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Reality Checking—Alternate Perceptions Magazine, August 2014





On the Road again…

by: Brent Raynes



All of us on this trip, including the 19 participants who had signed up for the tour, were embarking on an incredible and very unique journey. Greg Little had handed everyone a copy of his just released book Path of Souls, which dealt with amazing and newly discovered components of Native American afterlife beliefs, along with rather anomalous giant skeletal remains unearthed from Indian Mounds. Many of the sites described in Greg’s book were destinations we were to visit in our travels together. Several of the participants would afterwards acknowledge that the experience gained them a much greater knowledge and perspective of the Native American culture and a deeper and more spiritual appreciation and understanding for the ways of these ancient people.

My wife Joan and I had been cordially invited once again by good doctors Greg and Lora Little to join them as co-leaders of yet another ARE (Association for Research and Enlightenment) sponsored Indian Mounds Tour (July 8-13, 2014), to lead Native American based purification and meditational ceremonies at five major sites along the way (i.e., the 30-acre Great Circle Mound at Newark, Ohio; Quadranaou Mound, Marietta, Ohio; Mound City, Chillicothe, Ohio; Horseshoe Mound, Portsmouth, Ohio; and, last but not least, Seip Mound, Ohio). Our role in all of this proved for both of us, we felt, to be a wonderful and phenomenal inner growth and spiritual experience for us as well. While we were very pleased at the many participants who shared with us details of a number of pretty awesome and positive visionary experiences they had at these sites during the ceremonies we executed, Joan and I both felt that we had become more attuned to the processes ourselves. We felt an inner intensification and expansion of our own intuitive and empathic abilities while we were engaged in these ceremonial events.

In three previous Indian Mound Tours going back to 2001, there were a good number of extraordinary visionary experiences reported at these ancient sites, but this time around our own right brain “third eye” inner awareness functions, so to speak, seemed to operate with a greater clarity, ease and force. Joan very noticeably felt compelled to roll up her sleeves, speak out and become the “hollow bone” that Black Elk spoke of. I had never seen her, during such work, get so fired up like this before, and the feeling certainly became mutual for me as well. I clearly remember how I slowly drummed the heartbeat of the Earth Mother and sought to open everyone’s “third eye” with the “eee” chant at the Portsmouth mound, an experience new to participants and with this particular chanting exercise something I had not previously done either. It seemed right, and for some participants it certainly seemed right on. (I had explained and demonstrated earlier how vowel sounds were important in shamanic work) It felt like we were on a roll.


Brent and wife Joan standing in front of West Virginia's Grave Creek Mound

It is generally much easier for Joan to connect with people as she is more outgoing and I have a rather introverted nature. Nonetheless, I have found myself able to get up in front of a group of people and deliver a fairly good presentation, though with regard to my opening 45-minute powerpoint talk at Columbus, Ohio, following Greg’s mounds and earthworks presentation, I didn’t feel it was perhaps my best performance, so to speak. I was nervous, but not because I wasn’t prepared. I had my powerpoint ready and my material was in front of me. But to discuss spiritual phenomena at sacred sites to a seasoned audience of ARE attendees, I was a bit concerned about delivering a fully adequate and comprehensive presentation. Sometimes I’m a bit too self-conscious. I did connect well I felt my material about chakras and vowel sounds in meditation and shamanic practice with Cayce’s readings, as well as similar beliefs about the soul and spirit to those of Native American beliefs and other cultures around the world with what Cayce had revealed too. One gentleman in the audience, however, seemed confused about why I was talking about the shamanic Peruvian whistling vessels and what they had to do with Cayce and the Indian Mounds. I explained about eagle bone whistles used by the Lakota and other practices that involved whistles and other types of sound, and certainly Cayce was a believer in the importance of sound with regard to healing and meditations.

Greg and Lora certainly had demonstrated a great deal of confidence in my ability to target information that would dovetail with Cayce, as they also did in their tours, a trust and confidence that was and is sincerely appreciated. I certainly strived hard to be accurate and correct in what I presented. I certainly didn’t want to do anything to let them down.

The presentation I feel touched upon a number of good key points that I had prepared for, and in reality I had too much material for a 45-minute talk. (I don’t think I got through half of what I could have touched upon) Of course, more is better than not enough. While our roles were essentially about being positive and to focus on the light side of spirituality, I felt too that the dark side of spirituality needed to be touched upon too. A balanced understanding and perspective on both sides of the spiritual coin is needed. But 45 minutes afforded me insufficient time to delve very far into that aspect and its implications. Some other time, I told myself. We would have nearly a week together. I was glad later on, during our bus ride as we were leaving Point Pleasant, West Virginia and after I had shared on the bus about talking and meeting some of the Mothman witnesses myself back in 1976, describing some of their unusual experiences, and of knowing John Keel through correspondence, that Greg explained about what Edgar Cayce had said about the Children of the Law of One and of the Children of Darkness, the Sons of Belial, who represented the negative and opposite of the “Law of One” light workers. This was an aspect that needed to be included, and especially after visiting a location like Point Pleasant, where numerous, darker “trickster” type scenarios and events had been chronicled years ago by John Keel whose onsite investigations there in 1967 are described in his book The Mothman Prophecies.

How does one protect oneself from the dark side? A learning story attributed to the Cherokee comes to mind at this point. I think it’s a good example of how to maintain a proper and balanced spiritual state of being. Many of you may have already heard it or read it. It goes something like this (there is more than one version): An elder Cherokee man is conversing with his grandson about life. He explains that there is an inner battle going on inside himself, an inner battle he compares to two wolves. One is evil, very angry, envious, jealous – a whole slew of negative emotions – while the other is loving, kind, and desires peace and tranquility. He explains that this inner struggle occurs in all people. The grandson, then curious, asks his grandfather, “Which one will win?” And the wise elder replies, “The one you feed.”


Brent holding up two Peruvian whistling vessels

Years ago, Joan and I learned much under the guidance of a Native American teacher in Alabama we called Dove (her spirit given name). One memorable lesson she shared with us was the distinction between the correct Native American spiritual path and the one that detoured toward the dark side. She told us that the correct path was one wherein you flowed with the forces of nature and the dark path involved instead manipulation of those forces toward selfish ends –an approach or practice that can propel one into dark components of what is commonly called witchcraft.

If one is truly curious, one can read about and actually talk to natives and others who can tell you of their first-hand experiences and encounters with these spiritual realms and of their reality, but before you pursue or delve very deeply therein, remember to go with the flow (don’t manipulate) and feed the inner spirit that best serves the higher purpose of your own “higher self”.

On the morning of the last day of our tour, we visited the stunning and magnificent Serpent Mound. It was a beautiful, sunny day, with a pleasant breeze occasionally stirring. As I neared the tail portion, after walking the length of this huge effigy mound, first up one side to the head and then down to the coiled tail, one of the attendees was telling me about how she was psychically picking up, it seemed, on an energy that was pulsing through the entire length of this mound. Earlier she had remarked on how the site had convinced her even more that the ancient alien theory was correct. This and other sites were likely, she reasoned, meant to be observed from above by ET visitors. I pointed out that it was obvious that this and other sites were meant to be seen from above, perhaps to be seen by sky gods of the ancient beliefs of the people that constructed it, and, I added, who knows…maybe they saw UFOs like we do today! At the tail, Greg had joined us and joined in on the conversation, and pointed out that there was evidence that the ancient natives down at Nazca, Peru (famous for the plain with all of the huge effigy markings in the desert that can only be fully appreciated from above) had, long ago, had a primitive kind of hot air balloon it appeared. In fact, this is described in Greg and Lora’s book Edgar Cayce’s Atlantis, which they also co-wrote with John Van Auken.


Brent meets Mothman museum owner and author Jeff Wamsley at Point Pleasant, W.Va.

As synchronicity would have it, soon upon returning home I was checking out a site on Facebook, a posting in Missouri Investigators Group, where I noticed, with some surprise, an account posted by a writer who claimed that while at Serpent Mound, just the day before we were (Saturday, July 12th, about 3:30 p.m.), while in the parking lot preparing to leave, he became a UFO witness! “I was standing in the parking lot when I heard the sound of jets,” he wrote. “I looked up and suddenly saw a bright object. It was a bright white color and appeared to be two objects, then morphed into one bright yellow gold color. The jets were circling around it and the object gained altitude and winked out. One of the jets broke out of the chase and flew high over head in a northwesterly direction. It looked to me to be an F-18.”

Once again, I was at the right place but at the wrong time. Fortunately, that doesn’t happen all of the time, but it seems to happen too often. LOL!


Friday, March 29, 2024