Out of the Psychic Closet
No. 47, October / November, 2008
By Toby Heathcotte
from the writing desk
In September I attended the writers' conference, Wrangling with Writing, in Tucson. I had a great time, met some interesting people, and made some new contacts. I'd like to continue my writing in personal essays, and some of the workshops helped me in that direction. I also attended to AZ Authors business.
The publisher sent me a first draft of the cover art for my new book, Out of the Psychic Closet. It is supposed to come out this winter. I thought you might enjoy seeing the artwork. I don't know whether this is the final or not, but I'll hear soon. I'm excited about the book's coming out party! Of course, I'll let you all know as soon as the book is available for purchase.
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from the psychic closet
DREAMS AND HUMAN POSSIBILITY
My dream group has begun the work of getting to know each other and trust each other. There have already been some instances of dreaming similar scenarios. I'm going to have to hurry to catch up with this group. I'm excited about what will come of it. Although I would never give specific instances because of the chance of betraying a confidence, I can tell you ideas that come out of the group as time goes along.
In line with my recent surge of interest in dreaming, I've started reading a new author. Perhaps you already know of him, Robert Moss. He gives a lot of advice and techniques for remembering dreams and for understanding human experience through dreams and synchronicities. He tells of the notorious Osama bin Laden videotape after 9/11. Bin Laden expressed great concern before the event because so many dreamers had tapped into it, dreaming of planes flying into buildings, that he feared his whole awful venture would have to be aborted. Islam pays great deference to dreams, both those of the saints and biblical figures and also dreamers today. That's because the people believe that dreams have a great impact on waking reality. Some suicide bombers have mentioned dreams as their rationales. They have dreamed of their ancestors coming to them to tell them to take up arms, or they have dreamed of beautiful women in heaven that they wish to be with. Western culture disregards dreams to its detriment in my opinion. If we disregard our personal dreams as well as the dreams of the community, we can only operate with partial truths.
According to Moss, "...just as babies rehearse for walking and talking in dreams before they have developed the corresponding physical abilities, humanity rehearses for new phases in its development through dreaming. We are on the edge of grasping what this might mean when we talk about ideas that are 'in the air.'..artists and science fiction writers have frequently anticipated new technologies by decades or centuries." I imagine that before humankind could speak, they dreamed of speech together. Before they flew, they dreamed of flying machines. Now often in dreams we communicate with each other without speech. Perhaps the next stage of human development will include telepathy as a common method of communication.
These are the books I've read by Moss that I recommend: The Dreamer's Book of the Dead: A Soul Traveler's Guide to Death, Dying, and the Other Side; Conscious Dreaming:: A Spiritual Path for Everyday Life; and his newest book, The Three "Only" Things: Tapping the Power of Dreams, Coincidence, & Imagination. His website has a lot of resources if you'd like to sample his work: www.mossdreams.com/
from the bookshelf
Nonfiction Titles:
Program Building: A Practical Guide for High School Speech and Drama Teachers, available from Amazon
Seeds for Fertile Minds: Eight Curriculum Integration Tools with Betty Joy, available from Amazon
Out of the Psychic Closet: The Quest to Trust My True Nature to be released by Twilight Times Books.
Fiction Titles:
Alison's Legacy, Amazon
Lainn's Destiny, available as a CD from me:
theathcotte@cox.net
Angie's Promise, available as a paperback from me: theathcotte@cox.net and on Amazon
Covenant, finished. Available as a download to all members of my newsletter list. Write to me at theathcotte@cox.net to request a copy.
Backlight, a Fesler Family Chronicle, finished. Available as a download to all members of my newsletter list. Write to me at theathcotte@cox.net to request a copy.
Full Contact by Toby Heathcotte, available as a CD from me theathcotte@cox.net
contact info
outofthepsychiccloset.blogspot.com/
outofthepsychiccloset-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
Photo by Dennis Habbershaw
c. 2008. For permission to duplicate, contact theathcotte@cox.net