xanadu

My first ministry with Unity was in Daytona Beach, FL. I lived out near the ocean, wasn't very sociable, and particularly avoided one young man in the congregation who seemed a little crazy, always talking about hearing a voice guiding him and doing as told.

One day this young man showed up at the back door of my house. I didn't invite him in, just wanted to get rid of him. But he handed me an 8 track tape player, the kind that played tapes over and over endlessly, and said, "I'm supposed to give you this. Certainly you can accept a gift."

A couple years later I was in my second ministry in Richmond, VA. I was still struggling with my resistance to certain congregation members who seemed particularly crazy, and one day was really judging myself for being unloving. I visited a chiropractor that day and he wouldn't let me off his chiropractic table until he could get me to laugh, which took him quite a while. When I finally laughed, he let me up and said, "Now.... Go make yourself a good day."

I saw an afternoon matinee advertised at a local theatre, a film starring Gene Kelly, who I had always liked. When I got to the theatre, I found I was the only one watching that movie that day. Like an explosion, Xanadu came on the screen with dazzling movement and colors and music. I was immediately yanked into amazement. I went gaga, so to speak.

You know the Xanadu story. Sonny is struggling in life. Kira shows up to guide him. She seductively sings, "I've always been in your mind. Know I will be kind. I'll be guiding you." Following her guidance, Sonny is able to find himself and successfully build a pleasure dome symbolic of heavenly bliss, after Samuel Taylor Coleridge's poem fragment from a visionary dream: "In Xanadu did Kubla Khan a stately pleasure dome decree, where Alph the sacred river ran through caverns measureless to man, down to a sunless sea."

Kundalini? Chakras? I didn't know about these things at the time. But the movie affected me so powerfully that I knew I had to find my own guide or guides. This started me on a quest to consciously try to hear an inner voice inside. Because I really liked the movie, and I had been given an 8 track tape player a couple years previously, I bought the Xanadu sound track on 8 track.

Soon I found a lady who offered to help me tune better to my inner voice. When I vistited her, she had me lay down on a couch and was talking me into a meditative state, not quite hypnosis, but different than normal. Strangely, I heard to go to the James River, walk out on the ice, and stick my head under the freezing water. The lady told me a really needed to follow instructions heard like that. So like the fool in the Tarot deck, I went to the river, out on the ice, and dunked my head.

A few days later I came down with pneumonia. I could barely get through an evening gathering at the church and almost crawled upstairs to my living area. I fell on the bed wanting only to die. A very clear voice inside said, "Get up and turn on the Xanadu tape." I resisted. The voice insisted. I fought. The voice persisted. Finally, I pushed myself up enough to reach over and hit the button starting the Xanadu soundtrack, then fell back onto the bed gone to the world.

Three days later I woke up feeling better. The Xanadu soundtrack was still playing. I marveled that I had been out for 3 days and that the Xanadu soundtrack must have played over and over a few hundred times.

When I later told the lady what had happened, she just smiled and said, "You've been programmed." I don't know what I was programmed for but it's true that I started seeing all kinds of spiritual symbolic messages in the Xanadu song lyrics. And it's true that I started to hear my inner voice ever more regularly and clearly, and have been conscious of loving guidance for years now. And it is true that I learned to "flash out" like Kira did at the end of the Xanadu movie ... and come back to earth like she did.