Pop Culture as a Source of Metaphysical Reflection

This article was first published on January 12, 2021 with the debut of the website paranormalencyclopedia.org and is being presented here with an Addendum. 

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On Dec. 31, 2020, my brother sent me a facebook link to a short Betty Boop video clip and he had no idea that I was writing this article at that time.  

New readers might at first think that what they are about to read is nonsensical or 'too fantastic to be true' and I would simply tell them to read further as the 'evidence' will be undeniable; however, as always intelligence, perception and the ability to make reasoning deductions are factors to understanding.

 

Now it has been more than 25 years that my guide/angel in Oneness 'Michael' has been at the center of my life. While I've always been single, I've always been so busy with working and my writing vocation that there's been little time for loneliness, especially after 1995 when I was confronted with proof that nobody is ever truly alone.  Considering the topic of popular culture that is a major aspect of contemporary life, as previously mentioned in a blog article — Identifying Pop culture movies and songs may allow some comprehension of emotional aspects of mentality and context in regard to initiation

 

I meant supernatural initiation, as my longtime readers well know.  Since August 1995 more than occasionally lyrics have been noticed from whatever was currently being heard while driving in my car, being at the gym, etc., that seemed to express something relevant to some aspect of my life or my thoughts at the moment.  I remember hearing one song that seemed to express a whimsical aspect to it all with the final line — "I Want It That Way" (Backstreet Boys 1999).
  
Updating the testament.org website for 2020, I was reminded about this example of synchronicity involving contemporary Pop culture.  The following appeared in the June 12, 1997 Los Angeles Times "Morning Report" column by Shauna Snow.

The Wizard of Floyd: Recent media and Internet reports that Pink Floyd’s 1973 album Dark Side of the Moon may be a secret soundtrack to the 1939 movie “The Wizard of Oz” have spawned a sales surge for the rock album, as buyers snapped up 18,000 copies last week, according to SoundScan, far surpassing the usual 7,100 to 7,400 in weekly sales.  Sales for the movie’s video, which has fluctuated in popularity over the years, rose from 7,000 three weeks ago to just under 12,000 last week, according to VideoScan, with an even greater increase seen with video rentals.  Among the similarities cited by soundtrack theory proponents: When you start playing the album at the MGM lion’s third roar, the song “The Great Gig in the Sky” plays during the tornado; the song “Brain Damage” accompanies the Scarecrow’s “If I Only Had a Brain,” and a cash register sounds when the film switches from black-and-white to color.  The band has not commented on the reports, but album engineer Alan Parsons has said the whole thing is coincidental.

 

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My longtime readers may recall that I happened to use an occasional nickname of endearment for my unseen Collaborator — 'Boo.'  This wasn't something ever calculated and certainly has nothing to do with physicist Geoffrey Chew's philosophy using the expression "the bootstrap" [or does it?].  I guess the word 'Boo' is an emotional regression that derives from my early childhood when I had a beloved stuff toy that I called my 'Boo Boo.'  Upon my return home from my 'talking poltergeist' research expedition in 1995 as I was startled to continue witnessing diverse 'paranormal phenomena' taking place around me, a recurring 'sign' for me astonishing in frequency became Betty Boop decals seen on vehicles in front of mine while driving my car.  Other repeating angelic synchronicity I've sighted in traffic has involved bumper stickers with messages and happy symbols, such as a heart symbol, Christian symbols and messages, statements with the word "Dad," and sightings of what must be thousands of vehicles designated by manufacturer as 'Sentra.'  Today (1-12-2021) at the supermarket I couldn't help noticing a license plate on a vehicle parked near mine with the letters "GODBOOM."  I've seen the license at least once before on a different day of the week.

Also found to recur time and again situationally has been synchronicity involving the word or name 'Bob' as an indication of misfortune (or a warning to change some particular plan of mine at the time) although I've noticed nothing very unusual about co-workers having this name over the years.  As an example of an instance of 'the Bob pattern' manifesting in my daily life, one incident took place when I was buying a needed inexpensive small appliance.  When I noticed that the name Bob was scrawled on a name tag of the cashier I thought, 'Uh oh I better not get this.'  There was then a 'no' tap on my leg (a tap on my other leg from my unseen collaborator indicates 'yes') and I thought, 'Oh Michael is letting me know that I'm being silly about all this double guessing about what I call "The Bobs Pattern."'  At home upon attempting to use the appliance, I found that it didn't work at all and realized on this occasion I'd misinterpreted what the 'no' tap had been meant to indicate.  Today (Jan. 12) the NPR radio station heard in my car mentioned 'Bobi Wine' during an NPR interview of Uganda President Museveni.  Names equated with this pattern mentioned in my writings include a "Twin Peaks" character metaphor; my Uncle Bob; movie director Robert Altman; 'supermasochist' and a neighbor of mine in Echo Park Bob Flanagan; PRS guest lecturers Robert Ellwood, Robert Frager and Bob Gale; politician Bob Dole; newsmaker John Wayne Bobbitt; an actor I met while working at a talent agency Barry Robins; and channelers Bobby Horne, Jane Roberts and Mark Probert.

It has been ten months since the local Los Angeles gyms were first closed due to the pandemic so it is rare for me to listen to Pop songs these days.  At Trader Joe's, the song playing was "Never Let Me Down Again" by Depeche Mode.  I asked the young cashier if she knew the Pop group who recorded the song and she was able to give the correct name.  I asked her how old she was and she said she was 29.  (I forgot to look at her name tag.)  Once or twice my mind has wondered if I've ever disappointed my 'Guide/guide' (or 'guide in Oneness' as I'm still not entirely clear about the precise nature of 'Them') and the day before on the telephone I mentioned to my brother that He/he seemed to be very "controlling"—although I truly appreciate the 'guidance' and would be miserable if it stopped suddenly—these days with continuous yes or no taps on my leg, etc. I don't think so.  I recognize my commentary was just a little venting as I've noticed other people do about their spouse/roommate/partner /Whatever over the years.  However when there is a lull in the manifestations, I find myself becoming . . . unsettled, I guess.  Maybe I was bragging.  I've become sensitive to the concept of emotional correctness as being something one should consider in addition to intellectual correctness.  When I wasn't being careful about expressing myself and 'venting'/'bragging,' I'd been in a distraught mood over the problem of not being able to publish the new edition of the Testament website since Dec. 2.

Decades ago, I can still remember driving in Pasadena circa 1982 and listening to the song "Peek-A-Boo!" by the rock group Devo.  Considering my time focusing on Pop culture variants during my younger years, as with much of the populace the incessant interims delegated to escape from reality started for me during childhood. In addition to the screen entertainment, my twin brother Mike and myself were comic book readers and we acquired a large collection of comic books.  The characters have now become a prominent focus of many popular movies in recent years.

One of the requisite weekend matinee movies I can recall seeing as a child is a rerelease of Disney's "Cinderella" (1950) featuring the song "Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo".

Another song title reminding me of 'Boo' has been "Boom Boom Bâ" by Métisse (mentioned in a New Testament transcript as well as a blog article).

Yet another song title fitting the pattern is found in flying saucer contactee Orfeo Angelucci's book Son of the Sun (1959): "Siboney" ('Si — Boo — Ney' phonetically).

I now realize I'd first heard the music of "Siboney" in the Fellini movie "Amarcord" released in the United States during 1974 when I was 18 years old.  As one autobiographical blog article mentions — I had decided to major in cinema and consider an entertainment industry career after being fascinated by the self-expression of so-called 'auteur' directors such as Ingmar Bergman, Federico Fellini, Luis Bunuel and Ken Russell.

After my 'paranormal initiation' and 'spiritual awakening' in 1995, I soon stopped allocating time to watching narrative movies and television shows.  The last narrative movie I've seen is "Michael" (with John Travolta playing the role of the angel) released at the end of 1996.  I've previously offered many alternatives for engaging in more rewarding thinking and contemplation than merely being a passive spectator of entertainment.  One blog article about this topic is "The Force Awakens?"

In 1997 my friend Marie let me know she'd met a Creole singer named Boozoo Chavis.  YouTube videos of his songs include "Paper in My Shoe" (1954).

 

During the Halloween season in 1997 I snapped a photo of this unusual artwork noticed on Glendale Boulevard below my Echo Park condominium complex.

In 2006 at the midpoint of an hour-long interview where I was the guest on a North Carolina paranormal talkshow, the bumper music song played was "Groove Is in the Heart" performed by Deee-Lite and featuring some spoken words by 'Bootsy Collins.'  During the interview I'd been discussing the dynasty of 'talking poltergeist' cases involving families with the 'Bell' surname, beginning with the 'Bell Witch' case of the 19th Century and then encompassing the Centrahoma, Oklahoma case that I'd investigated as chronicled in Testament.  Bootsy is heard saying the song intro word "Dig!" and this has a significant parallel to the two Bell family paranormal case chronologies.  The haunting presence is quoted in the Centrahoma case as saying on one occasion "YOU HAVE TO DIG" and while transcribing the tape when I heard myself telling the family about this the sentence "BUT NOT FOR MONEY" was audible on the tape as a new 'spirit message' (or what is today known as 'Electronic Voice Phenomena') that had not been heard by us at the time of recording.  A 1930 book about the earlier 'Bell Witch' case by Harriet Parks Miller also quoted the haunting presence instructing the family about digging — for treasure as it has been reported in several eyewitness testimonials.  However, the metaphysically insightful reader knows that it is 'spiritual treasure' and not material wealth that is the solution to the puzzle of the Bell family intrigue among the array of 'talking poltergeist' portents throughout the ages.  M. V. Ingram in his An Authenticated History of the Bell Witch (1894) reported: "People now concluded that a good spirit had been sent to the community to work wonders and prepare the good at heart for the second advent."  (article)  After publishing Testament I discovered the names 'Bell' and 'Michael' can be found to recur and form patterns interlinking famous 'paranormal' occurrences as I've identified in some blog articles.

Something I've stated before — Considering Pop culture, Pop songs are just one of the multitude of life activities that may arouse contemplation about the nature of creativity and inspiration.  In one article the observation is shared — Whatever the medium that is the source for the recording of video and audio, something to consider is what is affixing the image and sound to each source.

 

The floating heads seen in the music video for "Groove Is in the Heart" remind me of the phenomenal 'psychic photography' associated with the Spiritualism movement.  Below: these paranormal photographs are presented in He Walks In Two Worlds: The Story of John Myers, Psychic Photographer, Healer and Philanthropist (1964) by Maurice Barbanell. 

People enjoy the BOOGIE!  A search for the word "Boo" at lyrics.com brings 301 pages of results.  Glancing at the first few pages, I noticed a diverse range of song genres that include such titles as "Mama Look a Boo Boo" (Harry Belafone 1957), "Back Off Boogaloo" (Ringo Starr 1972), "Peek-A-Boo" (The Stylistics 1979) and "Ooga Boo" (Cher 2017).  During the '70s there was also "I'm Your Boogie Man," "(Shake, Shake, Shake) Shake Your Booty" and "Boogie Shoes" (K.C. and the Sunshine Band 1975/1976).

 

A version of the music for "Siboney" is heard in the soundtrack of the movie "Amarcord."

 

 

Addendum

August 23, 2021

 

 

To-date, there have been 31 weeks of 'Some Occasional Notes about an Unusual Life' published at my journal blog new for 2021.  I've been referring to my personal 'guide'/'guardian angel' in Oneness as M while being completely aware that nobody else has ever written about or been quoted describing anything like experiences that recur in my life every day, exactly as recounted in the journal entries.

 

I sometimes recall incidents spanning the last 26 years involving the diverse multiplicity of manifestations.  For example, I recently saw in my files the receipt for an antique version of the Declaration of Independence purchased at a local sidewalk boutique shop on Hyperion Boulevard (readers familiar with the case of flying saucer contactee Orfeo Angelucci may find this location alone an interesting 'link').  The receipt is dated December 2, 1995 and upon making the purchase, the seller indicated that she didn't know anything about the antique document, describing it in handwriting as a "poster" sold for $45.  I told her it was a version of the Declaration of Independence.  The receipt is a slip of light yellow paper stamped with an image of 'Betty Boop' in red ink with the name of the shop also handwritten "Boop's Big Deal" along with the telephone number for her boutique.  At another antique store, I obtained an inexpensive heirloom portrait of George Washington and soon noticed that the surface of the rendering showed solidified brush strokes of paint.  This period of my life is documented in the case study book Testament (1995) available for reading with a free online edition.

The more I compared my facsimile of the Declaration with others, the older mine appeared; however, none of the antique experts I visited or consulted could tell me anything of a factual nature pertaining to my antique.  The Declaration I'd found showed a new potential 'linking' aspect when I learned about the circumstances of Walter Semkiw (1, 2) upon attending a Los Angeles lecture presented in tandem with William Barnes.  Both men have written books involving aspects of reincarnation: Return of the Revolutionaries: The Case for Reincarnation and Soul Groups Reunited (2003) and Thomas Andrews, Voyage Into History: Titanic Secrets Revealed Thru the Eyes of Her Builder (2000), respectively.

Last year, a blog article reported about "Gaga Manifests New Facets of the Mystery" in relation to Lady Gaga's involvement with a planned Betty Boop movie.  There is also information about an ancient 'Gaga' whom I first learned about in the books of Zecharia Sitchin. 

 

While writing the preceding blog article and reviewing the UFO data documented in books and periodicals, there was an indication from my unseen guide that I should again read the book Interstellar Contact (1974 American edition of UK book Man & The Stars) by Duncan Lunan.  The inside front cover description of the book includes an overview statement of the information being presented that surprised me: "In 1973, Duncan Lunan, an eminent Scottish scientist, deciphered the mysterious radio signals that had puzzled scientists ever since they were received in the 1920s.  Lunan identified them as a series of star maps apparently transmitted by a space probe circling the earth.  The messages pointed to an origin in the constellation Boötes 13,000 years ago . . ."

 

Stuart Holroyd included a synopsis about LDE research (long-delayed radio 'echoes') in his book Alien Intelligence (1979).  Here are some excerpts —

 

Belief in the existence of a plurality of inhabited worlds pre-dates Pascal, and is to be found, for instance, in Buddhist and Jainist scriptures and in the works of some ancient philosophers.

 

 

Two of the pioneers of radio technology, Nikola Tesla and Thomas Edison, believed that in the course of their researches they received intelligent, if not intelligible, signals from space.

 

 

For over half a century the puzzle of the LDEs (long delayed echoes) has fascinated astronomers.  

 

 

. . . Duncan Lunan, caused considerable excitement . . . The inference that there was somebody or something 'up there' was one that had often been made about the Einhoven LDEs.  In the early 1960s Professor Ronald Bracewell suggested that they might have emanated from an alien probe vehicle . . . Lunan tried graphing these echo intervals . . . He noted that the six points, formed a pattern with a striking but incomplete resemblance to the star constellation Boötes, known as the herdsman, a system two hundred light years away.  Moreover, when the one isolated point was moved over to a corresponding position on the other side of the diagram it occupied the position of the star Epsilon Boötes and thus completed the constellation pattern.  

There was one other anomaly in the diagram, namely that Epsilon's neighbour star, Alpha Boötes, known as Arcturus, was a little above and to the left of its true position . . .

. . . anomalous radio signals received at the Radio Institute at Gorki in Russia in 1973 . . . took the form of regular sequences of pulses . . . some months later, addressing a conference of his scientific peers, Trotsky said that further research had suggested that the radio emissions did not come from outer space but apparently arose in the atmosphere . . . 

Among the numerous radio emissions from extraterrestrial sources, says Carl Sagan, "there are a large number of other incompletely  understood phenomena . . . which might just conceivably be due to ETI  [extraterrestrial intelligence]."

. . . a number of phenomena have been observed that are consistent with the interpretation that an alien intelligence has been seeking to make its existence known . . . .

Stuart Holroyd mentioned about UFOlogy in Alien Intelligence:  

There has been a great deal of controversy about the part that government agencies have played in UFO investigations.  It is widely believed that vital information has been withheld from the public; that 'they' know full well that UFOs are extraterrestrial vehicles; and even that a landing has occurred and been filmed at a secret Air Force base. 

Holroyd had previously published a book about "the communications from 'the Nine' channelled by Phyllis Schlemmer to scientist and researcher Andrija Puharich and Englishman Sir John Whitmore."  Holroyd commented about this other book entitled Prelude to the Landing on Planet Earth:

 

I recently published a long book on the latter material, in researching which I participated in some communication sessions when Phyllis Schlemmer went into trance and a soi-disant [self-called] extraterrestrial spoke through her, and I therefore know from experience how impressive and convincing such communications can be.

 

 

The main evidence that we have for the existence of higher intelligences is in the writings or utterances of mediums . . . 

Either these mediums are, as they believe, 'channels,' or they are creative geniuses of the first order.  I think that the evidence weighs heavily in favour of the former view.

After considering the research findings presented in Duncan Lunan's books Interstellar Contact and Children from the Sky, I found that reporters sometimes are at liberty to describe his work in an inexact way when mentioning sightings of mysterious 'satellites' that recently have been described with the name 'Black Knight Satellite.'  One example of such circumstances is a November 5, 2020 U.K. Express article with the headline "Black Knight Satellite seen over Philippines - '100 percent alien proof' - claim".  A composite image consisting of UFO photo details provide a comparison with the object seen in NASA photo STS088-724-66.

 

The NASA photo object is shown at left.

The article mentions: "The Black Knight Satellite is the name given to an object captured on camera by NASA astronauts during a 1998 space shuttle mission . . . NASA however has looked to debunk the claims by saying the Black Knight Satellite was actually a thermal blanket accidentally dropped from a space shuttle."  Government employees involved with research of 'outer space' have a moral and ethical obligation to be honest.  After all, the overview statement at the NASA website declares a purpose to "expand knowledge for the benefit of humanity . . . the agency shares what it learns so that its information can make life better for people worldwide." 

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I recently recounted in a journal entry a moment of synchronicity that occurred on August 12 — I was in my car and had just changed the channel when I was surprised to hear a word that sounded like "Boo" (my fondest nickname for M).  The title on the dashboard was revealed as "Moreno (El Búho Remix)" and the singer was Dom La Nena.  My nickname heard in the Spanish word was combined with the more enigmatic 'ho,' which has been a prevalent recurring license plate letter sequence for years intermittently glimpsed during my drives, as I've commented about before.  Now the two letter sequences had come together in the Spanish word for owl, symbolic animal for wisdom.