Between disease control and civil unrest it has been harder to keep up with the exploits of Florida Man. However, a quick search does not disappoint. Florida Man is alive, well, and up to no good.
An Associated Press article dated May 29, 2020, reports that Miramar, Florida police were searching for a 21-year-old naked man who broke into a South Florida high school and spent almost 24 hours vandalizing the building.
Here is the photo they released on Twitter, seeking to identify the culprit.
Security cameras caught a man trashing Miramar High School. The photo was successful, and police identified Matthew Crandall.
Video showed Crandall broke into the school around 7 a.m. Monday. He gallivanted around the school, wearing only a hat and headphones, causing flooding in hallways, smashing computers and televisions, and vandalizing classrooms, walls, and hallways throughout the school in Broward County.
Police say a school custodian discovered the damage, estimated at about $100,000.
Crandall is from North Fort Myers. It was not known whether he had any ties to the school. Police said Crandall is charged with burglary and criminal mischief.
Oh, Florida Man! You are a pale, pasty light in a dark day!
If you have not seen the movie, The Men Who Stare at Goats, you should. It’s fun. You should also read the book, because they are different in important ways.
The story centers around a journalist’s exploration of the First Earth Battalion, a military group that tried to militarize psychic techniques. Their manual is available online and it’s some wild stuff!
One of the techniques that were explored was Remote Viewing. Essentially, it is using your intuition to visualize a place that you have never been, and providing detailed information. Does it work? Let’s find out!
I’m going to give you some ways to try remote viewing for yourself. It’s more fun when you include friends and, since it’s remote, it’s a perfect thing to do during times of isolation. I’ll give the steps for a basic exercise and then give some variations
Establish your target
How can you determine success if you don’t know where you’re aiming? To begin, focus on a place that you can verify. Either have a friend select a place that they know or select a place that you can look up on Google Maps and see details.
To do it formally—and this is the technique I tend to use when I experiment with curious people at events—one location will be randomly selected from a number of photographs. To be really formal they will be sealed inside envelopes. A person will focus mentally on that photograph while the other person tries to remotely view it. If you are by yourself, you can randomly select from a few envelopes and just try to focus on the location.
View the target
Now, the viewer just opens up their intuition and records what comes to them. Any ideas or sensations should be recorded. Shapes, details, anything at all counts. At first, these things may be disjointed and unrelated. With practice they will become clearer and more structured.
A good technique is to imagine a white movie screen on the inside of your forehead. Close your eyes and imagine actually looking up at this screen. This physical action actually helps you tap into your subconscious and intuition. Focus on the blank screen and will yourself to see things about the place you are remote viewing.
The idea is to not worry about whether what you perceive is reasonable. Don’t second guess yourself. Don’t worry if what you get is not a visual image, but an idea of something, or sounds, or smells. Just record what you get.
Take whatever you get
I mentioned this before but I want to re-emphasize: Don’t second guess yourself.
When you begin to have this conversation with your subconscious you will get things as metaphor, or exaggerated, or abstract. Interpretation comes next. Not everything you get will be explained. That’s all OK. Just let it flow.
Some people find it’s easier to draw as they do this. Some like to speak aloud into an audio or video recorder. Some like to have a scribe document the session. You may use more than one approach. Explore. Experiment. See what works for you. There is no right way to do this.
Examine your results
Once you’ve really settled down and disconnected from your viewing, look at the results. Go over information from the sender, but don’t stop there. Use tools available, such as Google Maps, to dig into the location. Some of the details you picked up may be things the sender doesn’t remember, or things that have changed since they were last there. These are very exciting finds!
As you go through this process something that was obscure and fuzzy to you may become more obvious. That fuzzy man walking on a black, square block becomes a lighted walk sign at an intersection. It’s OK to re-interpret your results and even add things that you forgot to mention. A lot of detail can flood into you all at once and it takes practice to discern.
If you take this process seriously, and genuinely try to connect, you are very likely to get hits even your very first time.
Practice makes perfect
This is a skill. You start with some natural ability, but then you hone it by repetition. Over time, you’ll become more fluent in your subconscious language. Things that were obscure and abstract will become clearer. You’ll discover the best methods for you and how to go into and come out of a remote viewing session.
Here are a few variations you might try as you experiment:
Have a friend perform an action while you focus on them. See if you can tell what they were doing and pick out details.
Try to see someplace historic, such as an event. See what details occur to you. Research the event and see if you have any hits.
Focus on a celebrity and see if you can find news that connects with what you saw and felt.
Remote viewing can be a fun game to play. You may find that you develop skill with it. In that case, it could be an interesting tool to help you prepare or just explore from afar. Could you view other planets? Find out!
As our world has become more virtual, Saul has moved right along with the times. Saul has set up special broadcasting capabilities and developed material specifically designed to add surprises and fun into any virtual gathering.
He has also arranged special pricing through the end of May. Virtual offerings will be 50% off to help pilot these remote enhancements that will drive engagement for your online meetings and events. It can be purely entertainment, or Saul can use his 15 years of experience in government and corporate environments to help deliver important learning and messages in an interactive and memorable way.
If you live in Austin, you probably look forward to the second Monday of every month when horror fans gather with Saul at Mister Tramps to revel in Ravencraft’s Vault of Horror. Our gatherings were an early casualty of COVID-19 as the venue was forced to shut down with all the other bars and restaurants.
The good news is that Mister Tramps has been doing well, switching to takeout service from their outstanding kitchen along with take-home smoothie drinks. We are hopeful they’ll be waiting for us when things open up again and that we can resume the live gathering in June and pick up where we left off.
In the mean time, we are doing the Day-Drinking edition of RVoH, showing some classic films from the horror library. Here is a playlist of all the episodes so far and new ones will be added as they occur.
Like many, I have been innovating my way around the conditions the COVID-19 pandemic forced upon us. The term “pivoting” has become popular to describe the twists in our path, continuing to do what we do in strange circumstances. I have spent a good deal of effort to find ways to connect and entertain at a distance.
The first thing I did was to create a multi-camera broadcasting setup that lets me show both my face and a table. I can easily move between these views while I broadcast through social media, or Zoom, or other carriers. This allows me to provide a more varied experience, smoothly moving between views and even bringing in videos, images and other elements. Basically I can broadcast something that feels more like TV show into a video conference! This was not easy, but it’s been worth it!
Next, I had to explore my material and see what could work in a virtual environment. All of my performance is about connection and engagement. It was challenging to find things that could be done in a virtual environment that maintained the engagement, even if some of the connection was not possible. Again, this challenged me and forced me to get out of my own comfort zone, rethinking what was possible. It’s been a wonderful journey, and I’ve found a number of fantastic ways to engage with people one-on-one, or in a group.
I can now offer readings with tarot and other tools just as I would in person. I have also found a number of ways to tell interactive tales, play with my artifacts, and even read minds at a distance.
On one hand, I can’t wait for all of this to be over so we can reconnect and be full-contact again. On the other hand, I’m extremely grateful for the ways this situation has pushed me to come up with new approaches to my arts. In future, distance no longer has to be a barrier to take people down the rabbit hole. I can offer a different kind of experience to anyone in the world. How exciting!
If you are interested in exploring some of these innovations and adding some fun into your virtual gatherings, commercial or private, fill in the contact form and we’ll get started. Some things will be different for all of us for a while, but it doesn’t have to be boring. Let’s explore together!
Here is the strange tale of William Yeldell Cosper, born 1844 and died 1919. His grave lies in Childersburg, Talladega County, Alabama, but it has not been a peaceful rest.
In 1919, Cosper was standing on his front porch during a storm and was struck by lightning. Miraculously he survived, even though he was pushing 75. He was convalescing some time after the incident when lightning struck him again, inside the house! The second strike was fatal.
He was mourned and buried in the Childersburg Cemetery and left to rest in peace. However, several years later his headstone was struck by lightning and destroyed.
The family had the stone replaced. Then, sometime later, the stone was struck, yet again, and destroyed a second time. At this point the family was no longer able to bear the expense of another stone replacement, so the grave remains in its shattered state.
Is there any reason for lightning to be so persistently attracted to William Yeldell Cosper? Is it simply a remarkable coincidence?
For the longest time I didn’t think I dreamt. My sleep cycle was a little funky and I always struggled with getting my mind to settle. Awakenings were abrupt and I had to get going. I had not remembered dreaming for years. Of course, I was dreaming, and I may have even had one occasionally peek through when I woke, but I mentally threw it away to get on with my day.
Studies suggest that dreaming is part of having a healthy mind and an important part of our rest cycle. Some people don’t recall their dreams, which is not the same as not having them.
One day, the spigot turned on. Oddly, it was after a conversation with medium, Ericka Boussarhane, where I mentioned not being conscious of my dreams. The next morning I woke up with a vivid memory of a dream. I have continued to have regular awareness of my dreams ever since. Having gone without dreams for a while, I find them to be valuable. I really try to pay attention to my dreams and a journal helps me to do that.
A dream journal is simply a record of what you remember from your dreams. It can be in a lovely book, but it does not need to be. A spiral notebook works fine, as do index cards or other pieces of paper, as long as you can organize them. Some people use video or audio recordings to capture their dreams. This is fine, but it adds some challenges to part of what a journal can do for you. (More on that shortly.)
It is important that what you use to record your dreams is readily at hand the moment you awake. Dreams fade surprisingly quickly. Any delay between waking and recording the memory of your dream will cause details to fade, or the dream to be forgotten altogether. When you record your dream just put down what you remember. Put as much detail as you can. It doesn’t have to be eloquent. No one else is going to see this. Sometimes there will be images that seem important. Drawing in your dream journal is a good way to help capture things that are hard to put into words. Again, this is for your eyes only. Time and date the entries.
You will find that simply documenting your dreams in this fashion causes you to remember much more about what you dream. It pulls the information from your subconscious into your conscious mind. Now, what do we do with this stuff?
Exploring your dreams
Review The most important aspect of keeping a journal is to review it from time to time. See what the ideas and symbols in your dreams say about what you experience. There are dream symbol books that claim to explain the things you see in your dreams, but you don’t need that. Your dreams talk to you in your own language. Look for patterns in your dreams and changes over time. For me, it is easier to review something written, since I can more easily scan through it. I find this harder to do with recordings. If I did recordings, I would probably transcribe them in some way so I could more easily review them.
Ask your dreams Once you get the hang of recording your dreams, you can ask yourself questions before you go to bed. Concentrate on something important, or something you are trying to understand. Decide that you want to dream about it. See if something meaningful is revealed. Inventions have come through dreams. The answers may be in a strange, exaggerated play, but you may recognize something beneficial. This takes practice and will improve in time.
Look for connections Some people find that their dreams reflect things that are about to happen. There are stories about people who have foreseen disasters. Others have dreamed things that give them a sort of déjà vu. If you find that you experience this, then it might be something that you can turn to your advantage. It may help you see things coming.
Talk with a partner If you have someone close to you with whom you can share your dreams, you may want to talk some of them over. Sharing can be a nice way to express your closeness, as dreams are about as intimate as it gets. You may also find that your partner gives you some unexpected insight.
Try some dream journaling and see what you discover. Who knows? Your next great inspiration may come from your dreams.
Can your mind influence random events? Here’s a game to find out, you can play alone or with a friend. Get some dice.
First, make a number of rolls of the dice. Record the numbers you get. The more you do it, the better your experiment will be. This is your control, which we will use for comparison.
Now, start again with a new record of the dice rolls. Concentrate. Let’s say we want more threes. Focus intently on the number three. Picture the diagonal dots of the three. Maybe it helps to close your eyes as you roll. Do the same number of rolls as you did before.
There are a few possible outcomes:
You get about the same number of threes as before Nothing special is going on here. Randomness is still occurring. You don’t appear to have influenced anything.
You get noticeably more threes than before You may be having an influence on the roll of the dice. Keep trying and see if the number increases further. If so, you may want to explore this in other ways!
You get noticeably fewer threes than before This is also interesting. You may be having an effect, just not in the way that you expected. Again, this is worth exploring in different ways.
You could vary this game in a number of ways. You could focus on different numbers and see if that varies from the control. You could try the game again looking at the total of the dice rather than the individual faces. You could try using something else such as flipping coins.
Online ticket sales have ended, but there will be some tickets available at the door. Cash and cards accepted. Reserved Seat — $20 Standing Room — $15
Saul Ravencraft hosts a weirdly wonderful evening of fantasy, mystery, and burlesque. No one is a spectator when Saul reaches out with his unique, interactive entertainment. He’ll also be your guide into the Twilight Zone while our Night Gallery of performers share acts that are truly Amazing Stories.
Featuring performances by: Special guest Miss Mary Jane Green (Dallas) Gemmi Galactic Burlesque Something Blue Anastasia Arsenic Sabor Insanity FiFi Switchblade
These Tales From the Crypt will leave you spellbound as we explore the Outer Limits of live performance. Don’t miss this show, even if you have to act The Hitchhiker!
Saul has been invited back to Austin We See You, airing, live, February 4 at 7:00 PM CST. Saul will be giving a brief demonstration of using tarot to address a question.
You can watch live on Austin Public Access Channel 16, or click the Television below to stream.
