Proof Of Afterlife By Awareness
The First Proof (Circa 1969)
The time was late fall of 1969. The place was Ann Arbor, Michigan, in the northern United States. I was eighteen years old. Ann Arbor is a college town. The feeling of excitement was in the air. Woodstock happened, on August 18, 1969. The Vietnam War was at its peak. The catch-phrase of the day was tune in, turn on, and drop out. That is pretty much what we did. Collectively, the youth thought we had a better way. We certainly were not in tune with what was happening in Vietnam. We were hippies and proud of it. The war affirmed our anti-establishment stance.
Timothy Leary became sort of a spokesman for my generation. Psychedelic drugs appeared for the first time. He called them mind expanding. We believed him. Earlier that year, I had tried one at a party. The term mind blowing is not an exaggeration. This was not subtle, like alcohol. On the contrary, it was visual. After about a hour hallucinations started to appear. Reality began to split and multiply. As it did, my environment became more complicated. As it became more complicated, the hallucinations multiplied in number. There was no way out. Then, all of a sudden, I had this idea. From chaos came clarity. I wanted to write the idea down but I didn't have a pencil and paper. I remember thinking, in my mind, that I couldn't get back to where I was before. Not physically but mentally. As soon as I had the idea, it was gone. That was about three months prior. I learned something important but I didn't remember what it was.
It isn't easy to stay focused on work when you are eighteen and these drugs are in the environment. Mind altering experiences like this make it seem whatever you are doing is a lot less important. School, jobs, and life's necessities didn't seem that important. That isn't good. At eighteen you need to compete for your place in society. Instead I did the opposite. I tuned in, turned on, and dropped out. A lot of us did.
Fall in Michigan can be beautiful. Fall is a period during the year when the days shorten but are still warm. The leaves on the trees turn yellow, red, and orange. The mosquitos are gone. Fall is that brief period where the weather is really good. Students return to class. The impending winter makes fall seem all the sweeter.
It was during this time when the party happened. It was one of those parties that turned into the party of the year. Everything just fell into place. Someone was able to rent an apartment for the evening. I don't even think it had furniture. The mix of people was just right, not too many and not too few. There was a mix of friends and strangers. It was one of those magical nights when everything just worked out perfectly.
We were college age in a college town. Tune in was the catch phrase of the day. Anyone aware of the college atmosphere in the 1970s knows what I'm talking about. The culture of hippies, Woodstock, and peace was in full bloom. Someone, I don't remember who, had purchases a cache of drugs for the party. Most of us took one. This was not anything unusual for my culture in 1970. The party was late teens and early twenty year olds coming together to get high with each other for one special evening.
The party was free of parental supervision. As the party began no one felt anything extraordinary. It was just young people sitting in an apartment talking in small groups. As the party got going, and the drug took effect, I remember thinking to myself how loud the conversations were. As the party developed, and the drug took hold on the group, there was feeling of love that engulfed the group. The closeness everyone felt was hard to describe. There was no shyness. There was no searching for conversation. On the contrary, people were emoting loudly in little groups. You could feel the closeness. It was palpable.
Unlike the first time I had taken a mind altering drug, this was far more subdued. Most people didn't feel anything unusual except the heightened closeness with others in the room. What I noticed is that the conversations became more vivid and intense. Not necessarily louder in terms of volume. They were louder in terms of the attention they demanded. They seemed more insistent on being heard, if you will.
I was always a problem solver. I wondered what was causing this heightened conversation effect. As the night went on, I began to realize that I was hearing more than I normally would. Whereas before while sober, I would hear one conversation. Now there we times where I was hearing more than one conversation. The sensation isn't what you think. It wasn't as though it was anything useful, like playing piano (with both hands). It was confusion. The manifestation of hearing more than one conversation was an increase of confusion. It was not pleasant.
Out of this crucible of confusion came the first theory, Proof of Afterlife By Awareness. What I experienced, while high, was that during life we listen to far less than what I was experiencing now. That experience opened me up to the idea that awareness doesn't end at death. In fact it does the opposite. Awareness gets enhanced. It goes up.
I remember sitting in the room, watching everyone had pared off into small groups. Within each small group was a conversation of intense interest. The people in the group were in rapt attention with their group members. There may have been ten or more groups in the room. I was struck with the thought that there are ten conversations in the environment, yet we hear only one. It was abundantly clear there is far more going on in the room than we are actively aware of.
What I say that evening was a key. The key was my mind in confusion. Normally, when in a room full of conversations, you tune into one and tune the others out. You are relaxed, controlled, and at ease. That evening I had no ability to tune the other conversations out. They were all equally important. The result was confusion. I was not relaxed, controlled, nor at ease.
To most people that evening the heightened awareness they experienced meant nothing. They were in party mode. Heightened awareness was no big deal. But to me it was a big deal. This seemingly insignificant opening of awareness held the key to the afterlife. It proved afterlife. Now, fifty years later, I will show you exactly how heightened awareness proves afterlife. Here is the first proof, Proof of Afterlife By Awareness.