Archived podcast for paid Subscribers only. Please login to access.We started this week’s edition of the show with the intention of speaking about sensory deprivation chambers but we never quite got there. Why? Because this week’s guest, Mark, has had a series of incidents wherein he thought he was being guided by angels and demons, separate from the inner conflicting voices we all have when it comes time to make deep decisions. And that, it turns out, was well worth talking about.
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Wonderful, wonderful
Wonderful, wonderful synchronicity. “What-is-it-going-to-take” is a freight train that frequently blows through the living room of my life. Thanks Mark,..keep up the good work on your journey.
Haven’t listened yet, but our
Haven’t listened yet, but our town (RVA) is just getting its first sensory deprivation tank and I found out yesterday. It’s on my Christmas list. OK, now for the listenin’…
Very interesting. Thank you
Very interesting. Thank you Mark and Jeremy.
It is the first time i heard anyone speak about ” the outside world being silenced. ” Unlike Mark, i didn’t have an inner voice speak when it has happened to me.
That person speaking to me when it happened, didn’t know i didn’t hear her. I never let on nor asked for her to repeat what she said. At the moment it happened, i “knew” i was being protected and said an inner “thank you” for the protection. My husband was with me and had no idea anything was going on.
Mark, your story of how you changed is so real and “down to earth.” That you found strength from both inner dialogue and outside supports (both individual and communal) speaks that we “do not do it all alone.”
The most powerful part for me, was hearing the story of the drinking buddy welcoming you back into friendship, with acceptance and forgiveness. Powerful and real! I think we all live that. Maybe not as big as your story.
Sometimes we are the one welcoming, sometimes the one welcomed back. Either way, it is about belonging and relationships.
I have recently undergone such an experience, from the other side. It was so hard, i was deeply hurt by the lack of contact. I tried to understand. I couldn’t force reconciling, and i would not give up on the other. I had no power other than to stay in the truth of love, prayer, and waiting with what little patience i have. When it did finally happen, all i had to say after i asked “Are we good?” was to hug and say ” i will always love you no matter what.” It was a “welcome home” moment.
For those who are religious, it was quite Biblically living the Prodigal Son story. Though i am not the father, i am grateful i had that story to show me how to be. Please note that the truth of waiting and being watchful daily for any hint of the return, was quite accurate. And the words in the Bible…”all i have is yours” could just as easily be “all is yours”….
WOW, Ok as a child i grew up
WOW, Ok as a child i grew up with parents that drank and i didn’t start until i got into the military at 20, but my first sip of beer the entire body screamed “FOOD”!
I would also have to say i say what Jay Weidner calles Archons or black ghost like entities that i saw coming out from inside my step-dad as he was about to kick my mother in the head just as Jesus crushed the serpents head with his shoe when that i called shadow person popped its head out!
In 1980 i finally got sober going into a church and prayed to GOD help me, and bang i quit cold turkey and have never had a desire to drink again!
My website for me is history is repeating with evil on the rise ISIS chopping heads off fits the Bible, and Russia now along with China, WOW we gete to see Yeshua/Jesus come for the Saints to a marriage supper, VERY SOON for he is the way , the truth, and the light no other way he is the straight and narrow.
http://home.earthlink.net/~redwhisker/
enjoy,
Dennis
To clarify… when i wrote
To clarify… when i wrote “from the other side” above…
i meant i was the one waiting to reconcile, the person with whom the break occurred, was and is still alive in body. I didn’t realize till now when i re-read, that it could be misunderstood as if the other person was dead and on the other side. Sorry about that.
Hi Jeremy, another great show
Hi Jeremy, another great show – it’s one of the main reasons I subscribe at the moment 🙂
You asked whether anyone out here had had an experience with this ‘Voice’, well certainly not with the addition of a light but definitely a voice. This was back at least 15 years ago. I was unemployed and had been for quite a while and was at a really low ebb, my self esteem was at rock bottom and I remember getting pretty upset with God about not answering any of my prayers in this regard and had done the whole shaking my fist at the sky thing, and then wondering whether he even existed and what was the whole point of it all, if this was all there was to life etc…anyway, nothing happened, I didn’t get struck down with lightening but felt pretty embarrassed and sad.
Anyway a week or so later, I was still pretty depressed but hanging in there and I remember waking up one Saturday morning and lying there on the edge of sleep when suddenly I heard this internal voice, as clear as day, say three words…”DON’T ABANDON GOD”…followed by something else, that I will get to. This voice was so insistent and had a such a sense of urgency and soul-deep importance about it, I was just shocked…it was a man’s voice…it did not seem like God was doing the talking but certainly someone that I felt I could not ignore. It had such a depth of emotion within those three words, I just broke down in tears and promised to myself, to the voice, to God that I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t ‘Abandon God’. I didn’t even really know whether that was a thing – abandoning God – but it certainly felt like it was something I could be close to doing and was being warned quite unequivocally about.
Now to the other thing after the voice…this was a weird one, because I almost forgot it happened, like a dream that suddenly rushed back after awaking. I realised that this was a two-parter, in almost a whisper compared to the first three words but I remember hearing a bible reference! Now this is not the kind of thing I am predisposed to hearing. OK, I was brought up going to church every Sunday and we had quite a few bibles kicking around the house but I hadn’t read the one at the end of my bed in a long, long while – it was collecting quite a bit of dust, metaphorically speaking. Intrigued, I picked out this bible and flicked through to the reference I had hard, as I awoke…and it just so happened that the exact page of this reference was where the silk ribbon book mark had been left…and the heading of the chapter where the ribbon lay was about ‘Confessing or Rejecting Christ’. Queue hairs on back of neck!
So, how did that change things for me?…Well interestingly, for one reason or another as a family we stopped going to church but in many ways that was one of the best things that could have happened to me, as coupled with experiences like the above, I started to opened my eyes to a level I had been taught to steer clear of. And God? Well I think there is a divine presence, maybe even indistinguishable from the universe and by extension ourselves…but I have fallen out of the religious fold of ‘believing’ into what I think is a more honest admission of ‘Not knowing’ but being OK with that.
And is not abandoning / not rejecting the same as accepting?…I really don’t know.
Would you consider coming on
Would you consider coming on the show to talk about these things?
Oh, that’s kind of you to ask
Oh, that’s kind of you to ask but I’m much more comfortable this side of the virtual line! Plus I have OCD (and learning to live with it) but the lead up to a public interview, as enjoyable as I think the conversation might actually be (at least for me!), is a stress I could really do without.
I’ve conquered my fair share of fears but that kind of thing is something I still avoid. Thanks anyway.
I have iliminated more
I have iliminated more phobias and anxieties with this then I remember. It really works!
And No, I don’t work for these people. I just want to pass on something that has really helped me.
http://www.emofree.com/
Thanks very much
Thanks very much Onelivinlove.
I have seen this technique before and watched a couple of videos on its application. I also tried this on myself (despite it looking counter-intuitive) with some success but to be honest I didn’t try it long enough to give it a proper try. I may well get back to it again – thanks for the reminder.
I have tended to stick to Exposure and Response Prevention techniques with OCD specific fears in the past with great results and have started getting into Mindfulness more recently, which is harder than it sounds! Also as strange as it might seem, photography helps a great deal, as it allows me to focus on the outside world more, rather than what is going on in my mind.
Ihave had a similar
Ihave had a similar experience where God intervened and directed me toA A, many are called but few are choosen, as we choose ourselves, people ho ignor the call either die or sontinue on in a living hell here on earth, was a good show
MANY years ago I saw a movie
MANY years ago I saw a movie but so long ago that I cannot be sure of the bible character BUT believe it was Jacob. What I do remember (and it ALWAYS comes back to me is this proclamation).
“Jacob, you had to be sufficiently purged (while he was seeking out Leban in the desert) before you could hear me/before I could enter in.”
For me, this means that the small self needs to be set aside with all of our self pity/self importance before GOD can guide us in the most effective way. Sometimes it might come in an instant and at other times something we struggle with for a long time. Finally, when it happens, we seem to open up to that voice within…..
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob
I’ve never been an alcoholic,
I’ve never been an alcoholic, but I was married to one. As a couple, we did share some experiences that were way out of the ordinary (for instance, a UFO right outside our second-story bedroom window, a ball of light floating over our bed, etc.) It is probably no surprise, but he was always in denial about these incidents, saw no importance to them, and mostly refused to discuss them. As unusual incidents escalated for me, he continued to deny evidence and also made jokes at my expense. We have been divorced for several years now, and while he is sober and also a member and sponsor in AA, my son tells me that his dad hasn’t changed a whole lot. My current partner, however, not only shares in these experiences, he wonders about them and discusses them with me without derision, and is a very compassionate, spiritual individual, and both our lives are richer for it. We have drawn more ‘magic’ into our lives, because we are open to it, without having a full understanding of it, which leads to some wonderful conversations.
Good for Mark! He not only quit drinking, but got past the fear, which was probably the source of his drinking in the first place. My ex no longer drinks, but the fear is still there.
Hi Jeremy-
If you’re still
Hi Jeremy-
If you’re still looking for people to interview, would you consider interviewing Matt, UC’s new news editor? He’s been a longtime subscriber and friend to UC, and having had quite a few conversations with him at both past Dreamland Festivals and the regular Wedndesday night subscriber chats, I feel like he has a lot to offer. He did one subscriber interview with Anne Strieber a few years back, and the show felt like it barely scratched the surface of what he could share with us.
(For what it’s worth, I ran the idea past Matt during a recent subscriber chat… he said he’d be willing to do it, and the other subscribers in the chat all thought he’d make a great guest for you.)
Absolutely. Matt, if you’re
Absolutely. Matt, if you’re reading this, contact me. We’ll set it up:
jeremy@unknowncountry.com
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Another great conversation
Another great conversation Jer and Mark. Never thought I would write about this, because of the humbling and deeply personal nature I think I only spoke to wife about this once, but here it goes. I had just gotten out of the Air force in 1986 and I had just found employment in the medical field.
I should have been happy to be employed and trying something new and in some kind of medical field(which I had always wanted to do), but in my in my personal life a was a mess ( just recently made the connection to something depressing that had occurred during my run in the military that I had “blocked out”). I drank A LOT at that time and this particular time I had gone to my brother in law’s bachelor party and within an hr., I had to be taken home and “poured into bed” where I stayed for 3 days and took me 2 weeks to fully recover from. I must have poisoned myself with alcohol and probably should have went to the hospital or something. Anyway, on the second day of throwing up everything I possibly could, I lay there miserable ,and felt I had been beaten with hammers. I was pretty much ready to say “ okay ,I’m done with life, just take me already…” Well I felt like this started to happen( careful what you wish for) .I felt like my body was starting to shut down. Never had this feeling before or since. The only way to describe it was I felt like I was encase in concrete and literally couldn’t move and felt like I sinking into the bed. My eyes were closed and all I could hear ( or feel) were my shallow breaths, which the sound started to change. My breathes became like waves slapping against the shoreline and the next moment I was on a beach somewhere and standing before 2 people or beings of some kind. I couldn’t really describe them, because they were either hard to look at or I just wouldn’t look at them( though I could see the beach and the ocean clearly). I could hear their voices saying to me “ if you really want to end this, Fine. it’s up to you”. And in one sense I did, but when literally given that choice at the moment,I did realize I wanted to live. And also I remember my aunt dying in very a similar way, drunk and alone. And my older brother finding her body and me thinking I would never want to put any of my family members through that kind of experience again.
So I told them “ No I do want to live” and them saying almost sardonically ( but I feel lovingly and humorously)“ Okay ,well then… Knock it off !” ( meaning my self destructive behavior). I was back in my bed ,I could move again, still in a lot of pain,but felt my spirit lifted. I cleaned up my act and for several yrs. was a tea totaler. My love of art has saved me many a time throughout the years and I plunged myself into painting ( which I had been neglecting) and of course my new regular I had and have been doing for almost 30 yrs.now. And had I not stuck out that career I don’t think I would have ever met my partner and the love of my life. It’s funny how some things just fall into place.
I don’t know if that was an OBE,me trying to save myself subconsciously, or what. Just thankful for every moment of being ,the good and the the less so.Thanks.
While studying Shamanism I
While studying Shamanism I learned that every indigenous culture on the planet had/has some variation of the practice of Shamanism. We Westerners lost that skill when the church burned all the witches. I also learned that the alcoholics in our culture are the people that would have been our Shamans. Alcoholics have an affinity to alter states of consciousness. The other side calls to them. I’m the daughter of an alcoholic. I could so easily have gone that way, but thank God/dess, I was clear enough to hear the call and studied Shamanism instead.
Excellent episode.
Excellent episode. Excellent. Now I know the birds are talking to the trees. (for one thing). So much good content in this episode. Thank you.
There are several levels of
There are several levels of the angelic mythos, the first of which, to the best of my knowledge, begins with stars and constellations… celestial bodies, and, of course, star people. Elohim and so forth, on into the spirit world and however that chalks up for you.
A rabbi once told me that a demon was just the other side of an angel. That they are essentially the same thing, with different roles. Neither can act outside the jurisdiction of God.