The Mandala—an exploration on Speaking of Jung

I was the guest on Speaking of Jung, a remarkable podcast run by Laura London. We were joined by Jungian analyst Dr. Kenneth James, and the focus was the overlap of UFO contact and the symbolic "story elements" that seem to arise within these elusive events. These ideas were explored through a Jungian lens. I told of my "night in the tent" experience from 2010. This involved an irrational feeling of terror, and then seeing a floating mandala in the tent. It was the role of they mythic symbol that was the centerpiece of the episode. 

What emerged was a remarkable conversation, with a curious thread of healing that ran through the overall points of the dialog. Thank you Laura and Dr. James! This interview is highly recommended.

  SPEAKING OF JUNG: Episode Q13, January 25, 2021 

  linked HERE  

Beyond the powerful content, Laura's site is worth visiting because of the beautiful layout. I know what it means to create something tasteful for a personal website and a podcast. Listen up people, this is how it should be done—it's glorious!

Laura and I spoke last week for my podcast series The Unseen, and we spoke about Jung and hid book Flying Saucers, A modern Myth of Things Seen in the Sky. Laura discussed Jung's book, and also shared some of her powerful life events. This equally remarkable episode is linked HERE. 

illustration using Procreate for the iPad

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Carl Jung and the mytho-poetic layer of the psyche

From episode 75 of the podcast series SPEAKING OF JUNG:

Jung had a unique record of self-investigation, self-inquiry, and self-scrutiny—in which he is attempting to explore his fantasies through the visionary method of active imagination, visual images in a waking state, and then writing them down. He determined that these fantasies came from the mytho-poetic layer of the psyche, which he later came to call the collective unconscious.

This transcription came from Professor Sonu Shamdasani and host Laura London in dialogue on The Black Books. These were the personal journals of Jung from 1913 to 1932, and much of the ideas and introspection later became The Red Book.

The reason I am posting it is because I absolutely love the phrase: mytho-poetic layer of the psyche. This is beautiful, and I resonate so strongly with how it frames my own experiences and research.

The opening text is a quote of sorts, it was actually spoken by both Sonu and Laura, and they read nicely as one flowing paragraph. The term “fantasy” is used because this was how Jung framed his internal narratives. 

Below is the Amazon description for the boxed set of 

THE BLACK BOOKS

In 1913, C.G. Jung started a unique self- experiment that he called his “confrontation with the unconscious”: an engagement with his fantasies in a waking state, which he charted in a series of notebooks referred to as The Black Books. These intimate writings shed light on the further elaboration of Jung’s personal cosmology and his attempts to embody insights from his self- investigation into his life and personal relationships. The Red Book drew on material recorded from 1913 to 1916, but Jung actively kept the notebooks for many more decades.

Presented in a magnificent, seven-volume boxed collection featuring a revelatory essay by noted Jung scholar Sonu Shamdasani―illuminated by a selection of Jung’s vibrant visual works―and both translated and facsimile versions of each notebook, The Black Books offer a unique portal into Jung’s mind and the origins of analytical psychology.

The Black Books 1913-1932: Notebooks of Transformation by C.G. Jung, Edited and introduced by Sonu Shamdasani

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Stories with Sapphire and Owls (with Mike Clelland)

I spoke with Sapphire Sandalo for her amazing podcast series, Stories with Sapphire. This audio was recorded last April, and it came out today. She edits heavily, underlays her own music, and uses her own voice more as a narrator than an interviewer. There are thousands or paranormal podcasts, and I have to say her show really stands out as something wonderfully creative and professional. 

This episode is only 27 minutes long, yet she manages to capture the subtleties and complexities of my owl research. Well done Sapphire!

Richard Dolan reads the foreword to The Messengers

Author and historian, Richard Dolan

The audiobook for The Messengers is due out very soon. Richard Dolan wrote and read the foreword, and I am sharing it here. 

The audiobook should be available before the end of the year, and I will be promoting the book when it goes online. This is nearly seventeen hours long and features the voice of Michael Hacker. 

Manly P. Hall on Carl Jung and flying saucers

Recorded in Los Angeles on August 30, 1959

Rare audio recording of Manly P. Hall lecturing on Dr. Carl Jung's book about the flying saucer phenomenon. This is a remarkable talk, and I've listened to it a few times.

The original title of the talk was: An Analysis of Jung's Recent Book on Flying Saucers.

Please Note: The audio quality is rough at first, but clears up dramatically after about 6 minutes.

Jung's short book, Flying Saucers: A Modern Myth of Things Seen in the Sky, was originally published in 1958. I've found this to be a tough read, Jung's writing is quite dense, and this lecture helped me better understand some of the core ideas. This book is now available in Kindle form.

First edition in English, 1959

I found this amazing image online. I had seen this a few years back, and its simplicity and boldness were an inspiration for the cover of the first book in The Messengers series. Whoever the artist was, they sure knew what they were doing. Beautiful.

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Marci Peterson and the power of contact

My friend Marci Peterson talks about her remarkable experiences. This is Marci's first time speaking publicly. The world needs bravery. 

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quote from Carl Jung

I am listening to Memories, Dreams, Reflections as an audiobook, and was struck by this segment. Jung was addressing the mythic and how it is dismissed as futile by the intellect, yet he sees it as something valid. This excerpt comes from Chapter 11, titled: On Life after Death. He is wondering, as an old man, what the reality of life after death might mean. I feel his statement above would ring just as true if it were addressing UFOs—or mystical owl experiences.

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opening the locker

Class of 2020

Last week Dakota graduated from high school, and because of all the virus stuff the students were let in one by one along with their parents. They did a little videotaping on the stage where the principal handed each kid their diploma. At some point soon they’ll edit it all together as one big graduation production. I was with Andrea and Dakota and we had some time so we walked around the halls of the empty school. There was a sheet of paper taped to all the senior lockers, and these were labeled with the student’s names. Dakota was walking along and signing all the pages; this was happening because there was no way to pass around yearbooks with the school closed. 

While I was walking around I thought about my own high school and my own locker. I thought to myself, “I wonder if I can remember my locker combination from my senior year.” 

The numbers 36 - 15 - 38 immediately popped into my mind. I walked up to a locker and spun those numbers on the little dial—and it opened! 

In a weird way I wasn't surprised, but at the same time, I was astounded! I sort of announced to Andrea and Dakota what I'd just done. They were both like, "Holy crap! really?”

I closed the locker, spun the dial around, re-did the combination, and it opened again. I stood for a moment and then I spun the dial but didn't do the combination, and the locker opened right up. Then I checked the lockers on both sides of it and they were locked and wouldn't open up. I rechecked the locker I’d first opened, and it was unlocked. It seemed like the lock itself was broken so it couldn’t be locked. Then I started checking all the lockers in the row and they all were locked. I didn't check all the lockers in all the halls but it seemed that I had picked the one unlocked locker to try that combination that had popped into my head.

So it wasn't any kind of psychic knowing of the combination, yet it was a weird coincidence that I would pick that one unlocked locker as a way to test my own synchro-weirdness.

I Googled the numbers 36 - 15 - 38, and it read it as a math problem with a sum of -17. I removed the little minus signs (or hypens) and tried again. This time a Bible passage came up at the top of the search, everything below that was just gobbledygook code from other sites online. Here's the Bible quote:

1 Corinthians 15:36-38 New International Version (NIV) 

36 How foolish! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. 37 When you sow, you do not plant the body that will be, but just a seed, perhaps of wheat or of something else. 38 But God gives it a body as he has determined, and to each kind of seed he gives its own body.

This is very curious, especially the line: "What you sow does not come to life unless it dies.” 

High school is a very important chapter of one's life, I know it was for me, and it certainly was for Dakota too. The way I read it is that you would need to let that chapter of your life die way in order to begin the next chapter, the new chapter—to grow from a new seed.

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owl sighting in the woods behind the house

Nothing paranormal, just a lovely sighting of a big barred owl in full daylight

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Hidden Experience audiobook, now available—read by the author

now available

The audiobook is now available for Hidden Experience. The subtitle is A Memoir of Owls, Synchronicity and UFO Contact.

  audiobook linked HERE  

I read this book aloud, and it was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. I had to re-live so much doubt and denial. Reading my own words meant playing the role of actor, performing as myself, and quite literally re-living a profoundly challenging chapter of my life.

I am proud of this book, and my own courage for following through with such an introspective project.

Eight minutes and thirty seconds

And, long time reader Red Pill Junkie read the foreword, and he has a much better voice than I do! Listen int he player below.

15 minutes and 34 seconds

Also, I need to thank Suzanne Chancellor for her role as both editor and therapist. Without her listening ear, this book could never have happened.

  link to the book on Amazon 

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I have 25 coupons for a FREE version of the Hidden Experience audiobook. This offer requires a membership with Audible, and unfortunately, it only applies in the US. All I ask is to add a review on either the Audible site, or on Amazon.

Please get ahold of me thru my contact info in the right sidebar, or thru Facebook Messenger.

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floating dream and fear

Yesterday morning I woke with my heart pounding after a weirdly vivid dream.

There must have been more leading up to this, but the first thing I remember is being in the house where I grew up. Everything seemed to exactly match my old home, and that’s unusual, places in my dreamscapes are almost always distorted somehow.

It was nighttime and I was in the front foyer looking out a window facing the front yard and street. I could see that there was a bright light shining out of the garage and lighting up the driveway. This seemed odd and I wondered what was in the garage. The light made me really nervous. I needed to know what it was, and walked through the house so I could open the the door to the garage.

I got to the kitchen, turned on the light and realized I was floating. There was this familiar feeling, like I had done this many times and it was normal. I could concentrate in a way that kept myself up off the floor, and sort of willed myself toward the back hallway. I turned the corner and smoothly floated to the inside garage door.

I knew I had to open the door to see what was in the garage, but I was scared. I didn’t hesitate, I opened the door and the garage was empty. Then I woke up. I lay there in bed with an oppressive sense of dread, and it took a long time to shake the feeling.

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thanking Mort Drucker

Yesterday I listened to an audio interview with Kim Krans, the artist and author that created THE WILD UNKNOWN tarot deck. It was a beautiful interview (on the Fierce Womxn Writing podcast) where she spoke about her work habits and creative insights. Near the end of the interview the host asked if Kim had a writing prompt, and she shared a simple motivational exercise. Here’s a transcript from the end the interview. Kim said: 

Write a thank you letter to an author or artist—let them just come to mind. Like, what would I do without this person? Where would I be if I hadn’t had those books when I was younger, or now? So let them come to mind, and don’t second guess it. So once you have an author in mind, don’t change it. Stick with the first one that comes to mind, and you are going to write them a one page letter, handwritten, not on the computer. You get a piece of paper and simply thank them for not giving up. You can talk about how their work has helped you, but mostly you’re thanking them for not giving up. And then you sign it with the date. If you just write the letter, that’s wonderful. If you do the next thing, I promise you—you are entering into magical territory.

You put the letter in an envelope, you stamp it, and you address it to yourself. That way the letter becomes certified, they stamp it at the post office, and it goes through the mail and circulate in its own magical way. When it comes back to you, you open the envelope, and you read it again. So you are engaging in the letter both as a writer and as a receiver of the letter. And this will remind us of the bigger arc, the bigger picture—why it’s important to not give up on this much deeper call…

While I was listening to her, I thought I should do this. The very first person that came to mind was Mort Drucker. He’s an illustrator at MAD magazine with a remarkably lively pen and ink technique. He was the one artist who inspired me more than anyone else, and this admiration began when I was about eight years old, and has only gotten stronger in the last fifty years.

Yesterday afternoon I went for a walk on a winding trail behind my home, and spent this quiet time composing the letter in my mind. 

Just a few minutes ago, I saw a facebook post from comic illustrator Drew Friedman, and he wrote: 

So sad to hear about the passing of the great Mort Drucker.

He died yesterday at the age of 91, the day I composed a letter in my head, thanking him for not giving up.  

The day before yesterday I sat on a log on the same winding trail, and quietly asked the universe for help. It was raining lightly as I spoke out loud:

Hello Universe, I am asking for help. I feel adrift. I need to get back in touch with the creative part of myself. I know I have more to offer, and I know I can still do good work. I am asking for some sign. I am open and responsive to whatever you have to offer. I thank you in advance.

Seems I got my sign.

More about Mort Drucker. He drew hands and wrinkles so beautifully. His drawings were meant to be funny (and they are) but, but beyond his humor—there is genius in his work. As a boy I would carefully copy his drawings using crummy office pens. He was a traditional “dipper” (dipping a brass nib into India ink). In my 20s I read an article where he spoke about the pen he used, the Gillott 404. I got a box of ‘em and I tired my best to mimic his glorious lines. 

Mort Drucker image from the parody of 2001: A Space Odyssey

Caricature of jazz pianist Bill Evans drawn by me with a Gillott 404

Portrait of Mort Drucker by Drew Friedman

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a dream of falling to my death

Image of my neighbor's home, the dream was is the summer, but the only good photo I found was in winter (with a moose)

This morning I awoke from a haunting dream. I was standing on very top of a tall ladder positioned my old next door neighbors roof, it seemed like I was trying to help with something on a the peak of the roof, maybe the chimney of some sort of tall antenna. This was a two story house and I was way up there, maybe forty feet or more above the ground.

There came a point when I looked down and saw one of the legs of the ladder had moved a little bit, and it was just enough that it slipped off the edge of the metal roof. In that moment I felt the ladder tipping and there was nothing I could do about it. I was slowly falling out away from the edge of the house, and looking down at the the rocky yard.

I knew I was about to die, and there was nothing I could do. Everything was happening in this eerie slow motion. There was no fear, just a feeling of inevitability, and I thought to myself, “Oh, this is what people mean when they say time slows down.”

I’d pitched off the ladder and was dropping toward my neighbor’s yard. I made a calm declaration to myself, “There is still so much more I can do here, if I live I will do more.”

I watched the ground rushing up, but there was no impact. I calmly opened my eyes and was lying in bed, looking at the dark window next to me.

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Gertrude Abercrombie, owls and UFOs

The Courtship

The Courtship by the surrealist painter, Gertrude Abercrombie. It is part of the permanent collection of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago. What's interesting is that there is a flying saucer over the man's head and an owl in the lower left. Was this "courtship" a sort of alien abduction? The man is wearing a villain's mask and he is "miming" a gun with his thumb and index finger. The woman is holding up her arms in apparent surrender. The painting was done in 1949, two years after Roswell, when flying saucers were a hot topic. Saucerian-looking, lenticular clouds appear in most of her other works.

I received this image in an email this morning from a reader named John. I immediately started searching out her paintings. Click on any image for a HIrez view.

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Gertrude Abercrombie (February 17, 1909 – July 3, 1977) was an American painter based in Chicago. Called "the queen of the bohemian artists." She was involved in the Chicago jazz scene and was friends with musicians such as Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, and Sarah Vaughan, whose music inspired her own creative work.

Owl and the Moon

Many compositions feature a lone woman in a flowing gown, often depicted with attributes of sorcery: an owl, a black cat, a crystal ball, or a broomstick. These works were often self-portraits, as she stated in an interview with Studs Terkel shortly before her death: "it is always myself that I paint." Tall and sharp-featured, she considered herself ugly; in life she sometimes wore a pointed velvet hat to accentuate her witch-like appearance, she enjoyed the power this artifice gave her over others who would fear or recoil from her.

(text from Wikipedia)

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  for more examples of her work, click HERE  
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Confessions of a Spooky Mind with Walter Bosley - THE UNSEEN

author Walter Bosley

Confessions of a Spooky Mind by Walter Bosley is a short little book and a memoir of sorts, describing some of the strange events in his life. He has written a lot of other books too, both fiction and non-fiction. These including The Empire of the Wheel trilogy and The Esoteric Napoleon. Plus, a handful of thrillers in the classic pulp style.

Walter describes some of his very strange personal experiences and how those lead to his equally strange research. His life has followed a wandering path, crisscrossing with the unknown. This interviews covers UFOs, owls, synchronicity, occult practices and espionage.

A long list of his books can be found HERE.

  audio interview linked HERE  

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