First published in the Summer 2012 ATransC NewsJournal
The Moon
Imagine the wonder the moon must have held for our ancestors. For many, even an understanding of the clockwork mechanism of orbital dynamics cannot diminish the wonder evoked by moonrise of a full moon.
In the Hermetic Traditions of the Tarot, “The Moon” (Key 18) represents conscious living. As the moon reflects light of the sun, so do seekers after truth express the source, depending on their progression. Seeing the Tarot as an illustration of the cycle of life: the seeker’s urge to learn (Key 4 – “The Emperor”) acts on a growing perception of the principles governing the operation of reality (Key 11 – “Justice”) to begin the conscious path toward self-determination (Key 18).
The concept is that we are governed by the primitive body consciousness until we have attained sufficient understanding to consciously direct our spiritual evolution.
White crow
In the page 10 essay, “On Being a Good Witness,” Tom talks about “white crows”: those encounters with the paranormal that cannot be dismissed as imagination or mistaken identity. White crows are necessarily personal experiences. They may be a shared encounter but whether or not they are or should be convincing depends on how well informed witnesses are and how well they can set aside unconscious social conditioning.
An important white crow for us occurred during a recent David Thompson séance. The entity responsible for managing energy required for phenomena during the séance, Timothy, had just finished demonstrating how small his hands were by showing each sitter a small, six-inch-square luminous plaque partially covered by one of his tiny hands. We had seen this before but the impact of what should be an important demonstration of phenomena had been lost because the poorly lit plaque is so difficult to focus on.
This séance was different. Timothy sat aside the plaque and went around the circle to touch each sitter’s hands. We were all holding hands as a way of assuring that none of us were moving about the room. Timothy came to each of us, and without hesitation or fumbling, grasped our fingers with his tiny hands. As Tom described it, “His hand was very small. I felt his short fingers wrap around one of my fingers on each hand. The distance between his knuckles could not have been more than three-eighths of an inch. His hands were warm and soft, like a child’s. There is no way anyone in that room could have faked such small hands or moved about in the completely dark room with such confidence.”
For us, that demonstration put everything else in perspective. All of Timothy’s actions; swinging a trumpet, playing with drumsticks and touching us, were from the physical perspective of a small child with tiny hands. Considering the need for the demonstration to be in complete darkness, that one white crow put the remaining forms of evidence into perspective, allowing us to accept the reality of that small boy’s materialization.
This poses an interesting question for sitters. Pretty much everything in David’s séance’s is designed to remove doubt while convincing the sitter that we survive beyond transition.
Even so, like the illuminated plaque for us, the meaning is often obscured by the confusion of darkness and unfamiliar activity. Again, it is an individual decision, but at some point the sitter must decide that one or two white crows provide sufficient reason to accept that the demonstration is as it is presented: proof that we survive transition.
