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A TWO-WORLD VIEW |
by K.L.M. Kathel © 1985 |
Copyright by Cosmeta © 1997 |
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By Grand Design
By grand design, two adolescent experiences have dominated my life. Celestial Vision, a profound mystical experience, has given me hope in troubled times, while guarding and guiding my life. The Marble See, held sway to the world of religious dogma. Were it not for the first, then the second would have done nothing but leave me in a state of religious indifference.
The Maze
The road has not been easy. How does one reconcile the differences between being a Roman Catholic
and being a metaphysician? Do we forsake one for the other, or is it possible to combine the two? Anyone
who has had to fight their way through this maze-like impediment will understand how difficult it is to
reconcile one's religious belief system with that of the out-worldly. I hereby place on public record my
testimonial to 'truth'. A Two-World View is not meant as an apologetic, nor is it meant to solve the differences between fundamentalist and metaphysicians. As a child, I did not keep a diary; so that, what I am about to convey to you comes strictly through my own recollections.
Were I to say that this essay is strictly a metaphysical piece, I would be mistaken. Then again, were I to say this is a religious work, still you would not have the truth. It is a kind of bizarre mixture of the two---I
suppose. I hardly know where to begin. It all started in my youth, those confusing years teenagers call life,
and parents call perplexity.
A Sea Of Glass
It was an experience, so personal, so unique that I have long treasured it within my soul. Celestial vision
took place in my adolescence, I perhaps in my ninth or eleventh year. I was standing, fully awake and
conscious, playing in my backyard. One moment I was standing, and the next, I was floating high above
the rooftops. The skies had opened and I saw what appeared to be a world which had become a giant
crystalline sea. It glowed and shimmered with an intensity unimaginable by any earthly mind. It was kind of
like looking at a world made of glass, mirror-like and polished.
All that follows, the entire experience, was both spontaneous and simultaneous. Yet in order to write it down, I am compelled to break it up into groups of ideas. It did not happen this way, however. Now, I am
not saying that I cannot explain it, Nor am I implying that what you are about to hear is unreal. No! what I
mean to imply, is this. Unless you have had a similar experience for yourself, you will never in a million
years be able to fathom the concepts that I write. They will be nothing more than mere words to you.
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CELESTIAL VISION |
(A Spontaneous Projection) |
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Frozen In Time
No mere astral projectionist was I. As I looked down, I saw my physical body, suspended, frozen in time. I
was seeing, not in an astral body, but through it. My astral form gently hovered approximately one
hundred and fifty feet above the ground. It had a cloudy, milkish-white appearance. The strangest thing of
all was --- it had no feet; as if I were an amputee from the ankles downward. I had perfect vision, perfect hearing --- Perfect! The longer I stayed, the further and deeper I went, reaching out into limitless space and time. So that after awhile, neither space nor time existed; and neither did I have a body. I was 'Pure Mind'.
My Archangel
After breaking up into thousands upon thousands of points of lights, I began to see a man --- and more
that a man. He was huge beyond belief --- just like a star constellation. He was galaxies upon galaxies
away and yet so near I can still feel his presence. He was studded with silver stars and clad in white
raiments. And his figure began to change; first becoming a nine year old boy, then a young but mature
Grecian, then a middle aged man, then an old man, and finally an ancient man of three hundred years.
Now this is very hard to explain to anyone who has not had this experience, so that I wish to stress to you,
one thing. These were not different people, but the same being changing. And he spoke to me. I will never
forget his answer to an inner question of mine, a kind of inner directive. "Follow the road," he said, "and when you get to the fork in the road, you will know the right way to go."
Celestial Music
As I listened, to my Archangel, my man of wisdom, I could hear this beautiful celestial sound. It was like a
choir of angels singing on the breath of a wind. An indescribable melody was it. It appeared to me to be
all sounds rolled into one harmonious tone. It was the sound of planet earth. A sound that only a mystic
knows. When I looked downward, I could see everything! --- into people's homes, into their minds, into
their very souls. Whatever I thought of was magnified a hundred times fold. Nay, a thousand times fold. If I
thought of a leaf, I saw all leaves. If I thought of a life, I saw all life. If I thought of a death, I saw all death.
Such was the nature of this nirvanic experience.
Divine Lady
Suddenly, I heard another voice, a softer feminine voice. Her position was in direct opposition to his. He
pointed west, and she toward the eastern skies, while I faced inward at one hundred and eighty degrees
to both. I have come to identify her voice only as my dear sweet Divine Lady. She said, that it was time to
go back. "I don't want to go back, I like it here," I responded telepathically. "You are overstaying your
time," said she. "You must go back." "But how? how? --- go back where?" I said, "I don't even know how I got here." "Besides, I don't want to go back, I like it here," I repeated. "Think," she said, "think of the ones you love." And I thought, but still nothing happened. "You must try harder," she commanded in her quiet melodious tone. "Concentrate." And I did!
Before my vision stood as dancing spectacles, every living soul on this planet, from the beginning of
time till the end: babies, and life; and the culmination of age and disease, disaster and famine. It was all so
beautiful! Each life, each happening, was enshrined in a tiny little caplet, especially coded and engraved
with divine purpose. At the time, I called them bubbles. But now, now I know better. They were the points
of light, and united they formed the crystalline sea. They are what Easterners call prana, and what Moses called manna. Christians call this same kind of spirit-life, the 'Bread of Life'. It is Spirit energy and the stuff that 'Mind' is made of.
Rain
Breaking away from that magnetic pull, was one of, if not thee most difficult thing I have ever had to do in
my entire life. One does not refuse a request from a Lady in violet and silver. Concentrate I must, and
concentrate I did; until finally an enormous overpowering feeling filled my being. The only way I can
describe this to you is in these words: If I could have cried, I would have rained on the whole world. It was
that powerful. And I thought, I must go back, for They are all my Children. Definitely, not an eleven year old's thought. It would not be until some twenty odd years later that I would finally come to the realization: I was hearing through Her Voice; feeling through Her heart; seeing through Her tears; and in that precise moment --- I WAS HER! Then, ever so slowly, I began to slip back into the conscious reality of this world. Realizing I had very little time left, I made one last agonizing cry, pleading with Her. "Please," I said, "I want to come back here, how do I get back? how do I get back?" --- "Just think of it," she said, "just wish it." It was enough. I was inside my body once more.
The entire episode could not have lasted more than a fraction of a second. Yet from the other side, it
seemed more like twenty minutes. Could you imagine that, twenty minutes that spanned the millennium.
And I sighed and thought, wow! someday I'm going to understand all that. Once I regained full wakeful
consciousness I began to lose touch with all that I had just experienced. Except for random thoughts, it
could not be retained. I was left with: Well now, Kathy, that is one hell of an imagination you have. It was
over!
Never again would I be the same person, because deep down in my soul, I have never forgotten that
experience. Little bits and pieces keep on floating back to the surface. It has never been complete. My
search, my reality has always been to bring down to conscious recall as much of that experience as I
possibly can. In a way, writing this essay is an attempt to help facilitate that lifelong process.
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The Experiment
It felt like an experiment. During religious instruction, the last lesson to be exact; one of the nuns had
explained to us that after confirmation, the parish priest was not obliged to give absolution in every
instance. As members of the adult community of God, the sole responsibility of sin now rested on our
shoulders. As I sat there in class, I knew, I just knew, that I was to be one of the chosen few. I knew I was
part of an experiment. Little did I realize, however, it would be connected to a greater experiment.
The Report
Sometime afterwards, in a church I will call, the marble see, I was refused absolution from the confessor. One might think that I had committed some terrible monstrous crime against the church, but I had not. I you see, had missed mass for four straight Sunday's in a row; a crime to be abhorred. Considered a venial sin, I was required by law to report it, even though I myself had no reason to call it sin. Had I gone against my own heart, then sin to me would have been in that lie.
The Obstinate Child
Being a stubborn and obstinate child, when it came time for the parish priest to give me absolution, he had
asked me the biggest question of my life, (or so it now seems). "Are you sorry for your sins?" he
commanded. And my answer then, as it is now: "No, no I am not." "Well then," he insisted, "if you are not sorry for your sins, then how am I to give you absolution?" --- Phase one of the experiment was complete.
Home Away From Home
I just couldn't get myself to admit to this fellow that the reason I had not attended church was because I
was lonely and depressed. As I reminisced about my old neighborhood and friends, I subconsciously
missed my old hospitable church, Father Heart and our weekly ritual walk to the Italian bakery and home
again with half the goods eaten. Then again, how could I admit even this, when at the time, I myself had
no idea what was behind these rather emotional sensations. They were beyond word or reason. It would
have been beneath my dignity to insult this fellow by telling the truth, (had I known the truth, at the time). I
do not like your marble filled church of stone, for it is cold and empty to me, I would have said. I had
missed the security of a cozy but warm church. It was home away from home.
Branded
Needless to say, I was terribly hurt---No, not hurt, but in terrible, traumatic, emotional pain; and yet, I could
not understand why. What I did understand was this. My new church had let me down, my church had
condemned me; my church told me, that unless I told its' lie, I could never receive the sacred host. Guilt
mechanisms began to play havoc with my mind. Was I really a sinner? I questioned. Anyone raised in the
fifties and sixties will understand that we were brought up with the notion that you just did not go against
any adult authority. I was no different. As I walked out of that confessional, I somehow felt branded; as if
everyone could see what had just taken place. I was now a member of a lost tribe; a black sheep, so to
speak---a wanderer from the fold. Needless to say, I was uncomfortable and ill at ease. Church became,
in that moment, a very unwelcomed place; and the priesthood, became, not an extension of God, but
mere mortals; individuals who were prone to be wrong and in error as easily as the rest of us.
Refused Absolution
Refused absolution, an incident that would propel me, from what started out as a state of religious trauma,
into one, which would lead me into a state of immense inner spiritual self reliance. For this, I am grateful,
to a priest, whose name has always remained unknown.
That priest, you see, was to represent all of the inner questions I had so lazily left up to him. This minor
event, (and I do say minor, because in earthly time, it lasted for no more than fifteen minutes); was to
become the fountainhead, the driving force, that compelling metaphysical desire, that would ask: WHO AM
I? Or rather in my case, I began by asking: Who is he, anyway? Who is he, that I need him to talk to my
God? It was then, that I fully accepted the responsibility of addressing my own God most directly; without
priest, without wood, brick or marble walls. My body had become my holy temple, and my mind had
become the vehicle that would lead me to commune with God. I had taken responsibility for my life. ---Phase two of the experiment was complete.
Homemade Eucharist
Funny, isn't it, how the psychology of youth will implant on your sensory and memory banks, what was to
me a family day. All of these seemingly nonsensical things were all wrapped up with mother's Sunday
meal, when we were all together as a family unit. Needless to say, Sunday at mom's place never ceased
to exist. Neither did the aroma of freshly baked bread, which had become homemade, instead. After being
served, it became my habit to reshape it until it was flattened. I would then carefully eat while rotating it
around until I was left with a quarter size piece---the last bit being the best. With a little childhood
imagination and the closing of the eyes, real bread became holy Eucharist; and I the officiant. Church had
come home! --- And on that day, phase three was made complete because I had found my God in the eyes of my mother.
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This essay is a testimony to the aforesaid two experiences: the latter religious and earthly; and the other
metaphysical and highly mystical. Both have become religio-spiritual events. This testimonial is an attempt
to coalesce the two. It has been a lifelong search to understand and bring them together. Not such an
easy thing to achieve when friends and associates find psychic phenomena in direct conflict with their
religious belief systems. It is not so easy for a child who was constantly told that she was an atheist or an
agnostic because she did not believe what they believed. Perhaps by writing this essay, I can help other
non-church-goers like myself. With all those points of lights I saw, there has got to be more like me out
there.
What's In A Name
The problematic has always been this. Never was I given the identity for the beings of light. So that, if I do
not claim to have seen Christ or the Blessed Mother, I cannot claim a religious experience. But how could
I?---Jesus and Mary were not their names. In such a cosmic universal state, beings of light do not have
names. There is no need.
Perhaps, now you can see, why I cannot wholeheartedly agree with Saint Paul and his Damascus
experience. (This does not mean, that he did not have a religious conversion. It does not mean that Paul's
experience was not real, for example). As I see it, Jesus could not have spoken to Paul and thus identified
himself---Never! If he' did, then he was less than pure white light. Rather, it was Paul, who gave his spirit
manifestation a name by calling it the Christ; just as I have chosen to call my points of light, my Archangel,
and the other my Divine Lady.
In Search Of Truth
I had read a most remarkable poem, "The Road Not Taken," by Robert Frost. It became a bible in which to live by. I have, in my metaphysical quest, indeed taken that less traveled road, that straight and narrow pathway that leads one into the spiritual transcendental light of immortality. But for me, that metaphysical walk was one deeply mixed with religious overtones and questions that shook the very foundation of my Christ oriented life. Naively, you see, I was searching after the 'truth' and the truth, I thought, lay somewhere in the history of the Church. (I say naively, because I already possessed 'truth'). As a young teenager however, I began to question my own religion. Not so much with a heretical view, for certainly a teenager does not do these things, but merely with an attitude of asking questions for the sake of arriving ultimately at universal truths. But where in heavens name is the truth? --- or should I say --- on earth, where is the truth? Where is the historical truth
concerning the four gospels and the life of Jesus called the Christ?
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