Astral Plane

It was Christmas in Rhode Island, 1977, when I was thirteen years old that I went to the Astral Plane.

We’d moved to Cranston during the school year, and I hadn’t made any friends. The head guidance counselor gave me an IQ test and placed me in the second to highest academic track. I was behind in most of my classes. Christmas break was a relief for me.

Mom gifted me a lighted vanity mirror and some cosmetics. After breakfast, I put the mirror on the desk in my room, turned on its lights and looked at myself, trying to see what other people saw that repelled them. Thick tinted aviator glasses, my mouth full of braces; I wasn’t beautiful, but that was true of other kids who weren’t so isolated in school.

I looked hard into the mirror and found I wasn’t looking at myself any longer. Everything was wavy for a few seconds and then I was floating in dark space. There were other beings floating around. Everyone was lit from within. There were angelic looking figures and demonic looking figures. The angelic figures were beautifully lit as if through prisms with rainbows radiating , but the demonic figures were frightful and had an aura of fire around them

One of the angelic figures spoke to me. “Welcome to the Astral Plane, the realm of angels and demons. Most people are influenced by the angels or the demons, and there is a war between good and evil going on here and in the material world.”

“I don’t believe in good and evil.”

A demonic figure said, “People who do believe in good and evil often take the side of the angels. It is completely irrational. To cut off what is called evil is to be closed minded. You aren’t really living if you aren’t exploring things like sex and drugs.”

The angelic figure said, “It is true that if someone is aware of the war between good and evil, good is more likely chosen. Evil is chosen one thing at a time.”

I frowned. “I don’t want to be a bad person, but I’m not up for a war against evil. I want to go home.”

The angelic figure said, “That’s why you don’t have any friends. You haven’t chosen a side.”

I found that I was once again looking at myself in the lighted mirror.

Mom called me from downstairs.“You have a phone call.”

“Hello?”

“Hi, this is Terry. I’m in your classes. I hope you know who I am.”

“Yes, of course. Hi.”

“I’m calling because I got a year’s membership for me and a friend in a martial arts studio – they call it a dojo. It involves some Taoist spirituality, in which there is no good and evil. One extreme has the seed of another extreme. Some people think the meditations before and after the workouts would compromise their religious beliefs. How do you feel about that?”

“It sounds interesting. I don’t know if it is true, but I’d like to investigate it.”

“Other people wouldn’t be interested because it involves pledging to a set of ethics, which some kids feel would hamper their freedom.”

“What ethics are those?”

“Just five, all of them amounting to not doing harm. They are: not to kill, not to steal, not to lie, not to engage in sexual misconduct, and not to get intoxicated.”

“Those don’t sound too hard to keep.”

“They are if you’re a stoner or something. I thought you might be open to it all. Mostly it will be a lot of physical exercise and learning self defense. Are you interested?”

“Yes, thank you. I’m glad you called me. If it works out well for both of us, maybe my family will buy both of us another year’s membership next year.”

So not taking a side between good and evil is a stance that can be shared, and I had a new friend. I went back to my mirror and looked at myself again, but all I saw was my face and hair. I guessed I no longer had any hard questions.