Blizzardry
Atheist Messiah
When I was growing up as a Jehovah's Witness, I used to hear how God's Holy Spirit is working through our congregation and all the other congregations. At assemblies we would get "experiences" told of these half-magic occurrences like far-fetched conversions. I mean some of these were people who had found "The Truth" (i.e. converted) through some bizarre way, like a leaflet being found in a kangaroo's pouch, or like people praying desperately at the exact same time their door was knocked on. All this was cited as "proof" the Holy Spirit was working through our specific religion.
Then I started seeing and hearing people from all the Christian denominations saying stuff like this. "I was going to kill myself and met such-and-such", or someone found a bible in a taxi or something. Every so often you'd hear of epiphanies and moments of clarity followed by a conversion.
Then I noticed that pretty much every religion on the planet had the same thing. My girlfriend told me about all the similar things that went on with her as a Bahai. All this just confirming that it was the True Religion.
In my quest for the truth behind all religions, I tried out Shamanism and Paganism. I was looking for those convincing magic moments that would show me. I had a deck of tarot, some crystals, and tried them out, all with convincing success. I tried the techniques of the Sufi Dervishes, Zen meditation, and shamanic and hindu trance-journeys. I even got heavily into Gospel music.
For a short while, I did the psychedelic trip. Not that I wasn't doing them already, just went all Rock 'n Roll with them. Soaked up the lyrics of hundreds of great songs and blew my mind completely. Then, suddenly, all the things I'd learned manifested themselves in me. Like in the Moody Blues song "a beam of light will fill your head and you'll remember what's been said by every good man this world's ever known". I suddenly found myself loving everybody and everything and being a blissed-out hippy dude.
I met spirits while dancing and had heavy nights puking into the toilet with the spirits standing around me patting my back and telling me to "get it all out". Once I'd cleared out these blacknesses from the pits of my stomach (both spiritual and physical) the spirit people took my body and taught me how to dance. They left me and the ceiling opened up and love and light rained down on me, bringing me to tears and clearing all my past transgressions and guilts by washing me through with love. Subsequent meetings with God were more of a friendly one-to-one relationship than the blubbering mess I'd initially been. Less obstruction.
God kept inviting me up, even when there was no drugs involved. After walking with God for a while, I found wordless conversations happening between me and my girlfriend. At a Long John Baldry/Zoot Money gig, I was actually thrown to my feet to dance by the guitarist who was having similar eye conversations with me and my girlfriend. I laughed and was the only guy dancing. Big Time Operator was fantastic and apparently Baldry spoke very Godlike with his eyes to my Girlfriend.
All this left me feeling very messianic like I was on some mission from God. The heavens had opened, I had had holy spirit poured on me, felt like a pure and holy creature who saw only with God's eyes...
Anyway, nneeeaaawwwnnn... flashbacks (!) I wondered what the differences between my experiences and those of the great figures throughout history. I read loads. Every scripture, sutra and catchprase. Every work of fiction that read the same metaphor. It all pointed to one thing. Nothing in this reality was real, and everything was a dream. The consciousness behind every eyes is the same, and has been called God. Externalising it in a feeling raining down on you, or filling you with Holy Spirit, or even meeting enlightened people and having mind conversations of pure consciousness is still just a mirror for the vast consciousness within my own mind.
That's when I decided that my own internal self (which is still God) can fully understand the dream it's dreaming just by knowing it's all a dream. I had fully woken up to my own existence from within it. I was lucid dreaming with reality.
I also drew the conclusion that this could also be just the product of a deranged or altered mind, but then so could all religious experience. I've actually had enough coincidental happenings to be enough for me to believe, and even if not, taking the leap of faith has never done me wrong. My I Ching remains uncannily on the ball, and I know my Barnum. Not that you could ever pollute something as lucid as the scientific method with all that spiritual stuff. It's just personal experience.
For all my journeys, I feel remarkably sane. I'm not addicted to anything, I enjoy all life's pleasures in moderation, have career and family plans that all seem to be going right, music and love flowing from my fingertips...
So I still get confused when I ask a Pentacostal what Rumi thought he was feeling and if it was the same thing. Or the lyrics of Slippery People and Spinning Top by XTC. Take Me I'm Yours by Squeeze. Or Buddha. Or Krisna. Jesus. Mohammed. We're all looking at the same world with the same eyes.
Even if all we've ever felt is the love and warmth of a small meeting of like-minded individuals, it's still a magic that keeps us in our faith. In my opinion, it's just a shame we can't all see through our cultural differences and the metaphors that we create to explain the unexplainable. But if that's my dream, I might as well dream it! It's not easy, but where's the satisfaction in easy? For is it not written "Living is easy with eyes closed, misunderstanding all you see"...
Then I started seeing and hearing people from all the Christian denominations saying stuff like this. "I was going to kill myself and met such-and-such", or someone found a bible in a taxi or something. Every so often you'd hear of epiphanies and moments of clarity followed by a conversion.
Then I noticed that pretty much every religion on the planet had the same thing. My girlfriend told me about all the similar things that went on with her as a Bahai. All this just confirming that it was the True Religion.
In my quest for the truth behind all religions, I tried out Shamanism and Paganism. I was looking for those convincing magic moments that would show me. I had a deck of tarot, some crystals, and tried them out, all with convincing success. I tried the techniques of the Sufi Dervishes, Zen meditation, and shamanic and hindu trance-journeys. I even got heavily into Gospel music.
For a short while, I did the psychedelic trip. Not that I wasn't doing them already, just went all Rock 'n Roll with them. Soaked up the lyrics of hundreds of great songs and blew my mind completely. Then, suddenly, all the things I'd learned manifested themselves in me. Like in the Moody Blues song "a beam of light will fill your head and you'll remember what's been said by every good man this world's ever known". I suddenly found myself loving everybody and everything and being a blissed-out hippy dude.
I met spirits while dancing and had heavy nights puking into the toilet with the spirits standing around me patting my back and telling me to "get it all out". Once I'd cleared out these blacknesses from the pits of my stomach (both spiritual and physical) the spirit people took my body and taught me how to dance. They left me and the ceiling opened up and love and light rained down on me, bringing me to tears and clearing all my past transgressions and guilts by washing me through with love. Subsequent meetings with God were more of a friendly one-to-one relationship than the blubbering mess I'd initially been. Less obstruction.
God kept inviting me up, even when there was no drugs involved. After walking with God for a while, I found wordless conversations happening between me and my girlfriend. At a Long John Baldry/Zoot Money gig, I was actually thrown to my feet to dance by the guitarist who was having similar eye conversations with me and my girlfriend. I laughed and was the only guy dancing. Big Time Operator was fantastic and apparently Baldry spoke very Godlike with his eyes to my Girlfriend.
All this left me feeling very messianic like I was on some mission from God. The heavens had opened, I had had holy spirit poured on me, felt like a pure and holy creature who saw only with God's eyes...
Anyway, nneeeaaawwwnnn... flashbacks (!) I wondered what the differences between my experiences and those of the great figures throughout history. I read loads. Every scripture, sutra and catchprase. Every work of fiction that read the same metaphor. It all pointed to one thing. Nothing in this reality was real, and everything was a dream. The consciousness behind every eyes is the same, and has been called God. Externalising it in a feeling raining down on you, or filling you with Holy Spirit, or even meeting enlightened people and having mind conversations of pure consciousness is still just a mirror for the vast consciousness within my own mind.
That's when I decided that my own internal self (which is still God) can fully understand the dream it's dreaming just by knowing it's all a dream. I had fully woken up to my own existence from within it. I was lucid dreaming with reality.
I also drew the conclusion that this could also be just the product of a deranged or altered mind, but then so could all religious experience. I've actually had enough coincidental happenings to be enough for me to believe, and even if not, taking the leap of faith has never done me wrong. My I Ching remains uncannily on the ball, and I know my Barnum. Not that you could ever pollute something as lucid as the scientific method with all that spiritual stuff. It's just personal experience.
For all my journeys, I feel remarkably sane. I'm not addicted to anything, I enjoy all life's pleasures in moderation, have career and family plans that all seem to be going right, music and love flowing from my fingertips...
So I still get confused when I ask a Pentacostal what Rumi thought he was feeling and if it was the same thing. Or the lyrics of Slippery People and Spinning Top by XTC. Take Me I'm Yours by Squeeze. Or Buddha. Or Krisna. Jesus. Mohammed. We're all looking at the same world with the same eyes.
Even if all we've ever felt is the love and warmth of a small meeting of like-minded individuals, it's still a magic that keeps us in our faith. In my opinion, it's just a shame we can't all see through our cultural differences and the metaphors that we create to explain the unexplainable. But if that's my dream, I might as well dream it! It's not easy, but where's the satisfaction in easy? For is it not written "Living is easy with eyes closed, misunderstanding all you see"...
