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Alternate Perceptions Magazine, July 2017


PSI: It Is What It is
One Writer's Story of a Psychonautic Accomplishment, Revelations Gleaned, and a Personal Victory Over Deception and Misunderstanding

by: Stan Morrison



NOTE TO THE READER

Back in the 1970s, I had the privilege to speak with parapsychologist D. Scott Rogo regarding one of his books, which had just hit the bookstands. The conversation concerned the internal and external nature of the paranormal and whether what we all were investigating (ghosts, monsters, UFOs, etc.) were the projective product of humans or were phenomena wholly apart from us. I mentioned how his book seemed to conclude that everything was internal or due to human consciousness, our brains and nervous systems. “I didn't say that!” he protested. Of course, I didn't argue the point. The phenomena studied in his book was self evident as unlikely to be strictly the result of our internal psychic nature.

It has long been the pursuit of parapsychology to determine and define the internal and external nature of psi (psychic phenomena). All too often the line is so fine it almost seems purposefully confusing to the investigator. Sometimes it seems obvious it is one or the other. Because of scientific discoveries and advancements, today we may have found the source of the external – not theoretically but quite real and solid.

Most, or a great deal, of the paranormal phenomena mankind has experienced can be termed internal (this is partly the “psyche” in “psychic” phenomena), while the actual energy source is earthly and connected to the internal. But as I mentioned we now know there is a Universal source that is psychic, solid, and real that's role is beyond psi of the collective unconscious.

As I've mentioned, what we are seeing today in many churches, social and spiritual organizations, including political organizations, and even prayer, is the product of humankind or the psychic internal.

However, as will be pointed out at the end of this, the solidity of the Divine is omnipresent and manifests at a level above internal psi. The connection is only in the nature of the energies involved.

As will be shownb, it took years of study, and Altered State applications, to correctly observe and determine our strange natural and Supernatural history, lives, and existence.


Foreword

As more and more RSPK occurred at our Morris, Oklahoma home (tremendous “slams” on the outside of the house, small objects flying from the back bedrooms and rop onto the living room floor, light bulbs completely dimming only to rebrighten seconds later, invasions of many hundreds of brown recluse spiders, rat snakes coming out of a drain of a bathtub), I felt this poltergeist assualt was starting to be too much to take. I didn't exactly take off running down the street screaming, but decided to lock up and visit an nearby relative in Okmulgee, the town closest by, and where I happened to have been born. I was there only minutes, sitting in grandma's front room, when the phone rang. I answered it and it was my uncle Dean. “Stan, are you sitting down?” he shouted. “Morris is gone!”


Chapter One

“Don't Let The Holy Ghost Get Me!”

If I would have known an argument over green-fried tomatoes would have led to a long paranormal nightmare, I would have been gladly satisfied with a supper of crow, literally.





My antagonist, my roommate, was Mike Hess, a former high school offensive tackle weighting in at an obscene and obese 320 pounds, and he felt he should have his rightful share of the tomatoes – ¾ – for the house in which we lived was initially rented by him, and his father. (1) These were tomatoes grown by the former residents, and they could barely be seen among the tall weeds that covered more than an acre at this house in Rosemead, California. It was 1974, and Mike and I were business partners doing, most of the time, landscaping for area homes and apartment buildings. Needless to say, money was rare after expenses, so fried tomatoes between two pieces of bread tasted quite good at the time.

I shouldn't have socked him in the jaw over stupid green-fried tomatoes. I was 16 and weighed in at 120 pounds. The result, I now know, would be worse than the initial, single powerful punch in my face that knocked me through two rooms and against a wall, where I slunk slowly to the floor. When looking in the mirror, I could clearly see my smashed nose was serious, and there was nothing I could do about it. Little did I know that it would cause strange, preternatural problems in my future to come.

A year prior, as a small 15-year-old boy in the summer of 1973, in West Covina, California, my focus was on sex and having a good time. (2) As far as growing up and becoming a man, that was in the future. It is true that I was a serious student, but by my own standards. I was failing academically, but felt I was intelligent enough to pull out of my malaise and be alright. Others had their opinions. They felt my esoteric pursuits, journalism-wise, were not realistic in the scheme of things. (3)

One night, however, changed everything, as I became closely aquainted with a whole new phenomenon, one that was not merely an apparition or ghost, or a precognitive dream revealing a future event. No, this pretty much changed my whole perception of strange phenomena. It was not an occurrence of “nairy fairy new age psi” but a concrete addition to my internal file of valuable and unique facts, those that existed on the periphery of human experiences.

Taking short cuts to avoid the guard at the entrance to the Covina Hills Mobile Country Club, I, at 15, decided to hike the hilly interior of the “adult section” to the convenience store. It was around 10 p.m. On my return, Marlboros in hand, I crawled over the four-foot wall that was part of the perimeter of the property.

Suddenly, directly above me at an altitude of no more than twelve feet, was a fantastic solid craft, sporting on the bottom a circle of multicolored lights with a huge white light in the center. I could see the surface of the object. It was smooth and white. It was about fifteen feet long and ten feet wide.

It gradually moved forward, lights rotating and blinking. I tried to recall the luminous colors: green, red, yellow, blue, turning and blinking. The huge white light remained stationary at the center of the circle.

I shouted, “A UFO!” At that time, I had read only one UFO book, Frank Edwards's Flying Saucers: Serious business (1966).

It passed over me and at a slow speed continued on into the interior of the adult section of the mobile home park. I was not going to lose this thing. I continued to run after it, keeping my sight on its direction of flight.

Many others saw it that night, but wrote it off as a balloon. Their observation was from at least 300 yards, and by that time it was only exhibiting the large white light. This Could Encounter of the First Kind was a real game changer for me. (4)

Susan was a great friend. She was an Irish girl, 29 years old, from the hills of Georgia. Slim, with red, long hair, she lacked the typical southern drawl. As an L.A. guy, I was a bit surprised there was a lot for me to learn. My main intellectual interest was parapsychology and ESP. It was June 1973.

Susan was a friend of my mom's, and she was happily invited to stay at our place until she got on her feet. (5) Mom was that kind of person, and, besides, I was the only one that lived at her house. I guess she felt that Susan and I would get along well.

We got along more than just well, though. Susan and I were like brother and older sister. Because of my “limited” wardrobe at 14, she decked me out with great new pants, shirts, and shoes. Looking back, she seemed to have plans. We'd lay in our shorts and barefooted on a fold-out couch, talk about everything from Disneyland to paleontology, to parapsychology. We were buddies, with her at the helm. 1973 was a wonderful time for me.

On one weekend, Susan took me to the La Brea Tar Pits, with me wearing my new clothes and shoes. I'd never be the same. One has to really experience that site of extinct skeletonized, once common fauna that occurred here in America. Susan took me to several natural history museums, also. In the end, I was so much more enlightened. I was aware of these animals once thriving here thousands of years ago, but there was nothing like seeing thousands and thousands of their bones amassed in a bizarre, senseless menagerie of death in a tangled massive medium of tar. Here were numerous extinct giants such as woolly mammoths, woolly rhinoceroses, saber-toothed cats, huge cave bears, and various herbivores and carnivores; literally thousands of species, many extinct, many still a part of todays's ecosystem.

On another interesting evening, Susan told me about a happening that occurred in Georgia several years prior to the then present 1973. She was among a number of individuals that became focused on an unusual sight high in the sky on the outskirts of Macon, Georgia. It was a “circle of multi-colored lights,” rotating and blinking. It seemed they were attached to an object.

Many observers thought the object must be “night-time skydivers.” But they never descended normally to lower altitudes. The multi-colored circle remained high in the night time sky. Local press were there, and the unidentified object became a story on the local news. It remained a UFO.

I knew very little about UFOs. Compared to paranormal or psychic phenomena, I then assumed they were something alien and absolutely not in the same class as psi. At that time, it just didn't seem to be a “respectable” phenomenon.

That girl eventually moved on, back east and probably Georgia. I never heard from her again. I went on with my life as a small kid reluctantly attending high school. Thinking I should focus on a job and making real money, I took the high school equivalency exam and the GED, passed, and then had my future on which to focus. Still, I stayed at school until I was a sophmore. I was a journalism student, and felt many of my teachers were my friends. I actually was given an assignment to assemble a library from a ton of scrambled volumes, books, magazines, etc., that were donated to the school. Though I never completely accomplished the goal, I was able to collect numerous first-edition books on parapsychology and UFOs. Since I was doing all the work, I was able to keep these. I learned a great deal about the phenomenon I had observed back in July 1973, the UFO that appeared above my head and which left no doubt in my mind about ufology or UFOs.

As a journalism student and a student of the paranormal and UFOs, I thought I should document my close encounter and see, belatedly, if there were other such UFO sightings at the time and in that area.

I had published one article on the phenomenon of precognition in the early seventies, when I was fifteen, in the San Gabriel Valley Tribune (“Psychic Insights Valuable”), but thought I should find some corroborating cases on the UFO I had seen, then publish the UFO story. This is when I became acquainted with Ann Druffel of the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON).

It never dawned on me that only a few months before my reality changing close encounter, a nice girl from Georgia would enlighten me on UFOs, and, coincidentally, describe the same object I was to encounter.

(It would seem to most readers that the crushing blow to my face described at the beginning of this chapter—a very deep and damaging deviated septum—could in a way be the major contributor of future psi and synchronicities. This was a finding not easily reached. It will be examined in great detail in future chapters.)

Representing MUFON in Southern California in 1975, Ann Druffel has, to this day, been a first-rate investigator and rep for MUFON. I learned, after contacting her in 1975, that 1973 was a huge “UFO wave.” She immediately supplied me with sighting reports that occurred on the same night as my encounter, and others that occurred around the same time. After talking to Ann Druffel on several occasions, I learned the UFO I saw (chased) was a classic UFO.

I soon published my report, along with a drawing for Highlander Publications, a company that published small newspapers all throughout L.A., and greater L.A. The initial article, two printed news pages in length, was entitled, “Valley Resident Documents Area UFO Sightings.” The piece actually ran for a couple of years under different titles. The headline above was in June 1975.

After having such a close encounter as I did in 1973, one, at first, feels sort of special. But the actual fact is that there are thousands of such experiences all the time in the U.S., and throughout the world. I didn't realize this until I read more of the literature and spoke to Ann Druffel. The big periodicals at the time were Flying Saucer Review out of England, FATE magazine, and various UFO publications mostly out of New York. Some of these publishers are still active to this day, valiantly writing and reporting on the UFO phenomenon.

Some people think UFOs are here and there sometimes, when in fact they are a global enigma that is present all too often. It sometimes doesn't make sense, since the phenomenon should be beyond doubt, as far as being objectively real. I think people in the know really don't know what to make of it. I know what I observed was not some kind of ghost. Perhaps the UFO is pluralistic in its nature – it is solid and fixed, while on the other hand it acts as an advanced psychic manifestation. At least, what is experienced today.

My newspaper article on my sighting back in 1973 received feedback. I got letters from intelligent people who had interesting sightings of “orange globes” to fast-flying objects clearly, to them, of some kind of technology.

I think today, from listening to such programs as “Coast to Coast AM,” and programs only accessed on the World Wide Web, it seems scientific ufologists feel it is both solid/fixed, ethereal, and sometimes somewhere in between.

In a strange way to us, the UFO works at many levels, which incorporate our physiology, our systems of belief, and the system of perception and external physical reality. This took over thirty years to figure it out. It wasn't fun. But it is what it is. Again, all I know is the 1973 object was a craft. Others to come were perhaps those that were somewhere in between. I never really kept records on the more ethereal types. But I have to say I did record in detail a “ship” that appeared at a fairly meaningful time, a period that was yet to come.

The town of Chino, California, to me, would turn out to be an odd place to live.

Chino is an agricultural town located very near the border of San Bernardino and Riverside Counties. Probably the most known aspect of the town is that it is the home of the California Institute for Men, and Women, and Juveniles. The Youth Authority there is one of California's largest lock-ups for criminal offenders below the age of 18. Other than that, the economy rests on mostly Alfalfa and dairy farms. It is also the home of “Boy's Republic,” a juvenile delinquent institution funded mostly be Steve McQueen. It is designed to help young, misguided offenders before they inevitably enter the adult world of crime and adult prison. McQueen believed it you caught them young and, through discipline and education, kids could be saved from ruined lives and criminal futures.

I moved to Chino in 1974 with my older brother Billy and another roommate, Ralph Henry. Ralp was a former star high school football player who was now a full-time college student at Cal Poly, Pomona. Since I was still a high school student (even though I had a GED, etc.), I reluctantly attended. I got along, and tried to do my best. We lived way on the outskirts of town in another trailer in another trailer park. It was a fairly large one though, and had once been very upscale. Bill chose this location because of work as a journeyman ironworker where jobs in Riverside and San Bernardino were close; Ralph because his campus was close. I went along as a roommate, hoping to keep up a share rent.

It didn't take long to break up the monotony and unspectacular existence of College Bowl games, when my pals and I decided to drive out to the “Swing,” at the edger of the Chino Hills, as it borders on the small community of Los Serranos. This area bordering on the foothills was a wildlife sanctuary for mostly ducks and geese, where there was plenty of water from drain-off from huge farms and springs. It settled in the lower elevations, creating marshland. I'd now lived in Chino over a year. This place was a huge gulch with tall hundred year-old eucalyptus trees enshrounding this injury-waiting-to-happen source of local entertainment. It was night, around 8:30 p.m., and we decided to go there, for nothing better to do.

I don't know why we drove there, since none of us were prepared to actually hang by that rope and swing out above the boulders twenty-five feet below.

In any event, we hopped the barbed wire fence and proceeded toward the stump from which one would launch into the air above the dark abyss. On the other side of the gorge was the 18th hole of the Chino Hills Golf Course.

My group, without flashlights, walked through the trees toward the stump and gorge. I happened to be at the lead. Next to me was Ken Mills, 17, who was a great guy with an athletic body and impressive skills of gymnastics. On his heels was one of my best friends at the time, Randy, an athlete from Tucson, Arizona, who excelled in Golden Gloves boxing and track and field – especially pole vaulting. Next to him was another kid who was a resident of the mobile home park. He merely tagged along with us that night. Rocky, Randy's older brother, was still in the car and behind the wheel. He was the strongest and toughest person I had known; a Golden Gloves boxer who could bench press 320 pounds ten times in a row. He was a mellow and nice guy, but you wouldn't want to mess with him.

This “thing” – whatever it was – charged at us as we were walking in, like we were trespassing on its space! It was an animal-like assault. It was an instant rush at us. We went the opposite direction, in a flight of instinct. There is no doubt this thing was bipedal. The fear or panic cannot really be described accurately. It knew we were walking in, and made sure we didn't go any farther. It was on two legs and was not a person. It was ferocious and intent on scaring the holy hell out of us, and making sure we left the scene.

I guess this kind of thing only happens once in ones life, or that it is rare. As we got back to the barbed wire fence, none of us could even speak. And we never mentioned the incident. We just drove off. I think I remember Rocky, who didn't even cross over the barbed wire fence, had a little tear of fear falling down his cheek.

I later wrote about this in a magazine article, and I quoted Ken Mills. “That thing had to have been one of those bigfoot creatures,” he commented. Since he was right next to me, he seemed to have been more attentive than I was at first.

He said “it,” at first, was slowly stepping ahead, and then went ballistic and rushed us. In conclusion, I can say that this “thing” was very man-like in its locomotion, yet very wild in its charge and intentions. I wish I would have seen it.

As I mentioned earlier, the encounter was later published in an article I wrote in the Fall of 1981, in TRUE Outer Space and Paranormal World Quarterly, under the feature, “Adventures of a Paranormal Researcher.” This was reviewed before publication by Davey L. Stephens, Ph.D., who observed one of the strange enigmas that happened in Chino in 1974.


ATTACK OF THE PEPPERONI PIZZAS

Chino was indeed a strange place. I found it additionally weird when the immediate area of our monster encounter became, less than a year later, invaded by hundreds of myxomycetes or slime mold amoebas.

Slime mold amoebas are an extremely primitive form of life. These life-forms are both plant and animal, and are actually some of the most primitive life-forms existant on Earth. They are a transition species. They are not at all that common. Yet in that one area of Los Serranos, large numbers appeared, and were quite a sight experienced by the people in that neighborhood. One witness, again Ken Mills, described them as looking like “pizzas,” round, a foot or so in diameter, and were actually on the surface of the paved surface streets of Los Serranos. There appeared to be many dozens of them. Newspaper reporters and experts showed up and examined them. They were identified as “slime molds.”

I had moved from Chino not long after the monster encounter, so I relied only on reports from first hand observations. These critters were certainly unusual, especially in such numbers. One direct observer said they looked like a “pizza out in the middle of the road.” But when they'd go back an hour later, the “pizza” had moved three or four feet.

I was living in Baldwin Park, California, but I was kept informed on these unusual slime molds.

This invasion of myxomycetes was exactly in the vicinity of the monster encvounter. Go figure. I always wondered what in the hell was that creature doing so close to houses? And what was up with those slime mold amoebas?

There was something about Chino. Two acquaintances of mine in Chino had seen a “black panther” in those Chino foothills. In fact, I recall one individual (Lee) was a trained and prolific rock climber, and the other was a marine (a local enlisted man), and they went into those hills with 12-gauge shotguns in an attempt to kill the mystery cat. This was before my encounter with the biped.

Long before I moved from this enigmatic area of a black panther, an aggressive mystery biped, and slime molds, we used to cool off and swim the rapids that were the terminus of the concrete canals from surrounding farms. This drainage, now a mud and earthen river, went for miles. When the man-made canals stopped, the water and current created rapids and pools that were generally permanent. It eventually drained out westward and created a large wetland. Some of the pools could get over 20 feet deep.

Davey L. Stephens, Ph.D., and I used to just sit by the bank and enjoy the rapidly moving water. Often on the bank there would be calm water of a pool.

We both observed a type of fish, on several occasions, inch its way out of the muddy water onto the bank. They would just sit there until a small insect would cross their path. In the blink of an eye, they would grab the gnat, etc., and be back in the water in an instant. The only fish that I've found that resembled them in size and appearance were the climbing perch of Central Asia. Chino? Go figure.

In the article mentioned above, Dr. Stephens read it and commented, “I remember those fish!” He had forgotten them until the piece was published. Chino was an experience, and ultimately became fodder for the magazine article.

I did learn from the creature attack: such things were real and solid, and the “being” seemed more man than ape. Beyond the foothills of Chino and travelling west as the crow flys, is a National Forest along the Pacific Coast with sizable peaks and forests of continuous evergreen.

The answer as to why such things are condensed in experience (UFOs, creatures, etc.), lies not so much in an alien-monster connection, but in the nature of our physiology and perception and their relation with time and physical reality. This took quite a while to figure out and realize. The UFO close encounter and the monster attack, etc., happened only over a two year period.

In the early morning hours, around 3 a.m., I was awakened by a frightening attack, not one quite like the monster in Chino, but a thing that existed on a level somewhere between my sleep-state (somnambulistic) and a reality of normal, awake or alert perception. I had no time to reach for my firearms in the closet (a Thompson sub-machine gun and a .22 rifle), nor would they have done any good. This personage, or entity, was gross, dead, and seemed to be female. It was an outrageous assault of being smothered and compressed. I did fight, though. In that somnambulistic, half-awake state, it retreated down the hall, it seemed.

I sprang to my feet and met my brother, Bill, in the hall. “Did you see that?” I asked. He nodded his head in the affirmative. I returned to my bedroom and tried to get more sleep. I glanced at my alarm clock. It was 3:15 a.m. I had to get up at 5:30 a.m. However, I couldn't sleep, nor could Bill. I got up and asked him what had happened. He merely said that it approached him also. But when he sprang awake and went into the living room, our manx cat was laying in the center of the room, dead, and stiff as a board. Bill immediately took it to the dumpster.

This whole episode happened only six months or so after moving from Chino. We were living in Rowland Heights, L.A. County. Our roommate, Ken Mills, also was living there, though he was not there that night.

This kind of experience I had was what is known as a “hagging” experience. In recent times, because of Art Bell and Coast to Coast AM, it is known as an attack by the “old hag.” “Hag” is correct, but this is a phenomenon that exists in folklore of the ancient Celts, the Scots and Irish, and those on mainland Europe. The verbage at the time described it as a “hagging.” It seems to be fairly common. From having had the experience, it is like the “spirit” is trying to push itself into you, via your upper chest area. “It” does sit on your chest, and seems to be female the majority of the time. But it exists in a conscious dimension that can only be related to in a semi-relaxation, sleep-like state. The entity's appearance is wicked beyond belief. It's really something you do not want to experience.

On a brighter side, I had landed a nice job in Rowland Heights, at Purex Pool Products where I assembled pool heaters. On my time off, I continued my studies and experimented with illustrations in the UFO area. I had a series of illustrations used by Ann Druffel in some of her MUFON presentations. An example can be found in her book, How to Defend Yourself Against Alien Abductions, 1998, page 80.

Not long afterwards, everything went south. I screwed up my back lifting pool heater chassis onto the assembly line, Mills went back to Arkansas after selling his corvette, and Bill and I decided to move in with mom at her condo in Baldwin Park in east Los Angeles. Bill was a great help to her; I was collecting worker's comp.

Also living with us was Dolores Navidad, Bill's girlfriend. This girl was gorgeous, and also, in her own right, intelligent as an individual can come. She was a Mexican-American from El Paso, Texas, who was now a full-time college student at the University of California at Irvine. We spent way too much time together, but it was an experience way beyond value. Bill was often working out of town building something; mom had—as always—a nine to five job as a secretary and bookkeeper. Since Dolores was on spring break, and I was not working and only attending a few classes a day, she and I spent a great deal of time together. We seemed to have intellectual interests.

I realized we really connected when one morning she felt she could tell me about something that had been happening to her for some time. She knew of my parapsychology interests, and realistic pursuits concerning such matters.

One morning, after everyone had gone, and she and I were considering playing chess or watching TV, she explained what had long been on her mind, and body. Dolores had been waking up with unexplainable “scratches” (some of them fairly deep) on her back, arms, breasts, and legs, for years. She was 19.

I couldn't explain it. All I could tell her was that I had heard of it before, and that it wasn't uncommon. She had scratches on her back where she could not reach herself. Dolores was a great girl and I'm sure that today she is doing just fine.

I kept up with what was happening in the UFO/paranormal field, but didn't publish. I was then seventeen and it was now the bicentennial and 1976. The current works of any importance (in my opinion) were John A. Keel's The Mothman Prophecies (1975) and The Eighth Tower (1976), D. Scott Rogo's The Haunted Universe (1976), and, of course, Brad Steiger's Gods of Aquarius: UFOs and the Transformation of Man, a 1976 volume. Of course, there were other significant works, including Allen Hendry's The UFO Handbook. But for the general audience, I feel it was primarily Keel, Steiger, and Rogo, as far as the bestselling, popular writers in the paranormal literature.

Since I had not really paid my dues as a writer, I figured I'd attend high school and enlist in the army in a year or so. During school, I did keep up my research and kept up to date in the fields of parapsychology and ufology. My goal was to ultimately attend UCLA Extension, attain a degree, and, with luck, work with Dr. Thelma Moss at the Parapsychology Lab at UCLA. I worked part-time at Paragon Plastics and hungh around the journalism department at the local high school.

At that time, Dr. John Lilly's work concerning human awareness and consciousness was at the forefront. His isolation-floatation tanks were the rave. His tanks became even more well known a few years later when one was featured in the “Altered States,” starring William Hurt.

Also happening right at that time was the work of Professor Wilson Brian Key and his revelations on subliminal art and messages in the media and advertizing. At school, I had everyone into it; including the teachers. Every day someone would show me something new in the popular magazines that revealed a “subliminal message” or a type of “hidden art.” Many were legitimate.

I consulted a friend of mine, Patrick Smythe, who was a veteran copywriter, and he confessed some of it was real but in the course of a day's work, there just wasn't time to conspire and produce subliminals in advertizing photographs and copy. The real explanation lies in the psychology of seeing things in the outer edges of pictures and perception, similar to seeing logical shapes in the clouds, etc. But also, this is the whole realm of paranormal visuals (apparitions, etc.) and many of the examples are exactly that—psychical manifestations.

Nonetheless, the phenomenon exists, and it seems I started a collecting frenzy among the journalism department for “hidden art.” I ended up having several file folders of samples pointed out by teachers and interested students.

Professor Key died in the 1980s and subliminal art and messages seemed to sink into the beyond, as did Professor Key.

When I turned 17 and the middle months arrived, I took the GED again and passed. I soon enlisted in the U.S. Army and did my stint. It was peacetime and in fact, it was a huge draw down from the war in Southeast Asia (Vietnam). I received an Honorable Discharge, and what I can say is that Americans can always trust their army to be the best. It was January 25, 1979.

Things were changing for sure then. Mom got a great job for a new plastics company. It required her to travel all over the south and midsouth. The next thing I knew I was sent a plane ticket with the understanding I would help mom travel, maintain the house, and live in the new home in Morris, Oklahoma. I really had no options. I immediately got a job as a columnist for the Exposure News, and soon after that became a stringer for The Daily Oklahoman (the outdoor column). Freelance writing also became a part of my life.

In my life at the time, one's knowledge and skills were purely a matter of private enterprise. I believe this totally and am certain that such individual pursuits pave the way for interesting and valuable participant observations.

One of my earliest memories in Oklahoma was when I was only two years old. I was born in Okmulgee, and the pentacostal church was the only true and accurate form of worship with my family. Not so much with my dad, who was a life-long basketball coach and school teacher. At that tender age of two, I recall being in church with my grandmother, and the preacher was screaming this and that about the Holy Spirit and the Living God, and it scared my pants off. I remember shouting, as a little boy, “Don't let the Holy Ghost get me!”

The experience really didn't alter my belief system as a Christian, for I always maintained my belief in Jesus, and continued as a Christian throughout my life. Maybe not the best Christian, but a sincere Christian nonetheless.

Twyla, my mother, was certainly the more “spiritual” in my immediate family. Dad, in California, was head of the math department at Rosemead High School in Southern California in the sixties, and his life was purely pragmatic. He worked hard at his profession and job as head basketball coach. He was hardly what you would call “New Age.”

In the early sixties, mom used to tell me about an “entity” experience she had had in the late fifties in Preston, Oklahoma, where my dad was the principal of the high school. In those days, the principal and his family were provided a small house directly across from the little campus.

When I moved back in 1980, she showed me the place. Mom's strange experience definitely made an impact on her.

What she had was a night time invader known as a “tall, dark, shrouded figure.” Due to the Art Bell Show and Coast to Coast AM, these entities became known as “shadow people.” In any event, they are actually not that uncommon, and project a sheer presence of overwhelming evil. They have been described as actually darker than the darkness in which they appear. Sometimes these entities will sport a silhouette where a hat is noticed. They usually are tall (six to seven feet), but much shorter such beings have been reported and even photographed. These types have one thing in common – they project pure evil. They usually show up when you are trying to relax and go to sleep. They can create quite an impression on a person. I think it is pretty obvious that the focus of these beings – the experiencer – is a victim of a psychic assault by some pretty nasty intelligences.

From a very early age, such phenomena created quite an impact on me as a realistic boy who loved science. I knew, intuitively, that such encounters as the “Tall, Dark, Shrouded Figure” represented a whole fascinating and important area of human experience that should be studied. And it had been, by very professional investigators. I just think there were problems with the public relations aspect. I think I, at that young impressionable age, wanted to explore, and hopefully explain and somehow enlighten people about this ultra-fascinating part of humankind and our environs. Well, maybe I could at least write about such matters. Mom had the encounters with the night time invader until they moved from Preston. Dad never admitted he saw it, but mom claimed he began to sleep with a hatchet under the bed.

On a much lighter note, I very much remember a sunny afternoon in 1973 when my girlfriend, Stephanie, and I went to Disneyland, and I stood on the second level of “Future Land,” next to the “People Mover.” From this upper position I saw Stephanie in the crowd below and saw how beautiful she was. I realized how fortunate a guy I was, and had a sort of revelation concerning the value of life and my position in it. She was a terrific young woman, but her future – as a high school senior – would not be mine to share. I respected her way too much. Stephanie was an eyewitness to my UFO, though our Disneyland trip was prior to the encounter. I think even at that time I had plans concerning my future as a journalist.

Such contemplations and unique views of life are sometimes experienced by all of us. Sometimes, because of events and experiences (some paranormal), we realize there is a guideline and purpose to follow, hopefully with some objectivity and reason. Science is always a good path to follow.

To one who sacrifices and chooses this life, altered states can become more than just an experience, but maybe an important endeavor that becomes a new and vital direction in parapsychology. Again, science and its relation to reality can justify choices we make, choices we sometimes make with other's welfare in mind.

Most altered states of consciousness (ASCs) are the result of mental illnesses which are a serious and fixed problem in the human brain, and are purely a physical medical situation. This is not saying these “altered states” are not psi conditions, and often objective experientially. It only states the experiencer is in no way in control.

We call these often uncontrollable states “schizophrenia,” “schizo-affective,” “bipolar disease,” and outright psychosis. To seize the forward functioning within experiencers of these diseases, we (or medical science) applies powerful drugs to affect the brain to break up the hallucinatory patterns of thought that make the altered states. These states of awareness can be a nightmare to the victim, but only rarely a danger to others. It does occur, however.

It has always been this way over the centuries. Insanity seems to be a major part of the human experience.

Symptoms such as telepathy and psychokinesis (the result and indications are mostly synchronistic events) are perceived by the victim and experienced in a covert way. This is a horrible situation, a nightmare from which the experiencer cannot escape. Hallucination (non-objective and internal) rules their daily experience. All too many, perhaps most, experience psi in the form of telepathics and psychokinetic projections. In most instances, it's a purely parapsychological issue.

I found it so interesting in the movie “Altered States,” when the psychonaut, portrayed by William Hurt, experienced an overide where his limbic system took over and manifested physically in the form of a primitive, hairy biped.

Perhaps at much deeper levels of our brain one may have manifestations that reflect the “R” complex, which is vitually the “Reptilian” and primal, inner part of our brain. It is part of the brain stem. What would the manifestation(s) be then? I later found out, much to my horror. At a different level, though, it manifests everyday among all of us.

None of this is new. Brain physiology, myth, and psychical manifestations are a real matter observed and documented by many of our great minds in anthropology, psychology, psychiatry, parapsychology, and cosmology.

As in the movie “Altered States,” paranormal manifestations prompt one to question, scientifically the nature of physical reality and the electromagnetic force that powers the life form.

On our voyage throughout this book, it'll be decided, to most reader's satisfaction, as to whether Other Beings are indeed completely external and independent. Right now, my stance is there is no question that other intelligent beings, spiritual and physical, are a past and present reality.

The new directions in parapsychology in the sixties, seventies and eighties, definitely were internal explorations (inner space and psychonautics) or ASC research. This research will be essential to our understanding and evolution.

The founding fathers of psychical research, Gurney, Meyers, Sidgewick, and others, all were interested in our deep ontological natures, but the more immediate issues in the early years demanded attention. These included various physical instances of mediumship and if the phenomena studied proved life after death. Psychonautics really only became a research endeavor in the other areas of ESP investigation after the appearance of synthetic and natural hallucinogens arrived on the scene in the twenties and thirties. I have to say, however, that scientific participation in other cultures' rituals using hallucinogenic substances goes back a lot longer than that. And also mediumistic ventures should be considered a “psychonautic” exercise. Controlled altered state experiences allowed trained scientists to understand – the complexities of our minds, and the power of symbology and myth.

These adventures were eventually honed to include “sensory deprivation.” The average person does not quite understand exactly how much valuable data was received by pioneering Inner-Space explorers. It turned out the knowledge attained in Inner Space was just as valuable as that attained in the exploration of Outer Space.

The evolution of Inner Space exploration reached new and respectable heights in the 1970s at such institutions as Stanford Research Institute (Targ and Puthoff), the Psychical Research Foundation at Durham, N.C., and more recently at the Monroe Institute (and several others), where, it seems, Inner Space explorations have reached a sort of zenith.

For decades the focus had been on receivers of psi, rather than senders. The now well-known “remote viewers” financed by the U.S. Army and CIA were all operating on the basis of receiving and recovering information. The idea of projecting psi and using it, was something completely different.

There are responsible manners with which to apply psi that exist in the psychotronic and parapsychological data. This does not mean there is an essential criteria. With app-psi there is an aspect of having to wing it. The responsibilities and efforts can't be taken lightly, and a proper course has to be maintained, one that takes all of us into consideration. The Inner Space environment is a tough, rough, and fascinating road to travel. These ventures into “other realities,” especially by this writer, will be highly detailed as this work progresses.

The concepts published by Lt. Col. Thomas Bearden, U.S. Army, Ret., are the best in the modern parapsychological field. His paper, “Quiton: Perception Physics” was initially published in the Psychic Observer in the seventies. This great science paper found its way as the last ten pages of Brad Steiger's Gods of Aquarius. It was frank, very scientific, and sobering. Oddly enough, as a generalist and student, I came up with a very similar thesis and possible effort during that time in the 1970s. I came nowhere close to Tom's paper and professionalism. Thomas Bearden did numerous advanced papers for the Psychic Observer, which is published by the Mind Science Center.

I had a cryptozoological article accepted for publication by the Psychic Observer in the 1980s, but decided to pull it before publication as I felt there were problems concerning some of the participants or witnesses. I later published it elsewhere.

There is no doubt that something was “in the air” ufologically in the middle and late 1970s. “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” had premiered in 1977, and our growing understanding of psi and UFOs was revealed and seemed to have meant something. Perhaps UFOs had finally become mainstream.

For me, when mom wanted me to fly back to Oklahoma and help out, the offer turned also into an opportunity for me to pursue my goals and research efforts.

A month or so before the house in Morris, when I arrived in Tulsa, and drove south to the condo, the most obvious sight across the highway from the condo were huge, gigantic praying hands. They seemed equivalent to anything in the ancient world. This was the Christian Mecca. This was the home of the ministry of Oral Roberts. I had arrived. I was just hoping I wouldn't be struck by lightening.

When I walked into mom's home, the big, blaring focus on the TV was on the transition from one administration to another. Mom wasn't a Replican, but I think everyone was enjoying Ronald Reagan destroying Jimmy Carter, his supposed non-record, and looking forward to something completely new. It was the beginning of the 1980s.

I ultimately found work as a columnist and reporter, and supplemented by being an outdoor writer. We immediately bought a house in Morris, and I had a whole office in which to work.

My other job or pleasure (helping mom travel) first brought me to the gas station of Smokey Crabtree in Fouke, Arkansas, where I got to meet him and check out the three-toed footprint of the Fouke Monster, the so-called “Legend of Boggy Creek.”

The conditions in Morris were perfect for the inception of a strange and new, active voyage to locations unknown. It was an altered states endeavor, but one that was not experimental, but applied. It was a serious balancing act between daily life and the most uncharted realm of Inner Space.

We know a lot more about Outer Space than we do about Inner Space. It's the same thing as the fact that we know a great deal more about the moon than we know about the depths of our oceans on Earth.

We think we know a lot more about others than we know about ourselves. In the complexities and simplicities within, we are all really the same, with some differences in our thinking processes.

Our real understanding has to be based on our mutual mysteries concerning our own inner selves, and how that relates to others and the important world around us. Science can enlighten us about parts of Inner Space (our minds) and the outer, physical world. Even now, many sectors are uncharted, but are becoming more known through experience, collective communication, and an objective view of our outer and inner man. We just have to be brave as we look forward and inward. As stated, a lot about outer space is found in deep consciousness states.

This has been the next giant leap for mankind. As a psychonaut, that included my effort forty years ago. It'll soon be revealed why this was an enterprise of necessity. It was quite a voyage.


FOOTNOTE

1. It was a family joke among Mike's brothers of how he was kicked out of varsity football. At the end of one game where his team lost, it was a sign of sportsmanship (and common decency) to walk across the field and shake the hand of one of the victors. Instead of shaking his hand, Mike broke the poor kid's jaw.

2. The top albums of the day were Pink Floyd's “Dark Side of the Moon,” Led Zeppelin's “Houses of the Holy,” and Alice Cooper's “Billion Dollar Babies.” Also up there was David Bowie's “Diamond Dogs.”

3. Even at this young age, I had become quite a paranormal buff. I was one of the editors of my school newspaper and wrote countless parapsychology articles and commentaries. I was even a co-creator of an elective class called, “The Bible as Literature.” It did well. Working part-time in the morning for an El Monte plastics company and attending high school the rest of the day, my softmore year was very enjoyable. During this time, I also published a well-received feature article on precognition for the San Gabriel Valley Tribune.

I also published a straight commentary for the Op-Ed page of the newspaper. Three years before, in 1971-72, my junior high school science project was on parapsychology. I received a high score and a passing grade.

4. I'm catagorizing my UFO close encounter as a C.E. Of the First Kind, based on Dr. J. Allen Hynek's UFO system in his book, The UFO Experience, 1970.

5. My father, Felix Monroe Morrison, was a mathematician holding an MS, but mostly he was a life-long basketball coach (40 years). He was a Navy veteran from WW II, and saw plenty of action in the Pacific. He was one of the first “radar men,” and was stationed on the Kula Gulf, an aircraft carrier. He died suddenly in 1970 from natural causes. I was eleven years old. From there, my mom was my only parent.


Friday, March 29, 2024