The Baptism in fire (Truth) and Spirit

 

That meme was posted yesterday at the Poetic Outlaws Facebook page.

Two replies resonated with me:

Graham

Pure undistorted truth IS the world.

It's only us who so often aren't 

Terrie 

Well, if you can't stand the HEAT...

I posted:

This reminds me of the title of Gloria Steinem's book, THE TRUTH WILL SET YOU FREE, BUT FIRST IT WILL PISS YOU OFF. 

And it reminds me of: 

Matthew 3:11 “I [John the Baptist] baptize you with water for repentance. But after me comes one who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.

Luke 12:49 [Jesus] “I have come to bring fire on the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! 50 But I have a baptism to undergo, and what constraint I am under until it is completed! 51 Do you think I came to bring peace on earth? No, I tell you, but division. 52 From now on there will be five in one family divided against each other, three against two and two against three. 53 They will be divided, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.” 

 

John 8:31-32

So Jesus said to the Jews who believed in him, “If you continue to obey my teaching, you are truly my followers. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.” 

I read up on those passages yesterday and found no mainstream Christianity discourse that seemed to actually understand Jesus' baptism, which was red hot and he lived it himself and he taught and administered it to other people. 

It's a raging fire that burns away impurities and refines a person, and it's no fun at all, based on my own personal experiences with what I came to call Holy Fire, which is not confined to any religion. For example, the Sufi poet Rumi's classic poem, "The Chickpea", is about being boiled and boiled and boiled in Holy Fire.

I was raised in Christendom, but left it, and by and by something got ahold of me and turned me every which a way but loose and upside down and inside out. I was stood before many mirrors and and my ego really didn't like it. It's still going on 36 years after it began. I'm 80 now, don't belong to any religion, don't attend church, yet don't know when I'm ever not in church.

For example, this poem leaped out of me on June 7, 2004, after I had blown a major spiritual assignment by using way too much male energy, and I was wondering if I would ever get back in sync with God? 

SHANGHAIED

A calling to serve carries its own wisdom,
which legitimates both the calling and the serving
so that the two are one.
Only the one called to serve
can know this wisdom,
and for some who are called
the knowing comes easily,
while for others the knowing is a fiery baptism.
Each calling is different,
and while some callings can be declined,
others cannot,
and those whose calling is without repentance
know they are in it for the duration of the calling,
and while others may try to persuade them out of it,
the calling for ones such as these always prevails;
thus is it advised to all called for keeps
that they view their calling as a blessing
even when it seems at times to be a curse,
and that they try to reconcile the loss of their captain status
and allow the Spirit of God to man the helm of their ship,
and be glad and willing crew members thereon,
knowing that all sailing ships of souls
need a crew as well as a captain
to maintain and navigate the ship through
seas of many tones, depths and flavors;
so consider each league sailed
as part of the overall journey
going to where the captain deigns to go
by using whatever winds and sea currents available
to navigate the ship to the experiences
this ship and crew need to have
in order to fulfill their calling and its wisdom
revealed by the journey of many leagues,
many known only to the ship and its crew,
all of whom come to know,
some sooner than others,
that once conscripted
there is no safe jumping ship.

(7 June 2004)

June is the 6th month. In the spirit code I learned during my earlier times in the flames, 6 is the number for Melchizedek, 7 is the number for the mark of God on a person or an event.

A few months after that poem arrived, amid oceans of tears, I wrote a little book that was used to rehabilitate me from the blown assignment. It memorialized 6 exceptional Alabama people, who had greatly influenced me in my youth. I named it A FEW REMARKABLE ALABAMA PEOPLE I HAVE KNOWN. 

I had it published and I gave away the first run, 300 copies. I had it republished several more times and gave it all away. I  put the book onto its own ad-free blog, where people can read it for free. This link should get you there.

afewremarkablealabamapeople.blogspot.com

The first part of the book tells how it came to be written. Then come the 6 remarkable people.

sloanbashinsky@yahoo.com

The herd is never right (chains that bind)

I'm 80 years old and have had what seems like many lives progressing more and more towards stranger than fiction. Along the way, I concluded the herd is never right, and the status quo is a living organism that views change as a lethal threat and uses any and all means possible to defeat it.

Along those lines is my recent post into a Reddit spirituality group. Everyone there uses a fake name. I'm Puzzleheaded.

Chains that bind

Accepted a friend request yesterday from a friend of 3 of my Facebook friends. The new friend said he's a free spirit. I replied that everyone I have known was chained to something. Such as, I am chained to a Facebook censor board, which decides what is appropriate. Such as, Covid-19, which has no respect for any person. Such as, subconscious goings on that influence me unawares, while my mind, which is about 5 percent of my total consciousness, tries to run my picture show. Such as, the angels that have run, advised and corrected me since early 1987. Such as, body ails that drag me down. Such as, pregnant women being forced to be unwilling mothers of unwanted babies. Such as, no one being in charge of their bodies. Secular laws, social norms and medical philosophy requiring everyone live as long as possible, to maximize profit$$$ for medical, hospital, nursing and hospice industries, lawyers, accountants, mental health practitioners, churches and ministers, Facebook, Twitter, Truth Social, fast food, soft drink and booze companies, cell phone, internet, and cable TV companies, Hollywood, FOX, CNN, GM, Ford, Chrysler, Toyota, banks, Wall Street, lawyers, etc. Apologies to chains I didn't think to mention, or don't know even exist.

Kitchen

Wow, do you realise they do not bind everyone right?

Puzzleheaded

I mentioned some chains of which I am aware. No two people are alike, so each person has his or her own chains that bind, knowingly or unknowingly. That's the human condition. I hope it's different in the afterlife. However, a good friend, about half my age (I'm 80) had a dream along those lines last night. The essence of the dream was, he was walking land owned by his family. Beyond a small family graveyard was what appeared to be a whirling fire, but as he neared it, it saw it was amber and it had something like a tractor beam that drew anyone near into it, including him. Inside, he saw many people, as well as himself, being shown themselves and other people they knew, all of it, but the other people were not able, or were not willing, to see everything, or much of it, whereas he was seeing all of it. He asked me what I thought the dream meant? I said the dream was profound, he should frame it, and never forget it, because it showed him where he stands in reality and with God, compared to everyone else in the amber vortex with him. 

Keith 

Sloan Bashinsky All I can say is wow! 

Along similar lines:

Poetic Outlaws Facebook page

“To live beyond the pale, to work for the pleasure of working, to grow old gracefully while retaining one’s faculties, one’s enthusiasms, one’s self respect, one has to establish other values than those endorsed by the mob. It takes an artist to make this breach in the wall. An artist is primarily one who has faith in himself. He does not respond to the normal stimuli: he is neither a drudge nor a parasite. He lives to express himself and in so doing enriches the world.”

~ Henry Miller

Sloan Bashinsky

Around age 50, I learned I was a poet when poems started coming out of me. Then, a lot of poems came out of me. They seemed to write themselves. I already had written some non-fiction books. Then, some novels came. The tone was off-beat, road seldom traveled, and mostly mystical. I'm now 80. 

For a little over 2/3 of my life, I have suffered a petulant G.I. tract, which arrived one spring day when I was 26, without any warning. It was immune to medicine and anything else I threw at it. It's still with me and is a big piece of what caused me to wonder what's the point in all the attempts to keep people alive in their later years, unless they really want to be kept alive?
 

Why doesn't society and medicine and religion and government get over themselves and furnish a pill that suffering people can take, if they wish, and end their travail? I'm sure there are many answers to why not do that. However, it seems to me that a lot of money is made keeping people alive, which would not be made if they were dead.

Donata 

Sloan Bashinsky have you looked into CVS- cyclic vomiting syndrome. Perplexing malady for sure. My husband has it since very young - on and off.

Sloan Bashinsky

Donata vomiting not part if it. I've had many experiences with it that convinced me it is psychic in origin.

Linda

Sloan Bashinsky

Yep! It’s not always compassion but a passion for funds $!

Barb

Sloan Bashinsky Canada has new assisted suicide laws, you can check out pretty much whenever you want now.

Brent Symons

Barb Sherman very sensible those Canadians :-)

Sloan Bashinsky

Barb Maybe Canadians understand torture better than Americans? Maybe they see the drain on their healthcare system better than Americans? Maybe they understand the legions of vulture$ who$e very exi$tence depend$ on keeping people alive, no matter what the co$t!

Keith

Sloan Bashinsky Good on you Sloan! Look at the creativity that flowed freely and unsolicited, through you, and may happen again in your 80’s or 90’s…The good Lord, higher power…(pick your deity or spiritual belief)….takes each of us when he and we are ready…. Still….if looking for that pill, I think Dr Kavorkian can accommodate your wishes.

Sloan Bashinsky

Keith guns and knives freely available to off oneself, but not a simple pill. I'm not at the wanting to leave stage, yet, but the going physically is mostly rough, and nothing in me is okay with what money I have being spent on live-in caretakers, nursing home, hospice, doctors and hospitals trying to keep me alive. There are much better uses for money, is my perspective. 

 

Creativity still flows through me, but mostly it's in a cheeky podcast a friend, also a mystic, with tech skills, makes possible for him and me to cut up and hold forth and groan and laugh at The Redneck Mystic Lawyer Podcast. Here's a link to our most recent podcast, which is in the Torrent system, along with about maybe 50 other episodes. We get 50,000 or so complete watches per episode. Don't know the numbers on this one yet.

https://youtu.be/QNQd3jupEds

YOUTUBE.COM

Cathouse Podcasting Presents: A Podcast or Podcats About Cats and Puttytaths 

 

Or, if you like to read novels online, here's a link to a free read of the last of my novels, which leaped out of me in mid-2000. 

HEAVY WAIT: A Strange Tale 

https://archive.org/details/heavy-wait-a-strange-tale_202212/mode/2up

Keith

Thanks, will check out 

Barb

Sloan Bashinsky I agree with another commenter. You've accomplished so much despite the pain, you should stick around to see what other gems emerge from you, plus to witness the crazy devolution of a formerly free west.

Sloan Bashinsky

Barb I truly appreciate your and Keith McClure's input. Funny, the gems emerge analogy. For a very long time now, I have watched my gut behave like a birthing canal. Something new, usually grisly, coming my way, into me, is preceded by my gut getting more cranky than usual, sometimes a lot more cranky. As I work through it internally and externally, it begins to ease in my gut and release, and return to its "normal" cranky self. Like I'm a cranky human sewage treatment plant.

One colossal example - 

After President Obama accepted the Nobel Prize for Peace, while carrying forward the Bush-Cheney rich white men wars for corporate profit in Afghanistan and Iraq, my gut shut down nearly completely for a month. Then, right before a monthly Keys West Poetry Guild reading above the hugely popular Blue Heaven Caribbean restaurant in the Bahama Village section of Key West (where Africans had settled in the city before it was part of the USA, I jotted down a little quite violent, outraged poem about what Obama had gone and done, and then I read it, and read it again at a Poetry Guild event in a city pocket park, and - Viola!!!, my gut eased and released and went back to its "normal" cranky self . 

How does a black American president accept the Nobel Prize for peace, while waging rich white men's wars for corporate profit? How does the Nobel Committee nominate that black president, when he is waging those two wars? John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Robert Kennedy, Malcom X all came out against the Vietnam war, which was a rich white men's war for corporate profit, and they all were shot and killed. That is not taught in America's school and colleges, is it? What are the Las Vegas odds of four prominent Americans publicly opposing the Vietnam war being assassinated not being connected? The Las Vegas odds are zero, as are those odds zero in the Kingdom of God.

Barb

Sloan Bashinsky Yes you're right, I think the Nobel should go to a common person who achieves amazing things like reforesting 100s of acres for years all on their own. People like that.

You don't have to be puzzle-headed but maybe that helps to know God's gifts are not for sale

The other day, I posted this probe at a Reddit spirituality group. Everyone there uses a fake name, I'm Puzzleheaded.

Puzzleheaded

Does Reddit allow its members to use this forum to solicit their spiritual-healing services?

Branco

Ive been getting offers to buy opioides and other garbage..immediately blocked it..

Gig
Opioids I would have loved talking to them, sadly all I get is just mediums wanting to read me at a fee. If they come to seek me out for a reading I expect it to be free if it's the other way around the fee is fine.

Branco
Opioides should not be for sale to the general public from some random guy...
Gig

Anything legal if there no cops or cameras around. But in all seriousness it can be fun to mess with someone like that plus they might drop some secrets.

Branco
Yeah then some kid buys opioides and destroys himself, fentanyl and shit..good times..

Puzzleheaded
This notice came from Reddit, I changed the name of the solicitor to protect his/her privacy here.

Reddit

Hi there, ABC wants to chat with you! Better go check that out.

Wondering what it was about, I replied and this came back from ABC:

Do you have any specific questions? I do relationship reading, career reading, finance reading, future reading, and other intuitive guidance.I’m an approve reader of the celestial group, I’m a based reiki, oracle master with 3 years of expert experience and practice, I have a reading that would corollate with the situation that await you in the nearest future. The guide would be pleased if you reply my messages.

I replied to ABC and haven't heard back yet:

My first question is, are you asking me to pay you money for your services? I ask, because I have been doing psycho-spiritual work for a very long time and it is forbidden to me to charge money, or anything, or even to suggest donations. 

That was driven home in late April 2000, when a very familiar voice told me in my sleep, "You are going back into a prison where you once lived, to try to help other people still iiving there." Then, I saw myself in some kind of facility with quite a few other people dressed casually. I saw a way out off to the right of me, but I knew I would not use it unless given permission. 

 

The next night, the same voice said to me, "You cannot do this work correctly if you are trying to get anything back from the people you are trying to help." 

 

In the fall of 1993, this had fallen out of me, "God's gifts are not for sale, but are freely given to angels, saints, sinners, devils and fools alike, for all are God's children."

I posted all of that above into this forum under the title, "God's gifts are not for sale," and the Reddit moderator took it all down moments later.

Runs from
🤔
Subreddits have zero powers over private messages. Reddit doesn't read them unless you report a private message to Reddit itself.
So it's up to you to be intelligent and not fall for scam. Block spammers, report scammers.

Puzzleheaded

I knew it was spam when I saw ABC's overture to me. It was the first time I was spammed on Reddit. What interested me was, the moderation panel killed my post to this sub reddit group, in which I reproduced what had been written to me by Reddit and by ABC, and my reply to ABC. That caused me to think either Reddit or who runs this sub group is okay with spam such as I received.

Runsfrom
🤔
Noone is okay with spam

Puzzleheaded
Well, why'd Reddit take down my post about it?

Runsfrom
🤔
If you used the same text spammers do, it can trigger flags.
Your karma or age can trigger flags.
Some words can be on a filter that will trigger a flag.
There's a million reason, best thing to do is ask reddit or the mods.

Puzzleheaded
I used the exact words used by Reddit, the spammer and me, twice, and twice Reddit rejected my post for violating community standards. Yet, Reddit did not reject me republishing same in this comment thread. 

I can't help but wonder if there is a money angle lurking underneath all of this? Like, Reddit wouldn't make as much money, if it didn't allow spam?

sloanbashinsky@yahoo.com

Gurus, Buddha, Jesus and the spiritual path that kills you and you become someone else, if you don't bolt and run

Sometimes I go online in search of someone, or someones, demonstrating symptoms of being run, advised, corrected and steered by something bigger and smarter than themselves.

Sometimes I go online looking for something interesting, something to engage. Perhaps proof that idle hands, or idle mind, is the devil's workshop? 😎

Recently, I saw something in an online spirituality group with a gob of members, and perhaps it was the devil that made me do it, or perhaps it was something else. 

Everyone uses a fake name at this forum.

monkcaran
Hello everyone. I am a Buddhist monk in Thailand's Chiang Mai. I had previously started a thread on this forum, and it was quite wholesome! If anyone is interested in posing questions to a Buddhist monk, I've set aside some time for that. Especially questions that are beneficial and relevant to ever

Puzzleheaded (me)
What I would like to know from you, which you can write in this thread, is living examples of your own journey from where you were to your becoming a Buddhist and then what happened, where you were tested, challenged, strained through sieves, roasted in furnaces, drowned in tsunamis, blown up in volcanoes, swallowed by black holes and your remains spit out, mirrors you were stood before, etc.

monkcaran
The importance of positive thinking, positive attitude, and positive behavior is a central teaching in Buddhism. According to the Buddha, our thoughts, attitudes, and actions shape our reality and determine our level of happiness and well-being.
Instead of discussing negative or difficult topics, why don't we focus on positive and uplifting subjects?

Puzzleheaded
This is your post topic, and you can choose what you wish to discuss, of course. However, I am pretty sure that anyone who has been on a spiritual path for a while knows there is nothing easy about it; that it is better not to begin the spiritual journey, than to begin and then give up because it is so very difficult. 

There was a Sufi poet named Rumi, who is revered by many today. He wrote, or channeled, a classic poem about the spiritual journey, called "The Chickpea." Perhaps the poem was about what Rumi's own spiritual teacher Shams was doing to Rumi? Or it was about what God was doing to Rumi? 

I had a Tibetan Buddhist friend, who followed a lama, who was a refugee from Lasha. My friend also was a Jungian analyst, had trained at the Jung Institute in Zurich, where he lived. His mother was Dora Kalf, also a Jungian analyst, had studied under Carl Jung himself. She later founded Sandplay Therapy, which her good friend the Dalai Lama told her was applied Buddhism. She said she was not a Buddhist, but was an esoteric Christian. She also was my friend. 

Her son told me that there is no God in Buddhism; that Buddhism is about increasing one's consciousness. 

I later read that Buddha said he was not.a god, but was merely a man, and that a teacher greater than he would come come day. I wondered who that greater teacher might be? 

Was it Jesus in the Gospels? He said his baptism was in fire and in spirit; no one can enter the Kingdom of God, who has not been reborn; the road to life is difficult and the gate is narrow and few enter; many are called, but few are chosen; the work is great and the laborers are few. 

That Jesus mostly is ignored in mainstream Christendom today, which uses a simple, magical salvation formula, instead of Jesus in the Gospel's formula. 

I have told many people, who were born into Christendom and then left it and found a guru in another spiritual tradition, that what they actually did was find a Jesus they could swallow, and sooner or later, in this lifetime, or another, they will have to go back into and through what they ran from. 

Not back into and through the religion, but into and through what the religion mostly sets aside, or ignores, in favor of something much easier, instead of going through the changes and into something much, much larger, which has no end point, but is ever expanding, based on my personal experience. 

That's what angels known in the Bible did to me, who had left Christendom searching for help. I tried the New Age, and found it interesting, but it did not take me where my soul apparently wanted me to go. 

The angels turned me every which a way up loose, upside down and inside out, and stood me before many mirrors, looking at myself. They began doing that in early 1987, and they are still at it. 

I do not call myself a Christian. I do not attend a Christian church. Yet, I don't know when I'm ever not in church.

This fell out of me in the spring of 1993, the third year of a dark night of the soul:

Earth...

The sacred prism 

through which souls are refracted

into their elemental parts,

purified in Holy Fire,

then one-forged

and sent on their way

to not even God knows where,

simply because they are all

unique emanations of God,

evolving...

This fell out of me about a year later, as the dark night, unknown to me, was preparing to lift:

Shaman you now are.

Angels walk beside you

and call you their brother,

even as you curse the heavens

for making you one who weilds the lightning.

Be kind to your brother's and sisters,

but take no prisoners.

Kill them all in my name,

as I have killed you,

so that they, and you, 

might live.

I did not yet know the author was a huge blacksmith, who would come my way later that year in a vision, before all hell broke loose and my time in Boulder abruptly and roughly would end. 

In the vision, the blacksmith had me in his hot furnace on his great black anvil, pounding me with his great black hammer into something that suited him. 

Not long after, I went to Nepal and trekked up to Anapurna Base Camp. At sunrise, the blacksmith appeared in front of and as large as those majestic peaks. I dropped to one knee and heard, "The son and I are one. The son and I are one." 

It was quite a while before I understood the blacksmith was the Christ. By then, I had somehow survived a 16 months black night of the soul in Birmingham, which had made the no fun 4-year dark night in Boulder seem like heaven. 

sloanbashinsky@yahoo,com

So, what's this bat shaman shit about?

I'd never heard of of a bat shaman in 2010, when I was getting pounded on bigpinekey.com's popular Coconut Telegraph public forum, for claiming angels known in the Bible had grabbed me many years prior and had turned me every which a way but loose, upside down and inside out, which had changed my views of just about everything.

When I reported all of that on my blog, goodmorningfloridakeys.com (no longer existence), a regular reader amiga in Key West emailed me from Peru, where she and her husband were vacationing, that they had learned down there that the most revered shaman is the bat shaman, who can see in the dark.

I lived in Boulder, Colorado for a while. When new people visited my 3rd wife and me at our home, they eventually got around to asking me what I did, as in, what was my line of work? I nodded to my wife, who told them, "Sloan's the mailman." If they looked puzzled, or asked what she meant?, she said, "He delivers the message. I don't now how he does it, but he can see through buildings and around corners."

That had began in August 1988, after I received a phone call from a woman in Maine, who said she had found my book, Kill ALL THE LAWYERS? A Client's Guide to Hiring, Firing, Using and Suing Lawyers, in her local library. I was the only lawyer who could help her! I said I no longer practiced law. She said she was really stressed out by her legal matter, perhaps she would see a spiritual counselor. I said sometimes I did spiritual counseling, would she like to tell me about her legal trouble and we approach it spiritually? She said, ok.

She told me about it. As if a light switch was thrown, I asked her who in her legal saga this person reminded her of, who that person reminded her of, who another person reminded her of. She named someone every time. Someone really important in her life. She was freaked out. I was freaked out. We saw her legal wrangle mirrored back to her really important unfinished business with really important people in her life. Had she gotten a traditional lawyer to help her, she would have missed the spiritual points altogether.

From that day forward, I was able to see things in ways I had never seen things before. I thought I was hot shit. The angels, who had thrown the light switch, then proceeded to throw another light switch and elucidated my ignorance of myself. Their names are known in the Bible. Although I was raised in Christendom, I did not then attend church and did not view myself as a Christian. Nor do I today, although I don't know when I'm ever not in church.

Here's how my relationship with the angels began and foretold my becoming a bat shaman.

In late 1985, I quit practicing law in Birmingham, Alabama and moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico with my 2nd wife, a very talented artist. I plunged into the New Age and other spiritual arenas, and went to massage school, where, and elsewhere in Santa Fe, I was challenged many times about pointing the finger away from me, instead of looking inside of me. 

Our marriage was failing, and my wife and I separated. I was trying to make a go as a massage therapist and healer, and was training in craniosacral therapy, taught by John Upledger, an osteopathic doctor,  in West Palm Beach, Florida. I was studying other healing disciplines. Yet none of that was fixing what was messed up inside of me. 

The move to Santa Fe had not changed anything. 

Out of bright ideas, at the end of my rope, feeling I had failed in all ways a man could fail, in early January 1987, my 45th year, I prayed one morning in my apartment, "Dear God, I do not want to die like this, failed. Please help me ... I offer my life to human service." 

I had met a woman and on weekends was staying over at her home in Los Alamos, across the desert from Santa Fe. She was a biologist, working in a lab that was experimenting with using plants to soak up the awful toxins produced by the other labs at Los Alamos.  

About ten days after making the prayer, in wee hours, perhaps 2 am, I woke up and saw two spirit beings shaped like white shifts hovering above me in the darkness. I heard plainly, "This will push you to your limits, but you asked for it and we are going to give it to you." I remembered the prayer I had made. I saw a white flash and was physically and otherwise jolted by something electrical. That happened two more times. All in about 15 seconds. The two beings dissolved into the darkness.

My new girlfriend lying beside me in her bed asked me what was going on? I asked if she had seen or heard anything? She said she had seen my body lurching. I asked if she had seen or heard the angels? She said, no. I told her what had happened. She laughed, said, "Let's go back to sleep, you strange man."

Little did I then know just how truly hard I would be pushed to my limits, and beyond any limits I thought I had.

I began to get glimpses of it after I moved from Santa Fe to Boulder, to take the Hakomi body psychotherapy training. That's where I met my 3rd wife, who told people I was the mailman. Hakomi is an ancient Hopi word no longer in use, which means, "How do I stand in relation to all these many realms?

I spent the rest of the 1980s in Boulder, writing THE HIGH LEGAL ROAD: A New Approach to Legal Problems, and Prisons & Freedom, which was considerably deeper. The angels used the writing process and people who edited the books to force me to take repeated long hard looks at myself in the mirror.

In the spring of 1991, a dark night of the soul arrived. I continued writing and struggling.

In the fall of 1993, the heavens opened to me. All sorts of beautiful phenomena came to me from out of the darkness. 

The dark night lifted in June 1995 after I had three spontaneous visions in a few days' time.

I again felt I was hot shit. 

The Boulder phase suddenly and roughly ended. I moved back to Birmingham in the fall of 1995, feeling like shit and hoping I still was hot shit. 

I got with another woman, whom I knew somewhat and had dreamed of before coming back to Alabama.

We did some traveling, as I felt like I was slipping into an abyss.

We came back to Birmingham, and I kept slipping.

Then, in two days's time, a horrific a black night of the soul engulfed me, which made the dark night seem like heaven. 

I felt like half my brain had died.

I was suicidal every day for 16 months. 

The new woman was the unfortunate witness to that. 

The black night began to lift after she and I separated in mid-1997.

The angels started healing grisly stuff in me, which no human method had come close to discovering lived inside of me. Some of the healing was terrifying. 

In early 2000, I was sent by the angels into the world, to get to work. 

There was little, if any, interest in what I could see, hear, sense, feel, or of being helped, advised, corrected and steered by angels. 

Over 20 years later, that has not changed, and the angels are still running me.

Although many think I'm batshit crazy, along the way I met a few people having similar experiences with angels, and I know one  person today, who is being turned inside out and upside down and every which a way but loose by angels known in the Bible.

He is not a church person, either - unless you consider he doesn't know when he's ever not in church. 

sloanbashinsky@yahoo.com