Or at least not solely about them lol.

I’ve wondered for years now why the Coin-incidence seemed to be a bit of an isolated event, and whether or not mind-altering substances, which I was certainly doing at that time, were necessary ingredients for that experience to have happened. Since getting sober 20 years, I’ve gone through periods of sadness, grief, hope, confusion, and anger, thinking I might never again get to experience something like that if I stayed sober. And that seems like a fate too cruel for even this reality, which can be very cruel indeed. But recently, I’ve been reading “Encounters,” Diana Pasulka’s long awaited follow-up to “American Cosmic.” And last night, I had a total epiphany – one that, initially, is almost as disturbing as the thought that the drugs were a necessary component for that mystical experience.

Diana talks in both books about a man she knows who she calls Tyler. He is something of an enigma, someone who worked in some high security, responsibility jobs, like being a mission controller for NASA. He is the one who took Diana and another friend out to a field somewhere in New Mexico that contains debris from a non-human vehicle that crashed. And, most importantly for this discussion, Tyler adheres to something Diana refers to as “the protocols.” Now I had read a little about them in her first book. But in the new one, she explains in detail that Tyler doesn’t watch any news, at all, doesn’t take in any media or outside influences, etc. He’s basically like a cloistered monk in the modern world. She also talked about one of the people in the Vatican who is responsible for determining what events are actual miracles and which aren’t, and how that person adheres to basically the same protocols. Supposedly, it helps them to maintain a “cleaner” connection to Source and enables better “download” capability. And it finally clicked as I read that – I was basically in the same exact situation when I lived in Gisela, and THAT’S what contributed to, allowed for, enabled, the Coin-incidence to happen!

So the good news is, I’m pretty sure that drugs aren’t necessary to have an experiences, or string of them, like the Coin-incidence. The tough news is that, at this point in my life, it would be virtually impossible to live by those protocols as Tyler does. If there is any comfort, it’s knowing that one day, when we are ready to retire, I can choose to live that life again, WITHOUT the drugs, and can look forward to the possibility of more incredible experiences.

Interestingly enough, I had an intuition all along that being away from the city, and all it’s “pollution” – noise, mental, spiritual, etc – probably had a lot to do with it and was a necessary component to the powerful mystical experience. What I didn’t really take into account was the avoidance of news and other media, the complete disconnection from information coming from modern society. I am off of Twitter, Mastodon, etc, but still do Facebook. And completely disconnecting from all news? Yeah, that would be REALLY hard for me now.

Of course, if we were to win the lottery… 😉