For a week during the summer of 1979, I attended the United Swimming Clinics camp. I was nine years old.
Apart from the strenuous pool work, there was one specific dry-land exercise, which would have the most significant effect upon shaping the rest of my life to date.
All of the campers were gathered together in a musical rehearsal room, large enough, quiet enough, and dark enough, for the Head Coach of the camp to successfully lead us through a creative-visualization hypnosis exercise.
As we were lying down on the cool floor, he relaxed us from toes to head, then he directed us to focus on our Third Eye, where we would visualize swimming a 100 meter race in World Record time. We were guided through the first three lengths of the race, focusing on the perfection of the most minute details of which such a feat would require. Then, arriving at the final length of our race, he allowed for us to "swim" the last leg on our own.
Upon touching the wall, we were to sit up, finishing both the race and the exercise. However for me, this final leg of the race was spent outside of my body, in observation of the scene around me. What I most remember is watching the Head Coach standing there, looking at the stopwatch in his hand, bringing us to the finish... and then seeing the the first group of finishers sitting up. Somehow in that moment, I knew that the guy who won the race moments later, was going to win the race.
Eventually I made the decision to finish my race, so I came back into my body, and sat up.
While I did not finish my race in World Record time, the experience of having left my body made enough of an impact that I continued to practice these relaxation and visualization techniques for the next seven years. Then came the moment when I realized that something was missing.
This was at the age of sixteen... living in a boarding school dormitory, when after lights out, I would go down the hall to experiment with Shiva's Holy Sacrament. No, I was not very dedicated my academic pursuits.
When I would return to my room, my roommate would invariably be sound asleep. So, in order to overcome the excited brain state, I turned to the creative visualization techniques. But after several occasions, I came to the understanding that something was missing, and that I needed to know more.
So, in one of the few moments in which I voluntarily chose to visit that library, I gathered together all the books available on the subject of meditation, and spent several hours going through them all. The one which stood out the most was a guide to Chakra Meditation.
Initial attempts were always confounded by my falling asleep. However, as with all new skills, persistence has its reward. Eventually the moment arrived when I was able to unite Heaven and Earth.
Suddenly I found myself floating high above the Earth, looking down from the stratosphere!
Recognizing this special opportunity for what it was, I decided to take advantage of the moment. My thought went to the image of the first Superman movie, with Christopher Reeve and Margot Kidder, when he turns back time by flying around the Earth fast enough to turn back time, so as to save the life of Lois Lane.
This movie clip is the best visual example I can provide:
My goal was differed from Superman, however, as I wanted to fly ahead of the rotation, to travel into the future. Next thing I knew, I was zooming around the globe, with fists clenched, occasionally looking down in wonder. At perhaps the fifteenth time around, I stopped suddenly, realizing that I had flown far enough, and that I then had to go back in the opposite direction.
The return trip came up maybe five circum-revolutions short of the original starting point. So I seem to have had left my Strangely exhausted from the experience, I chose to return to my body.
The next day, it was clear that everything had changed. Suddenly I was seeing, or knowing, around corners. For example, I knew who was coming to the door, who was calling on the phone (before the days of caller-id!), or I knew that the ball would be hit to me on the next pitch and where it would go, or while driving I knew that there was a hazard up ahead, such as a police speed trap, before other cues had revealed themselves.
By focusing on these moments, and through application of trial and error, I began to develop my own technique. For example, before setting off on a drive, I would send my awareness along the path to my destination. Somehow I was able to see points of potential danger on the coming journey. Without any doubt in my mind, this saved me from numerous speeding tickets, and a few potential accidents.
Imagine my surprise. when 10-15 years later, I learned that what I had been doing closely resembles the practice of Remote Viewing! The movie, Suspect Zero, is an over-dramatization of the subject, but well within the realm of possibility IMO.
Several more times during that period, I returned to the stratosphere for spirit walks. In one of those, I made a promise, which would lead me on a 22 year quest to keep my word. Stay tuned... for that story will be told soon enough.
Now, 39 years after that first experience, I am so thankful, and totally in awe, of those days of my awakening as a mystic.