Friday 7 December 2007

A daemon's wooing

I thought by way of an introduction to this site, and to explain my interest in your theory, I would begin by relating some incidents. I consider them to be daemonic, in your sense of the word.

Throughout my young adulthood and stemming in part from my serious academic study of philosophy, I have held a conception of a second self. I experienced this vaguely and sporadically. I viewed it within the framework of the Kierkegaardian eternal (hence, out of time) and as somewhat akin to the OverSelf/Soul of James "of which we are but the mutilated expression.". It was not until my late 30s that I actually began to see it's secret animus at work, and to understand it's prescient power.

In 2002 my husband and I began taking trips up to Provincetown on Cape Cod, MA. We were exploring the works of playwright Tennessee Williams, who had lived and written there. It was a period in which we were entering the second half of married life, and had grown into soulmates, work partners, and best friends; we also had built our dream home on a river, and work opportunities were broadening. I was approaching 40, and he, 50. In short, there was every reason to expect a full and happy harvest.

It was at this time that a series of dreams and synchronicities began occuring. I will not go into them all, but they were uncanny in nature. They pointed toward an end, a death. Once a voice spoke in my head as I was drifing off to sleep. It sounded like my own, but magnified and slightly mechanical. It said, "This devastation will be worse.". The only prior devastation I could think of was a period of crisis we had gone through at the begining of our marriage, and conditions were far superior to that time's. I had also long harbored a fear that my husband would fall ill at age 50 and die in the manner my father had. But again, my husband was fit, trim, a nonsmoker/drinker, who ate well and exersized; he had good doctor's check-ups and there was no history of such an illness in his family. But twice in dreams I was wandering through Provincetown alone, near a cemetary (none such in real life) and in another, a doctor stared at me gravely. There are many more to tell but time and space do not permit their recounting. But they were all markedly uncanny.

Suffice it to say, my husband suddenly fell ill in early 2004. By early 2006 he was dead. It was the illness that had killed my father nearly 3 decades earlier , right down to the details, and their deaths both occured in mid-March.

I could take no comfort in concepts of a distant heaven, nor in mediumship or the like. My sole view of immortality had been Nietzschean eternal recurrence, but my interest had been academic, and based on ethics and valuation. I had new dreams in which my husband's surgeon was staying in a chalet with a spiral staircase. He was trying to offer me some hope, and it was though he were revealing some key which I could not make out. The doctor in real life bizarrely bears a resemblence to Anthony Peake. (I am not certain of the meaning, but it resonates with spirit and intuiton). The accidental finding of your essay "Cheating the Ferryman: A new paridigm of immortality" (not sure of exact title) while on the internet was fortuitous and healing.

This has been a brief sketch that does not do justice to the tumultuous and eerie unfolding of events that spanned 2002-06. Were I to present the full details you would gain a clearer picture of their impressive nature, but it would take many posts to do so.

3 comments:

Anthony Peake said...

Susan Marie,

Welcome to the site - and thank you for a fascinating contribution. I for one am very keen to hear mor about your experiences and I have absolutely no issue with you posting them.

I am sure that your experiences will resonate with the members of this blog. Like yourself I am also in regular private email communication with with many of them and the personal experiences that have been described to me in this less public forum have huge similarities with your own. With that in mind I suggest that you consider which parts you wish to share with our friends on this site and which you wish to remain between you and I.

Best Wishes - and thanks for your support.

Karen said...

Hi Susan Marie
I read your post and my heart goes out to you.
I too have strange dreams but, mine are trivial in comparison. I've always been pretty close to my brother and when we were kids being his older sister I used to look out for him. I remember I didn't go in to school one day and John took the bus alone. I was in bed with a cold and I was having a "nightmare" (as I thought). In my dream I saw my brother being bullied on the bus and an older boy punching him in the face. Then I was awoken by loud frantic knocking at the front door, when I opened it my baby brother was standing there with a nasty bruised eye. I asked him what had happened then quickly asked him to be quiet as I told him exactly what happened....
I have experienced other dreams and happenings too. Like when my grandmother died. I was 10 and I didn't want to leave the hospital the night before she died as I wanted to know why my grandmother was sinking?. Apparently my parents were holding the elevator and calling loudly for me to hurry up. As we left the ward I saw my grandmother sinking as she was waving goodbye and I couldn't understand why she was sinking then I heard a voice in my head saying 'you wont see her anymore'.
I have also been half awake and half asleep and heard people talking about me. I have never caught the whole conversation but, I heard them talking about my welfare etc...
I'll always have rational explanations ready for all the above to keep me sane but, something deep down tells me there is something else going on.
xXx

Jesamyn said...

Thank you for sharing this fascinating insight and for introducing me to the theories of Anthony Peake which I am greatly looking forward to reading. The tragedies we have both gone through and our chance meeting on a grief site at opposite ends of the world seem to have been pre-destined and have re-awakened my long-slumbering fascination with philosophy.I look forward to reading more of your experiences that you want to share. In the highest esteem, Jesamyn.