Better Than Dead

Greg and Dana Newkirk of the Haunted Objects Podcast and the Newkirk Museum of the Paranormal like to say that paranormal experiences are often initiatory experiences. They give you a peak at the Other, breakdown the dogma of consensus reality. If you run from these experiences in fear, the initiation fails. If you try to overcome your fear and accept what has happened it can completely change you and your worldview. They also point out that these initiations can lead to periods of great creativity and productivity. By that standard, I have had more than one initiatory experience, but the one I’m about to relate is perhaps the most profound.

I haven’t told this story in full here before because at the time it happened I foolishly told it to one of my materialist friends and he said, “What bullshit.” It was brutal and said in front of my other materialist friends and they all laughed. Maybe it was nervous laughter but whatever it was, I was humiliated and made damned sure I only spoke of these things with people who believed as I did. (I drifted away from that group soon after.) Now that I am a geezer, I want to own my truth. That’s part of why I’m telling these stories now. If people think they are bullshit, that’s their problem.

I have experienced high strangeness all my life, starting when I was about three or four. Except for one notable period in my early thirties. I had just successfully fought off thyroid cancer. So much weirdness led up to the diagnosis and treatment, so many wild swings of emotion that seemed beyond my control. Afterwards, after treatment and getting a proper dose of thyroid hormone, it was like someone flipped a switch and I had my equilibrium back. No weirdness for a long time after that.

It made me wonder if all of the strange things in my life had been induced by bad brain chemistry and/or pure illusion. Coupled with this, I had been working and hanging out with a bunch of diehard materialists and absorbed a lot of their worldview. It had me reassessing everything. I went from believer to agnostic to almost-declared materialist in a very short span of time. I said to myself one day, “I don’t think there’s anything beyond this reality except bad brain chemistry and illusion.” Well, the Universe decided to call my bet and raise me.

I had a cat I adored. Her name was Mocha, a brown and orange swirled tortoise shell. When we first met, I was living in a bungalow on the back end of a property in Venice, California. My landlords lived in the house on the front of the property and on either side of us were open fields where houses had been torn down. Idiots were constantly dumping cats in these fields which meant we often had to adopt them or otherwise find homes for them. One sunny afternoon I was sitting in my bungalow with the sliding glass doors open to catch a breeze and Mocha walked in bold as brass and said, “Hello. I live here now and you need to feed me.” So, of course, I did. (No, I didn’t really hear her say this but I got the message clearly.) I had two other cats and one of them, pure white angel Ollie, got so insulted that he moved in permanently with the landlords. (They were great fans of Ollie and were okay with this.)

I have adored all my cats over the years but my bond with Mocha was different. I can’t quite explain it except to say she was a soul cat for me. I knew it the minute she first walked in the door. Some years later I had moved to another part of L.A. on a busy street and about the time of my materialist reassessment of things Mocha was killed. From that point on, all my cats became indoor only cats but I was filled with guilt and shame that I’d been so careless with someone so precious.

Immediately after her death strange things started happening. The dog, who liked to play with Mocha around a swiveling chair in the living room, began to play this same game with something only she could see. She would also sit in front of the hall window, one of Mocha’s favorite perches, and whine in an excited but puzzled way. When I went over and put my hand in the spot the dog was staring at, the air would be noticeably colder than the rest of the room, even when the sun was shining through the window. These were events experienced by other people living in the house. But one night when I was alone in my bed and crying over Mocha I heard purring coming from the empty pillow next to me. It so startled me I jumped out of bed. I couldn’t hear the purring anymore until I leaned over close to the pillow and there it was again! I straightened up, no purring. I leaned over, purring. It was actually very comforting, so I calmed down and eventually got back in bed and listened to the purring beside me. Gradually, it faded away and then I was able to go to sleep.

But I am very talented at making myself feel guilty and sad and one night—again, lying in bed—I was indulging in this and really working myself up. Then something happened that words are inadequate to describe. A wave of pure, unadulterated, one-with-the-Universe bliss swept over me, starting at the top of my head and spreading through my entire body. I knew it was a taste of the numinous and I also knew it was sent to me by or through Mocha. These words on this page/screen cannot possibly do justice to that feeling. It was a privilege, a gift, and I was so profoundly grateful for it. For days my heart was lifted by it. But I got greedy because, wow, that feeling. One night maybe a few days later I wondered if I could cultivate it again and I started the ol’ chain of guilt-making but this time it was like I got a slap across the face—not physically, but mentally, psychically. Along with it came a clear message: “Knock it off. Get on with your life.” I kind of felt that message was from Mocha, too.

I was inundated for days afterward by a ton of small but meaningful incidents of high strangeness until I finally said to the Universe one day, “All right! I get it! I am not a materialist. I believe. You can send any weird thing to me and I will accept it but I only ask one thing. I don’t want to see anything because I think that would drive me crazy.” The deluge of weird stopped, but it has continued to be an occasional presence in my life ever since. For the most part, with one notable exception (a story for another day) I haven’t seen anything, but I have experienced intense synchronicities, odd things happening in the house, ghostly but unseen visitations from other deceased ones I’ve adored, etc., etc. Curiously, I never experienced anything with Mocha again except one dream, months later. She was sitting on the edge of the roof of the old bungalow where we first met, not really paying attention to me. I called out to her, “Mocha! I’ve missed you! Come here.” She looked at me and I got the clear message, “Can’t stay. I’ve got other things to do.” And she trotted over the peaked roof of the bungalow and disappeared over the other side.

The other thing that happened after I accepted my non-materialist pact with the Universe is that I entered into one of the most profoundly creative periods of my life. Art was pouring out of me for many years after. At the time, I didn’t think of these experiences as initiatory, but I do now. I have had other initiations in my life, but that was the most profound. And all due to the ghost of my soul cat.

Random quote of the day:

“The truth behind apparitions is, I fear, less like a problem to be solved than an initiation into a mystery; less like an investigation than a quest on which we must not be above taking tips from helpful old crones or talking animals in order to wrest the world transforming treasure from the dragon’s cave. We may even have to abandon our idea of truth altogether if we are to find it.”

—Patrick Harpur, Daimonic Reality

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Desus and Mero, Beyoncé, or the Marine Corps Marching Band. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.