It was more the lack of good editing that stopped it from going out in the morning. I also felt that the reporting over and over of my almost daily encounter with coincidences comes to sound like what we used to call a broken record, and that the piece might sound annoyingly redundant.
I have reported many of these coincidences over the years. They usually happened most strongly at Halloween, or during times of extreme emotional stress. A part of me wishes I had kept some documentation of them because they fascinate me. I did mention many of them in many past DN's, some of which are still on my Xanga archives.
I've no time to go through them in the midst of the school year, because school work keeps me plenty busy. But they are out there. I think you could get to different archival material by Googling my name. Not sure.
One thing I kept a lot more secret was the psychic experiments I used to attempt in the Piano Lab at YB. It used to be where I held my drama classes before I moved to the portables. What you are about to read is my experimentation with what psychics and other kooks call "telekinesis," or the moving of inanimate objects with the human mind. I believe that I succeeded in doing that with an umbrella I hung on a small light pipe in a classroom where I conducted drama classes. I've never succeeded in moving anything else, but that umbrella amazed me, and it delighted me. It began as a room decoration, but went on to become much more. I believe I experimented with and was successful in causing the umbrella to turn, stop, and go using nothing but thought.
Everything in this DN happened. When I mention that I moved the umbrella every time, I meant under "lab" conditions: when I was either alone, or during quiet times with others who also were open minded enough to stay and observe. Noise, ridicule or skeptics interrupted the nature of the experimentation in an almost intrusive fashion.
I don't remember specifically who watched the umbrella sessions happen. It was numerous students over the years. If you read this and witnessed what I describe here, feel free to write me a note or an email and let me know. I have two main email addresses:
gfharrington@aol or harringtonb@esuhsd.org.
I don't post it often because I intend the DN to be read by friends, family, alumni, former colleagues and of course, former and even current students. It stays small that way, which is the way I like it.
This is the first time I've gone way public with the telekinesis experiments with the umbrella. I've mentioned it once or twice over the years, but I've always kept it out there as a lark. I had always suspected that I had psychic abilities but never could succeed with any serious attempts at trying to move things with my mind. The umbrella remains the only think I've ever felt I was able to move. And move it did, often on demand.
It had nothing to do with anything except settling my mind into a state of what I could only describe as "in sync," that is, the establishment of a sense of peace that flowed quietly back and forth from me to the umbrella. Think of syncing up Bluetooth with other wireless devices and you might see the analogy more clearly.
That one phenomenon coupled with the tremendous amounts of coincidences that come in and out of my door each day gives me a sense that there is more to life than we can physically see, and much more to our minds than we can fully imagine. Call it faith in something bigger. I do have that faith.
****************************************
There's a film flickering at me on TCM. It is called Dr. Erhlich's Magic Bullet. A waltz is playing. It is clearly Strauss. I think it is the Vienna, but I could be mistaken. Strauss waltzes danced through my life this past summer. I wrote of it along with some extraordinary coincidences involving Strauss waltzes, and in particular his Blue Danube.
The film I am watching with half an eye is interestingly the true story of a doctor who discovers a cure for syphilis. The film hints at how the medical community might be hiding a LOT from us, a VERY 2014 belief even though the film, which stars Edward G. Robinson, was made in 1940. The title contains the words "magic bullet" but pre-dates the JFK assassination by twenty-three years. How is it that this particular film is playing just as I have completed studying the JFK assassination, its links to major medical scandals, as well as its association with a thing called "the magic bullet"? Just a coincidence.
Indeed.
I hope you enjoy this Saturday edition of the DN. I mentioned it during the week and didn't think I'd be able to get it out there. I won't post much more about this because it is intended for people who are open minded and interested in a personal story. I am not interested in proving any of it, nor of grandstanding. This is written for people who have followed these occurrences with me, and have seen that many of the coincidences were shared by eyewitnesses, and lots of them.
All I can say is it all happened to me, and that I have lots of witnesses. If you don't wish to follow then stop reading and get back to the Super Bowl, or whatever other distractions the media throws at us. I'm not interested in debating something that I'm simply saying took place. I have no reason to make any of this up. I certainly wouldn't want media flying into my world.
This edition of the DN is for those who wished to know of the missing DN earlier this week. This is it, edited a bit more, but not as much as I might have wished had I a little more time.
But publicity? Meh. Not interested in the least. I do wish to share this stuff with people I know and care about. I think it all pretty interesting.
I hope you enjoy reading it and I hope you read it with an open mind. It's just stuff that has happened to me.
Keep in mind it was written on Tuesday night, the night it rained, and was to be sent out the next morning. I pulled it at the last moment not so much for its content but for its shoddy editing, which probably remains shoddy. Sorry, this is informal and not intended to be anything but a curiosity, and a fun read on a perhaps Saturday or Sunday morning.
Here it is in all its splendor and glory. Hope you enjoy it.
~H~
The DN: Special Saturday Edition
2 That's a line from some unknown movie narrator about an unknown movie star. It's also a line from Lewis Carroll.
3 In this film there's a writer hired to write this star's autobiography.
4 All secretive.
5 Last night I finally sat down to write this, and the second I started tacking away I heard that line coming off the teevee. I sat down, put my fingers on the keyboard, and the teevee said, "Curiouser and curiouser."
6 I stopped. I looked up.
7 I smiled.
8 That happens so often I rarely mention it any longer, although it did happen Monday night when I typed the words "pretty girl" on my keyboard. As the words spoke on the teevee, my fingers typed the words simultaneously.
9 I stopped. I looked up. I smiled. This happens frequently. I'm certain there is a scientific causal explanation. There always is with this nonsense.
10 The teevee said the exact words I typed at the same second, almost in rhythm.
11 People always blow off coincidences. I used to, even though a large part of my adult life has had billions of them.
12 If you don't have that happening to you, and most people don't, you think nothing of it.
13 When you do have those things happening to you incessantly, it becomes extraordinary, particularly when it manifests during times of intensity, such as weddings, funerals, stressful times, Disneyland adventures and all the rest.
14 I can't even explain it to my own family.
15 That's why when the things occur I point them out to people. I want others to see that it isn't some figment of the imagination.
16 There are hundreds more that I don't bother with. For example, I had finished writing this entire DN last night when a short documentary about Strauss appeared. Once again The Blue Danube played, right when I wrote its name. This sort of thing also happened in a series of eight days during the summer. At the time I wrote several friends about it. That song played on something like six of eight days in different films. Other extraordinary coincidences occurred during the summer. Interestingly I had a life-threatening incident happen to me during the summer. I won't go into details, but it involved my circulatory system. I was twice taken to emergency because of it, and was watched carefully by my doctors for several months. As a result of this, my daughter Nicole told my family, "We're going to Disneyland!" And we did, during Christmas break.
17 There is a Disneyland coincidence that bears repeating: I'll take you back to when we stood in line for Pirates. The discussion had turned to coincidences. We debated it. The subject changed; I mentioned that the Pirates' ride reminded me of the texture and setting of Les Miz. Within seconds a Pirate's boat drifted by. It was called Fantine. Even my daughters acknowledged that one as a bona fide oddity. We wound up having a blast, even though we all also got the flu. To me, it became not only a vacation, it became a catharsis. Fantine. Great one. Just a coincidence. Like all the other coincidences. The line forms at the end of the block. For the record, my health is much improved. I'm technically okay now, all my vitals in good shape and I'm off all meds. The coincidences? The coincidences increased during the entire time I worried about my health. I'm not too worried any longer, but the coincidences and psychic things continue to this very minute.
18 I can't convince people that it all seems psychically strange to me. It's not that it happens. It's that it happens often.
19 It's similar to the Cole character in The Sixth Sense. He sees dead people all the time. I experience amazing coincidences all the time. More often than not they happen with people around. When I mention it, they blow it off because to them, it is just "a coincidence." To me, it's the fourth in as many days, sometimes in as many hours.
20 I believe there are people who have psychic things happen to them. I also believe we all have it within, but I've nothing against which to measure.
21 Just this morning [Sidebar: Wednesday. Recall this was written Tuesday night to be published Wednesday. The remainder of this DN is unedited from that night. What follows is the actual DN as it was to be published.] I thought of this student from my last class of the day. Nice kid, but he's been acting out a bit, more than usual.
22 I wondered if something bothered him at home and remembered he added a second last name to his name.
23 I remembered that during finals he had written about how much he liked working with his Dad, and then thought of the name change. I wondered if there had been a separation, and that maybe he wanted his Dad's last name back.
24 As teachers we are sometimes detectives. My instincts make me automatically aware of behavioral changes, so that's not unusual, especially while driving to work in the morning.
25 Just as I turned down Arcade to head into the faculty parking lot, I looked over. I was around twenty minutes early so nobody was around.
26 Except him. He was on his way to school at exactly the same time I was thinking about him.
27 I smiled.
28 That was yesterday.
29 Case in point.
30 Curiouser and curiouser.
31 I always felt that I was prone to psychic things, in a mild way. God knows the evidence is overwhelming.
32 It's funny, because over the years I have experimented with various phenomena, my favorite being futile attempts at telekinesis, or the movement of objects with the mind.
33 For the record I failed almost all attempts.
34 Except one place, and let it be told: I was able to work successfully with telekinesis in the Piano Lab at YB.
35 I had used it as a drama classroom for years, put up a light pipe and eventually had it hooked into a dimmer switch by the District.
36 We did many skits in that room, and had many fun Fridays which were often improv days.
37 One day I found an old umbrella backstage. I decided to paint it and make it a part of the classroom decor, a sort of art nouveau thing. I painted it two different colors and hung it upside down from the light pipe in that classroom. It became an instant hanging curio.
38 Hundreds of students saw it over the years.
39 I was sitting at my desk one day and noticed the umbrella move slightly, and then turn slowly to the left. It didn't look like the normal movement of something turning in a breeze, but rather like something had pushed a button and made it turn. I wanted it to stop, and amazingly watched as it slowed, and stood still. I concentrated and "told" it to move turn in the other direction.
40 It hesitated. I concentrated more lightly. It began to move. I'm not sure what happened next. I recall being in a mesmerized state and watching it move in a steady stream. I told it to stop, almost with a yawn. It slowed down and stopped. Nobody was around, but I was convinced I had something to do with that. I looked at it. I was something out of a Thurber cartoon.
41 After that I checked out HVAC and searched for some sort of cause. There seemed none beyond the twine holding it. I spent many days trying it, and many days it moved. It moved if the blowers in the room blew, or if they were completely off. Made no difference. During my prep period I would often look up and say in my head, "Move." I concentrated. It would always move. I would think, "Move left." It would make a few confused moves like a worried puppy, and inevitably it would move left.
42 I would command, "Stop." It would falter, and then come to a slow stop. I would then command, "Move right." It would falter again, but would move right, often with grace.
43 I rarely told anyone I had that ability. Occasionally I would fall into conversation with a student. If the conversation would drift to coincidences and psychic things (often around Halloween of course!) I would say, "Did you know I could move that umbrella with my mind?"
44 They would usually smile and then look at me sort the way anyone would look at your classic uncle who could pull a quarter out of your ear, or steal your nose.
45 But it would work. I don't know how. A part of me thought I had bottled perpetual motion. A part of me thought that air vents had something to do with it. But it would move whether they were on or off. I would check the room for any sort of air flow, doors open, any other factors. There were none.
46 To this day I feel there had to be a causal explanation.
47 But it would always work. I learned how to relax my mind, get it synced to the umbrella, and then concentrate quietly for around five to ten minutes. Any loud interruptions would disrupt and it would stop working.
48 I never went overly public with this for obvious reasons.
49 But it always worked.
50 I've tried over the years to move other items: pencils, Kleenex, cotton, anything extremely light, but I never succeeded. Pencils and pens were particularly frustrating because one would think they would be easy to roll on a smooth surface. Never once.
51 Never once.
52
53 Anybody lookin'?
54 Confessions of an up-and-coming psychic.
55 I am willing to say that the hanging umbrella trick was real. I've always enjoyed the niceness of umbrellas. I always thought they were sort of poetic, like rain.
56 It's raining.
57 It wasn't supposed to rain last night.
58 I don't think.
59 It's raining as I write this.
60 That is to say last night.
61 Something in the other room just clicked.
62 I smiled.
63 I gottago.
64 "And unto dust thou shalt return."
65 Same movie, the one mentioned in item one. Same narrator. He just said that. Quite odd.
66 See you again. Hope you enjoyed this. It had to be written. And now it has.
67 Peace.
~H~
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