It is this belief in a power larger than myself and other than myself which allows me to venture into the unknown and even the unknowable.
— Maya Angelou
Beginning on May 24th, and extending through July 21st, 1987, I had a series of three spiritual “events” which, to this day, guide and direct the consciousness presently unfolding within me. I will speak to all of those events in the work that follows. I will start with the event of May 24, 1987. It was a deeply personal event, and I only rarely speak of it.. However, to not share it, in this time of greatest need for our world, would be an act of selfishness, and hiding, on my part, and I would dishonor the life that I now share with our Universe by keeping it too personal and secret. Sometimes, the Conspiracy of Silence manifests itself by keeping quiet about the activities of Grace, and my unwillingness to share my gifts with others.
I had resumed attendance at Hinson Baptist Church, upon my reentry into sobriety in March of 1987. In my earnestness to follow the right path through this religion, I accepted a baptism, scheduled for May 28, 1987. On the weekend prior to my baptism, I received my first ever conscious “visitation of the spirit”. It manifested in my experience, for lack of a better description, as having the feeling of being held in the loving arms of an “infinite motherly presence”, and I felt like I was being “reborn” as a person as a result. When I described my experience to the Minister, he requested that I attend a training to get my “beliefs” more in alignment with the structure that the American Baptist church accepts. Really? The minister misunderstood my experience, as it represented a direct connection with the God of my spiritual understanding, and not his.
During this period of time, I also needed to get tested for AIDS, since I had relations with women who had sex with bi-sexual men as well as intravenous drug activity, during my darker days. I was looking for some support during this time, as the threat of a death by AIDS was quite real to many of us in those days. I found that there was NO SUPPORT TO BE FOUND, at the Baptist Church, where all people with the potential for having AIDS were regarded as outcasts from GOD, and undeserving of support or respect from the “good Christian folks”. This helped to cement my understanding that our religious institutions exist to support something other than just our “spiritual natures”, and their ignorance of such things causes the injection of some really unhealthy outlooks on life and love into the collective mindsets of their parishioners.
The last straw for me was when the lead minister claimed that of all of God’s creatures, only man has a soul, and that all of earth’s creatures have no basic spiritual essence, I was aghast. A religion that makes such a claim for man by uplifting its own standing in God’s universe by reducing the spiritual standing of his animal brothers and sisters is Ptolemaic, self-centered and egotistical to the absolute extreme, and another supporting reason as to why our earth is under such attack right now. As an individual searching for the “Truth Of Being” I thought it was best to steer clear of organized religion, where truth is not so much a sacred value, but instead more a medium for ignorance and a marketable commodity that also is used to help keep people philosophically controlled, and united in one particular way of looking at life. Historically, religion in general remains the primary avenue for the proliferation of ignorance among the people who don’t have the insight or take the time to think for themselves.
I was educated by a new teacher, a recovering alcoholic by the name of Jack Boland, who had released to the world many series of tapes on recovery and spirituality. I was given one of his tape series of recovery by a co-worker at the Fred Meyer warehouse, John Johnson, of whom I will be eternally grateful to, on May18, 1987. I then listened to these tapes over and over, during the Memorial Day weekend, and something miraculous happened afterwards, probably as a result of my openness to the experience brought about by listening to these tapes, and practicing some simple steps.
On May 24, I drove towards Beaverton to visit with Randy Olson. Randy was a lifelong friend, fellow party monster, and rent sharing partner in 1986 when I contemplated, and then took the active steps towards committing suicide on January 28, 1986 and beyond. As I drove over the West Hills, a wonderful vision came to me, accompanied by a feeling that I had not had since I was twelve years old. It was the vision of a loving mother (actually, the Mona Lisa), holding a baby, and I felt the love of this wonderful UNIVERSE for the first time in my lifetime (later, I was taught to understand that this energy is the Divine Feminine, of which our patriarchal world continues to suppress daily, and has successfully done so, more or less, for at least the last 2000 years). The wonderful feelings that accompanied that vision became known to me as divine horripilations.
There is the love we have for each other, for our friends, our pets, our children, our families, but this love that I felt flow into me, and through me, transported me into a heightened awareness, and awe. The beauty was too great to talk about, the feeling so overwhelming, so healing, so resurrecting.
The image of the Mona Lisa holding a baby is a fascinating, enlightening image. It was reported some time back that Leonardo DaVinci had painted the Mona Lisa as a self-portrait of himself, in feminine form. His message is subject to interpretation, but in today’s terms, he was honoring his feminine side, or nature. He saw that the source of all creativity came from this mysterious, non-conscious center within himself where feelings of wonder, awe, mystery, and sensitivity to and compassion for others arises from. His mission was to symbolically represent the divine within himself, through the most effective medium of the day, which was painting. My own consciousness chose this as a healing image for myself, and I also saw how this feminine side carried all of the divine love and deep feelings of goodness that I had ever wanted for myself. I was literally re-birthing myself, and this image of the mother holding the baby pictorially represented that new birth to perfection.
I still was not healed and whole, as my body was still wracked with pain, I was constantly shaking, and I still had that annoying chatter in my mind, something like a play by play announcer documenting my every move. Yet, I still occasionally felt those “divine horripilations” that seemed to remind me that I had touched something extraordinary in nature. I stayed obsessively involved with AA and NA, and I continued my prayers and meditations, and I started reading several great spiritual works by M.Scott Peck, such as The Road Less Traveled, and People of the Lie: Hope For Healing Human Evil. Mr. Peck spoke to most of my issues, and problems that I had with Toxic Religion, and I felt like I had found a friend and another teacher of truth. I still had some free time to explore around, and I would take overnight trips into the wilderness, to “get close to Nature, and to God”. The feeling of love that I carried with me from the May 24th experience had started to fade by the middle of June, but I still felt blessed, and I was hopeful that continued recovery from my devastating mental illness and neurological trauma might continue.
“HE IS HAVING AN EXPERIENCE WITH GOD”
It was June 22, 1987, and I was hiking up to Larch Mountain, a beautiful peak that overlooks the Columbia River valley, and from its vantage point all of the major mountain peaks of the area can be readily observed. In the ancient times (I was to learn several years later) this area was considered sacred ground by the indigenous peoples, who came to this area from miles around to honor their Great Spirit, and to hold their sacred ceremonies and prayer rituals. I arrived at the top, and allowed myself to become as quiet as my mind would allow for. I slowly did a 360 degree rotation, observing for the many miles around me, in all directions, the incredible beauty of the area, the mountain peaks of Rainier, Adams, St. Helens, Hood, Jefferson, and the great winding river called the Columbia River. It felt as if I were on the top of a great observatory, and, today, I was the only person with this special view, and I was quite grateful just to be alive, and have this privilege. I bypassed a guard rail, and I then climbed around the rocky peak so as to be hidden from the view from anyone. With the additional privacy that I had created for myself, I then felt comfortable enough to begin to pray and meditate for just a little while. I was pretty poor at this activity, as my mind refused to quiet itself. But, at least I made myself available to Spirit, in the way that felt appropriate to me.
Larch Mountain, near observation deck
My nervous system was still quite compromised from all of the poisoning caused by the chemistry experiments masquerading as methamphetamine/crank that I had ingested over the past 18 months. I had been clean and sober for 3 months, but total recovery seemed out of the question at this point. I had been a drug addict and alcoholic, more or less, since I was 15 years old, but the last 18 months had really taken a toll. My health was improving a little, but I still was having physical tremors, almost identical to Parkinson’s disease, and I was also experiencing the psychological discomfort of “hearing voices”, a delusional activity within my mind which consisted, at this point, of mentally generated feedback about whatever I was observing, or doing at the time. The voices were nothing more than my own thoughts, yet, in my mind, they appeared to be coming from a center not of my self-aware self, but of something, or someone, not quite me. It literally was like having a play by play announcer operating in my mind, who verbalized everything that was happening, as it happened, with no color commentary added to it (it was a “third person” perspective, with a running monologue documenting anything that my consciousness was focusing on at any particular moment). I had an uncomfortable relationship to these mental processes, and I did not report this to medical professionals, fearing that I would be hospitalized, or placed on the same destructive medications that I had seen administered to my mentally ill ex-wife. I had resigned myself to a life of marginal mental health, at best.
Pink Floyd-Brain Damage
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pnExahMPPFI
A light, warm breeze carried the fragrance of the nearby pine trees to me, drawing me away from the problems of my body, and of my mind. I continued to be absorbed by the beauty of the area, and the majesty of the unobstructed views. The mountain peaks began to feel closer to me, for some as yet unknown reason. I felt as though I could reach out and touch each of them. The river far below me felt close, very close, and the whole panorama seemed to be drawing nearer to me, and I began experiencing everything in a different way than I ever had before. And, for the 2nd time in a month, I started feeling a little “different”. A month ago I had experienced a “vision”, and, with its presence, all of my loneliness and depression had lifted. I attributed that temporary healing to the presence of the vision, and there had been a love that had flowed into me during its presence. The “vision” had disappeared, but it had left its memory of a beautiful, unconditional love, and with it, traces of hope, and the expectations that something was to follow, of some as yet unknown nature. Well, something was following now, and it was “closer than breathing, nearer than hands and feet”.
A voice inside of my head then stated, with its typical matter of fact nature,
“HE IS HAVING AN EXPERIENCE WITH GOD”.
I was no longer separate from that which I was viewing. Everything revealed itself as an extension of myself, of my own true nature. For the first time in my existence, I could see that, as far as I can see, all that I will ever see, unto eternity, is my self. Then, with a sense of all of my thoughts now being my own, I asked myself “how will I see myself today?” I saw that all of humanity was my true family. I saw that everybody was either my brother, or my sister, in this new, true nature that was revealed within me. I looked within myself, and for the first time in my life, I only saw peace, as well. The third person monologue had stopped!! I held my hands out before me, and my hands, which usually shook so bad that I could not even write my signature clearly, or use a spoon to eat from a bowl without making a mess, were steady! Peace had finally found me on a mountain peak, and I had finally found my true self. And, I had finally found that life, that TRUTH, I had been seeking since I know not when.
And, I had finally found what real recovery is. It is not just stopping drinking alcohol and using drugs. It is the decrease, and, ultimately, the elimination of all patterns of thought that keep me from caring for this world, and for all of the life upon it. I can’t be alive, and live life fully and holistically, without loving my fellow man, and all of the rest of the life upon our planet. Think of the love that we have for our newborn baby, or our favorite pet, feel that love completely, with no reservations at all. We spare none of our hearts or souls, do we? Now think of that family member or acquaintance who is causing us so much distress, so much anger, even hatred. Can we give the same love that we would for our baby to that person who we are distressed with? If we can’t let go of those negative emotions, then that is an example of our separation from God, or Truth. I don’t have to travel to the underworld again to find that truth, or to look for somebody who might listen to me. “WHERE ARE MY PEOPLE?” became the question of the day, after I hiked the short distance back down to my car.
I then drove towards Portland, from Larch Mountain, and was guided to go to NE 73rd and Glisan, where the US Postal Service’s EAP program was based. I walked into the door, and I was greeted by both Larry and Mike (Mike visited me in the Care Unit 3 years before, and Larry was the director of the EAP since I could remember). I called out to them by name, yet neither man immediately recognized me. When I mentioned my name, they were both blown away. I was happy, or, more precisely, ebullient, and Mike said that I was simply “radiant”. They wanted to know what was going on with me, and I stated, with a matter of fact attitude, that I was having a “spiritual experience”, and they both gave me a huge hug and acknowledgement. Inspired by this reception, I returned to the Main Post Office, and checked in with the Personnel Department, where Eleanor Workman was the head of the department. She immediately recognized me, and then offered me an application to reapply for my “lost” position.
“No thank you, Eleanor, I just wanted to express my apologies for working for this company in such an unhappy manner for so many years”.
She stated that I could get the job back with little problem, since the Post Office knew that they fired me even though I was still a practicing alcoholic. I then stated that what would make me the happiest is if she could schedule a meeting between me and the head of Plant Maintenance, John Zimpleman. Well, he was “in”, so I went right up, and I had a direct opportunity to make amends to him for my poor performance from 1980-1985. He greeted me warmly, listened to my story, was quite impressed, and then stated that he wished his son could discover what I just found, because John Jr. was rapidly descending to my former level. Wow, this day of amends went so well, I remained ecstatic about all future interpersonal possibilities.
One day that next week, while visiting our world famous Powell’s Book Store on Burnside in Portland, I saw my old psychiatrist, Dr. Dan Beavers. He was standing in the metaphysical section of the book store. I walked up to him, and he did not immediately recognize me. I stuck my hand out to him, and re-introduced myself to him.
“Bruce, this can’t be you, can it? Last time I saw you, I was wondering how much longer you could survive if the medication did not turn your life around.”
“Dan, the medication worked just fine. I never used it, at least not in the way that you would have intended for me to use it. I finally found a new way to live life without medication, drugs, or alcohol. I now accept full personal responsibility for my thoughts, feelings, behaviors, and activities”.
“Bruce, that is the desired outcome for all of my patients. Congratulations on your success!”
I gave Dr. Dan a hug, and apologized for using him like a tool in my effort to manipulate my former employer, the US Postal Service. He said that I did not need to make amends to him, and that he was there for me to serve all of my needs, whether I considered them dysfunctional or otherwise. But it still felt good to see Dr. Dan and show him my healthier sense of self. I was to never see Dr. Dan again. When I recently saw his obituary for his premature death in 2015, I felt great sorrow, and cried.
In the continued interest of “finding my people”, I attend the INTA Conference in Portland In August of 1987 (International New Thought Alliance). The person that I was most interested in seeing was Jack Boland, the recovering alcoholic who had started a SUPER CHURCH in Minnesota, with well over 5000 members. He also had a following of many hundreds of thousands of recovering people worldwide, as his approach to spirituality, sobriety, and healing was pretty universal. The integration into this new community was a fascinating immersion into a group energy that I had never experienced before. I WAS SO HIGH THERE!!!
I got to see firsthand a group of well over 1000 people warmly embrace the musical group Alliance, which starred Jerry Florence. They had some hits in the 1980’s, and they were a group of gay men who all had HIV’/AIDS. Having recently left that “evil” Hinson Baptist Church where gays were bashed regularly, this was like a breath of life to a drowning man, even though I had no homosexual tendencies. The tenderness that I felt towards Jerry Florence and the group of men that constituted Alliance still lives in me today, and I still have tears today for the suffering of all people who have been judged as unworthy or just plain ignored.
Marsha (Masha) Feldman is a beautiful Jewish woman, of Russian descent, who sat directly across the aisle from me at the Jack Boland talk. For some reason she came over to ME after Jack’s talk, and began a friendship with me that was to last for over one year. She had lived quite the life, hanging out with many of the most beautiful people that Portland, Oregon had to offer. She had hung around rich men with their fancy cars, homes, and clothing. She had told me that she spent much time with weight lifting men, many of whom worshiped their own bodies. Some were bi-sexual, and she was a little concerned that she might have made contact with the AIDS virus. She was suffering from an unspecified auto-immune deficiency, and she would not tell me what it was. She was a princess of sorts, and expected to be treated that way. Why she latched onto me is anybody’s guess, but I am sure that there was an underlying spiritual reason for this connection.
Masha was troubled and had recently visited her rabbi for some support. Her rabbi had informed her, in the interests of her own personal happiness and sense of well-being, that she should give up on understanding “GOD”, and to instead pursue more ‘grounded’ approaches to her physical and emotional health and welfare. She certainly had the physical aspect mastered, as she worked out daily, and kept her physical energy and beautiful appearance at as high of a level as possible.
The International New Thought Alliance conference of 1987 was part of her higher involvement in the social activities of her community, both inside and outside the Jewish culture. We traveled all over Portland together, visiting various recovery and spiritual groups for the first time together. We delighted in discussing with each other all manners of healing and methodologies for achieving higher spiritual experience. Hey, it felt wonderful to have a new friend on my spiritual journey. As a direct result of this connection, we visited the YWCA of Portland, on 10th avenue. Every Sunday there was a tape group meeting hosted by Marie Schmidt, a student of Joel Goldsmith, the creator of the healing movement “The Infinite Way”. Since Masha was Jewish too, like Joel, she had an immediate connection, though it did not last long for her. I continued with the Infinite Way for several years afterward (and I still practice some of their principles today).
As I moved forward spiritually in that great summer of 1987, I was still quite new to the path of healing and transformation. I had left my old life behind, and I was open to the experience of spiritual connection, and mastery. I had developed quite a meditation practice, eschewing committed relationships with others in order to develop a deeper spiritual practice. I remained excited about the possibilities for my life, as I had finally made “conscious contact with the God of my understanding”. I had recently experienced dramatic, if not miraculous, healing of my body and my mind, and a new energy permeated my being. I felt like I was finally “swimming in the sea of meaning”, though I still had not “connected the dots”, or started consciously rebuilding the new self. But, I could have never anticipated the experience I was about to have, on this particular day, July 21, 1987.
The Master Teacher
“Master Teacher of the Light, Master Teacher of the Light” I repeated within myself several times during an evening meditation, which is a mantra that I had developed to aid my focus for my meditation practice. I was meditating several hours a day, and though my life was bearing fruit from previous connections with the Spirit, I remained driven to find deeper and deeper layers of meaning, and experience of my true nature and being. Well, this meditation was to become Truth’s “bell ringer” for me. Without warning, I was lifted from my body awareness, and I then had a sense that I now had a decision to make. It was like I was driving an automobile, and I realized that I could continue steering, and heading in my usual direction for life, or I could “let go of the controls” and experience something totally different and unique.
I released the “steering wheel” of my mind, and my conditioning, and there was an exhilarating inner “rush” whereby I was totally released from myself and my burdens, and my body! My essence traveled into a great unknown, neither “light or dark”, and it was like I passed through some sort of great matrix of information/being. I had entered into a dimension of experience where infinite interconnected structures of alive and intelligent energy were manifest. I did not recognize what I was witnessing, nor do I have the words to adequately represent this “web”. Later, I was to learn that this matrix was the very collective consciousness of mankind, with all of its intelligence, and its stupidity. I quickly flashed by what was, at this point in my life, that unrecognizable and unnameable energy, and began almost a half spiral downward, where I came to a place of complete “darkness”, or emptiness. I felt totally at home here. I felt as if I was in the womb of all creation. It felt like it held everything in the universe, yet there was nothing at all to witness here.
Almost immediately, a “laughing, happy voice” seemed to be speaking to me, or, more precisely, through me, in this “secret place of the most high”. Messages floated through, like “No teacher shall effect salvation, each must work it out for themselves”, and, “think no thoughts”, with “Follow new paths of consciousness”, And then, a mathematical formula for re-entry back into the great unknown was given to me. It was a differential equation that I could understand, and which stated (in layman’s terms) that with the total elimination of the movement of time based thought, the direct perception of reality was possible. The limit, as delta T goes to zero (T is thought as a function of time), divided by delta t (t is time itself), delta is the “change in”, or as LIM dT/dt, as dt approaches zero, with T=f(t). The solution of this equation is the great unknown, INFINITY, or that which I sought. The difference between spiritual “being” and human “becoming” took on mathematical and spiritual significance for me on the deepest level.
The final messages, however, were the one most difficult to reconcile within my life, and the ones which remained troubling for me through the subsequent years. First, there is this component: “YOU CAN’T BE REAL”. When it was stated, it was stated through me, with a joyful, laughing voice, yet when I re-entered my normal way of being, it became an almost threatening statement, and one that continued to challenge myself, and my ego daily for quite some time. And yet, to see again, as God, or Truth, sees, I must be mastered by this truth. The ego is the sum total of all of my judgments, the sum total of my human experience, my acculturation, my conditioning, my “separation from God, Love, my fellow-man, and Truth”. The ego looks out from itself, and sees everything, and everyone, as if they are separate from its self, while totally failing to see that “all that it ever sees, unto eternity, is itself”. There really does not exist the “you” that I have formed, my perception of “you” is an incomplete mental creation that only exists in my mind (and which may or may not be shared by others, and most certainly is NOT shared by you).
To “follow new paths of consciousness”, while knowing that “you can’t be real” sets up quite a transformational dynamic within consciousness. If “you” can’t be real, then everything that I associate with “I” is preeminent. Every time I identify with a person, a process, or a place, I have created either a “new path of consciousness”, or I have reaffirmed some older, more familiar, potentially worn out path that I have already been traveling upon. “I am an electrician”, or “I am an alcoholic”, or “I am a son of Beryl and Corinne Paullin”, or “I am full of shit”, or “I am a lonely, isolated person”, or “I am angry with X,Y, Z”, or WHATEVER I associate my self, my “I am” with, either continues my path in old directions, or creates the imperative to create new words, thoughts, and experiences around a new direction. I could just as easily say “I am no longer traveling old paths of consciousness”, and then STOP thinking time-based thoughts, and rehashing and rehearsing old memories, to create a new life experience for myself. I would then have to trust in a “Higher Power”, “the Unknown”, and the “Mystery” to create my new “timeless self” in each unique moment.
Lastly, a most confusing revelation came, as well. I could see the field of energy that constituted my “body/mind awareness”. I saw embedded in it two almost complete thought forms, or identity forms, which I recognized as two distinct “entities”. Yes, I had two ‘extras’ attached to my field, and they were not there for my greater good, for sure. I came to regard these two unwelcome components to my life force as “tricksters”, though I noted that their presence seemed to allay the feelings of loneliness of my ego, perhaps only because they seemed vaguely familiar to me. They appeared to be almost “caricatures’ of two unique people. I sensed that I was supposed to let go of these “illusions of self”, but I did not know what to do. Eventually, I was to name them, Bruce 1.0, and Bruce 2.0.
The two extra identity vortices in the ‘human energy field matrix’ that constituted my conscious sense of self did not really ever disappear, they just became unconscious again, for me. I later was to name them “black holes” in consciousness. Little did I know that they were to become the most critical components to understand in my desire to form a better ongoing human/spiritual experience. I now understood the basis for the potential for the development of “multiple personalities disorder”. I saw how the whole human race suffered from this disorder, to varying degrees. Schizophrenia, oppression of others, repression of self and feelings, passive/aggressive behavior, people pleasing, prejudice, racism, misogyny and the like all shared a common foundation. I had no one to discuss this earth shattering spiritual event with, save one person, Masha.
The human race tends to confuse the verbal description (or mental image) of the person with the actual experience of the person, who, regardless of appearances, is infinitely more complex, and worthy of love and acceptance, than the human mind can readily accept. My ego is the sum total of all of my time based thoughts about time based behaviors of myself, and others. If I want to see clearly, I must accept that my main mode of viewing the world was through the ego’s eyes of unreality. To die to this mode of living is to truly be reborn of the spirit.
WOW!!
That was too much to digest in that moment, in that year of 1987, and for many years to follow. But, this is a true path of humility, to finally see in its totality the shortcomings of the human mind, and to become willing to go beyond it.
It was all so fresh and new to me and I was not the best communicator around the experience, but Masha was an amazing listener, and such a good friend, that we struggled through the teachings together. We talked endlessly about our ‘spiritual experiences’, discussed the enlightened ‘masters’ of the day, traveled and explored through the Columbia Gorge together, attended recovery meetings, slept under the stars together, slept in her apartment together, yet we never made love, as I was not to be her “prince charming”, as she related to me fairly early on. I continued to see Masha as an extension of my ‘search for truth’ process where I remained celibate, so I was not too disturbed for that to continue (for most of my life, sex had not been all that satisfying for me). Yes, this was yet another rejection of me on a pretty basic level, but I was relatively unaffected by it. This rejection did not darken my life because of all of the other light that was being let in.
We continued to hang out together, and spent lots of quality time with each other in platonic, yet blissfully loving, situations in various settings around our area. Two of our favorite areas to visit were in Mosier, near the Tom McCall overlook at the Columbia River, and Washington Park, near her apartment in southwest Portland. I continued to struggle to make sense of the three spiritual upheavals, or revelations, that happened over the period of May 24 through July 21, 1987, and attempted to understand other available teachings.
In October, In one of our recovery and spirituality group explorations together, we met Laurie Hartmann at support group for ACOA, which is Adult Children Of Alcoholics. Masha pointed out that the young woman had similar physical characteristics to her own, and that maybe I should reach out to her, and test her for her friendliness. I called Laurie several times after the meeting, to no avail. I was about to give up on her, when on Halloween, she changed her mind, and we set out on a date together. Well, it went better than it should have, and within six months I was engaged to be married to her. Laurie was one step above what I could handle, and I created another great learning experience around love, and, rejection. Masha receded into the background of my life for good, as a result of that relationship. I missed her terribly, and, to this day, I still think of her.
