TIME DISTORTION
In the early years of the twentieth century, Albert Einstein was fascinated by the phenomena of light, which led to his revolutionary theories and a new concept of time. Others before Einstein had considered time to be another dimension of our world, a fourth dimension, but had not connected time to light , and light speed. The speed of light in a vacuum, as space was thought to be, had been carefully measured at close to 186,000 miles per second, and was believed to be a constant. Now for objects traveling at very high velocities, time would be seen to slow down, relative to our frame of reference. If a spacecraft were traveling close to the speed of light, a trip to another star system and back might seem to the astronauts to take a few years, but they might find on their return that a century had passed while they were away. This theory defied common sense, but was verified when precise clocks were synchronized and one put on board an orbiting satellite and the other left on earth. When the orbiting clock was returned to earth, and compared with the one that had remained here, a discrepancy in time was found which was exactly what the theory had predicted.
More recent verifications of quantum physics theory have shown that subatomic particles can interact with each other at a distance, in less time than light would take to travel between them, indicating that events at the microscopic level may occur in no time, or even in reverse time! An event may be seen to happen before it was caused!
Modern physics is telling is that our rigid ideas of the fundamental nature of our reality do not always hold up, that the world is more flexible than we suppose. Our common sense concepts hold up well in the scale of the world we know, but perhaps it is our beliefs and intentions that hold our world securely in the framework of the older, mechanical Newtonian ideas. Occasionally, people have paranormal experiences that do not fit within our consensual scheme of reality, and despite rigorous scientific testing, many do not believe in the reality of these perceptions. Despite my faith in the scientific view of our world, I have had many experiences I categorize as “paranormal”. Believing in the value of the objective scientific method, I have not accepted any of the explanations of such phenomena, but keep my mind open to further understandings. I know such phenomena exist, and they indicate that our perception of our world, and our mentality, is limited, but I do not pretend to understand how or why the phenomena happen. In past ages, paranormal phenomena were accepted as part of life, and usually attributed to “entities” such as ghosts, leprechauns, demons, etc., but with the gradual acceptance of the scientific concepts of our world, the old explanations were discarded, and the phenomena relegated to the category of imagined and unreal phenomena. I include some of my experiences for whatever value they may have for others in comparing their experiences, and opening their minds to wider possibilities. This is subjective, anecdotal evidence, and although sometimes corroborated by other witnesses, cannot be considered as scientifically replicable and verifiable.
Time Distortion
In 1975, I participated in a 10-day intensive workshop presented by Dr.s Jean Huston and her husband Robert Masters. We students were led through a wide variety of experiential exercises designed to open our minds and bodies to greater potentials for our lives. One of the exercises was called “time distortion” Jean told us that we could alter our state of consciousness and mentally practice creative activities in what seemed to be a considerable duration of time, but would take only a short amount of clock time. To demonstrate, she called upon a woman who had often practiced this, and talked her into an altered state of consciousness where she would imagine having a famous composer teach her a new composition of his. The group chose the composer for her; in the first case, it was Scarlatti. After one minute of clock time, she rose, went to the piano, and played a wonderful new composition in the style of Scarlatti. She reported that it seemed like a long time had passed while she was learning the music. After that, the excited people in the group asked her to learn new compositions from Chopin. Beethoven, and other well known composers. This she did, brilliantly. I still have a tape recording of her playing these new compositions that sounded like they had been composed by the well-known music greats. Of course, this woman was already an accomplished and talented pianist, and knew the styles of the composers. There was no speculation that she actually encountered the discarnate spirits of those composers. This was shown as a demonstration of the creative potentials of ordinary humans, like ourselves. After the demonstrations, we all participated in experiments of time distortion, and imaginary practice of our abilities, with varying degrees of success. I assumed that subjectively we could alter our experience of time, but did not think it possible to alter time in the “real world”although some participants told of experiences in their lives where real time was altered.
Some time later, I had an experience of distorting time in the real world. I had made a date with a friend, and was to arrive at her house at eight o’clock in the evening. I was always a stickler for being prompt. I planned my time carefully, and set out for the town where she lived, expecting the trip to take about an hour. After driving about ten minutes, I remembered something that I had wanted to bring along, and decided it was important enough to go back and get it, even if it made me late. After returning home, I got back on the road, and was twenty minutes behind. Then I ran into a traffic problem, and was delayed for another ten minutes. I reconciled myself to being late, and then an idea popped into my mind. I did not have to be late! If I set my mind to arriving on time, it would be possible. I had often set my mind to awaken at specific times during the night or early mornings, which had proven to be reliable. I visualized arriving at her town, and seeing a clock showing ten minutes before eight. I somehow convinced myself that this would happen, and I continued to drive without thinking about time, concentrating on driving in the “present moment”. As I arrived at my destination, I saw a clock in a gas station showing ten minutes before eight. Somewhat surprised, and grateful, I checked my watch and it verified that I had arrived early. Later, I reviewed the experience in my mind, and was sure that I had made the trip in an impossible amount of time, but still had a difficult time accepting the facts. I decided I would have to repeat the experiment, with careful documentation. Sometime later, I made a trip from Detroit to Yellow Springs, Ohio, for an interview at Union Graduate School. The reason for this trip is another story, which I may tell later. By the time my interview was over, and I prepared to drive back home, It was four o’clock. Yellow Springs was about as far from my home as Dayton, but not on I 75; quite a few miles of the trip were on secondary roads. I figured that with excellent conditions, I could make the drive in a little over four hours. However, it was beginning to snow, and the skies were darkening. I figured it would be late and dark, when I finally reached my home. I took note of the time, a little after four. Then I saw that I needed to tank up with gasoline, and stopped at a station on my way out of town. Cars were at both of the pumps, and there seemed to be a problem; Around twenty minutes had passed by the time I left the town. The snow was coming down heavier, and beginning to accumulate on the road. I was concerned about arriving home late at night. Then I remembered my experience of shortening time on a previous trip, and “knew” that I could get back much quicker. I visualized seeing a clock showing six o’clock on my arrival at the Detroit city limits. This would be doing the 130 miles in a little over an hour and a half. I did not think about the impossibility of doing this. I decided to “take my time” and not think about time at all, but do the drive in a fully aware state of mind. Soon the road became slippery, and cars and trucks were driving slowly, having trouble getting traction. My Volkswagen camper tracked securely, and I passed many vehicles, but kept my speed low knowing that stopping would take a considerable space. I was relaxed, and the time seemed to pass very quickly; soon I passed the Detroit limits, and when I saw a clock, it read “6:00”. My watch confirmed that I had indeed made the trip in record time, and later calculations showed that I had to have averaged over ninety miles an hour to have arrived so early. My old VW was incapable of going much over eighty, even on good, dry roads. I seldom exceeded forty five miles an hour during that drive. So, did I use this time-distortion trick many times in my life after? I attempted to use it a number of times, and sometimes it seemed to shorten the time, but I was never sure that it did. It required a special state of mind; an unusual acceptance of an idea that seemed to be at odds with our everyday belief in our reality. It required a suspension of ordinary thinking, and a long term focus on the awareness of the present moment. There seemed to be many distractions, and the farther away in time from those experiences, the more difficult it became to replicate them. It required a lot of effort to overcome my concepts of time, and my addiction to those concepts.
Shortly after my experiences of time distortion, I was visiting my family in Indiana. My father suggested we make a trip to a town in Ohio the following day. “ There is something I want you to see” he said, creating a mystery. All that he explained was that he and my mother had stopped in a little town, and had seen something remarkable. It would only take about an hour to drive to this town, so I agreed.My parents and I had a lively conversation and before long, we arrived. Dover Ohio looked similar to many small towns in northern Ohio. We stopped at a rather large house, with an extensive, well-landscaped yard. The house was now a museum, displaying many scale models carved by the hands of Ernest Warther. He had lived in this house most of his life, and from an early age, had been carving wood, and other materials. At one point in his life, he began to carve a locomotive. The scale model was well over a foot long, and was composed of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of parts. All of the parts were hand carved from wood he had collected; rosewood, mahogany, ebony, etc. No “store bought” parts were ever used. The scale wheels were flanged to hold to the tracks, and the articulating drive shafts were perfect. He used ivory for many intricate pieces, and the engine had pipes and other details of this material. After finishing the locomotive, he had carved a tender for it, that held many tiny pieces of “coal” carved from a black wood. Then he carved several passenger cars to complete the train. Their interiors were complete with scale seats, etc. Ernest eventually carved over sixty trains, to the same large scale, complete with carved rails on roadbeds of ties with carved gravel ballast. The cars were connected by carved air hoses, and supported on ivory coil springs. The wheels turned, having bearings of a self-lubricating type of wood. I had long been fascinated by scale models, and had built many, usually of aircraft; that is why my father wanted me to see this museum. I estimated that there were many thousands of parts in each of his trains, and tried to imagine how much time it would take to carve and polish each part. Figuring that it may have taken Earnest an average of fifteen minutes to carve each of the parts, if he produced many of each type at a time, the total hours to make all the trains should have been more than all the waking time in his productive lifetime. I did not see how he could have done it, even working ten hours a day, seven days per week. I spoke to Earnest’s son, who was guiding visitors about the museum, and told him that I couldn’t imagine how his father had time to create all the trains. “That isn’t the half of it” replied the son. “Dad also carved a working scale model of the steel mill he worked in for many years, with moving machines and people, powered by belts and pulleys connected with a sewing machine motor. Although he had only a second grade education, he had an uncanny understanding of machines. He also carved many other items, including elaborate chess sets, some of which he presented to U.S. Presidents. He created the large terraced property on an old water mill site, and built a playground for his five children.” By now, I was thinking about time distortion, and offered “I’ll bet he was never in a hurry, or pressured for time”. “Thats right”, the son said, “he was never in a hurry, and did not spend many hours at a sitting, but carved usually in the mornings spending the rest of the days with his wife and boys, or involved in his many other interests, like often taking his boys and their friends on hunts for arrowheads. He collected around six thousand arrowheads. He took many trips, often displaying his carvings, and enjoyed meeting and talking with people.” I was now sure that Earnest “Mooney” Warther, a descendant of Swiss clockmakers, was a master of time. As his son said, “he took his time” creating his masterpieces. He has been called one of America’s unrecognized geniuses, an artist, mechanical inventor, philosopher, collector, traveler, showman, and family man. The Smithsonian institute appraised his carvings and called them a “priceless work of art”. He was offered fortunes for his creations, but refused to sell them. “Mooney” Warther once said “Start right where you are, and act as if no one is trying to hinder you”. He also said “Everything has its own rhythm and tempo that is in step with nature, and if you can find the tempo of the task at hand, the work becomes effortless”.
Perhaps the ancient workers who built the many monumental and precise buildings we marvel at did not have our time addiction, but simply “took their time”, being proud to do the best work they could do, and the great constructions went up in just a few years.
