One more time, Spirit in the real world

Someone wrote to me last night to say they'd been in Peru recently and had had several great experiences with ayahuasca there. She noted that her experiences were different from what she'd read in my book Ayahuasca in My Blood and was curious about why that would be. She also noted that she went into the future with ayahuasca and saw her future grandchildren (her kids are not old enough to have kids, she said) and wondered if it was possible that she had really seen her future grandchildren. So I wrote her back, and for some reason added a story I'm sure you've all heard before--and which probably changes a bit with each telling, though I try to keep the facts lined up truthfully. So here's what I wrote to her:

Dear X: I'm glad you had a wonderful experience in Peru. As you noted, your experiences were different from what you read of mine. I would not expect someone else's experiences to be like my experience. Why? Because I think we're dealing with real spirits, and so what they choose to teach or share with us is individual. If we were just dealing with the chemicals extracted from the plant and they somehow did not have spirit, then I would expect that people would have more similar experiences.

   As to your vision: I have no reason to doubt that you were allowed to see future grandchildren. Or at least POSSIBLE future grandkids. I have often been amazed--truly amazed--at the results of visions in the real world. One of my favorites is this: I had moved to Texas and nothing was working out well in terms of my journalism. Editors who hired me got fired, a couple of magazines hired me then changed formats and dropped me, that sort of thing. So I was with ayahuasca in the jungle at Julio's house and asked what the heck I could do to make things better because the lack of work was taking a toll on my kids. Ayahuasca told me simply, that when I got back to the US I would have the work. I would have to do the work, but so long as I worked at doing the work, I'd have enough work. (This is the short version, so forgive me if you saw this somewhere and it was slightly different.)

    Anyway, I got home and almost immediately a magazine Skunk, out of Canada, asked me to write for them, and I started a monthly column that I still have 12 years later. Then the Fort Worth Weekly changed me from a free lance writer to a staff writer with a weekly income, but allowed me to work from home. And I got some freelance work and so forth.

    BUTTTTT, in the magazine/paper business, you don't always get paid quickly. Sometimes you wait a few months. So I remained broke even with the work I was doing, and the electricity was about to be turned off in my house. I tried to explain to my kids, and especially Madeleina, who was probably 7 or 9 at the time, that it would be like camping in the house with candles for a few days or a week until I got money to get the electricity turned back on.

   She was not having any of it. She refused to believe that the spirits told me I'd have the work if I did the work and that they'd then allow me to not have money and have the electricity shut off. And on the day when the man came to the house to shut off the electricity she had an absolute tantrum in the driveway. I asked the guy if he could go to someone else's house and let me have 15 minutes to calm her down. He said he couldn't but then began looking at some bushes I had. They were ordinary bushes, so I knew he was stalling to let me calm my daughter down.

   While the man pretended to be interested in the bushes, I spoke with Madeleina, and a bright yellow DHL truck raced past out house. In a few minutes it had turned around and pulled into our driveway. The driver asked if I was Peter Gorman and then gave me an envelope. In it was a check for $1000 from a magazine for which I'd done some background work on a story about a year earlier.

   The thing was this: I was not owed a check, and it wasn't a regular newspaper style check. It was a bank check. I showed it to the guy who was going to turn of the electricity and asked him if I could have 10 minutes to go cash it. He let me and I cashed it and paid what I owed and we kept the electric on and Madeleina was all crazy with "I knew it! The spirits couldn't lie! I knew it, dad!" and that sort of thing.

   Well, obviously I was guilty so I went into the house and called the magazine and explained that they'd mistakenly sent me a check and that I'd used some of it but that I'd send the rest back and repay them the remainder when I could. But here's the thing: The people who do the paying at the magazine said they hadn't sent me a check so that there was nothing to send back. I told them it wasn't just a check but a bank check. They said I was crazy: No newspaper or magazine pays by bank check, ever. Which is true. Which was part of the reason the whole thing was so crazy.

    So they said they hadn't paid me. So I called up DHL to see who had given them the envelope to give me. And then it got really crazy, because DHL said they did not deliver to my neighborhood, and that there was no record of anything coming to me. I hung up and thought, well, maybe I was nuts and it was a FedEx truck instead, so I called them. They were very clear that nothing had gone to me via FedEx that day or any time recently.

   So a real bank check got delivered to me that had never been sent to me, by a company that did not do business in my very rural area (at the time). It was spirit all the way. I have always thought that the spirits heard Madeleina and got her message that if they promised me I'd have the work if I did the work then it stood to reason that I should get paid in time to not lose my electricity, which would make it difficult to do the work. So they manifested a truck, a driver, an envelope and a bank check that was legitimate. Now that's spirit for you in the real world.