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The Rona Visit

This is an odd bit of writing. In it, I am being as clear as I can and also deliberately obtuse; censorship is alive and real both in the USA and around the globe. And while this is my website, it is hosted; I’ve heard of sites being pulled down. Therefore, I’m being extra, extra cautious.

Rona arrived in early November and stayed for about two weeks. I’m not even sure how she got here – she didn’t show up on foot or in a car.

I had a bit of a scratchy throat, and then BAM! Lethargy hit and didn’t leave for more than a week.

Lethargy is like carrying a weighted blanket around all day. It quite literally weighs you down as if you’re carrying a cement block. Standing up is tiring. Fixing food, cleaning the cat litter, just doing regular things around the house – all exhausting.

I had fever, not bad. I didn’t have breathing or oxygen issues; my sister made sure I had a pulse oximeter and breathed deeply throughout the day. I slept sitting up, or at least supported so I wasn’t lying down.

I tried lying on my stomach (aka proning) but failed as my nose was too stuffed up and runny.

I lost taste and smell. They have both mostly returned but not quite as acute; let’s say a 95% to the previous 100%. I still can’t smell fouled kitty litter or green experiments pulled from the refrigerator, so that’s OK with me.

I took vitamin C, D, zinc, and drank copious amounts of Gatorade and water to stay hydrated. I moved every day…very slowly. I spent long hours reading books and watching YouTube videos.

I quarantined for two weeks and, by then, was recovered enough to venture out into the world a bit. I would have struggled mightily if not for the support of friends and family.

I knew I was improving when the lethargy lifted, like a kite in the wind, like a breeze cooling the humidity of summer.

Farewell Nebula

During this visit, my 16-year-old cat, Nebula was extra quiet. In retrospect, I believe she was actively dying because on November 23 she crossed the rainbow bridge peacefully at home.

She ‘helped’ in the kitchen. She sniffed out freshly cooked chicken a mile away and gobbled chunks of the same in seconds. I miss her sassy tail, ‘cauliflower’ ear, rubbies for days, and that amazing purr.

Miss Nebula was cremated and her remains are in a biodegradable urn. When my 18-year-old Ivan passes, he will also be cremated. I’ll bury all my cats together and plant some catnip and a tree. I’ll be cat-free then, and life will be weird for awhile as I adjust to no pets and no purrs, and no ten-pound cat sleeping on my chest.

HelloFresh

HelloFresh, that ubiquitous home meal service, kept me going during the Rona visit. Every week three meals showed up and I had to do something with them. I cooked, I ate, and couldn’t taste much of anything. I kept eating, though, because I knew it was good quality food.

As a darned good cook, I never thought I’d like HelloFresh, but darn it all, I love it. Recently a box went missing and was never delivered; I panicked thinking of all time I’d spend thinking about what to eat, shopping for what to eat, dragging the groceries into the house, putting the groceries away, not using all of the groceries. It was hours!

I have free HelloFresh boxes available if you’re interested. Here’s another tip if you’re interested in HelloFresh: keep your eyes peeled online for discounts. They market aggressively, so surely you can find a better deal than a free box. For example, I started to use HelloFresh around September because there deal for something like ten free boxes or meals over Labor Day weekend.

The Sky Is Blue

To say the least, Rona is controversial; she’s divided the world in so many ways. At the bare minimum, I’m confident someone’s been lying to all the people of the world.

Depending on what you read or hear or watch, wacky theories have come true right before our eyes: these last two years have been like weird disaster movies come to life. It still feels like I’m watching a train wreck in e…x…t…r…a…s…l…o…w…m…o…t…i…o…n.

You can’t see the lying, unless you’ve looked at other things and put the pieces together.

It’s like transcending the animal, pulling the pieces of your small ego apart, and then reassembling yourself as whole.
It’s like going through menopause; you come out on the other side utterly changed and utterly the same person.

In the Athens meditation groups back in the 90’s, we’d use the phrase “the sky is blue” to describe a moment of enlightenment – tiny enlightenment.

You don’t see that the sky is blue until you look at it with new eyes. Then, like a flash of lightening, you know and understand. It’s a gnostic knowledge, something you don’t know until you do, and once you do, you have always known.

You don’t know what childbirth is like until you’ve gone through it. Then you do, and the sky is blue.
You don’t know what love is until you’ve experienced it. Then you do, and the sky is blue.

Dark Blue Ice Cream

In this post from 2019 I wrote about ice cream being evil as a metaphor for the way we see and experience the world. It is definitely true in this era of Rona:

The hardest work is that which we do on ourselves: that work of uncovering the lies we’ve told ourselves or the lies we’ve been led to believe.

Rona is evil ice cream. It’s an unbearable deep dark blue sky that not everyone is able or willing to view or acknowledge.

So often we see the world in terms of opposites: black or white, yin or yang. yes or no. But my experience tells me the world is full of nuance. There are shadows we are not yet aware of just as there is light and color we cannot see.

I am being very cautious here. As much as I’d like to stick my head up and shout, that’s just not my style, and I believe shouting does very little to change perception.

But here I am saying something, anything. And, if you’re curious and want to go deep, we can talk.

Are You Curious?

“What is it that you understand right now about what’s happening? If I sense some ambivalence…then I’ll say, “Are you curious? Are you interested in learning about some other information or some other viewpoints that you might not be aware of right
Dr. Mark McDonald

Are you curious about other viewpoints? Where did you learn to believe what you believe.

In some ways, the roads have already split: jab or no jab. I am not jabbed.

Hidden things, things we choose to not look at, are big and scary: they are the evil ice cream of our lives.

Rona was a pain in the butt, but she wasn’t all that scary; certainly not scary enough to warrant all that’s happened in the last couple of years.

The best I can say is that I’ve become infinitely more comfortable with myself, if that was possible. I have become braver, if even in a minuscule way. Little changes add up to big changes add up to sea changes.

The sea has changed for me.

I haven’t stopped being curious about everything. I keep looking, keep searching. And I still believe in beauty and love and friendship and family.

I believe in the things that really matter. Even if I don’t always show it, I do, in fact, love you.

Look.

Once you see, the sky is blue.

(or perhaps it’s purple and my eyes have not yet adjusted to the new color.)

You can’t “unsee” that beautiful, deep blue.

Paradox, possibilities, the endless swirl of the clock arms.

If you’re looking for answers, I have none: they are within you.

If you’re looking for reassurance that you made the right choice, I can only say I am OK with mine.

We must, after all, make peace with ourselves before we’re able to do so with others and the world. This is part of the great work, the work that changes everything.

Tools for the road

HelloFresh (not an affiliate link.)
While Rona was here, I loved watching Great Canal Journeys on YouTube. It’s as much about love, partnership, and life as it is about a love of the canals of England and beyond.
Having lived in London for six months many years ago, I adore watching London Free Tours by Foot on YouTube, too. I keep saying to myself, “Oh, I remember walking down this road” or “Oh, yep, but it looked a little different in the 80s.” Try the rock n’ roll tour or the Stonehenge tour.
Books I read catalogued on GoodReads and LibraryThing. I try to keep both of them up-to-date; last year I read 65 books. I almost didn’t make my goal of 60 books, so this year I’m shooting for 50.
The remainder of these links will bring cognitive dissonance to life for you and you and you. Read as much as you are able. Stop when you are tired or overwhelmed, and then read a bit more. There is so much to learn can be exhausting.
I am on Telegram and have a Telegram Channel where I share curated information that is not available in mainstream media.
Zelenko Protocol saves lives.
Catherine Austin Fitts for financial stuff. This interview is a must. She publishes the Solari Report
Mercola for health advice. So censored he now publishes articles one day, then removes them within 72 hours.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr’s book is a must read. It is a horrifying look at the AIDs crisis and guess who lead? Sigh; why is this man still in charge? (Not an affiliate link.)
6 companies that own almost all the media
The website NoJabForMe. Start with Part 1.
Corey’s Digs Investigative Journalism. Start with tools for redpilling volume 6 (yes, redpilling, just like The Matrix)
Great Awakening Map links conspiracies and more.

Transcending The Animal

“We are animals, certainly. Anyone who forgets that we are animals is very disfocused and unlikely to obtain a higher state. There is no point to attaining a higher state unless you are in an animal body. Animals don’t need a higher state. Presumably if you’re out of a body you don’t need a higher state either. A fundamental question that used to be part of most philosophy was why are we here? Why do we exist? What is the purpose of this so-called meaningless existence where we are born, we have a few fun years and then we proceed to get old and sick and tired and worn out…
Ron Mangravite, Transformation of the Self and the Universe, part one, tape one, March 25, 1995, Athens, Georgia,

Commentary

In pursuing spirituality, in meditation, in pursuing anything with true dedication and passion, you are an animal trying to reach the heavens aka the light.

You are trying to transcend -to go beyond the range or limits- of our base animal instincts and reactions and become more “godlike.”

The animal in us hates the light. The animal wants nothing more than to “namastayinbed.” The animal wants to stay stuck in the same old routines and patterns.

For example, have you ever really thought about smiling?

Smile

If you doubt you have an animal body, take one look at your smile.

Walk on over to the mirror, and smile at yourself.

What do you see?

You see a human with their lips stretched, the ends of those lips turning up. You may see teeth.

The eyes may be squinting, cheekbones lifting. The nostrils may flair.

This face is happy, safe, welcoming. It is a pleasant thing to see.

But it’s not for a cat.

This is hissing. It is not a friendly welcome. It’s a warning.

When a cat stretches their mouth open, ‘lips’ stretched, it’s not being friendly, it’s hissing. It’s defending it’s territory. It’s sending a warning that you had best be careful and approach with extreme caution.

The cat will take a long time to transcend -to move beyond- hissing behavior. It may never happen.

But – given a few hundred thousand years and an awful lot of inner work – there may be a smiling cat who is actually smiling in the fashion that we humans do.

We once behaved as animals, hissing at what we did not know or understand. Some of us still do this, but in more ‘civilized ways.”

Just go google the whole “Karen” phenomenon that surged into meme popularity the last couple of years and that demonstrates “civilized” hissing. (What’s a Karen?)

Trained

No doubt you learned that a smile is warm and inviting. Do you remember when or where you learned that?

Can you think of instances where a smile is not friendly and welcoming?

What other behaviors have you learned? When did you learn them? What were the circumstances?

Thinking about just one behavior, does it benefit you today? How?

Try changing the behavior for a day. What do you think might happen if you changed or entirely removed the behavior?

How does thinking about changing the behavior make you feel?

What else does this bring up for you?

Anything else?

Transcend

It’s not that you have to have all of the answers to all of the questions today. It’s more than you learn to honor this kind of questioning, and that you question everything.

This kind of ‘work’ is done to unravel your egoic structure and transcend the animal. It is deep and profound.

It will change you from the inside out, and you will be utterly the same as you were before. In fact, most folks will think you’re the same person you always have been.

The Writual Planner and The Enchanted Map Oracle Deck

Almost every year, I pull cards from a tarot deck to get a sense of what’s ahead. I already kind of have a sense as –if you can believe it– I started working on my Mission 2022 in late October/early November. And then, well, Rona visited.

This year, I’m using the Writual Planner. It’s a combined calendar, tarot spread, and astrological planner.

Now, let me be honest. I rarely use a planner faithfully all the way through any year. Anyone else with me?

The Writual Planner

The Writual Planner (not an affiliate link) is delicious. Mine is paperback, 8.5×11″, spiral bound. I stumbled upon the site as I stumble upon all sorts of things online and, well, fell in love and bought one.

I think if I was younger, just beginning to explore spirituality and astrology and tarot, this would be perfect. But I’m older and wiser so it’s a bit too much for me. There’s no way I’ll pull a card for every day, or three for the week. Heck, I doubt I’ll I manage a spread every month!

My biggest beef is that the times are all reflected in Mountain Standard and Mountain Daylight times (GMT -6 and -7.) I’m in Eastern Standard and Eastern Daylight (GMT -4 and -5.) So if I really, really want to know what time the moon is full, I’ll have to translate time or find another calendar for the Eastern time zone.

I wish there were separate planners for separate time zones, or perhaps this used GMT instead of Mountain. I’d still have to calculate, but I know Greenwich, UK is five hours ahead of me most of the time.

Regardless, I adore that The Writual Planner is 8.5×11. That’s as big as a piece of standard printer paper and that means I can scribble all over the pages. There’s plenty of room to write notes. Let’s look closer.

Inside The Writual Planner

The monthly views are a two-page spread with sun signs, moon phases, and planetary aspects. There is a place for your tarot reading for the month, too.

Each month encourages you to list out intentions, priorities, goals, and so on. Each week also has a space to record a card pulled specifically for the week, plus a daily three-card spread.

There is a detailed astrological reference chart and space for your personal birth chart. There are suggested tarot spreads for new and full moons, plus a ‘cheat sheet’ that explains tarot card meanings.

The website offers both a hard-back and softbound Writual Planner; I’ve got the softbound. They also have candles, jewelry, stickers, and more. There’s even an online community to join and share your explorations of and through the Writual Planner.

Overall, this planner is beautifully designed. It’s the perfect gift for anyone exploring spirituality, tarot, or astrology.

My Year Ahead

So, like I said, I often begin the year with a spread to get a general feel for what’s ahead. This year, I used the Enchanted Map Oracle Cards deck designed by Colette Baron-Reid.

This is a bit different than a standard tarot deck. There is no ‘major’ or ‘minor’ arcana as such, but there are 54-cards, just like a traditional tarot deck.

The energy of 2022 is represented by Dragon’s Lair. This card asks me to pay attention to inner warnings. It encourages me to know when things are out of alignment and change course accordingly.

The card for January is Magic Stream, which reminds me that collective awareness can lead to great inspiration. It’s reminding me to let it flow – and especially to not try to force inspiration to happen.

February brings Rescue, admonishing me to ask for help from spirit and people and places and whoever whenever. It’s encouraging me to see reality as it is, and to trust spirit.

Deep Freeze is in place for March again reminding me to not push or force anything forward. I am to rest, hibernate, and wait for the flow of life to happen.

In April the card is Coming To Life where I need to get out of my own way and let spirit lead. Once again there’s a reminder here to try to not coax or push the dream forward. Lots of letting it go letting it flow this year!

May asks me to release resentments and negative self talk. The card is Goblins, and it also reminds me that fear is an illusion and that I can always choose love.

In June, I’m encouraged to review my Intention and check motiviations.

July brings the Gentle Gardener, advising me to believe in limitless possibility. It also tells me that forgiveness is my most powerful restorative tool.

Late summer brings Unexpected Visitors. So in August, I am to expect the unexpected and the synchronicity that that can bring. Here again there is a reminder to adapt to shifting conditions by flowing, not forcing. (Talk about a Pisces way of doing things!)

September is for the card Metamorphosis, suggesting that there may be some loss. But as a result of that loss, I will love who I become. Even with temporary discomfort, beauty is revealed.

The last quarter of the year starts with the card One Ring Circus that celebrates independence and boundaries – and the need to let go of control. (Sounds like flow to me.)

November is the card Details Details reminding me to look at the fine print of anything and everything. It also encourages me to accept things as they are, imperfect.

The year closes in December with Rock Bottom. This encourages me to surrender and a way will appear. It asks the question: are you willing to change.

Let’s Get Flowing

In summary, boy, I am really being guided to let it flow, right? It’s all over this spread. There’s encouragement to surrender to the way things are and really flow like the river.

This ability to flow is something I’ve been working on for awhile now. We are taught that having SMART goals and “going for it” and “just work harder not smarter” – that all of this pushing to succeed a) works and b) makes us feel better.

It didn’t work for me at ALL. I would set goals and then fail to achieve them and feel miserable.

And setting up goals, then pushing hard to achieve them (and failing) felt fake. It was drudgery, toiling, hard work instead of joyful play.

It felt like a should, like something I had to do because to do it any other way is incorrect, wrong, bad. But that’s just not true.

I love and crave freedom and flow.

Flowing is still very ambitious. This flowing still gets stuff done. This flowing is gentle, easing away at a stone, slowly turning that stone into sand, creating a pleasant river bed in which to take casual walks in the forest. Or heat up and make glass…

Anyway, flowing can include using a planner. It can mean to-do lists and checkboxes and apps to keep it all lined up and flowing.

Your Turn

What works for you? Do you use a planner for the year? Do you use tarot cards for a sense of what the new year will bring?

Mission 2022

If there’s one thing I’ve learned over the last couple of years, it’s how to focus in on what’s really important. And, as I’ve moved through perimenopause into true menopause (hurrah!) I’ve learned how to engage the heart and flow.

Flowing with the energy of the heart is very different than the traditional way we’re taught to work. I’ve learned to let go of that need to do everything in THIS order and by THIS time, on a deadline, with SMART goals. It’s a very feminine way of working versus the masculine push through the accomplish that goal kind of method.

Instead, things flow. Things ’emerge.’

I recently finished a permaculture certification course. It took me waaaay out of my comfort box, and taught me about emergence. Things –tasks, projects, everything– emerges instead of being pushed and forced. You are a vehicle by which the emerging thing is encouraged and nurtured and birthed.

You don’t force things to happen. For example, I didn’t do anything to force menopause to happen; instead, it happened to me, and flowed through me, and left me the same and utterly changed.

So in 2022, I’m going to try to combine those lessons from the heart with some –cough cough – goals. But I don’t like the word goals, so it’s a quest, a journey, a mission: that for which I am destined.

The plan is to check in here every month and give you an idea of how it’s going. I’m definitely known to get waaaaaaaay off track, so this should be interesting for everyone.

Write 250 words a day, five days a week. The year end goal is 60,000 words.
Revamp WordStorm Casserole poetry book and make it accessible on other platforms.
Post twice a month here… Year-end goal is 24 posts. And that monthly mission check in is 12 of those posts!
DeGoogle, deApple, and deMicrosoft. This year I’m planning to embrace Linux. Boy, I’ve got a long way to go with this one.
Have fun – try new Earl Grey Creme teas, visit new places, try new recipes.
Big Secret Goal #1. And man, if I want to make this big secret goal work, I sure had better write more than 250 words a day. Hint Hint.
Big Secret Goal #2. I didn’t spend a whole year contemplating permaculture for nothing, you know.

Ron Mangravite: Modern Meditation Master (A Tribute)

The publicly available information about metaphysical teacher and healer Ron Managravite barely rise above the surface facts of his life:

Ronald Vincent Mangravite was born in New York City, New York, on August 15, 1933 to Carmine and Ellen Joy Glenfield Mangravite.
He died in Leicester, North Carolina on October 1, 1998. There are currently no flowers on his FindAGrave entry.
Proud of his Italian heritage, Ron was a son, brother, husband, and father.

But to a relatively small group of people, Ron Managravite was a modern meditation master.

And given that it’s been more than twenty years since his passing from this dimension, I feel Ron and his work are highly overdue for an online tribute.

Ron Mangravite

About Ron

As I said, there is precious little online about Ron’s life and teachings.

Jan T. Adams, MD interviewed Ron in this article from the September 1, 1993 edition of The Edge magazine. The interview starts with a brief synopsis of the facts of his life and especially how he came to teach meditation:

Sometime during his 30s, Ron Mangravite attended a party where the conversation centered around a topic called bioenergetics. As he listened, he felt a familiarity with the concept, though he’d not heard it before, and found himself saying, “I can do that.” So they all formed a circle, holding hands. To everyone’s surprise, some people began to fall over when he did, ‘that.’
Though he’d had an unusual childhood, marked with serious illness, Ron had, up to that point, lived a fairly conventional life. After completing collegiate studies in chemistry, he held positions in industry as a chemist, and has operated his own chemical consulting firm since 1973. But it was his “taste for the infinite” which began to play a larger role for him after that pivotal party. He became active in parapsychology, investigating phenomena of all types, and was the consulting parapyschic for The Amityville Horror, as well as many other hauntings.
He has been featured on TV shows, magazine articles (New York Magazine, Fate, Psychology Today,) and in the book, The Joy of Touch, by Dr. Russ Rueger (Simon and Schuster, 1981.) In that book in a chapter on psychic healing, Dr. Russ Rueger discusses his own experience with Ron in an energy circle again with one participant vomiting, another shuddering and weeping uncontrollably.
As his understanding evolved and deepened, he widened his circle as teacher/mystic/healer to include workshops and meditation groups all over the country, and week-long intensives with Foundation, his group for consciousness and spiritual growth. Among his many gifts, however, the ability to concentrate, generate, and transmit energy for transformational and healing purposes remains a standout.

My Connection

In 1993 I was fired from my job as a shoe store manager in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and moved back into my old blue bedroom upstairs in my parents home on Gratiot Road in rural Hemlock, Michigan.

One of my colleagues from the shoe store had moved to Raleigh, North Carolina, and I plotted a visit to escape the miserable Michigan winter. Secretly, though, I was hoping to move to Athens, Georgia – the home of the rock band R.E.M.

I did visit my colleague in North Carolina, then went down to Savannah and stayed on nearby Tybee Island.

I arrived in Athens and settled into a furnished one-bedroom apartment on Olgethorpe Avenue by the now defunct Navy Supply Corps school.

One day I walked into a store downtown, looked around, and left thinking to myself, “This is not the right store.” A few months later I walked into same space.

It was now rented by Cynthia Gayle Clayton the proprietor of new age metaphysical store called Pathfinder. I’d found my meditation teacher, but didn’t know it; she seemed like an ordinary person to me.

I left the store that day with a book about pole shifts, and returned over and over again for many classes, workshops, and meditations.

Transformation of the Self & the Universe

In March 1995 I attended a two day weekend workshop called “Transformation of the Self and the Universe” led by Ron Mangravite.

Ron reminded me of Sean Connery in the roll of Ramierz in the move The Highlander. He had sparkling blue eyes and a mischievous smirk.

And, unlike the brash swaggering of Ramierez pictured below, Ron on first glance was kind of quiet and unassuming.

But then he started to teach or do energy work, and he commanded the room with startling authority.

In some ways the workshop was boring because Ron lectured a LOT about a host of convoluted subjects. He could talk for hours slowly tying themes together.

Sometimes he didn’t tie things together, but instead dropped a hint that there was more he could talk about regarding…well, whatever.

Long hours of lecture were broken up with energy work and potluck lunches. And as you may have guessed, the big attraction to these workshops was the energy.

The Energy

The sad thing is that, if you have no experience with someone who transmits energy, you may have a hard time understanding what I’m talking about.

Maybe the closest equivalent is the feelings of love or fear. Once you experience those energies, you know them.

Here’s another example: Ron could cause energy to move up, down, clockwise, or counter clockwise. Standing in a circle holding hands with other workshop participants, you could literally feel that movement.

But Ron did a whole lot more than move energy in these simple ways.

He transmitted lightning hot energy (clear/focused) into this lower (dense/cloudy) dimension. And that energy moved through that standing circle.

Words start to fail when you try to describe these things.

Anyway, I was in several workshops taught by Ron in 1995-1998 in Athens, Georgia.

My time in Athens was magical and extraordinary; there were a lot of friends, good food, and great poetry (I wrote a lot of poems in my book The WordStorm while in Athens.)

Ron and his teachings were a large part of those phenomenal years.

Timeline

This is a list of known dates for workshops, retreats, lectures, etc., and I’ll update this list as I learn more. These are listed by year, title or topic, and location if known.

Disclaimer: Some of these have recordings; however, the recordings are held privately and are not available for purchase or download or anything. As far as I know, it’s not possible to buy Ron’s work anywhere. I do not retain copyright control for any of Ron’s metaphysical work.

1976 Orgone Energy, QSP Seminar
1977 Parapyschology
1977 Paranormal Modes of Healing
1977 An Alternate Reality
1977 Haunted Houses, Pennsauken, New Jersey
1981 Transparent Psychology and Chakras
1981 Foundation
1982 Tampa, Florida
1982 {William} Reich 25 Years Later at LSP
1983 Aspects of Sexuality at Mensa Snowball
1984 Seacliff LT2
1985 Earth Meditation, Guildford-Greensboro, North Carolina
1985 Esoteric Psycholgy, Tupelo, MS
1986 Lambertville
1986 Bonclarken I
1986 New Teaching in Tampa, FL
1987 New York City Group
1987 PSI in Lancaster, Pennsylvania
1987 New Overview Workshop, Denver, Colorado
1987 Cosmology at SE SFF
1987 Bonclarken IV
1987 Concepts of Harmonic Convergence at UUPSI
1988 Bonclarken V
1988 Holy Blood, Holy Grail at NE SFF
1988 Bonclarken VI
1989 Foundation
1989 Stargate – Treatise on the Death Process
1989 The Mysteries and their Origins, Atlanta, Georgia
1989 Myths of Extraterrestrials
1989 Psychosis, Olivette SFF
1989 Great Space Meditation
1989 Creation in Minneapolis, Minnesota
1989 Foundation II
1989 Mystery Schools and Extraterrestrials
1990 Foundation
1990 Conscious Dying at SFF NE
1990 Meditation Weekend, New Jersey
1990 Foundation IV
1990 Karma, Consciousness, and Healing Workshop
1991 My Death Experience
1991 Myth and Psyche
1991 Foundation V
1991 Summer Intensive
1991 Speech at Ananda Center, Tampa, Florida
1991 (December 4) Spiritual Frontiers Fellowship
1992 Religion & Science: Is the Conflict Over, SFF Great Lakes Retreat
1992 Kundalini/Chi, Windham, Portland, Maine
1992 Teaching the Close
1992 Foundation VII
1993 Foundation IX
1993 Foundation X
1994 What Is Our Future Path? SFF Midwest Retreat
1994 Foundation XI
1994 Energy System, Minneapolis, Minnesota
1994 Spiritual Growth: Promise and Paradox, Poconos, Pennsylvania
1994 Universal Mysteries, Sacred Marriage, SFF Midwest
1994 Foundation XII
1995 Brain Mapping Technique
1995 Transformation of the Self and the Universe Part I, Athens, Georgia
1995 Foundation XIII
1995 Transformation of the Self and the Universe Part II, Athens, Georgia
1995 Foundation XIV
1996 Opening Into A Higher Reality, Athens, Georgia
1996 Myth and Consciousness, Chapel Hills, North Carolina
1996 Foundation XV: A View From The Bridge
1996 Sacred Geometry and the Mystical State, Minneapolis, Minnesota
1996 Space, Time, and Spirit, Athens, Georgia
1996 Ego, Ritual and The Twelve, Poconos, Pennsylvania
1996 Attributes of the Higher Realms, Athens, Georgia
1997 The Initiate Teaching, Minneapolis, Minnesota
1997 Greater Mysteries, Poconos, Pennsylvania
1997 Ritual and Consciousness, Diviana, New Jersey
1997 Tantra of the Body, Denville, New Jersey
1997 Tantra of the Body, Georgia
1998 Meditation Intensive, Asheville, North Carolina
1998 Bonclarken XXII
Unknown date, Earth Meditation at Awareness Motivation Institute

Notes

Bonclarken is a private conference center in Western North Carolina. Ron rented space there for week-long intensives.
Retreats were also held at the Montreat conference center near Black Rock, North Carolina. The Reynold’s Lodge was often rented; it has two communal bathrooms, housing for up to 32 guests, a working stone fireplace, a fully equipped kitchen, and a rocking chair porch.

Quotes

A small collection of quotes pulled from those 1994-1998 lectures. I won’t include the bad dad-style puns and jokes that broke up the long hours of lectures.

To learn to play the role of a conscious being, you are a part of the highest being you consider to be your ideal: Jesus, Buddha, or magician. To fully pass that level, you must become all of them.

You must be in the system. You cannot affect the system and be out of the system. You can affect the system by being above it. You cannot affect the system and be below it. How do you get out of the system? By being conscious, you cause things to happen to other people.

The world is full of dead people. People who formed a functional ego and then refused to allow it to change. They are rigid, strong, solid, and will not change. They cannot conceive of their fundamental nature changing… Rearranging your outer behavior does not accomplish the inner work. Rearranging your inner self gets the work done How? By re-scripting.

Personal power is a high level substitute for functional ego. A person with true power has no need to put people down.

The nature of true spiritual growth and enlightenment depends upon slowly changing your underlying premise. You never lose anything that is real.

In terms of ghosts, the average person on dying has a certain amount of conscious essence which lasts anywhere from a few minutes if they are highly evolved and they are attempting to translate themselves rapidly into some other dimension, or it can last for weeks or months. In the average individual, it lasts anywhere from a day to three days… What tends to last long is what’s been called a shell, a…record of whatever compulsions that ran through the person’s mind. These shells last longer if they attach themselves to something that is physically dense… {Haunts tend to be} an afterimage of the strong emotional patterns of someone who lived in the home.

Every conscious being is in total control of the universe. Why doesn’t one conscious being go to war with another conscious being? They can’t. If they are truly conscious, what is is, and you have no wish to change what is. You simply look around yourself and try to sort out illusion from what is. If you’re really conscious, no two conscious beings will disagree on what is illusion and what is because they recognize that they are each other.

Legacy

Ron Managravite lectured and taught around the United States in the 1970s, 80s, and 90s. Many times these were small, intimate gatherings in student’s homes; sometimes they were larger venues with more people. But the people who attended these workshops and lectures are still out there today – are you one of them?

Gayle Clayton taught extensively in Athens, Georgia, and at the Omega Institute for Holistic Studies in Rhinebeck, New York. She has written several books including Transformative Meditation and Mystery School: An Insider’s Perspective.
There is a course based on Gayle’s Transformative Meditation taught at the Awareness Institute in Sydney, Australia. One of these days, Australia, I’d really like to come and visit!
Claire Lewis Evans, student of both Gayle Clayton and Ron Mangravite filmed Masks during a week-long retreat in 1997. The 30-minute documentary “follows a group of seekers in an intimate day of mask making as an exercise in delving beneath the everyday persona and exploring the archetypal essences of self.” The video was filmed at the Reynolds Lodge mentioned above at the Montreat Conference Center.