Spencer Dryden
This posts sweeps up a couple of recent topics, disbelief
and cravings. It involves the most powerful paranormal experience of my life
which occurred in the spring of 1965, a time when I did not believe in such
things—as was ordained by the Church. Such things fell under the general rubric
of Satanic worship. If you're hoping for salvation as a Roman Catholic, you
better not be caught dead in that theater. Pile on the sins from the relentless
stream of impure thoughts and,
well...you're pretty much without hope of getting past the pearly gates. I believed in the "Holy Ghost", and
hoped my guardian angel watched over me, but nothing else in the spiritual
realm which wasn't stamped with the papal imprimatur.
Bless me father, but I did have an 'experience' once with the Ouija
board. I guided the pointer to
spell out a scary message trying to impress
a girl with my psychic powers. I put my
immortal soul on the line to impress a girl. What was I thinking? Didn't work.
It could have easily been the beginning of one of those chain saw massacre,
satanic, paranormal, don't open the closet, oh let's go into the haunted house
to get away from the storm movies that are so popular today.
I had no trouble suspending disbelief when "The Exorcist"
came out years later. I knew from my religious training that Satan was waiting,
lurking, ready to devour the soul of some poor innocent kid who hadn't said
their prayers or had stolen some money from the jar in his parent's room. (I
put it back. Really.) I hear tubular bells.
My experience began innocently enough. I was at the end of
my Freshman year at an all boys Catholic high school in Milwaukee. A good
friend had a sister attending a boarding high school in the Madison area, about
90 miles away. She had a part in the
school play. My friend was obligated to attend, as his mother and step-father
were traveling out of the country. He
convinced me to go along to lessen the pain of riding across the state with his
aunt and uncle. What a dope I was. Sure, what are friends for? In the guy world we call friends like this
wingmen now. I was being a good wingman. I've got a great wingman story I hope to get
published. It features that wild girl all us Catholic boys hoped to meet one
day. But I digress.
It was dark by the time we reached the outskirts of Madison.
Her school was on the north side of town, so we got off the freeway and made the
final leg of the trip via state highway. We rounded a curve only a few miles
from her school. Off in the distance, behind some rolling hills I could see the
lights of a town. No buildings, just the warm glow coming over the hill in the
night time sky. Suddenly, every instinct that says "home" flooded my
soul. It was disconcerting to say the least. I'm not talking about, 'oh this
looks the same as'... No, this was deep in my core where you don't have words,
just sensations. All of those sensations said 'home' was just over that hill in
that little community.
It wasn't the kind of experience that I could brush off. It
was too powerful. I hardly remember the play or the return trip, I was so full
of wonder at this experience. I tried to deconstruct it many times looking for
the accidental triggering of the 'home' instinct. Nothing. I didn't mention it
to anyone lest I be whisked away for an exorcism. Maybe I was psychic after
all.
A year and a half later my parents moved to that little
farming community. It's where I had my brief encounter with fame that I
described in the post on cravings. Go figure. I still have trouble believing
it.
