My father having died when I was five years old, my first experience of the miraculous was watching my mother raise five children on her own. Though she raised us in the Presbyterian church I had my first brush with fundamentalism while still in Jr. High School. The doctrine was simple direct and unambiguous. "One way for Jesus" was the slogan, a single finger pointed skyward the sign. It was a tidy system. You knew clearly who was "saved" and who was not. It simplified life greatly. If you were stuck in an elevator it was to share Jesus with your captive audience. The more I studied, the more I began to perceive the circle of the "saved" to be a very small circle indeed.
So I began to wonder how the other peoples of the world answered the "biggies." Who am I? What am I doing here? Why so much suffering? What comes after here? I was surprised to find that the answers to those questions seemed different yet somehow very similar. There were different names for God, and different cosmologies of life and afterlife, and many tales of miracles and answered prayer. It all seemed absurd to me. After all, if God was pulling for all to convert to Christianity, performing miracles and answering prayers for the unbelievers sure wasn't playing the cards right. So my skeptic was born and I slowly dismantled the belief system I had felt entrapped by. I left the flock on everyoneís prayer list. I considered it my inoculation against the virus of fundamentalism.
Thus began my own conscious journey of discovery. It led me through
a series of spiritual and psychotherapeutic disciplines from the east and
the west.
I read voraciously... Alan Watts, Jean Paul Sartre, Herman Hesse, Kierkegaard,
Edger Cayce, the Gita, the Koran, the Tibetan book of the dead, Aldous
Huxley, Seth, Camus.
In school I studied art, psychology, photography, linguistics, philosophy
and creative writing. As a freshman in college I wrote a paper titled "Reality
Creation through Belief Alteration." Comparing and contrasting faith healing,
fire walking, hypnosis, multiple personality disorder and the placebo effect.
I was fascinated by instances where the behavior of consciousness appeared
to transcend the laws of the physical universe. I began to suspect that
the fundamentals that lie at the root of all religions and spiritual disciplines
are the same. Consciousness is creative and belief structures are itís
bricks and mortar.
I resisted the "chemical revolution" for many years, preferring to access altered states of consciousness through natural means like yoga and meditation. Eventually my reading of Ram Das and Aldous Huxley and John Lily tempted me to test the waters.
As an aside I would like to address the current cultural taboo regarding substances that affect consciousness. Due to the present desperate state of affairs regarding rampant substance abuse and the related erosion of the family unit and some might say "the very fabric of society," it has become fashionable to parrot overly simplified solutions capable of being expressed in twenty second sound bites or catchy slogans like, "Just say no to drugs." In every known culture there have been ways of altering consciousness that are condoned and condemned. In my opinion, the issue is a spiritual one involving our willingness and ability to take responsibility for our own psycho-spiritual states. As long as we insist on being victims and blaming the "material world" for our upsets and sufferings, we will continue to seek salvation from our upsets in materials. Lest my history be construed otherwise, I neither condemn nor condone the use of psychoactive substances in the quest for spiritual insight. I certainly don't recommend them. In this day and age, that path is fraught with peril. There are many more dependable vehicles to transcendence.
With that said, I must admit, my first psychedelic experience was nothing short of religious. My "Date with God," as I later called it, catapulted me into a realm of direct experience beyond symbols. I realized the dance of duality went far beyond that of good and evil. All perception, physical, mental and spiritual, was based on the dual dance of "figure/ground," this/not that, me/not-me. When I chose not to exercise my ability to organize the data coming through my sense organs, my "universe" transformed into a primal quantum soup, without form, or meaning, beyond fear and beyond ecstasy.
Many hours later when I had reached a point where I was willing and able to reassemble that soup into recognizable experience, I remember gazing at the volumes of books lining my walls from floor to ceiling and laughing uproariously. My first encounter with the absurdity of symbolic lessons, and the beginning of my "love/hate" relationship with words. I recovered from my hilarity long enough to look again at my book shelves. My eyes fell upon good ol' Jean Paulís "Being and Nothingness." It occurred to me that if heíd just left out the middle word of the title he could have saved himself and me about 900 pages! I fell back to the floor laughing, tears streaming down my cheeks. As much laughter as these experiences held they were rarely pursued recreationally. Once I found what these substances could and couldnít contribute to inner growth I left them behind.
In class I studied psychological theories of Freud, Skinner, Jung, Rogers,
Albert Ellis, Fritz Perls and Kolberg. Via video we dissected communication
and group dynamics.
On the side I explored an ever growing list of disciplines: Transcendental
Meditation, Hatha Yoga, Kundalini Yoga, chaotic meditation, Psychosynthesis,
Gestalt Therapy, psychodrama, Ken Keyes Living Love, e.s.t. , Vipassina
Meditation, sensory deprivation tanks, rebirthing and encounter groups.
I got serious, I got naked, I got real, I "got it," lost it, and found
it again. I suppressed it, expressed it - I ranted and raved, sat motionless
for days, I breathed until my lungs were on fire, I watched "it", I watched
my breath, I watched my ego, I watched the watcher.
Meanwhile I worked suicide hot lines, ran therapy groups for substance abusers, prison inmates, troubled adolescents, worked with autistic children and the elderly. It was intense, varied and satisfying. Upon graduation I took a position at a newly built, maximum security, psychiatric facility. The residents were classed as psychotics, sex offenders and "behavior disorders," who might have been found living in an abandoned car or they might have murdered their father. We were cutting edge and highly experimental. We were given a blank slate. We could do whatever we wanted as long as it got results. Behavior modification token systems, Kolberg's Moral development model exploring the right, good, or appropriate in endless real and hypothetical situations. We did Gestalt and psychodramaÖ trust falls, and blind walksÖ foot massage and guided imagery... self hypnosis, the relaxation response... awareness groups, self expression, movement, music therapy, stress management, yoga and meditation.
In time a pattern seemed to emerge. A third of the residents improved, a third degenerated, and a third stayed the same. The same statistics applied to groups not receiving treatment. In time the facility began to change. Incidents of violence grew and security tightened. We began doing less therapy and counting more silverware.
I grew discouraged. Perhaps we were merely witnesses to a process of
growth or stagnation that was beyond our ability to impact. After 4 years,
I was burned out. I longed for solitude and the predictable. I was tired
of relating. I leapt into the solitary life of musician and craftsman.
On independence day I quit my secure state job to dive into a life
of music. I played and taught music, and built folk instruments for my
living. I traveled from New Orleans to California to Maine to Ireland playing
folk music on obscure stringed instruments. If I wasnít on stage in a coffee
house or a bar, I played on the streets. If I grew frustrated assembling
a musical instrument I could turn and walk away. The next day it would
be waiting for me just as I had left it. Wood is infinitely more predictable
and forgiving than human beings.
Though I had abandoned the world of "helping professionals," my passion for the inner journey never left me. I continued to study and meditate and explore. Leading a craftsmanís lifestyle, I was drawn to more personal, private pathsÖ which led me to A Course in Miracles, a channeled work sometimes referred to as "Zen Christianity." I studied A Course in Miracles for eight years and co-founded the Re-Union Center for Peace in its honor. It was offered to the community as a place to explore the relationship between personal peace and planetary peace.
From there I took to the road doing concerts of "transformational folk" and leading workshops in self expression, improvisation and self healing. It was during these travels that I bumped into a system of belief management developed by Harry Palmer called Avatar. Harry discovered tools of consciousness that applied the principles I'd discovered so long ago. My main frustration with my research was that although "Beliefs create reality" was intriguing as a theory, it lacked power, i.e. "Jesus heals" produced more results than "Your beliefs heal." The Avatar tools allowed me to deliberately create the kind of transcendent experiences that I used to pray for, meditate into, induce with drugs - or wait for as a gift of grace.
Paul V. Johnson (late founder of the Spiritual Advisory Council) spoke often to me of his Gettysburg experience,where in an instant his past life flashback, (or "bleed through") transformed him from an advertising executive into a lifelong spiritual seeker. It was obviously transformational and the turning point in his life. My commitment is to give people the opportunity and the tools to deliberately create transformational experiences for themselves. To that end, I have taught belief management seminars off and on since 1989.
My first encounter with Paul V. Johnsonís family and S.A.C. was in '90 through their daughter (now my wife) Julie E. Johnson. As "fate would have it," my participation in S.A.C. programs as musician and presenter, and my "view from the wings" abruptly changed to a front row seat in December of '96. Iíve spoken before of the honor and privilege I felt to spend time with Paul during the last weeks of his stay on the planet. It is Paul's and my kindredness of spirit, reflected in our long talks ranging from matters metaphysical to the fine points of desktop publishing that led me to be sitting at this keyboard writing this newsletter.
Whew! I must blame the wordiness of my auto-biography on some advice I once received: "If your life's an open book folks can't make stuff up."
I'm committed to playing my part in the operations of S.A.C. and deeply
appreciate all the love and support that's offered ongoingly from our readers.
I beg your patience if I'm less than prompt in my correspondence. The more
of you I meet the more I am impressed with the intelligence and diversity
of our membership. I consider it an honor to participate with you in...exploring
the mystery.
In Love... David
P.S.
I live with my wonder-filled wife Julie E. Johnson and our dog Kayla
on three wooded acres overlooking little Lake Swan in North Central Florida.
My days are spent manageing S.A.C., writing, designing musical instruments,
sailing, and sitting in awe of this bluegreen rock falling around a star.
You can contact me at david@clmg.com or snail mail at:
115 Cygnet Lane
Melrose, FL 32666