Have UFOs and Aliens Shattered the Western World View?

In 1995, while living in Sedona, Harvard University psychiatrist and Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer of T.E. Lawrence, Dr. John E. Mack gave a talk on his research of alien encounters. Dr. Mack was considered to be a leading authority on the spiritual or transformational effects of alleged alien encounter experiences, sometimes referred to as the Abduction Phenomenon.

In 1994 Dr. Mack went to Zimbabwe, Africa to investigate an unusual occurrence. One morning in September 62 children at a small private school outside the capital of Harare reported seeing oval shaped objects hover over their playground at recess and strange beings make their way across their schoolyard. His research was fascinating and his nearly three hour informal talk was rewarding.

In his best-selling book, Abduction: Human Encounters With Aliens, he reports on his investigation and treatment of nearly one hundred abductees and has reached the conclusion that such encounters often have positive effects. "I have come to see that the abduction phenomenon has important philosophical, spiritual, and social implications."

Dr. Mack further stated that as the experiences of the abductees was brought into full consciousness, they seemed to feel increasingly a sense of oneness with all beings and all of creation, and this is often expressed through a special love of nature and a deep connection with animals and animal spirits.

According to Dr. Mack, many, if not most of the abductees with whom he as worked extensively, had come to feel that their enhanced spiritual awareness must be translated into some sort of teaching or higher purpose. Although they were saddened, or felt hopeless about the ecology of our planet and continuation of life-forms, they believed that they must do something about preserving life on earth. It’s interesting that many of these subjects have changed their careers in order to fulfill their newly discovered purpose in life and that they feel a particular responsibility to inspire a new consciousness on earth.

Dr. Mack’s next book Passport to the Cosmos: Human Transformation and Alien Encounters, is a further study of the alien abduction phenomena and the spiritual implications.

Sadly Dr. Mack’s important work was cut short by his untimely death in 2004, although his Foundation is still active.

I personally believe John E. Mack’s work was, and is, of great importance in UFO abduction literature. And I’m sure his books will be considered classics for many years.

~Linda

Ennegrams, Truth of Your Own Being

“Peace is what’s alive in your heart.” ~Eli Jaxon-Bear

Isn’t it exciting when one thing leads to another in your spiritual search or research for broader understandings and investigations?

A couple of weeks ago it was suggested I look into Enneagrams which is a psychological/spiritual personality profile of Nine Types, which in itself is rather interesting.

The ancient wisdom of the Enneagram is a map of and for personal growth and spiritual development. It depends on an aspect of awareness of the I, the knowing of one’s inner self. It can awaken in each of us the inherent essence of discover of ourselves and each other in ways that are authentically spiritual, psychologically sound, and lead us ultimately to freedom and love.

Within the discipline various teachers/writers call the Nine Types by different names. For example at the Enneagram institute dot com they are described as:

Type One: The Reformer, the principled, idealistic type.
Type Two: The Helper: the caring interpersonal type.
Type Three: The Achiever, the adaptable, success-oriented type.
Type Four: The Individualist, the introspective, romantic type.
Type Five: The Investigator, the perceptive, cerebral type.
Type Six: The Loyalist, the committed, security-oriented type.
Type Seven: The Enthusiast, the busy, productive type.
Type Eight: The Challenger, the powerful, aggressive type.
Type Nine: The Peacemaker, the easy-going, self-effacing type.

Helen Palmer, a leading authority and preeminent teacher of the ancient wisdom system known as the Enneagram, has these names for the nine types:

The Profectionist; The Giver; The Performer; The Romantic; The Observer; The Loyal Skeptic; The Epicure; The Protector; The Mediator.

Helen Palmer and The Enneagram

I hope to get her book, The Enneagram: Understanding Yourself and the Others in Your Life, as I was told by a psychologist her book is excellent and easily understood. Her website.

And then my friend Anne happens to have another book, The Enneagram of Liberation, from Fixation to Freedom by Eli Jaxon-Bear, which she loaned me. Eli presents a slightly different focus on the Nine Points of the Enneagram, more of an Eastern philosophy, I would say, but nonetheless, still interesting.

That book lead to this video of Eli Jaxon-Bear, which I enjoyed seeing.

~Linda

Beauty of Angels

“Listen for the flutter of an angel’s wing as it softly touches you with love. Embrace it and join in the dance.” ~Linda Pendleton

If you would like to know the name of one of your angels, take the time to ask. Find a quiet place, such as a garden or a special spot you like to be, and sit quietly. You may want to have note pad and pen with you to record any messages you receive. Ask for communication with your angel. And ask for the name. See if anything pops into your mind. If a message comes, write it down without questioning. Then read it back and see what you can make from it. Hopefully there will be some indication of a name, or a symbol indicating a name or word. If it does not come the first time, try this exercise often.

And remember, you may also hear a message, even a hello, from a deceased loved one. Usually messages from a loved one come very clearly in their own voice, even just when they call out your name.

~Linda

Michael Jackson's Creative Genius

Artistic expression begins as inspiration. Michael Jackson’s creative genius flowed into art and in his magical art he reached out to the world with love and healing in an incredible creative expression.

Michael Jackson peered beyond the finite into the infinite with a holistic view that apparently saw not only the big picture but many of the infinitesimal forces behind it.

I recall the 1993 exclusive interview Oprah did with Michael Jackson when she asked what he felt his purpose was and he said, “To give, in the best way I can, through song, through dance, and through music. I am committed to my art. I believe that all art has as its ultimate goal the union between the material and the spiritual, the human and the divine. I believe that to be the reason for the very existence of art and I feel I was chosen as an instrument to just give music and love and harmony to the world—children of all ages, adults and teenagers.”

To read more go to my other Blog

~Linda

A Course in Miracles Behind the Scenes

“There are only two ways to live your life.
One is as though nothing is a miracle.
The other is as though everything is a miracle."
~Albert Einstein, (1879-1955)

A few years ago A Course in Miracles received a lot of attention. It seems in more recent times the popularity, or at least all the talk about The Secret, may have temporarily replaced the A Course in Miracles movement. The Secret is really not a new idea at all, but an outgrowth of the power of positive thinking, and later what has become known as the law of attraction (especially through the channeling of Abraham by Esther Hicks).

But back to A Course in Miracles. The Course came to my attention while living in Southern California. I cannot recall who first introduced me to it in the 1980’s but I have several friends who have studied it for years. While living in Sedona, AZ, I did attend a few Course meetings.

But I was more intrigued with the inspirational story of how A Course in Miracles came about than I was the actual lessons of the Course.

Don and I wrote about it in our book, Whispers From the Soul: The Divine Dance of Consciousness by Don and Linda Pendleton:

One of the most intriguing spiritual channeling processes of modern times involves the development of A Course In Miracles, which is said to have been "given" directly to Helen Schucman by Jesus himself.

Helen's father was a chemist of Jewish decent but professed no religious affiliation whatsoever and considered himself an atheist. Helen's mother was the daughter of a rabbi but she had turned to Theosophy when Helen was very young. Helen had forever struggled as a child with her religious identity. She was very moved at the age of twelve during a visit to Lourdes with her parents, deciding that she should become Catholic but soon changed her mind. The following year she embraced Protestantism and was even baptized in a Baptist Church but that failed also. "I'd been baptized, but nothing was changed. I still couldn't see God." Eventually she decided on agnosticism while retaining a strong religious sense but later considered herself to be an atheist. Deciding on a purely rationalistic life even before entering college, she became an English Major, then more than a dozen years later, returned to academia for her 1957 Doctorate in Psychology.

Early in her college years, Helen encountered her first mystical experience while riding on a subway train. Feeling disgust with the display of human insensitivity so often encountered on New York subways, she was inwardly rebelling against those images when she closed her eyes and instantly encountered her epiphany in a blaze of blinding light, radiant with intense love and understanding. She was so overwhelmed that she gasped and opened her eyes. For a moment, that intense love engulfed everything in that subway car, to the point that she saw the entire scene through totally different eyes. What she had earlier seen as ugliness, she now perceived as beauty. It was like discovering truth for the first time. As the light faded, the earlier ugly reality returned but the contrast had so shocked her that it took awhile before she could regain her composure. However, the vision itself was not sufficient to alter her religious views; she continued to think of herself as an atheist.

It was in 1958 that Helen met forty-two year old William N. Thetford, Ph.D., fourteen years her junior, who hired her to assist him in special projects for the Psychology Department at Presbyterian Hospital in New York City. Thetford was a Professor of Medical Psychology at Columbia University's College of Physicians and Surgeons and Director of the Psychology Department at Presbyterian Hospital. His parents were Christian Scientists until the death of his nine-year old sister when he was seven. Grief stricken, the parents renounced their religious affiliation. It seems that Thetford had no particular interest in religion as an adult and had not been involved in the paranormal until after meeting Helen Schucman.

The working relationship between the two was often strained even though both exhibited mutual respect. Continuing conflict eventually led them into a pact to resolve their differences. Shortly thereafter, in 1965, Schucman began to be disturbed by psychic manifestations that were then plaguing her. He became fascinated by her visions and joined her in an attempt to understand and further investigate the phenomena, supporting her even to the point of taking her to Virginia Beach where they met with officials of the Cayce Foundation's A.R.E.

On an evening in October, 1965, Schucman excitedly telephoned Thetford in somewhat of a panic to report that the "inner Voice" was insisting that she take notes of its message to her. Thetford calmly and reassuringly suggested that she simply take down the notes in her private shorthand. She began this way:

"This is a course in miracles. It is a required
subject. Only the time you take it is voluntary.
Free will does not mean that you can establish the
curriculum. It means only that you can elect what
you want to take at a given time. The course does
not aim at teaching the meaning of love, for that
is beyond what can be taught. It does aim, however,
at removing the blocks to the awareness of love's
presence, which is your natural inheritance. The
opposite of love is fear, but what is all-encompassing
can have no opposite.
This course can therefore be summed up very
simply in this way:
Nothing real can be threatened.
Nothing unreal exists.
Herein lies the peace of God."

For more than seven years, Helen and Bill met in his office each work day morning on their own time and Bill, at the typewriter with Helen dictating from her shorthand notebook, would transcribe the information that Helen received the night before.

Even before the complete course had been set to paper, interested friends were sharing the unpublished 1,500 page manuscript and spreading it around the country, much like an underground press, and since its formal publication in 1975, A Course in Miracles has sold millions of copies worldwide and has been the subject of workshops everywhere.

Marianne Williamson has been conducting study groups and workshops, teaching the basic principles of the Course since 1983. In her Preface to A Return To Love: Reflections on the Principles of A Course in Miracles, she explains that the Christian terminology in the book put her off a bit when she first encountered it in 1976 but a year later she found that, "...This time, I knew immediately that the Course had something very important to teach me. It used traditional Christian terms, but in decidedly nontraditional, nonreligious ways. I was struck, as most people are, by the profound authority of its voice. It answered questions I had begun to think were unanswerable. It talked about God in brilliant psychological terms, challenging my intelligence and never insulting it. It's a bit cliché to say this, but I felt like I had come home."

However one may feel about the source of the material, this work has touched millions of lives around the world so certainly can rest on its own power to enthrall.

© Copyright 2003, 2009 by Linda Pendleton

You may read more about the development of A Course in Miracles in the book, Journey Without Distance by Robert Skutch.

Linda

Mediumship and the Betty Books

The Betty Books

Stewart Edward White, Author, (1873-1946)

Mediumship, or channeling, as it is now most commonly referred to, takes on many forms and may be expressed in many ways. It has common bonds with various other psychic expressions which run the full range from deep hypnotic trance to inspiration and other subtle nuances. One must consider automatic writing, Ouija boards, clairvoyance, clairaudience and clairsentience, physical "possession" by an otherworldly entity during trance states, dreams, physical manifestations, teleportation and levitation, mental telepathy and hypnosis, dowsing and pendulumology, meditation and visualization, visions and precognition, spirit guides and high teachers, psychic healing and other spiritual encounters.

In my latest e-book, How Thin the Veil! 150 Years of Spiritualism, I wrote about the New Mystics, those mediums of the 20th century such as Edgar Cayce, Eileen J. Garrett, Jane Roberts, and several others, including the medium known as Betty.

Some of the most widely read channeled books of the 20th century were written by Stewart Edward White, a very successful novelist of adventure and Western tales, relating material channeled from the other side by his wife, Elizabeth Calvert Grant White, who was initially identified only as "Betty".

The White’s experiences with the spiritual world began casually in 1919 when some friends visited their home with the Ouija board, considering it a mere toy and hoping only to entertain them with it. One thing led to another, though, and the board began taking on a mind of its own, repeatedly spelling "Betty" even though Betty had become bored with the game and had gone to sit beside the fireplace. At the repeated insistence of the board, she finally rejoined the others. At this point, the board became highly active and repeatedly spelled out, "Get a pencil–Get a pencil." But it was not until some days later that Betty did privately pick up a pencil at home and this launched her first experience with automatic writing which was to last for several months before experimenting with hypnotic trance. This produced the best results and Betty was soon a fully functioning trance medium.

The Betty Book (1) was published in 1937, the third of a series that began in 1925, followed in 1938 by Across the Unknown. Betty died in 1939 and that launched a whole new chapter in this amazing story; Betty began communicating with her husband from the Other Side, through a family friend, psychic Joan Darby (a pseudonym for Ruth Finley, who later, after her death came through Arthur Ford). The Unobstructed Universe (2) is Stewart Edward White's report of the messages from Betty as channeled through Joan.

(1.) Stewart Edward White, 1937, E.P. Dutton & Co.; Ariel Press, Columbus, Ohio, 1988.
(2.) Stewart Edward White, 1940, E.P. Dutton & Co.; Dell Publishing Co., 1970.

I quoted Steward Edward White in my book A Walk Through Grief, which I wrote shortly after my husband Don Pendleton's death, because I identified with what White had written following his wife’s death in regards to the connection and what he called a Presence of his wife after she passed. I also experienced that with Don, and am still aware of him years later.

~Linda

Famous Quotations of Wisdom

"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams! Live the life you have imagined.” ~ Henry David Thoreau, Poet, Transcendentalist, (1817-1862)

"Live each moment completely and the future will take care of itself. Fully enjoy the wonder and beauty of each moment." ~Paramahansa Yogananda, Spiritual Teacher, (1893-1952)

“The moment you have in your heart this extraordinary thing called love and feel the depth, the delight, the ecstasy of it, you will discover that for you the world is transformed.” ~Jiddu Krishnamurti, Spiritual Philosopher, Author, (1895-1986)

“Dreams are today's answers to tomorrow's questions.” ~ Edgar Cayce, American psychic, Reincarnationist, (1877-1945)

“Follow your bliss and the universe will open doors where there were only walls.” ~Joseph Campbell, Teacher, Author, (1904-1987)

“To understand the heart and mind of a person, look not at what he has already achieved, but at what he aspires to.” ~Kahlil Gibran, Poet, Artist, Writer, (1883-1931)

~Linda

Rose Photograph, Copyright by Linda Pendleton.

The Strength to Dream...

“Music is well said to be the speech of angels.” ~Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881)

If I Can Dream...
This beautiful and inspirational song, lyrics and music, was written by Walter Earl Brown for Elvis Presley in 1968.

“There must be lights burnin' brighter somewhere
Got to be birds flying higher in the sky more blue
If I can dream of a better land
Where all my brothers walk hand in hand...”

Daniel and Stephanie, Photo Copyright 1993 by Linda Pendleton

“We're caught in a cloud with too much rain
We're lost in a world with too much pain
But as long as a man has the strength to dream
He can redeem his soul and fly
And fly.”

“Music is the universal language of mankind.”
~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882)

~Linda

Past Life Memories of a World War II Fighter Pilot

This new book is about a World War II fighter pilot, James M. Houston, Jr. who was killed in action when his Corsair plane was hit by Japanese fire and crashed, and a young boy, James Leininger, now eleven years of age who appears to be the reincarnation of the fighter pilot.

James Leininger’s memories of his past life dreams as James M. Houston, Jr. have now pretty much faded away as they tend to do as a child reaches the age of six to eight. But still with him is his love for airplanes.

James Leininger, who—a little more than two weeks after his second birthday—began having terrible nightmares that would not stop. When James began screaming out recurring phrases like, "Plane on fire! Little man can't get out!" the Leiningers finally admitted that they had to take notice.

When details of the plane, a Corsair, according to James, and the war tragedies that no two-year-old boy could know continued Bruce and Andrea Leininger began to realize that this was an incredible situation.

SOUL SURVIVOR is the story of how the Leiningers pieced together what their son was communicating and eventually discovered that he was reliving the past life of World War II fighter pilot James M. Huston, Jr. As Bruce Leininger struggled to understand what was happening to his son, he also uncovered details of James Houston's life—and death. Even another pilot who had been in the air in another plane when Houston’s plane was hit, verifies young James’ description of the event; a now elderly sister of James Houston also is convinced that young James knows facts about her brother that no one could know and she accepts the idea that he is the reincarnation of her brother.

According to a Harris Poll in 2008, approximately 24 percent of Americans believe in reincarnation while 68 percent believe in the survival of the soul after death. It’s my guess the percent is higher as with many spiritual ideas or mystical experiences, some people are reluctant to reveal their thoughts.

The story of the James’ past life seems to fit a lot of other research that has been conducted by the late Dr. Ian Stevenson, Dr. Jim Tucker, Dr. Brian Weiss, and others.

In 2006, Jim Tucker, a child psychiatrist and medical director of the Child and Family Psychiatric Clinic at the University of Virginia, one of the few researchers to extensively study the phenomenon of children who seem to have memories of past lives, and who is carrying on the years of work of Dr. Ian Stevenson, said that James' case is very much like others he has studied.

"At the University of Virginia, we've studied over 2,500 cases of children who seem to talk about previous lives when they're little," Tucker said. "They start at 2 or 3, and by the time they're 6 or 7 they forget all about it and go on to live the rest of their lives." He also said he has seen cases such as James’ where children make statements that can be verified.

Tucker is author of "Life Before Life: A Scientific Investigation of Children's Memories of Previous Lives."
The book by Carol Bowman, Children's Past Lives has some interesting stories.
Here is a link to today’s interview on ABC with the family and below is a Prime Time

Interview from 2004.

Take a look at the book, Soul Survivor.

~Linda

Friendships

Friendships
by
Linda Pendleton

About four hundred years ago, Shakespeare said, “I am wealthy in my friends.” The dynamics of relationships, even from the child views we once had, teach us who we are. Are we lovable? Are we accepted? Do we have approval? Do we get along with others?

If we do not receive love, or fear that we may lose the love of others, we may then question our sense of self-worth. Don’t we learn early on from social and emotional experiences that love may be withdrawn based on how we behave or with the reaction of others to us?

Love comes wrapped in many packages of different sizes, shapes, forms, and intensities. There is love between parent and child, love between mates, love of family, love of friends, and love encompassing the whole of mankind. And of course, also the love of animals, or pets, which can be a very strong love bond.

I find it interesting how people come and go in our lives, and how some friendships endure time. Do you have that type of friendship where you may not see or talk with the other person often, and even months and years may pass, but the friendship does not suffer and perhaps picks up where it left off, without a skip of a beat?

Have you had friends who had an important impact on your life, and then they went out of your life? Have you learned lessons from the dynamics of friendships? Do you have friends that understand you better than family? Are friends there for you? Are you there for them?

Are you connected intuitively with a friend or friends? Do you feel you have had a relationship with a friend in another time, another place, another lifetime? Many of us do feel that way.

How wealthy are you? It does not have to be quantity. The quality of our friendships is what is so precious. Here are some thoughts on friendships.

“For in the sweetness of friendship
let there be laughter, and sharing of pleasures.”
~Kahlil Gibran (1883-1931)

"Tis pity not to have a dog, for at the
long day's end, The man or boy will
know the joy, Of welcome from a friend.”
~Edgar A. Guest (1881-1959)

“We have been friends together
In sunshine and in shade.”
~Caroline Sheridan Norton (1808-1877)

“My friends are my estate.”
~Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)


“I awoke this morning with devout thanksgiving

for my friends, the old and the new.”

~Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)


“The most I can do for my friend is to simply be his friend.”
~Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)


“The only way to have a friend is to be one.”
~Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)


“Animals are such agreeable friends—

they ask no questions, they pass no criticisms.”

~George Eliot (1819-1880)


“A true friend is one soul in two bodies.”
~Aristotle (384-322 B.C.)


“A faithful friend is the medicine of life.”
~The Apocrypha, 6:16


“We’re quite a pair, my dog and me,
Friends, companions we’ll always be.”
~Linda Pendleton


“Your friend is that man who knows

all about you, and still likes you.”
~Elbert Hubbard (1856-1915)


“We are all travelers in the wilderness of this world,

and the best we can find in our travels is an honest friend.”
~Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894)


“A true friend is the most precious of all possessions
and the one we take the least thought acquiring.”
~Francois de La Rochefoucauld (1613-1680)


Friendship

A friendship
is a special, unique state of being–
an entity readily identified
without resort to vows, spiritual or intellectual,
and without recourse to sacraments, dispensations, or decrees...
A friendship is a private thing.

A friendship is not a casual thing–
nor, indeed, is it a thing at all:
it is an essence–a source of things–
yet more than an idea, much more than a suggestion,
and nothing at all like an inspiration;
a friendship is simply a movement, and a meeting,
and a recognition within pure spirit.

A friendship is a romance without flesh–
a love affair with no affair–
a blending of the best that we may offer one another:
it does not demand, it does not fulfill,
and it does not sustain the members...
But it is there, silent and unassuming,
happy and understanding, always ready for instant use;
and it need not be fed, requires no special shelter,
and is big enough to stretch across any distance.

So, say not farewell to me, my friends:
farewell is a strange word, spoken in an alien tongue,
and having no meaning in the framework
of the feelings we share together.

Say, instead: let’s meet again.

~ Don Pendleton (1927-1995)

© Copyright 2009 by Linda Pendleton, All Rights Reserved.

Thoughts on Reincarnation

Oak Creek, Sedona, Arizona

Photograph © Copyright 2009 by Ted Grussing

"The soul of man is like to water; from Heaven it cometh, to Heaven it riseth… And then returning to earth, forever alternating." ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832)

"Every incarnation that we remember must increase our comprehension of ourselves as who we are." ~ Aleister Crowley (1875-1947)

“Know, therefore, that from the greater silence I shall return… Forget not that I shall come back to you… A little while, a moment of rest upon the wind, and another woman shall bear me."
~ Kahlil Gibran (1883-1931)

"My life often seemed to me like a story that has no beginning and no end. I had the feeling that I was an historical fragment, an excerpt for which the preceding and succeeding text was missing. I could well imagine that I might have lived in former centuries and there encountered questions I was not yet able to answer; that I had been born again because I had not fulfilled the task given to me." ~ Carl Jung (1875-1961)

“I adopted the theory of Reincarnation when I was twenty six. Religion offered nothing to the point. Even work could not give me complete satisfaction. Work is futile if we cannot utilize the experience we collect in one life in the next. When I discovered Reincarnation it was as if I had found a universal plan I realized that there was a chance to work out my ideas. Time was no longer limited. I was no longer a slave to the hands of the clock. Genius is experience. Some seem to think that it is a gift or talent, but it is the fruit of long experience in many lives. Some are older souls than others, and so they know more. The discovery of Reincarnation put my mind at ease. If you preserve a record of this conversation, write it so that it puts men’s minds at ease. I would like to communicate to others the calmness that the long view of life gives to us.”
~ Henry Ford (1863-1947)

“Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting;
The soul that rises with us or life’s star,
Has had elsewhere its setting,
And cometh from afar,
Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness,
But railing clouds of glory, do we come
From God, who is our home.” ~William Wordsworth (1770-1850)

To read more about 19th Century poets and philosophers and their thoughts on spiritualism you may want to read my article, A Meeting of the Minds --Ralph Waldo Emerson, James Martin Peebles, Walt Whitman, and several others.

~ Linda

Time to Laugh

“The most utterly lost of all days, is that in which you have not once laughed.”
~Sebastien R. N. Chamfort (1741-1794)

I’m missing an angel. Has anyone seen him? ~ Linda