happen to me. But if it had I would try to figure it out rather than let it rest at being pissed off. I would try to find out why and not lay the whole thing on someone who had screwed me.”
“Oh shit,” he said. “Are you saying that you’ll just sit back with all this God and love crap and allow yourself to be fucked over?”
Mike’s eloquence was uplifting at times.
“No, I’m not saying that. I’m saying that perhaps I wouldn’t actually be fucked over. Perhaps, what looks like fucked-overness is really something I needed to experience in order to understand myself better. Besides, that stuff goes on all the time anyway whether you allow it to happen or not. So I guess I’m saying if I decide not to allow it I’ll have to go to war, right?”
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