In Search of the Miraculous; It’s Not Refundable

A lifelong quest for realization or is it just spiritual crack I was looking for?

Photo by Shalone Cason on Unsplash

Trigger warning: this will undoubtedly butt up against certain dogmas

My spiritual quest started long, long ago, which is why these writings will be serialized. I’ll do my best to make each segment complete.

I’m old. I’ve been at this for a long time.

Okay, if you must know — and for my own good — I’ll own it: I was a spiritual junkie for 35 years. Of course, I didn’t know that’s what I was at the time — I just thought of myself as a seeker.

So a rendering of my spiritual quest will take more than an eight minute read if I’m to be honest and at least somewhat thorough.

I don’t remember when my quest started exactly. Or what prompted it specifically.

My first inkling of other worlds came when I was maybe three years old. I remember being in my bedroom and looking up. I had a message for my real people and I sensed that they were up there somewhere.

I knew I’d been misplaced with these people, my mother and my father. These were not my people. I didn’t precisely remember my people but I knew that these were not them and this wasn’t my real home.

It had nothing to do with adoption. I knew I was born into this family but I also knew that I didn’t belong here, with them. And I knew that there was nothing I could do about it.

I just wanted my family up there to know that I knew, that I hadn’t forgotten completely though the details were gone. Still, I had vague but nonetheless real memories of them. And I didn’t want them to forget me; I wanted them to be with me because these people I’d been plopped into the midst of were in terrible distress.

I was in terrible distress.

Fast forward. I’m 13 years old. My mother has a friend, Germaine, who is into woo woo stuff. Germaine gives Mom a book about Edgar Cayce, who is known as the “sleeping prophet.” Though Cayce was a devout Christian who read the Bible every year, he had psychic abilities.

He went into trance and for the querent, he could diagnose health issues and remedies for same. At some point, he started seeing the cause of these diseases and misfortunes, which were rooted in past lives.

Past lives: heresy to Catholics. But, fortunately, my mother was a heretic and when she finished that book, it gave her a sense of peace. And she handed it to me.

And that is what started my quest. The idea of reincarnation was like mana to me. I’m a Libra and not just a little bit: four planets conjoined in Libra.

For me, things have to be fair.

And what I was taught at Catholic school wasn’t the least bit fair. You have one life and no matter the circumstances, you either make the right choices or once you die, you’re doomed to the lake of fire for all of eternity. Harsh.

Consider the unequal situations of our births. Some are born rich, some poor, some have tremendous talents and advantages, others don’t have enough to eat, or they’re sick, or crippled. Some are brilliant and others are dull, some have great, loving parents and influences, and others are born to alcoholics, drug addicts, narcissists; some are abandoned or trafficked, others have warm, loving homes — but no matter your birth, your wrong choices will lead you to perdition.

How fair is that?

Cayce’s book offered karmic explanations for the situations we were born into and these settled me. Before we’re born, we choose these conditions for what we will learn from them. That explained all of the disparity.

And we have lots and lots of chances to learn. Endless. God is patient.

My earlier search was along the lines of positive thinking. I read books: Joseph Murphy, Neville Goddard.

My first groups were science of mind churches. Think positive.

Next, when I was in my early 20s, I was introduced to Lifespring, which was part of the human potential movement. It was comparable to est — Erhard Seminars Training.

There were educational segments, and dyads where you partnered with another person, seated knee to knee, face to face, and followed instructions that led to an experience. Always insightful. Often blissful.

Some exercises involved the entire roomful of people, around 200. And all of the dyads and exercises and educational talks led to some profound, life-changing experience that was so freeing.

It was like stepping into an automated car wash, only for humans, and being mechanically forwarded through all of these different steps and exercises and new ideas and a few days later, popping out the other end a brilliant, immaculate, exalted version of yourself. Hallelujah.

Like I was meant to be. Like I am. Like we all are. Only I forgot. We all did.

Both est and Lifespring were part of this “large-group awareness training (LGAT) that “claimed to increase self-awareness and to bring about desirable transformations in individuals’ lives.”

You sacrificed victimhood for freedom.

It was unconventional and according to some, particularly the family members of participants, it compromised participants’ mental wellbeing. They couldn’t be reasoned with. We couldn’t be reasoned with.

For me, it was crack. Pure and simple. I had never felt so blissful, never felt so loving or beloved or accepted or beautiful.

I saw God. Or at least, that’s what I imagined seeing God would feel like. I was satisfied. Until the bliss disappeared. Poof.

When the high was over, all I knew was that I wanted more. And more. And for me, that was the beginning of the spiritual addiction.

I did all three courses offered by Lifespring but as time went on and the highs faded and then disappeared, I left the group. And all I really wanted was to feel that way again. Eternally.

Ted, who I met while waiting tables, became a mentor. I remember telling him about Lifespring and that I wished for something like it, only something that I could use on an ongoing basis and not something that took place over a few days and then was finished.

I wanted a practice wherein I could apply higher principles in my daily life.

Ted told me about The Work — The Gurdjieff work. And when I told him I was interested, he gave me Mrs Annie Lou Staveley’s phone number. I called her and made an appointment to meet with her about joining with the group that she headed at Two Rivers Farm in the rural Willamette Valley north of Salem, where I lived at the time.

I took the back road, 99E, about a 40 minute drive through farm country: strawberry fields, hops fields, farm houses, greenhouses and nurseries, and mom and pop businesses alongside the highway.

The Farm was a few miles off the main road. I turned into the long gravel driveway and watched the dust chase me in the rearview mirror as I drove it’s length and parked near the white farm house.

I was 30 when I met Mrs Staveley in 1983. She was 77. She had grey hair styled in a simple bun on top of her head. She wore glasses, a simple house dress, a sweater. She greeted me with a smile and ushered me into the small library.

She asked me about my interests and background, more of a get-to-know-you visit than an interview.

I admitted that I’d consulted an oracle before our meeting, and she pooh poohed that until I told her what the oracle said.

“I don’t understand what this means but you will. There are three paths open to you, and you could take any of them. But truly, the only path open to you now is ‘the Fourth Way.’

Again, the oracle said, “I don’t know what that means but you do.” And I did. The Gurdjieff Work is known as The Fourth Way.

And Mrs Staveley just got quiet and nodded a bit.

I don’t remember too much else about that meeting other than that Mrs Staveley was sweet and kind and grandmotherly and at the end of the meeting, I was “in.”

Someone showed me around The Farm and I was astonished by all of the enterprise. There were flower and vegetable gardens, fruit trees, walnut trees, a children’s school — kindergarten through eighth grades. Livestock: sheep and few head of cattle. Ducks, chickens.

There was a hops barn. Printing and publishing where books were printed and hand bound.

And a big building called “the barn” where on the first floor there was a kitchen with a huge wood burning cook stove, a couple of bays to process produce from the gardens; upstairs a large dining room that doubled as a movements hall where sacred dances based in the Sufi tradition were practiced and performed; and a third floor meditation hall and whatnot work space.

Saturday was movements practice and Sundays were “work” days that began with a 6 am meditation and ended somewhere around 4 or 5 pm.

In addition to breakfast and lunch that were cooked and served on Sundays, there was wash-up after and of course, plenty of practical farm work: gardening, wool carding and spinning, looking after animals, harvesting fruit in the summer, food processing.

In the summer, there was an entire week dedicated to work.

Outer work and inner work.

In addition to Mrs Staveley’s house, there were four apartments on the Farm at that time where a few members and their families lived.

Since I was in school at the time I joined, I wasn’t available much on weekends, but I was faithful about getting to my weekly group meetings on Tuesday evenings.

I was a member until 1996.

Years and years after I left, I was driving through Aurora — something I hadn’t done for a good long time. In an instant, I was hit with a tsunami of emotion, something I’d never felt with such force before.

It was a wave of pure feeling, a blast, the depth of which surprised me. If I hadn’t been sitting down, I’d probably have fallen over.

The Farm was always a special place and I have always been grateful for what I learned and the experiences I had there. It’s where I learned about the practice of the present — being present — and self remembering. Applied Christianity. It was my foundation.

More to come.

Your time is valuable. Thanks for spending some of it here.