ATHEIST AND AGNOSTIC?

I have been quizzed in even the most polite company about these labels. "How can you be an atheist and an agnostic?" When the interrogator has been the product of an Ivy League education, the question is accompanied by a knowing glance to his comrades. As if to say, "Now we know he isn't one of us!" And, of course, John Harvard is always spot on.

Let me explain. I have read more about more religions than most of my Ivy League brethren, for one thing. That already puts us at odds. Then there were the experiences with alternate realities, not pharmacological but spiritual. Most Ivy Leaguers were too busy tending their trust funds, going to grad school or trying to get a partnership in the firm while I was dabbling with the mystical and disembodied. 

Steven was my channel to an alternate reality. A movie projectionist with a fifth grade education working at an art theater by night, Steven was a channeling medium by day and on his nights off. He was, to put it crudely, possessed. 

Steven had a "control" who claimed to be a disembodied consciousness capable of using Steven's body like a loudspeaker. Steven's gift (or curse) had been studied extensively by American and British mediums with hefty credentials in that stratum of human society. These were the aristocracy of psychics. Many were wealthy and independent of any need for working cons on unwitting marks. They flew Steven here and there to be examined. Each time he got a thumbs up. The real article. 

Steven was a satellite of a large commune in Boston in the early 1970's. I was too. My first great love, James, had lived in the commune as a founding member before deciding to pursue a committed gay relationship. I was lucky to be his first.  Steven and James developed a close tie. James' mother, an educated woman from a Christian Science background, was married to a lowly janitor who made too little money to support James and his five siblings. She developed "a gift" which was more grift than gift. She held seances in her parlor while little James crunched into the closet under the stairs and made noises on cue. Steven had passed James' sniff test years before I came along, and that was good enough for me.

Steven's control spoke to us through him for hours at a time. These were structured lectures, delivered in a deep and confident voice with an undefinable accent. I am strangely reminded of these lectures when I watch Dr. Jordan Peterson on You Tube. Different voice certainly, but similar intensity and natural flow of ideas which ring true in the listener's ears. And, without opening an eye, Steven's control saw us. The voice called us each by name...even newcomers whom had never met Steven before his entranced state had begun. You can imagine the somewhat fearful reaction of these poor souls when obscure facts about their lives were referenced by the voice coming from this rather innocuous-appearing man seated in a thick circle of guests. 

The voice would converse with us individually at times. For example, he once said to me, "You don't think much of me with your Jesuit education, do you?" I lied and denied that was what I was indeed thinking, of course. Then the voice quizzed me on several points of various religious belief systems over distant time. "Very good," the voice concluded after I answered each question, "and I know your answers  nearly approach accuracy, because I was present in each of those periods of history. Now let me clarify some points for you." And the voice did for about an hour of mind-bending detail about its own life in those eras. The voice ended his attention on me by saying, "Another time I will tell you what it is like to live as a tree." He did too, at a later date.

And I believed that voice's existence to have been genuine and totally inexplicable. I was sober (drug-alcohol free) for these lectures and most of my time back then. I was teaching in a Catholic prep school and was 21-23 years old.  My work as an entire science department (Biology, Chemistry and Physics) for four grades was so demanding on my young mind that sobriety was my only practical option. And it wasn't an easy one since my artist lover, James, drew other artists into our home like a magnet passing through nails. 

I attended these lectures in Steven's modest apartment at least monthly for about two years. I left after one lecture turned into a poltergeist experience which was horrifying to all twenty participants. Steven's control lost control. The invasion by a malevolent force capable of toying with physical reality (light, temperature, lifting occupied chairs off the floor) caused me to question the worth of continuing. Frankly, I felt Steven's spirit had become corrupted in some way by over-utilizing his ability. This was later confirmed by life events. 

So, what does this have to do with those two words, atheist and agnostic?

My time with Steven, and the discussions I had with those who shared that time, verified to me that there is no god-initiated order and organization in this universe. Settled. Hence, I became an atheist. And, my time with Steven verified to me that reality and what we call consciousness are unimaginably complex beyond the sense-limited human comprehension of a fraction of it. Hence, I became an agnostic. I am not a believer in absolutes beyond their constructive usefulness in human society, such as law. This penetrated my mind very deeply. I actually keep an open question in my mind about gravity, for example. 

I have continued to explore alternate takes on human consciousness over the decades between then and now. I am still a firm believer in not believing. As for theism, I begrudge no person their belief in a god or intelligent mover in the universe. Few people are willing to look into the black vacuum of space on a northern winter's night and then think about individual inevitable death alone. I am one of those few who are willing to embrace that experience. I have spent mindful time with the dying. I have been visited by the dead.

My very real encounter with what I still consider to have possibly been a form of non-human intelligent existence beyond my full comprehension left me with more uncertainty than certainty. And, I must believe that whatever that intelligence was, it wanted to leave me exactly in that state. For that, I will always be grateful to it.

If you wish to explore the topic of channeling mediums, I recommend the book Seth Speaks.