Transcript
Michael Ellick (0:00)
Foreign.
Jack Wagner (0:12)
Welcome to Otherworld. I'm your host, Jack Wagner. This episode features a story that is honestly a bit hard to describe. It comes from a man named Michael, who is currently a minister living in Washington. But when this story takes place, he was a Tibetan Buddhist novice monk living in New York. As you might imagine, being a Buddhist monk involves a great deal of intense meditation. And in meditation, people often have very profound experiences. These are the types of things that Michael had become very familiar with during his meditation practice and life as a monk. But one day during one of his meditations, Michael experienced something far more intense and unexpected than he could have ever imagined. Something that I'm not quite sure how to categorize. This episode is called From now on, and you're listening to Otherworld.
Michael Ellick (1:23)
Hello, is this Bobby? Yes. It is, at its core, the science you can't argue with. I'm worried about all of a sudden up in the sky. It's almost frustrating that it's happening. I'm literally, I'm gonna die. Its limbs were just, like, wrong.
Commercial Narrator 1 (1:37)
Everybody moves back into the light, even
Michael Ellick (1:39)
if it takes them a minute. My name is Michael Ellick. I currently live in Bainbridge Island, Washington. I work in Seattle. I am a minister, but was at the time I served as a Tibetan Buddhist novice monk and attendant to a teacher for years. That sort of led up to this experience, maybe in part. I was raised inside of a, you know, evangelical Christian context. And like a lot of people raised in evangelical Christian context, I totally abandoned it at some point in high school and thought it was all nonsense. And so I decided that I was going to be a poet and an artist and a writer and had nothing to no interest in sort of a Judeo Christian framework. Always felt like a religious person. Deep down. I always felt like a spiritually inclined individual and fascinated by the depths, but not Christian. And at some point, 18, 19, I had what can only be described as religious experiences that changed my worldview and pulled me out of a traditional, you know, western materialist framework. Following 18 in a series of religious experiences, spiritual experiences, I was actively seeking out ways of making sense of those experiences, some of which happened while I was awake and some of which happened in a dream setting, but shook me enough. So I studied comparative religion and philosophy as an undergraduate. I was a double major and then went to an academic seminary in New York City with the intent of being a professor, because I would never have considered back then being a minister. No interest, you know. But at some point while I was in graduate school studying to be a PROFESSOR I think I just became pretty disillusioned with the whole project of academia and seminary education or Ivy League education. There's a lot of politics in that. And I felt like I was being intellectually trained, but without a kind of grounding to actually be a better human and better person. So I started investigating. And I'm from a place on. I grew up on Bainbridge island where I live now. And Buddhism was always sort of the other appealing alternative. There was Buddhists around me, Tibetan and Zen. So I started to really, some point in seminary, really seek out guidance and training in a Buddhist framework. When I entered, I would say that my intent was to train with people who would make me a better person, a better follower of Jesus. I still felt faithful to the Christian story. I just was sort of anti Christian religion. So I trained that way for years and really considered being a full monk and spending my life inside that framework, but for a variety of reasons decided that wasn't the way to go. I went through 9, 11. I was someone who worked in the financial district when the Twin Towers came down, saw it all happen, was present for it, watched Christianity become jingoistic and rhetoric to defend sort of American aggression. So I ended up feeling that I needed to serve inside a Christian, that I needed to leave my own religion better than how I found it. And that as a. As a Western Tibetan Buddhist, I would always be a little bit of a tourist and a foreigner inside it. But if I committed to my practice inside of a Christian framework, maybe I could help serve and more generously interpret what I came to view as the ancient Jesus mysteries. And it was around that time that I shifted from serving primarily in a Tibetan Buddhist context to serving initially in odd jobs and volunteering in a Christian context. It was around that time that this experience emerged. Even after leaving the Tibetan Buddhist world formally have maintained a pretty serious practice. Today I'm as much a meditation teacher as I am a minister. And that has just been a big fundamental anchor of my life. But it substantively changed with this experience. And this experience that I'll share has sort of informed a lot of pieces of that pursuit ever since to go deep in meditation. I think, you know, these days we live in a culture that's pretty distraction oriented. And it's really hard inside a normal American life to practice with any depth without a community around you of other people that help kind of ground your system down into it. But if you do that, if you find your way to that experience, I think the ancient texts and contemporary texts talk about Surreal things that can occur. And. And, you know, the ancient texts talk about a series of powers that might emerge. You know, in Sanskrit and in Pali, they talk about the various things that could happen, including like a certain degree of magnetism or clairvoyance or telepathy. These are things that people talk about in the ancient tradition, right? In my own experience, I think that. And I think the experience of others around me, you. When you start going into longer periods of trance practice, you might start having light telepathy with people and things like knowing things in advance, clairvoyance, not like a turn on switch power, but around the edges, those things can start to emerge. You know, when you really start to practice, it can. It can bring up, especially in the beginning, it can bring up a lot of buried things. If you're someone who has buried trauma or unresolved issues, very often it can suck those things to the foreground. It's very common in meditation that when you really start to find a rhythm, that things that maybe you haven't dealt with properly rise to the surface and it can feel like you're sliding backwards. Like, I thought meditation was supposed to help me. Here I am reliving these things, but it's extracting those things and helping you process through them. So my experience up until 2006 was that those type of things were occurring like, you know, not consistently, not all the time, but. But it was something I would talk about with fellow meditators. You know, you knew that something was gonna happen. You knew that someone was gonna call or what someone was thinking from far away. You have intuitions around someone and then you find out that they were going through exactly what you saw. That kind of stuff isn't consistent enough, at least not in my experience, to count on it and claim, oh, I've got these powers. But. But they are the kind of reality warping that can arise. Your perception of time might even alter. Like, you know, you savor things differently. I was living in Jackson Heights, Queens, at the time. I was at the Dharma Center a lot of the time. But now I was really now living in my own place with my brother, who's eight years younger. And another. We had a string of friends who were at any given time living with us. And in this particular moment, it was a Saturday or a Sunday. It was sometime in the afternoon, sunny day, and I am gonna sit and do my practice. It wasn't my regular practice time. It was like midday. But I had kind of nothing to do. And I was sort of conditioned to. If nothing Else I will sit and practice. So I was sitting on my brother's bed because it was a room where I could shut the door from anyone else who would come into the apartment. And I did this thing where you put these cushions underneath your butt to sit up a certain way straight. And I was in practice and I don't know for how long I was practicing, maybe five to 10 minutes, when in the midst of that practice session I, you know, a memory popped into my head from long ago. And that is not unusual for meditation. All these strange thoughts, you know, are going to come into your head and you sift through them in different ways. But this memory felt different. When I was 15, I was in a really bad car accident. I went through a windshield. I was in the driver's seat and it was pretty serious. And at 15, back in 1990, no hiding how old I am, I was really close to death. But I lived miraculous. Like an inch to the right or the left they said would have killed me. But I was pretty beat up, my face was torn up. And the next day after the hospital, I was in my bedroom again. And I was sort of recouping back in my home, my parents house, in my 15 year old bedroom, well, meditating. In 2006, I had a memory of that morning, that morning after the accident where I was sitting in my bedroom. And it was just some random memory. There was nothing particular about that time that I can identify. But for whatever reason that memory felt different than normal. And I've tried to talk about it in different ways. It felt like it was vibrating or something, like it was a visual image that was distorted like a ringing of a glass or, you know, I don't know, like it was vibrating. It was something about it and I felt compelled, like I could just step into it. It was so crystal clean and perfect, the memory, right? It just felt like I could step right into it. It was perfect. And I don't know how to describe it other than to say that that's exactly what I did. I felt like I stepped into the memory. I did not physically move or leave, you know, the meditation posture, but it's like my body twisted or turned into the memory. I was not sleepy. I do not have the subjective experience of falling asleep, but my body did this little shiver as it transitioned from one place to the other place. And I, I all of a sudden was in my bedroom, my 15 year old high school bedroom back in 1990. I don't know what your 15 year old bedroom was like, but I bet you you don't remember all of it? I think I could have picked out some big, like, I kind of know the layout of the room. But I was back in my bedroom and as soon as I was there, all of it came flooding back, like these weird posters that I used to have. Like, I remember there was this silly poster that I had, you know, that someone had given me probably when I was in middle school, but it just never got taken down. But it was like this cartoony poster my parents had got me. And it was a picture of a really messy room, right? And then the logo of it was my room. Love it or leave it. And I kind of hated that poster, right? It was like, I thought it was stupid and it didn't seem cool. It seemed like a kid thing. And I just never took it down for whatever reason. But I had not thought about that poster, you know, for over a decade or whatever. And seeing that again was like, oh, my God. Plus, a lot of things I remember seeing. Little things. Like, I remember I'd gone to some camp and this is years before 1990. But, like, you know, your room gets filled with the detritus of, like, weird stuff that eventually you get rid of. But, like, there was this, like, name. What do you call it? Like a. It was like a little cross section of a tree of a small tree. And it was this craftsy thing you do at camp where you do name tags, right? And it's your name, but you painted it and now you hang it as a necklace. But I'd done one that said my name and then a bunch that were like crazy fake names. You know, it's stuff like that. Like weird drawings. I was into things like, you know, role playing games that I would sketch out. I was a sci fi fantasy reading kid and I would draw things or have books. All that stuff was there. And, you know, a couple times I'm like, boy, I wish I still had those books. You know what I mean? Like, who got rid of those? Did I get rid of those? It was like I was back in time. It was perfect. It was not a dream. The experience subjectively was that I was perfectly there and I was in my body at 15. You know, I was conscious of the fact that this is the morning after the accident and I am in total effing shock. I did not try to do this. I didn't solicit this experience. And I don't know what to say about those first few moments other than it was the most surreal experience. Probably one of the most surreal experiences of My life up until that moment, I really felt the ontological shock is the only word. And I'm sitting up and I'm feeling myself and I'm looking at myself and. And I, you know, I can feel the bandages on me, right? I'm looking around, I'm seeing water and medicine and g. You know, this is the room I've been set up to recoup and recover. But I'm in such like, holy shit, excuse my language. I blown away. I'm in 1990, you know, I just. So I got up out of the bed because I'm looking outside now at the driveway, I'm seeing what car, right? Dad used to drive that car. I'm. And you know, I lived with my little brother at the time. And I got all of a sudden like, his name is Sean. I'm like, oh, Shawn's here somewhere. So I get up from my room and I hobble in and immediately my head swoons and I realize, oh, I'm still recovering, I'm a little damaged, I'm sore, there's other damage. So I walk a little more ginger and I walk in and I see my brother in his room. But he is a little kid. He is eight years younger. So you know, when I was 15, he was like whatever, seven, eight. And I was like, well, I can't tell him what's happening, right? He's a little kid. So I go downstairs. We're in the upper part of the house. And you know that house, my parents lived in that house for a long time after, but it got remodeled, it got redecorated. I'm going through like the weirdness of our house back then. And I'm walking down the stairs, and I'm walking down the stairs and then you cross the entry hall of my parents house. And then a little far off, there's a little nook off the kitchenette. It's not the main dining room, it's a little kitchen nook where there's a table and people can eat breakfast or whatever else. And I'm coming down those stairs and my parents are in the kitchen. And my dad's like, you know, watching TV or something. And this little TV attached to that kitchen nook. And I'm watching them and before they notice me, I'm seeing them as I'm coming down the stairs. And it's my parents and they're younger, you know, it's their younger version of themselves. And I'm like, oh my, my God. And I'm still like, what is happening? This is not a dream. I'm pinching myself, you know, I am totally here. I can't believe it. I start coming down the stairs. They both look at me and finally notice that I'm walking down the stairs. And you can tell I'm not supposed to be doing that. They both stand up and like, hey, Michael, what's going on? You know what I mean? Like, are you all right? What are you doing, buddy? And I'm like, mom and dad. And I come down into the room. I don't go back up, I just walk to the kitchen. I'm like. And I'm speechless because they. This, you know, maybe a few minutes has now come by, total, maybe more. But every new encounter just continues to floor me, you know. Meanwhile, my consciousness is that of someone who is, you know, 30 plus whatever I was in 2006, who's a meditator, who is a Buddhist, philosophically trained. And so in my mind I'm like, somehow I've learned how to move through space and time. I'm also a kid of science fiction. I'm like, I've done it. I've hit the jackpot. I know how to time travel. I thought that, right? And so I'm thinking this as my parents are talking to me and they're trying to like, look after. Because whatever I look like to them, in addition to the bandage, whatever my face is doing, it must have looked crazy to them, right? Like I'm in astonishment, but they're seeing me through the lens of someone who might have had a concussion. And they're like, is my son, you know, messed up? Or whatever? So they're like, they're trying to, like, get me to sit down. And I'm like, I am just in shock. So I finally, I say at some point out loud, like, mom, from now on, everything is going to be really different, right? And I mean, in my head, like my whole life has just changed, right? Like the fundamental existential ground of my world has changed. I am no longer stuck in one timeline, right? I thought that. So I'm like, yeah, mom, from now on, everything's gonna be different. And I start trying to take off the bandages. I don't even know why, but she's like, michael, keep on your. You. So that is the initial moment of this experience. But what's even maybe stranger is that I then don't go back. I stay there. I continue living in my 15 year old body in real time for weeks. I don't know how long it was fully, but in my memory it was Like a couple weeks and I convalesced there. I slept, I went to the bathroom, I did laundry, I read get well soon letters from people that were flooding home from school. I eventually go back to school as a 15 year old in high school. My dad was the high school principal. And you know, I didn't remember everything. I didn't remember the context, like the social cues and, or what my classes were. I remember like not being entirely sure, like what classes was I in as a sophomore? You know, I don't know. And fortunately I could kind of use the. You know, everyone knew I had been hit in the head and it was this big accident and my friend, two other friends were in the car with me. They were also severely injured. But we sort of had the excuse of this to justify that. I wasn't entirely clear about everything. I remember the first day I went back to school, for instance, and my dad drove me and you know, and I figured by that time I'd figured out what my classes were. I don't remember the exact moment where he laid out my classes, but I remember thinking like, I don't know what they are. And at some point, you know, it gets figured out and I can basically be slow because everyone knows I've been hurt. But then I have to pick up everything through context clues. Like it's a mixture of memory, you know, think back to when you were 15, like you don't remember everything. Even now I don't remember everything. So it's a mixture of like reducing my memory and like reading social cues off everyone. Right. This is not a memory. I am living it physically. I am not tranced back. There is no part of me that is like remembering or that is like, oh, I know that somewhere. I'm back on a meditation cushion back in Queens. None of that. No, I was 100%. My subjective experience was that I teleported back into my 15 year old body and I was there physically in every possible real way. I could smell the world, I could taste. It was 1000% real. I don't know how else to put it. Like it was 100% real. It was my life in my body. I got to watch. You know, this is in a time where there's like four channels, there's four broadcast channels and like in our, you know, I lived in Bainbridge, is a suburb of Seattle. There was like, I think three abc, NBC, CBS and Fox. Right? Maybe pbs, you could kind of get in. So there was that. People were sending me things like sympathy cards so my dad would Come home. Maybe he was that first day, but I think it was the second day of being in bed that he brought home all these sympathy cards. And there was one I remember from this girl who I won't name, but years later I learned that she'd had a big crush on me. You know, but reading the sympathy card and kind of reading between the lines, I remember thinking like, oh, she has a crush on me even now when we're 15. You know what I mean? At 15, I didn't know that. But reading the card with the knowledge of what would come later, you know, I was putting pieces together, right? And, and I was freaking out, right? Like, I was just like, oh my God. I mean, again, my subjective experience sitting in that bed is, is I've, I've been trained as a Buddhist. I've been trained in philosophy and religion. I'm like, I don't know how to say this. I'm a really open minded person. I'm open to the possibility that my brain somehow produced this experience. But if it did, that experience is so intense, so detailed, so nuanced and for so long with none of the dream skipping, it might as well have been real. That is equally as miraculous that our brain, my brain could, could produce this experience. So I basically just jumped past this. You know, is this a dream? In my mind, I knew it wasn't, you know, I was living it. There was no doubt because it wasn't like I had one shot. I could, you know, after an hour come back and pinch myself again, right? Like I could drink coffee, I could, you know, all that stuff. Like I'm living in the minutiae. And so I remember thinking a lot about like, okay, so now I know for sure time travel's possible. Now I know for sure that our consciousness can decouple from our body and move around in time and space. What does that mean? And so I'm now revisiting everything I've learned through the lens of it not just being vaguely metaphorical. I wasn't sleeping. I was there in 1990. And that was just another scale of surreality. So those days went on and again, I don't remember everything. I remember thinking, like, do you dream and go to the bathroom like this? Do you dream and have to do your laundry like this? Am I dreaming? Dream gauze as I'm changing my bandages. Like, I can't eat because of my mouth. My face was really cut up and in fact my lip was split and it had to be stitched back together. And so eating was really Difficult and painful. So I'm drinking things, but I'm like. As I'm going through these physical sensations, I can feel the. What do you call it? The thread of the stitches on my inside of my lip and on the outside. It's really gnarly. It's disgusting. But it's painful and weird. And I'm sitting there experiencing it. I don't remember every single minute of that. I remember my little brother coming in and feeling bad for me. And he was scared a little bit to look at me. And I tried to assure him, but that was a big one. Because, you know, my little brother grows up, and he's like my closest companion. You know, like, we live together in the future. And I can't tell him, you know, at some point, the two other guys who were in the wreck with me, one of them was in the front seat, and his chest hit the steer. He was the driver. We were driving in the car, and we basically were driving too fast. It slipped in the rain, and we hit like a telephone pole. And so I went hard on the windshield, and my shoulder got messed up on the dash. His chest hit this, and his head hit the glass. So he was caught up. The guy in the back seat was not cut up and was wearing a seatbelt, but the seatbelt hit his abdomen with such force. They were more worried about him for a little while for various reasons. Well, he was okay, and he came to see me at some point. At that moment, I did not choose to tell him what was happening to me. I was asking him about the accident. You know what I mean? We were reliving the accident. That's what he came to do, and that's what we did. Later on in the weeks that I was there, I would confess to him what had happened, or I would sort of. Sort of. I would. I would sort of frame it for him. But at that time, we're just visiting, right? And we're talking about. And I'm faking it. Cause I don't know what else to do. I don't know what else to do. Time just doesn't stop. It continues.