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You are here: Home / Archives for Marie D. Jones

Marie D. Jones

Witchcraft – Mothman – Jones – Breedlove – Paranormal Podcast 661

November 10, 2020 By Jim Harold

Witchcraft and Mothman are our two subjects this week.

Marie D. Jones joins us to talk about her new book. The New Witch.

Seth Breedlove joins us to talk about his new film, The Mothman Legacy.

You can find Marie’s books at Amazon.com: The New Witch: Your Guide to Modern Witchcraft, Wicca, Spells, Potions, Magic, and More

You can find info on all of Seth’s films at SmallTownMonsters.com

Thanks Marie & Seth!

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Filed Under: Latest and Greatest, The Paranormal Podcast Tagged With: Jim Harold, Marie D. Jones, Paranormal Podcast, paranormal podcasts, Seth Breedlove, The Mothman Legacy, the new witch, Witchcraft

Celebrity Ghosts and Notorious Hauntings – Paranormal Podcast 603

September 4, 2019 By Jim Harold

Famous ghosts like Elvis, Marilyn Monroe and other luminaries are the subject of author Marie D. Jones’ latest book. We discuss it on this week’s edition of The Paranormal Podcast!

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You can find it at Amazon.com: Celebrity Ghosts and Notorious Hauntings

Thanks Marie!

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Filed Under: Slider, The Paranormal Podcast Tagged With: Jim Harold, Marie D. Jones, Paranormal Podcast

The Bray Road Beast – Paranormal Podcast 556

October 9, 2018 By Jim Harold

Filmmaker Seth Breedlove joins us to talk about his latest cryptid obsession, The Bray Road Beast!

You can find his new film on this cryptid on Prime Video from Amazon: The Bray Road Beast

Thanks Seth!

In part two, Marie D. Jones talks to about disaster survival. You can find her recent book on the subject at Amazon: The Disaster Survival Guide: How to Prepare For and Survive Floods, Fires, Earthquakes and More

Thanks Marie!

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Filed Under: Slider, The Paranormal Podcast Tagged With: disaster survival, Jim Harold, Marie D. Jones, Seth Breedlove, The Bray Road Beast, The Paranormal Podcast

Demons The Devil and Fallen Angels – Paranormal Podcast 501

September 19, 2017 By Jim Harold

Demons and The Devil are the topics for part one of  this week’s Paranormal Podcast with Marie D. Jones.

In part two, Robert W. Sullivan IV talks to us about symbolism in the movies!

You can find their books at Amazon.com:

Demons, the Devil, and Fallen Angels

Cinema Symbolism 2: More Esoteric Imagery in Popular Movies

Thanks Marie and Robert!

-GAIA-

The Paranormal Podcast is brought to you by Gaia, THE streaming TV service dedicated to exploring the cutting edge of metaphysics, ancient wisdom and the unexplained.

Get your first month for only 99 cents at gaia.com/jim

Thanks Gaia!

Filed Under: Slider, The Paranormal Podcast Tagged With: Cinema Symbolism, Cinema Symbolism 2, Demons, Fallen Angels, Jim Harold, Marie D. Jones, Paranormal Podcast, Robert W. Sullivan IV, The Devil

The Power of Archetypes – The Paranormal Podcast 492

July 19, 2017 By Jim Harold

Marie D. Jones tells how we can put the power of archetypes to work in our life. In part two, James Schwartz talks to us about how he has sought, and he says, found the answers to many of life’s deepest questions via something he calls alchemical hypnotism.

You can find Marie and James’ books at Amazon.com:

The Power of Archetypes

One Voice, Sacred Wisdom

Thanks Marie and James!

-GAIA-

The Paranormal Podcast is brought to you by Gaia, THE streaming TV service dedicated to exploring the cutting edge of metaphysics, ancient wisdom and the unexplained.

Get your first month for only 99 cents at gaia.com/jim

Thanks Gaia!

Filed Under: The Paranormal Podcast Tagged With: Archetypes, Dr. Carl Jung, James Schwartz, Jim Harold, Jung, Marie D. Jones, Paranormal Podcast, The Power of Archetypes

Celebrating the Dead: The History of Dia de Muertos – Marie D Jones Writes

October 27, 2016 By The Paranormal Braintrust

Marie D. Jones
Marie D. Jones

Every October 31st, Americans head to parties or hit the streets dressed in elaborate, often spooky costumes, in celebration of Halloween, a time when the veil between this world and the world beyond death is said to be at its thinnest.

We decorate our homes and yards with scary monsters, witches and ghouls, provoking a fun sense of repulsion of all things terrifying. We cut up pumpkins and light with candles, and watch out for black cats. We spend a ton of money preparing for and enjoying one of the biggest and most anticipated holidays in the United States, rivaling Christmas for some people!

But throughout Mexico and parts of America with large Hispanic populations, another holiday offers a truer reverence for the dead with a rich history dating back thousand of years. Dia de Muertos, or Dia de los Muertos, is the “Day of the Dead” to millions of people that both playfully mocks, and joyfully reveres, death. The tradition began over 3,000 years ago when Aztecs and other Meso-American cultures created rituals that honored the duality of life and death. One of their core beliefs was that reality was the dream, and that death was when we truly became “awake.”

Dia de Muertos celebrations lasted three days, as they still do today, and end on November 2nd. Because they began on the same night as Halloween, the two traditions are often confused and mistakenly intertwined. The major difference is in the tone of the celebrations. Again, Halloween looks at the scarier side of death, while Dia de Muertos celebrates it with colorful dances, decorative skulls and candles, and other festivities, including the construction of elaborate private altars called “ofrendas,” with pathways of marigolds that are meant to welcome the dearly deceased. The Mexican “cempasuchil” or marigold, is the traditional “flor de muerto” or Flower of the Dead. Altars can be decorated with sugar skulls and other foods and spirits (including tequila or mescal) that the deceased loved most, as well as pictures and objects once owned by the deceased. If the deceased was a child, the altar might include toys and trinkets including favorite candies. Families hold vigils at their homes, or at cemeteries, and take pride in decorating the gravestones of their dead relatives, leaving gifts of food, flowers and sugar skulls, or actual possessions that belonged to the deceased person.

Family homes are decorated with skulls and skeletons, made out of cardboard or tissue paper, and always colorful and bold. Because of the Spanish colonization of Mexico, often Christian objects are found on altars alongside much more pagan objects. This might include crosses, rosary beads and statues of Christ or the Virgin Mary.

As with most major holidays, food and drink is a big part of Dia de Muertos festivities, with cakes and breads such as pan de muerto (bread of the dead) that have been baked around a small skeleton or skull. In fact, the garishly painted skulls now most associated with the holiday period are sold in shops and markets, but those made by hand are most cherished. Some are meant to eat, and are made of sugar or chocolate or even wood, with the name of the deceased etched into the forehead, but others are purely decorative and have become a popular collector’s item in the Southwest for those wishing to give their homes a distinct Mexican traditional flavor. To show the difference between our Halloween and the Dia de Muertos, in our culture, a skull is an object to be feared and signifies death in a terrifying way. We even use it to identify substances that are toxic and deadly, while to the Mexican people, a skull is a symbol of life, death and rebirth.

Prayer and remembrance also mark most Dia de Muertos festivities, something we do not do at Halloween, even though Halloween also has at its roots a time of reverence and celebration of the dead before it became commercialized. Some cultures wear shells and use other noisemakers to dance around and “wake the dead.” Others actually wear the clothing of their deceased loved ones. From village to village, traditions might vary, but all would be centered on honoring, not fearing, the dead and treating them with love, respect and a sense of sacredness. This attitude towards death has obvious pagan roots where the cycles of life were not only understood, but also accepted and honored, unlike today’s more modern cultures that have all but wiped nature off the map and made death something to be dreaded and avoided at all costs.

Like Halloween, Dia de Muertos was altered by the course of history when the Spanish colonization of the 16th century prompted the Catholic Church to move the original August three-day celebration period to coincide with Allhallowtide, All Saints’ Eve, and All Saints’ Day. Yet, scholars state the original festivities most likely lasted the entire month of August during which the dead came back to visit their loved ones. These summer festivities honored a goddess, the Lady of the Dead or La Calavera Catrina of modern times. “Calavara” is Spanish for skull, and the word is also used to signify a poem playfully mocking the dead, a custom that originated in the 18th century. La Calavera Catrina is a fun parody celebration of a Mexican goddess or upper class woman, complete with little dolls called “Catrinas” and men and women wearing costumes with skull masks. They also might get tattoos of the names of the dead, or carry dolls of the dead with them for good luck, much like we carry a rabbit’s foot or tattoo our children’s and lover’s names on our bodies.

The use of costumes and masks no doubt influenced or at least coincided with dressing up for Halloween and taking on the persona of a spooky entity, ghostly being or today, a trampy French maid. In modern urban areas that mark the Dia de Muertos, children do wear costumes and walk the streets, knocking on doors to ask for a “calaverita,” which might be a small gift of money or some candy treats, and even ask passers-by on the streets for goodies, something our Halloween kids have yet to figure out (twice the candy!).

The Spanish conquest of the Meso-American cultures resulted in changes to their old traditions, just as the Celtic holiday of Samhain, a celebration of death and renewal which gave Halloween many of its symbolic traditions, was suppressed and absorbed by the Catholic celebrations as well, something that happened with most major pagan holidays and traditions (Easter, Christmas…). Dia de Muertos also is linked to an ancient Aztec festival that was dedicated to a goddess named Mictecacihuatl and was once only a day of celebration for indigenous peoples in a very specific part of Mexico, before spreading further into the world in the 20th century. Holidays honoring goddesses and women often later became morphed into Christian holidays honoring male saints, or degraded and disempowered the women figures, much like our Halloween took the pagan crone, a wise old woman, and turned her into an ugly, wart-covered witch. Because the Spanish who conquered the Aztec became the dominant force and religion in the Mexican region, their influences naturally became interwoven with those of indigenous peoples, when they didn’t completely wipe them off the map.

Recently, the Mexican government made Dia de Muertos a national holiday in line with educational policies enforced in the 1960s that encouraged the practice of national traditions that unified cultures and regions of indigenous peoples. Many modern regions in Mexico honor different things on each of the three days, with one day devoted to dead children, and one to adults. Children are honored on Dia de los Inocentes, Day of the Innocents, and Dia de lost Angelitos, Day of the Little Angels. November 2nd was reserved for Dia de los Muertos, the Day of the Dead focusing on adults.

More recently, other nations such as Fiji, Indonesia, New Zealand and Australia have their own versions of a Day of the Dead, borrowing from the Mexican culture. South American nations celebrate as well, especially their indigenous populations. One of the more unusual rituals comes from Bolivia and is celebrated on May 5th. The Dia de los Natitas, or Day of the Skulls, comes from an ancient practice of actually spending the day with the skeletal bones of the deceased relative. Nowadays, they just keep the skull around, decorating it with flowers and trinkets, and making offerings of cigarettes and alcohol to thank the dead for watching over and protecting family members.

In America, the three-day festival now welcomes those of all cultures and races, who take part in enjoying a different perspective of the dead. Instead of being terrorized by ghost, ghouls and demons, those involved choose to celebrate the ones who have come before us with color, music, food and festivities alongside more serious prayer and remembrance. Though most festivities occur in the Southwest, a region with a high Hispanic population, cities throughout the country take part in this unique mash-up of Mexican and American cultures that, although they retain their classic Aztec origins, change with the times to adapt to new celebrations that honor the dead and embrace activism, environmental awareness and community involvement.

Sadly, the Spanish conquest thought the customs surrounding Dia de Muertos as being barbaric and primitive, not understanding the dual nature of life and death, light and dark, male and female, and other nature-related elements that were such a powerful part of the worldview of older tribes and cultures. Because of that, we may never know all the traditions and symbols used to show respect to the dead, since many of them were probably suppressed by Catholic Church leaders, who probably threatened punishment upon the lowly pagans who continued to practice such rituals and festivities. But like the old Aztec and Meso-American myths, their traditions remain at the core of many holidays we Westerners now like to think we created and evolved.

The subject of death is remembered mainly here in America as a time to mourn and grieve, as in our many holidays devoted to those lost in war or terrorist attacks. But other cultures that retain more pagan roots, while grieving death (as we are all human), instead look upon it as one part of a cycle or a wheel that turns over and over again, just as the natural world is a wheel of planting, harvesting, and planting again. Because our ancestors were so in tune with the earth’s cycles, whether they be the phases of the moon, the shifting tides, the changing seasons or the growth of animals, plants and humans evolving towards death, they came to see each part of the cycle as something to be cherished, and not feared or dreaded. Without death, there cannot be room for new life. Without the change of seasons, there can be no renewal of plant life in the spring, and new harvests of crops in the fall. Everything was in tune and in perfect order and harmony.

The Dia de Muertos may be just a time to party and eat great food and wear crazy skull masks for many people. But to millions of others around the world, it is an acknowledgement of a critical part of the ever-spinning wheel of existence, and a way to thank those who came before us and were a part of that wheel.

—

Marie D. Jones is the author of several books about the paranormal, metaphysics, and cutting-edge science (many coauthored with Larry Flaxman), including PSIence, The Déjà vu Enigma, Destiny vs. Choice: The Scientific and Spiritual Evidence Behind Fate and Free Will,11:11 The Time Prompt Phenomenon and Mind Wars. She has appeared on more than 1,000 radio shows worldwide, and on television, most recently on the History Channel’s Ancient Aliens series. Her website is mariedjones.com.

Filed Under: Marie D Jones, The Outer Edge, The Paranormal Braintrust Tagged With: Day Of The Dead, Dia de Muertos, Marie D. Jones, Paranormal Braintrust

Doomsday Cults: Why Do People Have End Times Obsessions and Apocalypse Dreams? – Marie D. Jones

September 19, 2016 By The Paranormal Braintrust

Marie D. Jones
Marie D. Jones

The band REM sang about the end of the world as we know it, and they felt fine. In fact, many people not only feel good about the world ending, but actually welcome it with open arms, often joining with others of like mind to predict, plan, and prepare for the demise of humanity and the extinction of existence. But why? Who in their right mind would want the world to come to a crashing halt, taking all of life with it?

Just recently, an end of the world prediction for July 29th went bust. A group calling itself End Times Prophecies predicted a solar flip, which would lead to an apocalyptic chain reaction ending all life. Never happened. Days later, another prophesized end was all over the place, courtesy of a YouTube psychic named T. Chase who warned the world of the apocalypse to come in the year 2017…complete with a giant alien spaceship invading earth, shooting out death rays upon humanity. Chase went on to predict that Jesus himself would lead an alien army in UFOs against Vladimir Putin, the Russian President, who will start the third world war. This alien army will stop us from extincting ourselves in a nuclear showdown.

Chase claims he gleaned this revelation from, well, the New Testament Book of Revelations (specifically chapter 19) and the teachings of Nostradamus. But fear not, because according to Chase, the alien-army of Christ will win and we will all be happy living under a one-government confederation (New World Order?)

These are not the first predictions of end times, and they certainly won’t be the last. Prophecies of the end go back probably as far as the beginning, when the first humans pondered their own mortalities and wondered how long their like would hold up against vicious animal predators, wicked natural disasters and marauding tribes. But to actually form a club, or a cult, with a leader whose sole purpose is to drive his or her members to their deaths in a pre-emptive bid on immortality? That’s more of a modern thing. Remember the followers of a man named Harold Camping? In May of 2011, the then 89-year-old self-claimed scriptures expert stated the world would end on the 11th day of that month. It didn’t. Yet he ended up making millions of dollars off of believers and those who had hopeful expectations of the end. You could say, end times predictions turn a good prophet, I mean, profit. Just ask all those who benefited off of the alleged Mayan Calendar end date of December 21, 2012. Or maybe I should shut up because I wrote a book about the entire shebang that did quite well (although in my defense I wrote about the mythologies and predictions and not that I thought they would come true. I never did!)

Doomsday cults, also known as Apocalyptic Cults, or End Times cults, usually have at their basis a fundamentalist religious belief system that focuses on the literal interpretations of symbolic and metaphorical texts. This unhealthy focus on the final destruction of earth leads some of them to mass suicides in an attempt to be taken elsewhere before the apocalypse occurs. Two such cults that made the international news were the Guyana/People’s Temple, led by Jim Jones, and Heaven’s Gate, led by Ti and Do, which occurred right in my own area. But before we get to them, a little more background into these cults in general.

There are two basic types of belief systems driving doomsday cults; apocalypticism and millenarianism. Apocalypticism suggests there will one day be an apocalypse that will end the world in a fiery global catastrophe, resulting in the end of civilization itself. Some groups believe they will be spared, or that if they commit mass suicide first, their souls will be taken to heaven before the rest of the wicked ones on Earth perish in agonizing suffering.

Apocalyptic end times cults often believe in a messiah and that their own leader is that messiah, following him or her blindly to their own deaths. The leader may instead claim to be a representation of God’s will on earth or an offspring of the messiah, but some are so arrogant as to claim that title for themselves. In fact, many Biblical scholars refer to Jesus Christ as a type of apocalyptic messiah prophesying the end of the world for the Jews and a final judgment day to be unleashed upon humanity. He was said to return on a cloud as the “son of man” and the divine judge during the end times spoken of in the Book of Revelation.

Millenarianism is a belief in a coming mass transformation of society by a specific event or catastrophe. This was a widespread force behind a lot of predictions surround the year 1000 A.D. and then again on 2000 A.D., or Y2K when religious sects and cults alike awaited doomsday, or at least utter technological breakdown that might lead to it. Christian millenarian cults await the Second Coming of Christ and the establishment of the Kingdom of God on Earth and in Heaven that will free the oppressed and usurp the powerful status quo. Often this goal can turn to mass suicides or violent acts of terrorism, such as the acts of Aum Shinrikyo, Heaven’s Gate, The Manson Cult, The People’s Temple and the Branch Davidians (led by David Koresh). Other millenarian cults include the Cult of the Holy Spirit and The Living Church of God, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormonism, Cult of the Holy Spirit, Joachimites and the Lord’s Resistance Army.

There are some common tenets shared by these extremist cults.

  1. A charismatic leader who calls his/herself a God/Messiah/Messenger.
  2. A specific prophecy members must believe in and adhere to.
  3. A powerful and compelling argument for cult members being special and the chosen/saved.
  4. An exit strategy or plan should said prophecy not come true, or should the government crack down on them first.

When a prophecy doesn’t happen, the cult leaders are adept at deflecting criticism and coming up with a new end times date, usually admitting responsibility for misinterpreting a date or time during their “vision.” However, cults like Aum Shinrikyo go as far as to help bring about the very apocalypse they desire with acts of violent terrorism. This Japanese New Religious Movement founded in the mid-1980s by Shoko Asahara Aum, released the deadly gas, sarin, into the Tokyo subway system in 1995 and procured military grade weapons from Russia. Their leader was eventually sentenced to death for various criminal acts.

The term “doomsday cult” was first coined by John Lofland in a 1966 study of the Unification Church, titled “Doomsday Cult: A Study of Conversion, Proselytization, and Maintenance of Faith,” which eventually became a book in 1966 published by Prentice-Hall. He examined methods of conversion of members, the charismatic characteristics of cult leaders and how members were kept from losing faith and straying outside of the cult.

His book was followed by numerous psychological studies asking why and how ordinary people could get sucked into something as crazy as a doomsday cult hell-bent on death and destruction. One such study, by Leon Festinger and his colleagues, later published in a book, “When Prophecy Fails: A Social and Psychological Study of a Modern Group that Predicted the Destruction of the World,” found that people tended to turn to such cults and the concept of the world ending in their lifetime when their own lives were meaningless. They found a purpose and meaning in these cults, becoming a part of a group with a very specific outcome, and belonging made them feel special. This is the driving mechanism behind why most people, in general, join cults, but the promise of salvation amidst a coming extinction served as extra magnetic fodder for the lost souls looking for meaning.

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The study, and others like it, also found that even as some members would leave the cult if the proposed end times date came and went uneventfully, others would stick it out, perhaps because they had already given up so much, they felt they had nothing to lose awaiting a new end date. This would keep members from humiliation and embarrassment of having to face the fact that they gave up their lives…for nothing.

To many suicide cult members, the promise of eternal glory elsewhere was so strong they didn’t even wait for the end date. They took matters into their own hands and took their lives in a mass ritual to find glory and salvation elsewhere. Heaven’s Gate was a UFO millenarian group in San Diego, California, that was founded in the 1970s by two enigmatic humans; Marshall Applewhite and Bonnie Nettles. They became known as Ti and Do, The Two, Bo and Peep and a variety of other names signifying their leadership and intergalactic connections. They taught their members to give up all material possessions and that the only way to “level up” and be free of all human and earthly attachments, which brought suffering, was to be ready to board the Mothership. The spaceship was trailing the comet Hale-Bopp and coming to take them to the “next level,” and doing so required 39 people to poison themselves to death. That’s how strong their belief was.

As the UK Daily Mail reported, “All but three of the bodies were arranged neatly on their beds with their faces and torsos covered with a purple cloth. Each body had a five-dollar bill and three quarters in their pockets and along with packed luggage at their sides. They mixed Phenobarbital poison into applesauce or pudding and then washed it down with vodka. They then tied plastic bags on their heads to asphyxiate themselves and speed their deaths. The followers, age 26 to 72, killed themselves in three waves March 24, 25 and 26. The survivors always neatly arranged their dead comrades’ bodies before committing suicide themselves.”

In 1978, the charismatic church leader Jim Jones called for an act of “revolutionary suicide” at the Jonestown agricultural compound in Guyana, resulting in the deaths of over 900 people, a third of whom were children, who took poison-laced punch and died at the hands of a clearly psychotic man who thought he was a messiah. Many were said to not want to go along with the suicide but were forced to do so at gunpoint. The Jonestown Massacre would go down in history as the deadliest non-natural disaster in history, until the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

In order to make people take their own lives, one must have a blend of a truly charismatic leader with so much charm and magnetism, people would follow him or her off a cliff, with a mission or purpose so compelling, that death by cliff would seem almost holy and sacred. Add to that a variety of mind control and brainwashing techniques such as coercive persuasion and intermittent reinforcement, and members don’t have much of a chance of leaving or even thinking clearly enough to contemplate it.

With complete control of their members’ minds and thoughts and behaviors, cult leaders can do anything, or make you do anything. Absolute devotion to a cult leader is equated with devotion to a deity or to God, and rules must and will be followed…or else. But the promise of salvation and being among the chosen few overrides the free will and instinct of people caught up in the fervor of end times proselytizing. Charles Manson had over 100 followers who hung on his every word…even committed murders for him. And he was nothing but a down on his luck musician who tapped into the emotions of the young and angry, the troubled and disillusioned. In them, he found his tribe and was able to manipulate them into believing in a coming race war that drove the violent acts of his most devoted followers. “Charlie,” as his cult members called him, is still in prison and gets thousands of “fan letters” every year from people who want to become a part of his “family.”

Sometimes, the government catches on and tries to stop a doomsday cult from bringing about doomsday…and yet bring it about anyway. Think of the Branch Davidians, an offshoot of the Seventh-Day Adventists Church, led by David Koresh, who went up against a coordinated siege by the FBI, ATF and Texas National Guard in 1993 that ended after fifty-one days in the fiery deaths of 82 members, including children. Koresh was also a musician, like Charlie Manson, who became a prophet and was accused of sexual abuse of young women followers, which led to the government investigation. The leaders of cults are not special people, but disillusioned people who come to believe they are special, and who have the ability to get others to believe the same.

In some cases, such as the followers of Elizabeth Clare Prophet and her Church Universal and Triumphant, founded in 1975, it was all about prepping – doing what was necessary to prepare for and survive a disaster such as nuclear war. In this case, Prophet encouraged the building of fall-out shelters in the late 1980s, anticipating a nuclear catastrophe that never came. She has since died.

The prepper movement, like the survivalists, plan for disaster and apocalypse, but with a bit more of a practical bent. Their mission is to be ready either by building bomb shelters or buying up tracts of land in remote areas to live off the grid, growing their own food, stockpiling guns or training in various survival and disaster prep methods. Without the religious obsession towards total Armageddon, preppers may go a tad overboard in the eyes of most of us, but to them, they are just being smart and getting ready for the inevitable government takeover, nuclear war, or clamp-down on Constitutional freedoms.

I belong to an organization called CERT – Community Emergency Response Teams. We are fully trained disaster responders under FEMA and the Department of Homeland Security. I am trained in medical triage, disaster assessment, heavy lifting, urban and rural search and rescue, psychological trauma, crowd control, fire control, and a host of other things, including ham radio operations in an emergency. Does that make me a prepper? Sure it does. Does it make me a doomsday cultist? Nope. I am banking on a few disasters happening in my lifetime, and hope to be ready and able to respond…but I’m not waiting and hoping for full-on Armageddon.

I have too much to live for.

—

Marie D. Jones is the author of several books about the paranormal, metaphysics, and cutting-edge science (many coauthored with Larry Flaxman), including PSIence, The Déjà vu Enigma, Destiny vs. Choice: The Scientific and Spiritual Evidence Behind Fate and Free Will,11:11 The Time Prompt Phenomenon and Mind Wars. She has appeared on more than 1,000 radio shows worldwide, and on television, most recently on the History Channel’s Ancient Aliens series. Her website is mariedjones.com.

Filed Under: Marie D Jones, The Outer Edge, The Paranormal Braintrust Tagged With: David Koresh, Doomsday cults, Elizabeth Clare Prophet, Harold Camping, Heaven's Gate, Jim Harold, Jim Jones, John Lofland, Marie D. Jones, Marshall Applewhite, Paranormal Braintrust, T.Chase

The Destiny Question: Do I Have A Choice? Marie D. Jones’ Outer Edge

April 25, 2016 By The Paranormal Braintrust

Marie D. Jones
Marie D. Jones

“Man was predestined to have free will.” – Anonymous

“You can’t avoid it, it’s written in the stars.”
“He was destined to be a success.”
“Life is what you make it.”
“Choose your thoughts and choose your life.”

Life can be so darn confusing. Social media and self-help gurus bombard us with contradictory claims that our lives are pre-destined, that Fate deals us the cards we will play our entire lives with, that whatever happens, happens for a reason. OR that our lives are what we choose them to be, that what we focus on expands and manifests according to some “Law of Attraction.” Or maybe it’s all just one big crapshoot. Is there a blueprint for our lives or are we making it up as we go along?

From our career paths to our love lives to whether or not we become parents, we wonder how much of it is a result of one choice atop another choice atop another…or if we had no choice in any of it at all. We meet people and feel as though we were “destined” to know them. We put out the word of our desire for a new job, and someone calls with a lead the next day. Yet other times, life doesn’t go as smoothly and we wonder if we’re slamming up against the wall of fate, unable to break it and have our will no matter what we do.

I’ve been thinking about this subject a lot lately, recently feeling this pull towards certain people and situations that genuinely seem as though they were “meant to be,” all the while pondering with some frustration other situations I cannot seem to fix or change.

The word “destiny” comes from the Middle English “destinee,” and simply refers to a predetermined course of events that are the result of an irresistible power or agency. But destiny has often been confused with fate, which is a little more constricting. While destiny implies that one has a bit of maneuvering room by which they can reach their destined end point, fate implies no such allowance for choice. Thus, some outside “agent” such as a God, Goddess or other entity was once thought to be the purveyor of one’s fate. This outside agent or force set down in stone how a person’s life would unfold, and there was nothing that person could do to change the course of events to come. The results were fixed, like some past presidential elections.

The Greek myths spoke of the “Moirae,” and the Roman myths, of “Parcae.” The Norse myths had their “Norns.” These were, in all three cases, a triad of goddesses that were given the role of imparting the circumstances and events that would make up a mortal’s fate. There are even goddesses that are responsible for giving out good fortune, such as the Greek goddess Tyche, and the Roman Fortuna, ruling out any role that choice might play in finding and keeping wealth, success and happiness. If the goddesses didn’t deem you fit, you were screwed.

In order for a life to be predestined, it had to be predetermined, and this is where science, philosophers and religious and spiritual leaders have long struggled to explain exactly who, or what, predetermined it. If we understand that all causes have a prior event, what was that first prior event? Which came first, the cause, or the event? One can easily see why the battle between destiny and free will has been an enduring one, just like the chicken and the egg.

While scientists might say it was just random, the result of the Big Bang and its resultant physical laws that fell into place by some kind of brilliant accident, philosophers and religious thinkers sensed that there was something that started the whole chain of cause and effect that laid down the path of each human life, maybe even the earth itself. This beginning of the chain is known as “first cause,” and without knowing first cause, we simply don’t know who or what destined us to our roles in life.

A lot of the debate centers on how mutable we view the future as being. If each moment of our future, and the future of everyone around us, were already planned to the minutiae, then would there even be a purpose to life at all? Why would we not then be robots, born to eat, reproduce and die with no dreams or goals or feelings or emotions or consciousness at all? The Buddhist concept of pre-destination might solve that problem. Known as “yuanfen,” it suggests we take the word predestination somewhat literally. Pre meaning “before,” as in what comes BEFORE destiny. Because there is no concept of God in Buddhism, this explanation suggests instead there is a linear fashion by which our lives are bound to happen. That doesn’t mean that’s how they WILL happen…but only how they are bound to and that we can change something, and thus lead to a new life that is bound to happen as a result. We get some control here, but still move towards what feels to us like a “chosen path,” even if we are doing most of the choosing.

The sacred Buddhist scripture, the “Samyutta Nikaya,” tells us:

“According to the seed that is sown
So is the fruit you reap from there.”

This sounds just like the Judeo-Christian concepts of reap what you sow and do unto others. Those important ‘golden rules” of life involve choices. And that’s the thing. We know we have choices…don’t we? We feel as though we have the ability to choose our spouses, our jobs, our homes, the kind of food we will have for dinner, and whether or not we will go to the movies on a Sunday night or just sit home and watch “The Walking Dead.” It’s up to us to decide. The founding father of political philosophy, Thomas Hobbes, states that freedom is the ability to do what we wish without hindrance or constraint. Even within the confines of our social, cultural, sexual and behavioral conditioning, complexes and needs, we can do whatever we choose. Later philosophers added that perhaps freedom was not so much about being able to do anything one wanted to do, but to have the power to do anything one wanted to do.

Yet over thousands of years, we have battled with the sense that both destiny and free will or choice play a huge role in our lives, and certainly in how the world around us came to be. Our religions are filled with stories and proverbs and quotes about having a destined role or a predetermined fate, such as Christ’s destiny to be betrayed by Judas. He knew. He said it was his destiny, and he drank of that particular cup willingly, taking his final fate in his hands. But remember, he could have chosen not to follow through with it all. He could have chosen to say no.

MARIE’S BOOK ON THE SUBJECT: Destiny vs. Choice: The Scientific and Spiritual Evidence Behind Fate and Free Will

But what does science have to say about destiny and choice? If we look at our own bodies, we can easily see that we have a genetic blueprint by which we became blond or brunette, green-eyed or brown-eyed, short or tall, big boned or small boned, and any other physical characteristics that were handed to us by our parents and their parents and their parents. We didn’t choose our genes. And yet, when it comes to behavior we seem to be able to make choices, both good and bad, and have some say in the course and outcome of our life path. There seems to be ample evidence for both nature vs. nurture, and both inherent and adapted characteristics that make up a human being.

The Big Bang is often referred to as the starting point of our universe (we won’t even get into what came before it, or what first cause “caused” the Big Bang!), from which all the forces, laws and matter and form and energy and life came into existence. It was perhaps a blueprint of sorts, and yet many scientists will say that it did not have any kind of intelligent design behind it. It just happened the way it happened. There was nothing, then – BANG! – there was everything.

But there are those scientists who believe that the amazing sophistication and intricacies of how life came to be simply could not have been a lucky accident of chemicals and particles and gasses and heat and matter and energy all being in the right place at the right time, and in just the right amounts. To these men and women of science, there indeed seems to be a destiny that started and directs the cosmos, and that the first cause behind it appears to have had some type of intelligence, though not necessarily human. Perhaps the Universe, including us, is nothing more than the program of a giant Cosmic Computer, yet one would still have to ask…who or what is programming the computer?

Even in the quantum world there is interplay of both destiny and choice. At the level of the quantum, we are told that particles exist in a suspended state both as particle and waveform, until they are observed and their wave function collapses, thus fixing the particle into a position or outcome. Particles have a range of possible or potential states and until an observer effect occurs, those states remain in superposition, or happening all at once so to speak. Therefore, an observer can choose the state of a particle simply by observing it. At least that’s the simple man’s version of quantum physics. The truth is far more complicated and involving and I suck at math so I won’t even attempt to get into that! But the implication is exciting and has become the basis for hundreds of self-help and personal motivation books, empowerment tools and expensive webinars.

But if this is how we are creating our reality, as the popular Law of Attraction teachings tell us, with focus and intention and observing things into being, then how could anything be predetermined? Are we all just making our lives up as we go along? And yet, everyone can agree that we all are destined, once born, to die. Those who claim to have died, and return to tell about it, often tell stories of being told by higher guides or divine beings on the other side that they must return and fulfill their roles, or destinies, on the plane of the living. These are subjective and personal experiences, but the fact that so many report them is something to be considered. It is as if we must stay put until our pre-chosen destiny is fulfilled…even if we have to die and return to life again to find out.

Zodiac Signs Horoscope with the tree of life and universeMillions of people visit astrologers, palm readers, tarot readers, even love and relationship coaches wanting to know their destinies. Will I meet my soul mate? Should I change jobs? What is my purpose here? Some readers will tell people that their lives, according to the stars or rune stones or cards, are in some ways predestined, and yet, they have considerable choice in how they will reach that destiny. An astrologer might say that yes, the stars influence your life, but you still have room to move about within the confines of those influences. A tarot reader might tell you that you will meet with danger next week, but you can still make the choice to be hyper-vigilant and avoid a terrible car accident while leaving for work.

Love coaches will tell you that there are many soul mates out there for you, and not just The One, and that there might be someone destined for you in a sense that they will be the best fit, but they won’t be the only best fit out of billions of people on the planet.

There is little scientific proof of these tactics working, except when they work. Even in nature, we see both destiny and choice, even fate, play out. Animals kill prey to survive. The fate of the prey is to be food for another species. The destiny of the predator is to survive a bit longer. Both made choices, even the prey, choosing to not be fast enough to escape the predator! Flowers start as seeds and are “destined” to grow into stems and then petals. Not fated, because someone could come along and yank them from the ground, ending their existence. But nature is filled with examples of things that seem to work under the triadic influence of all three: destiny, fate and choice.

But our main concern is with our own lives, more than how they play out in the natural world. We take that all for granted. In our own lives, we want control, yet we want to let go. We want to feel as though something good is destined to be; yet we hope that we aren’t fated for something bad. We choose, pay the consequences for our choices, and end up in a particular place in life because of that trajectory, any of which we could have changed for a different trajectory.

Yet if we are honest with ourselves, many of us do feel called, as if we have a path, or a destiny, that we are moving towards. When we ignore that path, or deviate from it, we are unhappy and dissatisfied. When we feel on path and on purpose, life flows. And yet, always, we have choices. The choice to walk that path, to not walk it, to run or skip or bike it. There may be one destination we are moving towards, but we get to choose the route by which we get there.

I’ve known since early childhood I was going to be a writer. There was no doubt in my mind. It wasn’t fated. I also dreamed of being a jockey and had I been short enough and not fallen off of horses too much, who knows? But I felt “called” to write, and worked very hard towards that outcome, by making choice after choice that I felt would keep me on the path. When I made the wrong choices, I paid the price either with financial distress, physical illness or depression…I felt “off track,” which to me was an indicator that I wasn’t moving TOWARDS something that felt natural and “meant to be.”

Do I have proof I was destined to be writer? No. I don’t have a Certificate of Destiny on hand. Am I fated to be a writer? No. I can quit tomorrow and be a llama breeder. Can I choose to write? Of course, because a human life is absolutely meaningless if it’s all fated and fixed from the get go. We’d never learn, never grow, never expand and fulfill the potentiality of who we can become.

Now I’m starting to sound like one of those metaphysical gurus! But the truth is, there are forces at play in our lives that are unseen except in the effects and influences we can observe. Think of gravity. You cannot SEE gravity, or hold it in your hand, or put it in a jar. You can only observe the EFFECTS AND INFLUENCES of the gravitational force at play around you. Go jump off a table and try to fly. Videotape it please.

Much of investigating the paranormal involves looking at external effects and influences without any general understanding of the cause, or the forces behind them. We have yet to be able to prove that ghosts are real, aliens exist or cryptids roam the backwoods. We have yet to show in a purely scientific fashion that telekinesis or precognition or even remote viewing is real, although we do have some good data and even some hands on clinical testing to show they do happen. (We’re still grasping to understand the mechanics behind it!) We can read our spouse’s very thoughts, but still not be able to prove we are psychic.

For so much of life, we have no proof except our own experiences and perceptions. The same goes for whether our own lives are lived in a way that offer no choice, leading to sense of defeat at the “fixed” nature of it all…or whether we feel like the whole dang world is a peach tree of choices just ripe for the picking.
And the truth is, it’s probably a little bit of both.

—

Marie D. Jones is the author of several books about the paranormal, metaphysics, and cutting-edge science (many coauthored with Larry Flaxman), including PSIence, The Déjà vu Enigma, Destiny vs. Choice: The Scientific and Spiritual Evidence Behind Fate and Free Will,11:11 The Time Prompt Phenomenon and Mind Wars. She has appeared on more than 1,000 radio shows worldwide, and on television, most recently on the History Channel’s Ancient Aliens series. Her website is mariedjones.com.

Filed Under: Marie D Jones, The Outer Edge, The Paranormal Braintrust Tagged With: choice, Destiny, Fate, free will, Marie D. Jones, Paranormal Braintrust

Coulrophobia, Or Is That a Creepy Clown in Your Closet? – Marie D. Jones

March 15, 2016 By The Paranormal Braintrust

Marie D. Jones
Marie D. Jones

I hate clowns. No, let me rephrase that. I DESPISE clowns. I have since childhood and chances are pretty good I’ll go to my grave hating the darn things. And I’m not alone in that sentiment.

Millions of people all over the world suffer from “coulrophobia,” or an excessive fear of clowns. In fact, fear of clowns is one of the most widely known phobias in the western world, alongside snakes, heights, and Sharknado movie sequels. But how and why did something so seemingly innocent as a man or woman dressed in polka dots, a funny wig and a big red nose become such an example of evil, a depiction of demonic, and a symbol of sinister?

It all began in our childhoods, where most traumas usually begin. In a 2008 study done by the University of Sheffield, England, 250 children between the ages of four and 16 were asked how they felt about clowns. Most of the children disliked them, and even feared them, including images of clowns, claiming that they were “odd” and not funny and also felt “unfamiliar.” No kidding. Most of us have been to the circus as kids and the clowns no doubt gave us the creeps, even if we did find some of their antics a bit silly. Clowns cloak themselves behind make-up and strange clothing, which, as children, sends a direct signal to our brains that “this is not someone I know,” and therefore, should have fear of. It’s pretty simple, according to one child psychologist. “Clowns are scary.”

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Not to mention the fact that many clowns are more garish and gaudy than silly and funny, and their exaggeratory movements also cause children to recoil, not knowing what to expect or how to react. Clowns are obnoxious and annoying.

In another study (yes, people get paid to study clowns!) done by a psychology professor at California State University, Northridge, children were found to be “reactive to a familiar body type with an unfamiliar face.” This probably explains the love/hate relationship most kids have with Halloween, too, ya think? Other studies point to the inability of children, and most adults, to read a person’s facial expressions when covered in make-up and masks, thus giving a sense of distrust to all things clownish. Not being able to gage the person’s emotions or intentions behind the face paint creates a sense of anxiety and uncertainty, and on the flipside, allows the clowns to engage in manic behavior they wouldn’t even think of without the cosmetic coverings to hide behind.

Yet children continue to ask for clown birthday parties and flock to McDonald’s. Go figure. Perhaps it’s the balloon animals and greasy French fries.

But adults hate clowns, too, and no doubt it’s the deep trauma to the psyche they experienced in the past, a continuation of fear of unfamiliar, masked beings that often appear to be happy, yet tragic…nice, yet homicidal. In fact, clowns might even remind us of our own dual psyches and serve as mirror images for society in general, and the ongoing battle between good and evil, known and unknown, revealed and hidden, ugly and beautiful. They also serve as an archetype to the Peter Pan within us all, and the fear of “adulting.” The director of talent for Ringling Bros. and Barnum and Bailey Circus is quoted in a 2013 Smithsonian magazine story called “The History and Psychology of Clowns Being Scary” as saying, “So in one way, the clown has always been an impish spirit…as he’s kind of grown up, but he’s also been about fun, but part of the fun has been a bit of mischief.” This mischievous side of clowns often manifests as manic behavior and buffoonery that possibly reminds us of the darker aspects of ourselves that refuse to grow up.

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But aside from the perspectives of child psychologists are researchers, clowns also have a dark side to their history. Dating back thousands of years, most cultures have some sort of clown, trickster, jester or joker that employed masks, make-up, wigs and bizarre clothing. Often, as with the pygmy clowns of Egypt in 2500 B.C.E., they were meant to entertain royalty, such as the pharaohs, or to serve as comical relief for an Emperor or King through song and dance routines. Ancient Greeks and Romans incorporated clowns into their theatre as “rustic fools,” characters that behaved and played as children or peasants did.

Native Americans have their own clowns, called “tricksters” who represent the mischievous Coyote spirit and are considered sacred to the community. Native clowns usually don masks instead of make-up and each one has a part in the greater mythology of the tribe.

The first known use of the word “clown” comes from the English “clowne,” meaning “rustic, boor, peasant,” and often clowns were considered clumsy, poor heathens in the 16th century. Shakespeare included such fools in some of his works, such as “Othello.” In the 17th century, clowns took on a more jester or harlequin appearance and were a mainstay of English theatre, when the word “clown” began to be assigned to the fool characters the way we might call someone an “extra” or “sidekick.”

More modern clowns don the recognizable red nose, big shoes, crazy colorful clothing and wigs, with features hidden behind makeup, and are comical in nature. Think Bozo and Ronald McDonald, certainly not sinister clowns in appearance. Known as Auguste, or “red clowns,” these happy clowns originated in the 19th century world of theatre and variety shows and all tend to look the same in general, and have separated themselves from what we know as tricksters, jesters and fools (each having their own distinct look and mode of dress). On the other hand, the French clown blanc or “white clown” was a more distinguished character, and often portrayed as sad and tragic. The 19th century also introduced the circus, originally in the form of a riding school in England that incorporated clowns to amuse spectators during the breaks between equestrian events. Soon, rodeos and variety shows featured either clowns or clown-like mimes, tramps dressed as hobos and bums, and eventually marionette/puppet versions.

Clowns usually perform routines without dialogue, but often involve props such as today’s squirt guns, unicycles and tricycles, hoses, fake flowers and hoops.

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Today, clowns run rampant through our pop culture, with television, movies and novels offering up everything from Red Skelton’s tragic Dodo the Clown in the 1953, “The Clown,” to the popular 1960s television show, “Bozo the Clown,” to the guy who sits on benches in front of millions of McDonald’s franchises, Ronald.

But when the heck did clowns become so…EVIL?

Over the evolution of the clown, the exaggerated movements and increasingly garish make-up and clothing began to take on a more sinister tone. Some people blame Stephen King’s 1986 novel, “It” for putting clowns in the sewer, literally, with his horrific “Pennywise,” and others say it was that nasty clown doll in the movie “Poltergeist,” but clowns-gone-bad have a deeper history. We can look to the work of great authors and playwrights for evidence of evil clowns afoot, such as the notorious murderer “Pagliacci” in the Italian opera of the same name by Ruggero Leoncavallo. “Pagliacci,” which means “clown” opened in 1892 in Milan, Italy and told the story of a tragic character who takes in a homeless girl, only to be betrayed by her with his best friend. Today, most people only know of Pagliacci from the hilarious, yet anxiety-provoking “Seinfeld” episode where “Crazy” Joe Davola, obsessed with Elaine, plays the character in an opera the gang are going to see.

Many historians and writers point to Joseph Grimaldi as the father of modern clowns. Andrew McConnell Stott, Dean of Undergraduate Education and English professor at University of Buffalo, New York wrote in his “The Pantomime Life of Joseph Grimaldi” about the famous pantomime of the early 1800s Regency London stage, Joseph Grimaldi, whose theatrical portrayals of a clown are celebrated every year in an East London church where congregants dress as clowns in his honor.

Grimaldi wore bizarre costumes and stark white face paint with bright red cheeks, and a blue Mohawk. His physical comedy was masterful, with leaps and handstands mixed in with hilarious satire. But behind the scenes, his life was downright tragic and depressing. His first wife died in childbirth, his father drank himself to a young death, and because of his physical performances, Grimaldi lived in constant pain. He died a penniless alcoholic in 1837, Charles Dickens edited Grimaldi’s memoir and presented a portrayal of a bleak figure behind the colorful comedic mask. Dickens is sometimes credited with the first real “scary clown” story.

Grimaldi was followed by a more sinister clown figure in France in the early 1830s, that of Jean-Gaspard Deburau’s “Pierrot,” a white face clown with garish red lips and black eyebrows that mimed his performances. Deburau may have added to his clown portrayal’s dark nature when he (Deburau) killed a young boy with his walking stick in 1836 after the boy shouted insults at him.

Modern media allowed for new interpretations of the clown/joker/trickster archetype and spawned plenty of comic book characters such as the Joker from the Batman series, Bobcat Goldthwait’s pathetic and alcoholic Shakes the Clown, professional wrestler Doink the Clown, the Insane Clown Posse band, Sweet Tooth from the Twisted Metal video game franchise, the horribly campy “Killer Klowns from Outer Space, and Sideshow Bob in the “Simpsons” cartoon series. Horror movies in particular love to take liberties with clowns, turning them into psychopathic ghosts (“All Hallow’s Eve,”) or interdimensional ancient demons stealing children (“Sinister”), and perhaps the creepiest of all, the terrifying Twisty of “American Horror Story” fame.

Twisty was, in fact, so horrifying he spawned a formal statement in 2014 by the Clowns of America International group, who distanced themselves from this more brutal, negative portrayal of clowns in the media. President Glenn Kohlberger stated, “We do not support in any way, shape or form any medium that sensationalizes or adds to coulrophobia or ‘clown fear.’”

Being afraid of fictional clowns is one thing. Being terrified of real clowns is quite another. Plenty of urban legends exist of phantom clowns that terrorize towns all over the world, usually men dressed as clowns standing on the side of deserted roadways, or knocking on doors of lonely single women. In 1981, an actual “clown panic” occurred when a group of children in Brookline, Massachusetts reported men dressed as clowns trying to entice them into a van. As the panic spread like a virus, new reports turned up years later as far away as Phoenix, Arizona; Orange, New Jersey, and Chicago, Illinois. More recently in England a highway clown continues to terrorize drivers, even though all he does is stand on the roadside holding a single balloon.

In May of 1990, a Wellington, Florida woman opened her front door to a man dressed as a clown holding balloons and flowers. He shot her in the face, killing her, and drove off in a white Chrysler LeBaron, as per a story in the May 26th Sun Sentinel. The clown killer was never identified.

In 2014, towns across France experienced a wave of teenagers dressing as clowns and harassing people. Some clowns have gone further, such as the axe-wielding clown arrested in Besancon, France, or the clown who beat a 35-year-old man during an attempted robbery in Montpellier. Clown crimes have also occurred in Spain and the U.S. These are perfect examples of people preying on the public’s fear of clowns, despite psychologists insisting that the percentage of people who dislike clowns is low. I beg to differ.

The clown crimes in France gave rise to a whole new breed of vigilantes known as “chasseurs de clown,” or clown hunters, who stay on the lookout for aggressive clowns and costumed criminals. In Mulhouse, five teenagers were arrested after forming an anti-clown resistance with tear-gas, baseball bats, batons and brass knuckles. These vigilantes triggered an official warning by the Police Nationale that anyone, either clown or clown hunter, found with any kind of weapon, would be arrested. No word on whether clown crimes are down in France!

But perhaps the most notorious evil clown of all is John Wayne Gacy, Jr., the serial killer who also went by the name, “Killer Clown.” Between 1972 and 1978, Gacy raped and murdered at least 33 teenage boys and young men in the area in and around Cook County, Illinois. He did his dirty deeds inside his home, luring his victims, or taking them by force. His mode of death was strangulation or asphyxiation, and he buried many of his victims in the crawlspace of his house in Norwood Park Township. Other victims were discovered in a nearby river. Gacy was convicted in 1980 and executed by lethal injection in 1994.

Gacy created a character named “Pogo the Clown,” and would dress up for parades, children’s parties and local fundraisers in his clown costume, which, since his death, has become a popular Halloween costume annually. Gacy’s story has spawned a few movies and even “Gacy” Halloween parties where people dress up as Pogo the Clown. Luckily, all they do is drink and not actually murder anyone!

The association of clowns with the most horrific and brutal of crimes was solidified by Gacy, because he made real the imaginings of fictional stories. Up until Gacy, we could be afraid of clown killers, but figured we might never actually encounter one. That was the stuff of movies and comics and television shows. Gacy made the phobia ever more real to us all.

But not all clowns evoke dread. In a study published in the January 2013 issue of “Journal of Health Psychology,” the presence of “therapy clowns” actually helped reduce pre-operative anxiety in children being prepped for various surgeries. Another 2011 study in the “Natural Medicine Journal” showed significant improvement in children with respiratory illnesses after they played with therapeutic clowns. I looked up therapeutic clowns and they apparently use gentle play, spontaneous humor and fun activities, as well as less garish make-up and clothing. They also engage the children in wearing costumes and make-up to create less of a barrier between the clown and the child.

But I still don’t like them. They are still clowns.

Our collective fear of clowns is a basic part of our human psyche. We fear, and just plain don’t approve of, anything hidden or masked. We cringe at the inconsistency of a colorful clown with a terrible frown (forgive the rhyming!). We respond on a deep subconscious level to our childhood anxieties of the unknown, especially humans that don’t look normal. Think grown up stranger-danger. And we recoil at the modern media’s distortions of happy, bumbling clowns into diabolical, horrific, pointy-teethed killers who lurk in sewers and inside closets.

Then there are those clowns that really exist in houses just like the one next door, stealing our innocence with crimes of such brutality, it makes the mind spin.

“Clowns are frightening and unknowable,” Dr. Penny Curtis of the University of Sheffield says. They are an exaggeration of what we deem normal, and in that sense, an aberration.

Especially when they’re found under your bed.

—

Marie D. Jones is the author of several books about the paranormal, metaphysics, and cutting-edge science (many coauthored with Larry Flaxman), including PSIence, The Déjà vu Enigma, Destiny vs. Choice: The Scientific and Spiritual Evidence Behind Fate and Free Will,11:11 The Time Prompt Phenomenon and Mind Wars. She has appeared on more than 1,000 radio shows worldwide, and on television, most recently on the History Channel’s Ancient Aliens series. Her website is mariedjones.com.

Filed Under: Marie D Jones, Slider, The Outer Edge, The Paranormal Braintrust Tagged With: Clowns, Fear of Clowns, Jim Harold, Marie D. Jones, Paranormal Braintrust

The Paranormal Nature of Numbers – Marie D. Jones’ OUTER EDGE

February 24, 2016 By The Paranormal Braintrust

Marie D. Jones
Marie D. Jones

We usually think of the paranormal as the invisible world of ghosts, entities and otherworldly abilities like remote viewing, ESP and precognition. Paranormal is “beyond normal;” things we cannot yet explain within the confines of modern science. But nature, and reality, holds mysteries equally paranormal, and yet utterly scientific in their origin and explanation. One of those mysteries involves the absolutely wild and wacky world of…wait for it…numbers.

Most of us cannot stand math and hate balancing our checkbooks (although most of us do that online now!). Mention numbers and people cringe, instantly associating them with bad memories of junior high school math quizzes and big, fat F’s at the top of the test. Those strange creatures that do love math, and its associated studies of geometry, algebra, calculus and physics, know that numbers go far beyond their appearance. They harbor a magical power of their own, both creative and destructive. In fact, physicists will tell you that at the heart of reality itself, the language of the universe and the foundational basis for life goes back to…numbers. Math. Mathematical ratios.

Throughout nature, we find grouped number sequences and patterns that form the underlying structures to everything from flowers to seashells to the way tornadic winds develop. Two of the most enigmatic examples of this are the Golden Ratio, and the Fibonacci Spiral, both of which imply a higher order of measurement behind what many of us take for granted, including our own physical bodies.

The Golden Ratio, also known as the Divine Ratio, the Divine Section, the Golden Ration and the Golden Mean, is an irrational number of approximately 1.618033988749. This specific ratio is considered more divinely inspired than any other because it is found throughout nature as the highest expression of balance, symmetry and aesthetics. The fundamental formula behind the Golden Ratio is described as the ratio whereby the ratio of the whole to the larger section equals the ratio of the larger section to the smaller section. It is also referred to as “phi.”

So where do we find this wonderful ratio at work? How about the Great Pyramid of Giza, the structure of a five-pointed star or Pentagram, the outline of the Acropolis near Athens, Greece (a Golden Rectangle), and most famously, our own bodies, as portrayed by Leonardo da Vinci’s famous “Vitruvian Man.” Look at the image and you’ll see the Golden Ratio at work in the correspondences between the body and its parts, the greater whole to the lesser limbs.

Photo: Luc Viatour/Wikipedia
Photo: Luc Viatour/Wikipedia

The Vitruvian Man comes from the ancient Roman architect, Vitruvius, whose “De Architectura” inspired da Vinci’s fascination with the Golden Ratio and his use of the ratio in his paintings The Last Supper and the Mona Lisa. In fact, in the Mona Lisa, da Vinci used the Golden Rectangle for her face, presenting the perfectly symmetrical ratio of the width of her forehead compared to the length of the top of her head to her chin. Her face is said to have been considered the perfect face of a woman, at least by standards of the past!

The Last Supper contains three vertical Golden Rectangles, and one decagon, a Golden Ratio shape, for the figure of Jesus. You would never know this upon viewing the painting, and that’s on purpose. It’s an aesthetic that is pleasing to the eye, but without the observer really knowing why.

The use of Golden sections and geometric ratios are often done for their aesthetic value alone, but sometimes it goes beyond the looks of things. Certain Celtic and Indian labyrinths and mandalas used Golden Ratios to create spiritual resonance with symmetry and measurement, affecting the observer perhaps on a subconscious level, where symbolism and pattern reign supreme, as well as a physiological one.

One of the most widely known and most fascinating Golden Ratios is the Fibonacci Sequence or Spiral, originally discovered by Leonardo of Pisa, born in 1170 C.E. Leonardo also went by the name Leonardo Fibonacci, or just simply, Fibonacci, which basically means “son of Bonaccio.” Fibonacci, as we will call him, was the man responsible for the spread of the Hindu-Arabic numeral system into Europe, but he was much more widely known for a sequence of numbers that run as such: 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144 and so on…

Fibonacci wrote a book in the 13th century titled “Liber Abaci,” or the “Book of Calculations,” and in it, he presented his brilliant knowledge of Middle Eastern mathematical systems, and the above sequence of numbers. This particular sequence is a series of numbers designed so that each number after the first two numbers is the sum of the previous two numbers. The higher the numbers in the sequence, the closer the two consecutive numbers divided by each other approach the Golden Ratio of 1:1.618.

In nature, Fibonacci noted that this sequence is present in spiral structural patterns, as well as the way leaves grow on a stem in several species of flora, and the manner by which lightning branches out, the way rivers branch, even the proportions of bodies to wingspans of birds and flying insects. Even snowflakes had a distinct geometric pattern of formation, as well as our own DNA. These ratios and sequences were EVERYWHERE.

One of the best examples of the Fibonacci Spiral is the Chambered Nautilus, a marine cephalopod that actually grows at a rate matching the Fibonacci sequence! Some scientists have posited that this structure could just be a logical outcome of the natural principal of geometric designs and not necessarily some mystical, paranormal aspect of divine intelligence. Although we might argue that whatever created all of nature sure did an intricate job and seemed to enjoy sophisticated patterns and ratios!

And nowhere might this play out on such a massive scale as in the theory that our entire universe can be whittled down to just six numbers – well, mathematical ratios that if tweaked ever so slightly in one direction or another could have prevented biological life from ever evolving on Earth.

The most vocal proponent of the “just six numbers” theory is Sir Martin Rees, Britain’s Royal Society Research Professor at Cambridge University, and the Astronomer Royal. In his book “Just Six Numbers,” Rees proposes six sophisticated ratios that allow for the formation of chemicals and gases, planets and solar systems, and…us.

  1. Nu – “N” – with the value of 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000. This massive number is the ratio of the strength of electrical forces holding atoms together, divided by the force of gravity between them.
  2. Epsilon – 0.007. This ratio is the proportion of energy released when hydrogen fuses into helium. This ratio defines how firmly atomic nuclei bind together and how all atoms on earth were made. The value of Epsilon controls the power of the sun and how stars transmute hydrogen into all the atoms of the periodic table.
  3. Omega – The cosmic number 1. This measures the amount of material in the Universe and refers to the relative importance of gravity and the expansion energy of the Universe.
  4. Lambda – This is the force of cosmic antigravity, discovered in 1998, and is an extremely small number. It controls the expansion of the Universe.
  5. Q = 1/100,000 – This is the basis for all cosmic structures – stars, galaxies, clusters, imprinted in the Big Bang. This is the fabric of our Universe and represents the ratio of two fundamental energies.
  6. Delta – 3 – This is the number of spatial dimensions in our universe.

Rees and his colleagues all agree that if any of the above six ratio/numbers were ever-so-slightly plus or minus in variation, our Universe would be a totally different thing, if it could exist at all, suggesting an incredible sophistication to the design of all of reality. Though many choose to impose a religious connotation to the idea of Intelligent Design, many astrophysicists and astronomers suggest there is indeed an intelligence behind the incredibly intricate ratios and laws of the universe…although that intelligence does by no means imply an anthropomorphic one.

There is another number, called “N,” which dictates just how large our Universe is allowed to get. Beyond that value, or below it, the gravitational force might exceed the electric force, and the Universe would cease to exist. To think that our own existence is based upon such fine-tuned numbers is amazing, but also a bit terrifying, when we think of how one little slip of that tuning could lead to unimaginable catastrophe.

In his book, “The Goldilocks Enigma: Why the Universe is Just Right for Life,” physicist Paul Davies stated that our ancient ancestors were very much aware that beneath the surface complexity of the cosmos was a deeper, hidden code, and that code was written in the language of mathematics. Science, says Davies, “has uncovered the existence of this concealed mathematical domain.” Thus, the most fundamental basis for existence comes down to numbers, and as many scientists have suggested, any alien civilization that may want to communicate with us would do so in the language of mathematics, not words, because mathematics is a true language that goes beyond borders, boundaries, cultures and traditions. Mathematical laws, ratios and rules apply anywhere, anytime, to anyone. Aliens might indeed have their own specific languages on their home planet, as we do, for communicating with each other, but when it comes to speaking with those of another planet or civilization, they would most likely choose the universally understood language of measurement and ratio.

But most of us really don’t want to think about the structure of the cosmos. We are more interested in how numbers play a paranormal role in our day-to-day lives, and they do so via patterns. Whether we are talking about the structure of a flower on a stalk, or our own bodies, or the repetition of number sequences our brain might seek out in the forms of time prompts and number “pokes” from the spirit world, as some call them, there is a part of our subconscious that responds to the true symbolic nature of numbers and number patterns. Perhaps this is why so many of us are drawn to mandalas, labyrinths, and even intricate crop circles, whether manmade or otherwise. We are responding to the symmetry and the aesthetic value of the structure both consciously, and subconsciously.

The brilliant physicist and father of quantum theory, Werner Heisenberg, believed that the most fundamental aspect of nature was particle symmetry. F. David Peat, a physicist and author of a number of books on science and quantum physics, wrote in “Synchronicity: The Bridge Between Mind and Matter,” that “symmetries could be thought of as the archetypes of all matter and the ground of material existence.” But he went one step father, suggesting that it might be possible that archetypal symmetries might manifest themselves in the internal structures of the mind, as well as having the “immanent and formative role that is responsible for the exterior forms of nature.” If this sounds a lot like the ancient Hermetic “as above so below,” or as within, so without, well, that’s because truth is truth and stands the test of time. Our ancestors knew that there was a profound link, or perhaps we might say, symmetry, between what went on in the cosmos and what happened here on the Earthly plane, and our modern scientists seem to be catching up to that understanding.

Symmetries, patterns, ratios that are so magical they are considered “golden,” all of which form the perfectly tuned music of the spheres, the structure of the cosmos, and everything within them. So, does this suggest that some God was responsible, or perhaps a giant cosmic computer spitting out its and bits of information to create a sophisticated blueprint of creation? Is this a matter of “confirmation bias” in the human brain and our desire to seek patterns to fit meanings, or vice versa…or is there a hidden infrastructure of reality that is based entirely on the ratio of one measurement to another?

Either way, it all goes back to numbers.

—

Marie D. Jones is the author of several books about the paranormal, metaphysics, and cutting-edge science (many coauthored with Larry Flaxman), including PSIence, The Déjà vu Enigma, Destiny vs. Choice: The Scientific and Spiritual Evidence Behind Fate and Free Will,11:11 The Time Prompt Phenomenon and Mind Wars. She has appeared on more than 1,000 radio shows worldwide, and on television, most recently on the History Channel’s Ancient Aliens series. Her website is mariedjones.com.

Filed Under: Marie D Jones, The Outer Edge, The Paranormal Braintrust Tagged With: Marie D. Jones, outer edge, Paranormal Braintrust, paranormal nature of numbers, The Outer Edge

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