Humans, Angels and Visions

Acknowledgements

INTRODUCTION

MY PERSONAL JOURNEY

The subject matter of this book regarding angels and devas is derived directly from my life experience, therefore the book begins with a short autobiography. From early childhood, I have had experiences that are considered to be psychic or outside the normal range of perception. My rich inner life included visions and lucid dreams. I was precognitive, seeing things in my inner vision before they happened. As a child, I was anxious and eager to please, although this was punctuated by frequent intense experiences of bliss. Intuitively I knew that I could not tell anyone about these experiences because they would not understand.

My grandmother had a Ouija board which she used to teach me numbers and letters. The board was also painted with a circle of astrological symbols. I still recall being attracted to the astrological symbols, even at age three. By the time I was five or six years old, I had become the conscience for my mother, grandmother and aunts, telling them that it was not okay to gossip or be harmful to others – even when they thought it was justified. Even then, I was certain that the surface reality that everyone thought was real, was only a veneer covering a great order of infinite magnitude. This book is a consequence of my years of psychological and spiritual study, intuitive insights, and visionary experiences that began at an early age and have continued throughout my life.

My lifetime has been connected by a series of significant transitions, each one a turning point, redirecting my trajectory to an unexpected future. My determination to join the Marine Corps proved to be a decision that I would regret as soon as I got off the bus in Paris Island, South Carolina. I was barely 17 years old and aching to escape a childhood of extreme poverty. The American South in 1960 was awfully different from rural Maine where I grew up. But somehow, I survived boot camp and the rest of my four-year hitch. I learned, from the grueling experience of boot camp, that I could tolerate adversity. The next thing I learned was about the endemic culture of racism. While in boot camp, I had become friends with a fellow Marine, an African American from Newark, New Jersey. He and I were shocked to discover that we were forbidden to sit together and share a cup of coffee anywhere outside the Marine Corps base. Racial segregation in North Carolina was not only pervasive – it was the law.

After my discharge from the USMC in 1964, I began to actively support the Civil Rights Movement and later the Anti-War Movement protesting the War in Vietnam. During the late 1960s, I moved around a lot to find work. I drifted from North Carolina, back up to Maine, down to Connecticut, and finally landed in the City of New Orleans, Louisiana.

By that time, I had learned how to cook well enough to make a living, so I was always able to get work in a kitchen. I landed a job as Sous-Chef in a small, high-quality restaurant and had the great, good fortune to learn from a Chef who had been trained in Paris. His culinary guidance was a gift that has served me well throughout my life. I still love to cook.

My friend, Jim Hewitt, and I established a commune in New Orleans that we operated together just outside of the French Quarter. In the 1970s, it was a common for young people to hitchhike around the country. Our commune served as a hostel for many travelers who were passing through New Orleans on their way to somewhere else. It was also a refuge for folks who wished to stay awhile. We provided a free mattress, warm meals (usually red beans and rice with day-old baguette) and a welcome haven for wandering souls.

In the early days of the commune, I learned about the Avatar Meher Baba because a friend kept leaving a small book called Meher Baba on Love on my pillow each night until I finally read it. I was so taken by the little book and the words of Meher Baba that I traveled to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to meet Ruth Appel, the only person I had heard of who knew anything about Him. Ruth had been a Baba Lover for a long time and we instantly became friends. She taught me about Meher Baba’s life and His many good works, and I soon realized that He was my Master. My inner life, to this day, revolves around my relationship with Meher Baba.

Our Lady of Guadalupe Chapel sits just outside the French Quarter on Rampart Street. It is a beautiful Catholic Church that was built in 1826. Although I’m not of the Catholic faith, I got into to the habit of visiting the chapel to escape the noise of the world outside— just to sit and meditate. The interior of the sanctuary felt exceptionally silent and peaceful.

On one afternoon, I wandered into an alcove off the chapel’s nave. A few life-sized statues of saints stood in the niche. My attention was drawn to a statue of Saint Dymphna. She was carved of wood and stood on a pedestal, softly looking down at me. I lit a candle for her and gazed up into her face. The statue of Saint Dymphna appeared to come to life. She had a golden aura and her eyes were sparkling. We were communicating telepathically, although my conscious mind was unable to grasp the meaning of the conversation. Our relationship seemed close and familiar, as if she were a dear friend that I had not seen for a long time. My communion with Saint Dymphna lasted several minutes the first time, and was repeated later on two separate occasions. The quality of our exchange and the loving presence of Saint Dymphna had such a powerful effect that in 1974 we named our newborn daughter Christina Dymphna.

Because I wasn’t schooled in Catholicism, I didn’t know who Saint Dymphna was or why she had attained sainthood. I had little free time to investigate and didn’t have access to information that is commonplace today via the Internet.

Fast forward to the early 1990s. While visiting the Prince of Peace Abbey gift store in Oceanside, California, I noticed a big stack of Saint Cards for sale. One of the cards told the story of Saint Dymphna’s life. Dymphna had been a child living in Ireland in the seventh century. Her father was a pagan King who wanted to marry Dymphna after the death of her mother. Dymphna, a Christian like her mother, had taken a vow of chastity and escaped Ireland with her confessor rather than break her vows. She was murdered by her own father and became known as the Lily of Eire because of her spotless virtue. Dymphna was buried in Belgium. Numerous miraculous healings of mental disorders occurred at her gravesite. In the thirteenth century Dymphna was canonized in France as the Patron Saint of Mental Disorders. Ten years after my fateful meetings with Saint Dymphna in New Orleans, I began to study psychology. Although I still don’t know the content of our conversations, I know she had a profound effect on me. My life’s work, for more than thirty years, has been centered on healing mental illness.

Flashback to 1974, when I first began to seriously study Eastern spiritual and metaphysical teachings. The writing of Alice A. Bailey and the Theosophists captivated my attention because the teachings aligned with both my intellect and intuition. The esoteric, arcane expression of the Ancient Wisdom just worked for me. Everything that I read, compelled me to read further and to understand more about the inner workings of the universe. I still marvel at the order of how perfectly it all works. To this day, I enjoy studying the profound wisdom in metaphysical books.

In 1978, I worked as a cook, feeding the crew on a river barge that hauled oil tankers on the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers. After two long trips up and down these rivers, I was ready to return to dry land, and gladly disembarked in Omaha, Nebraska, where I promptly landed another cooking job. But this time it was as Chef for an upscale bistro, called M’s Pub, which served healthy sandwiches and desserts to die for.

Cooking was a form of creative expression for me but after years working in restaurants, and a few months at M’s Pub, I began to grow weary of cooking as a career. I wanted my work to make a difference. Motivated by altruism, I accepted a job as a residential assistant, caring for adolescents with severe developmental disabilities.

Beatrice State Developmental Center in Central Nebraska had been a huge asylum that warehoused thousands of developmentally disabled adolescents and adults in conditions that anyone would consider to be inhumane. Conditions at Beatrice were appalling, and the residents were referred to as the feeble-minded. The state was forced to accommodate former asylum residents in a program of normalization by opening more than a thousand group homes in residential neighborhoods in the City of Omaha. I worked with adolescents in three of these group homes. I found that work with teenagers, who had severe developmental disabilities, was challenging, but I was on the right path toward a career in human service.

After one year in Omaha, which included a very long, cold winter, I escaped with my dear friend Mary Carter to sunny Southern California. Upon our arrival in San Diego County, Mary Carter and I both worked with developmentally disabled people in residential group homes.

It was here that I met Martin Muller, and for six years before his death, I participated in the weekly ontological meditation group in Rancho Santa Fe, California. This was one of the most important periods of my life. Participating in Martin’s group, expanded my experience of my Self, and allowed me to envision a life of service that would have been unthinkable for me before.

I returned to school at a local community college, and later transferred to a The University for Humanistic Studies where I received a bachelor’s degree, and in 1986, a master’s degree in psychology. While enrolled in college, I was a Mental Health Worker at an inpatient hospital that offered temporary treatment for children and adolescents.

After earning my master’s degree in psychology, I landed a job as a counselor and later as Senior Coordinator at Turning Point Crisis Center. It was an amazing learning experience to work in such a demanding, high stress job. Turning Point offered a therapy-intensive program with eleven beds for indigent adults in psychiatric or emotional crisis. We helped many people survive dangerous suicidal crises. Many of our clients chose voluntary admittance to Turning Point Crisis Center, rather than the alternative choice of being locked up in a county medical ward. Most of our clients came from hospital Emergency Rooms but