Category Archives: Soul Travel

Parapsychology and the Soul: An Interview with Doug Marman by Jeffrey Mishlove

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By Doug Marman

This is my fifth interview with Jeffrey Mishlove, for his YouTube channel “Thinking Allowed,” and this is by far the longest, lasting almost an hour and 10 minutes. It covers a lot of interesting topics and was a lot of fun for me. It also took me back to my own childhood to see how close relationship with my older sister left an impression on me that affected my whole life.

The subject of this interview is parapsychology, such as the experience of ESP or telepathy, especially between twins. I also introduce a new way of looking at stories of alien abduction. And we talk about the ways that the inner worlds affect the physical.

Jeffrey has been studying parapsychology for decades. Since Jeffrey interviewed me about my books, in the the last four interviews, I thought it would be nice to bring the discussion to his favorite topic, to see if I could add any interesting thoughts based on my own experiences, and what I’ve learned from my study of “lenses of perception.”

If you find the video interesting, I suggest going to the video YouTube page. If you scroll down to read the list of comments, you will see a comment with 14 or more replies, written by “Lenses of Perception.” That’s me. I wrote this immediately after the interview. I added an interesting story that fits with this topic. It generated some nice comments.

Feel free to post questions or comments below. Thanks for the dialogue.

The Soul’s Journey: An Interview with Doug Marman by Jeffrey Mishlove

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By Doug Marman

This is my second interview with Jeffrey Mishlove, for his YouTube channel “Thinking Allowed.” The interview is about 55 minutes long. Jeffrey interviewed me about my book, The Silent Questions. Here is what Jeffrey says about the interview on his YouTube page:

Doug Marman describes his own unique path through life – starting with mystical and psychic experiences from childhood. Following his inner promptings, he dropped out of college and spent weeks alone in a tent in the woods. With only $35 in his pocket, he traveled to Las Vegas, Nevada, in order to connect with the spiritual school founded by Paul Twitchell. Working in the office there, he learned much and was fired twice. His intuitive insights led to a career in high-technology and over twenty patents.

Feel free to post any questions or comments below, or just enjoy the dialogue.

The Art and Science of Soul Travel: An Interview with Doug Marman by Jeffrey Mishlove

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By Doug Marman

Jeffrey Mishlove interviewed me for his YouTube channel “Thinking Allowed.” The interview is about 45 minutes long. It was a fun discussion. Here is what Jeffrey says about the interview on his YouTube page:

Doug Marman, an Eckankar practitioner, is author of The Whole Truth: The Spiritual Legacy of Paul Twitchell. Here he describes his involvement with the Eckankar religion going back nearly 50 years. He emphasizes the importance of experience, as opposed to doctrine, with regard to the nature of soul travel. He discusses contact with teachers and guides on inner planes and describes paradoxical reversals of meaning at different levels of consciousness. He also engages in a fascinating discussion concerning the “Space Intelligences” described in Mishlove’s book, The PK Man.

Feel free to post any questions or comments below, or just read the dialogue.

Weaving Shadows: Soul Traveling Through Dublin

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A guest article by: Thomas Stemmer

Lying on the bed late at night
I watch the patterns of shadows weaving about the room.
Paul Twitchell — The Flute of God

Living means experimenting. There is no way around it. No way to avoid it.

Thomas Stemmer in Dublin. Photo by Olga Stemmer

So it came to my mind that it might be possible to do some experimenting around the notions of happiness and unhappiness. Most certainly, the two options are always available. However, as some kind of a third and largely unconscious option, you can be unhappy without noticing it, mainly because all the other people around you are in an even worse condition and that still puts you in a rather comfortable position.

The moment I became aware of the fact that—at least—during the last decade I had not had a single moment of overwhelming happiness, come to me during a week’s stay in Dublin, Ireland.

From the very first moment of disembarking at the airport, I was almost shocked by a sensation of brightness, rough wonder and adventure. All was light and full of tension. Did that have anything to do with Dublin? Or just with myself? Or somewhat fifty-fifty? Could this have occurred anywhere else, too? Maybe. Maybe not. Who knows? Who cares to know? I certainly don’t. It was just there and it was overwhelming and it was good. After all, your state of consciousness is your state of acceptance, they say. So I stretched my inner hands out and grabbed it. It was mine. I vaguely remembered that I had undergone those ecstatic states of consciousness during my childhood when I grew up in a 16th century house, a labyrinth in style, dusty & full of stories and hidden corners. So now, it was Dublin. My Dublin now.

Had it not been Oscar Wilde, who was born in Dublin, who stated that in the end everything always comes out fine, and if it doesn’t, well, it is not yet the end? It is generally good to have some literary backup (quotes and the likes) in life. Maybe I should have another try to read Ulysses by James Joyce? Or Finnegan’s Wake? I jumped at this inner, spiritual food realizing how hungry I had been unconsciously. I think I acted wisely, since, after all, Paul Twitchell said in one of his taped lectures (I forgot which one), that if Spirit puts out something for us, we should take it and keep it to ourselves because it is ours.

Full of high-tense expectancy, I firmly grabbed the experience and held it close to myself. What would happen next?

I was soon to find out.

As the bus from the airport approached the city center, the excitement grew stronger. I could now see that Dublin was a town very much to my liking. There was a wild melancholy to it, clothed in an atmosphere that reminded me mainly of a more silent version of London, but also of the Netherlands.

The Book of Kells. Photo by Olga Stemmer.

During the next days I discovered the center, an incredibly huge and exciting book shop as well as a handful of antiquarian book shops, the Liberties quarter, Trinity College with its famous Book of Kells, old and somewhat dusty corners everywhere, the Irish Museum of Modern Art, the Spire, the strange and hidden back streets, the meal deals offered by supermarkets, the weaving shadows of this mysterious city.

Circular Stairs in the Old Library in Dublin, by Olga Stemmer

I spent the nights in the maze of a Victorian Age house that had been altered again and again in more that a century leaving behind a labyrinth. It was not easy to find my room. There, I read a book of Irish ghost stories every night before going to sleep filling my dreams with banshees and lepracauns: Quite amusing, yes.

Then it happened. Three or four times during my stay, at least once on Thomas Street (strangely funny, since my name in this incarnation is Thomas), I was overridden by some seconds of a sensation of pure joy. Joy I hadn’t experienced for such a long time.

When I came back from my stay in Dublin, it took me some time to develop an idea that should have been obvious, but, after all, I have always been a slow learner. Why, I asked myself, don’t I try to go to Dublin using the out-of-the body-techniques of Soul Travel taught by Paul Twitchell?

I decided this idea was just great and so I sat down to start with this journey immediately.

My plan was to imagine myself lying on my bed in the Victorian Age house, getting up and going down toward the entrance in order to step outside. Then I would follow Lord Edward Street (changing its name to Dame Street) in order to arrive at Trinity College. Turning left I would be led to O’Connell Bridge crossing the river Liffey. Then, it would only be necessary to go along O’Connell Street passing by the famous General Post Office (GPO) that – way back in 1916 – had been such a vital place for Ireland in finally becoming an independent nation in 1922, and then turning left into Parnell Street, to finally arrive at the huge bookshop.

Lord Edward Street, Dublin. Photo by Olga Stemmer.

That was my Soul Travel Map.

I thought, since I had very vivid images of Dublin in my mind, it should be easy to get into the mood fueling the experience-to-come.

It worked quite well. I felt the same excitement as in the physical Dublin where I had been a few months before. But still, I had this nagging feeling: Is it real? Or is it “just” my own imagination? On the other hand I did not consider it wise to think too much about it because it might distract the focus of my attention thus breaking the discipline involved in the act. But it came back again and again. It was nice and fulfilling but was it true?

So I just went on. Carefully I stopped to have a look at everything. The City Hall. The small street to the right leading to a place with the Molly Malone monument, always careful not to be run over by a car, a bus or by who-knows-what: The Irish drive on the left side! For a Continental European this can be pretty dangerous.

When I turned left in front of Trinity College approaching O’Connell Bridge, something started to go wrong. I could not put my finger on it, what it was, but as this bridge drew closer my vision started to get blurred. Everything went blank and I had to struggle to remain within the experience trying to regain clarity.

Then I was back again. Without taking too much notice of my surroundings I stepped on the bridge – – – and ran into a huge pot with a tree in it. I was utterly surprised, to say the least. Not only because such a stupid thing, such a freak incidence could happen to me, but also by the instant knowingness: There are no pots with trees on O’Connell Bridge! So how could I possibly stumble over one?

I looked around.

Then it dawned on me. I had not gone to O’Connell Bridge but had quickly—quickly as the wind—gone to Grattan Bridge!

Why?

I understood at once. The way over Grattan Bridge leading to Capel Street was a much better and shorter way to the bookshop in Parnell Street! I—Soul—the real ME, had quickly decided to change plans and had acted out this new option within the flick of a second. This is possible since Soul Travel is not dependent on time and space. It is just for the pure experience itself.

I had indeed soul traveled to Dublin.

Needless to say: I will try again.

The best is yet to come…

The Masks of God

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Masks of GodBy Doug Marman

(This article is quoted from The Silent Questions, pages 234-238)

If the people are Hindu, It has appeared as Krishna, Buddha, or Vishnu, so they would know him. It is Zeus to the Greeks; Jupiter to the Romans; Ishtar to the Babylonians; Varuna to the Aryans; Jesus to the Christians; and Allah to the Mohammedans. It has appeared to all in every age of this world since its creation. As the vehicle for God It has come in the form to which the people are most accustomed and by the name familiar to them.

These are the masks of God. The one timeless power guides and protects whoever may contact It in every age, yet we know no more of It than our own limited understanding. To see Its true form, to personally experience It in Its unlimited reality, we must remove the masks of God to look beneath.

No outer path, no holy book, no metaphysical formula can show It in Its full force. We must find for ourselves what is the truth behind all life. It is a personal journey.

“I have been asked what I mean by ‘The Beloved,’” Krishnamurti, a spiritual teacher who spoke out against the need for organized religion, told an audience in 1927. “To me it is all—it is Sri Krishna, it is the Master Kuthumi, it is the Lord Maitreya, it is the Buddha, and yet it is beyond all these forms. What does it matter what name you give?”

Krishnamurti freed himself of the religious images that hide reality. He had pierced this veil. Yet, fifty years later, he admitted honestly that he still had not solved the mystery.

“Some element is watching over. . . ” he said. “Something is protecting. . . It would be speculating to say what. (What we know) is too concrete, is not subtle enough. But I can’t look behind the curtain. I can’t do it. I tried with Pupul Jayakar and various Indian scholars who pressed me. . . Is this something which we cannot discover, mustn’t touch, is not penetrable? I am wondering. I have often felt it is not my business; that we will never find out. . . We are trying with our minds to touch THAT.”

Our minds cannot fathom God in its true form, for Mind creates mirrors and masks that hide the true reality. Like a computer searching for the source of its own intelligence, Mind can only generate more and more theories that reflect upon itself. Soul Travel is the solution to this impasse. Meeting the God force on the inner planes leaves no doubt in the mind of the seeker, for it is a direct experience of Soul. Unless we free ourselves of the human state, we have not gotten beyond our small range of personal reality. We have not yet touched the universal.

“(The) figures of my fantasies brought home to me the crucial insight,” Carl Jung, the psychologist, recorded in his autobiography, “that there are things in the psyche which I do not produce, but which produce themselves and have their own life. Philemon represented a force which was not myself. In my fantasies I held conversations with him, and he said things which I had not consciously thought. For I observed clearly that it was he who spoke, not I. He said I treated thoughts as if I generated them myself, but in his view thoughts were like animals in the forest, or people in a room, or birds in the air, and added, ‘If you should see people in a room, you would not think that you had made these people, or that you were responsible for them.’”

Jung reached beyond the conscious mind to understand the law of the unconscious – a greater world than our personal opinions and narrow theories can imagine. There, thoughts and feelings exist of themselves and we are the visitors that experience them. How did Jung come to this discovery?

“Shortly before this experience,” Jung explains, “I had written down a fantasy of my soul having flown away from me.”

According to Jung, this was a significant event, because Soul is our connecting link to the inner worlds. Therefore, if one has the experience of Soul leaving, said Jung, this means that it has withdrawn into the inner worlds where it gives life and visible form to an ageless reality.

With Soul Travel as his key, Jung explored further, opening the way from within, but could never quite open the final door. He had many experiences, but where did his insights come from? Who was Philemon? What was this force that was leading him? Jung continued to search for the Reality behind the mask.

“Psychologically,” Jung continued, “Philemon represented superior insight. He was a mysterious figure to me. At times he seemed to me quite real, as if he were a living personality. I went walking up and down the garden with him, and  to me he was what the Indians call a guru. . . In my darkness I could have wished for nothing better than a real, live guru, someone possessing superior knowledge and ability, who could have disentangled for me the involuntary creations of my imagination.”

Why are we, like Jung, so unwilling to accept our experiences for what they are? Why do we only go so far in our understanding of God, and then stop?

At times it seems too hard to shake free of our beliefs. We cannot forget the opinions of the world. Everything rises up in our imaginations to keep us from using the keys that we have. We are afraid that our fictions of reality will crumble, leaving us with nothing, yet this crumbling, this falling apart of everything we’ve been taught is the threshold to truth. This struggle, this dark night in our lives is the shadow before the inner gift arrives.

It can be the presence of the God power, an unexpected spiritual experience, a sudden new awareness. It might be simply a feeling of love, or protection. It is different for each, but it is as if we have crossed some invisible line and found our lives are changed. We find an inner guidance leading our steps, yet here too we must see beneath the masks of God.

“While I sat in the cathedral this morning,” wrote a young boy in his diary, Easter Sunday, 1886, (and later published anonymously as The Boy Who Saw True,) “I was wondering about a lot of things to do with God, even though mama would say it was very wicked, because she is always telling us it’s wrong to question what we are told. Then suddenly I saw Jesus, and he said, ‘It is never a sin to think, my son, but it is not always wise to tell one’s thoughts to others.’ And he smiled that lovely smile of his, and was gone. So now I’ve been thinking all the more, because if Jesus says it isn’t wicked to think, I don’t mind what anybody else says.”

The next day a similar experience came to encourage this young boy to see behind the masks of God. Once again Jesus appeared, and said:

“Be not troubled, my son, for that which the multitudes believe to be true is only the faintest shadow of Truth, and much of it is not the Truth at all.”

This boy had no preconceptions about what he saw. He had that wonderful quality of youth to accept and recognize the love of God that poured through this being he called Jesus. Yet, he was soon to learn the truth about this, as well. On   November 25, of the same year, he wrote the following:

“Wonders never cease! Fancy, I’ve been wrong about Jesus all this time, and I found it out yesterday. But I don’t care. Whoever he is I love him just as much, and if he asked me to crawl on my hands and knees to London town, I’d try and do it to please him, though I know he’ll never ask me to do anything so silly. Anyhow this is what I heard him say yesterday, ‘My son, be not sad if I tell you that I am not Jesus, but another one whose name is of no consequence, but who has been your teacher through many lives. . . Bear this in mind, my son: it is not what ye believe but what ye are that weighs with the Exalted Ones, for They look into the heart and not into the head to find the shining jewel.’”

Behind all things flows the river of life. Out of the heart of God it comes to bathe the world and soothe it. Thus the Godman appears in every age to find those who are ready. He can take any shape. He could appear to one or many in contemplation. He can appear as a thousand or even a million different forms to a million different people at the same time. Yet, he is always the one that links up Soul with the path to God.

Each know him by a different name, yet often he walks amongst us, unrecognized. We can try to glimpse him beneath ancient images, but we will only find him in his true form on the inner planes through the direct experience of Soul. Then, through his words, we hear the sound of God. Within his eyes we find the light. We then can travel with him as Soul into the higher worlds of reality.

Only Soul, our higher self, knows when it is time. Only Soul can recognize the call. And when the moment arrives, only Soul of itself can remove the masks of God.