My "Spiritual Quest"
germinated at around 3 yrs of age from an experience with the stars
in the night sky. I was in a Children's Shelter or Home and was taken
outside to pee because I couldn't stand the smell of the dormitory pee
can. It was the days before toilet plumbing. Out side the door I looked
up and for the first time saw the overwhelming number of stars in a
clear night sky looking down at me like a billion eyes from the heavens.
I was aware of Consciousness there. I was being "looked at", and I knew
I would be seeking to understand this phenomena for a very long time.
At age 11,
after I realised I may never really develop the super powers of Superman
and Batman and save the world... at least not single handedly, I decided
there must be a way to "fix everything". One just need to know "how".
So after
a move from foster care at Armidale in New South Wales, I was moved to
the Ohio Boys
Home where the most significant period of my childhood formed the path
my life would take..
Sinking
into the Famous Five books and living a life in the Ohio Boys Home that
taught me the meaning of outcomes... of consequences.... and from many
hours of meditative work in the acre of flower gardens, I experienced a
new viewpoint which also sparked an interest in Astronomy,
Chemistry, Medicine and Science Fiction... which at the time introduced
me to the idea that the human mind had unexplored potentials, and this
became the prime mover of my life's purpose.
Though I
had been taught a famous prayer as a child and was introduced to the
concepts of Christian faith and practice, it was at 11 years of age that Science Fiction
was my first mind expanding tool
that open my heart to many ideas. Authors such as :
From there,
after my medical discharge from the army, I met a man in Sydney's Kings
Cross in the days when it was more a cultural centre and melting pot of
every kind of non conformist and artist that there was at the time. He was
born John Callaghan, but I knew him as Jack Callaghan. He became my best
friend, Teacher and Guide and kept me company through my years as a teenager
introducing me to all that my mind could absorb.
Jack
introduced me to John Martensen, painting artist and connoisseur of
Classical Music and a best pot of tea, in his below street level apartment
where he welcomed friends and intellectuals at least every Sunday, who
discussed all kinds of subjects and was spellbound by loud music of
Yma Sumac – The Peruvian Songbird,
in her unique soprano
voice around a welcoming wood fire. John was a intimately close friend of
Roslyn Norton and Gavin Greenleaves the Poet. Roslyn's "Witchcraft Art"
graced the walls of the below street level Ponsion Cafe in Darlinghurst Road
long before the cities major building projects changed the character of
Kings cross forever..
Jack seemed
to know every one. He took me to the Wayside Chapel, run by the Methodist
Church. It was a drop-in hangout coffee shop and theatrette, a retreat for
teenagers and street people wanting a place for a cup of tea and a good
chat;
Jack took me
to the Adyar Bookshop run by the Theosophical Society, which was also in a
below street level basement of excellent design and atmosphere in York
Street long before it was moved to a vastly different venue in Clarence
Street.
Through the
Theosophical Library I discovered
Madame
Helena Blavatsky who
was the 19th century's most famous and notorious mystic, occultist,
and medium. Blavatsky was born to an aristocratic family in Russia in 1831.
I tried to investigate the
Rosicrucian's, then Jack
introduced me to the UFO Society through which I found the Aetherius
Society. The library held books and had meetings and social events where
discussions took one on a wild ride into Buddhism, Yoga, Spiritual Healing,
Hypnotism and Mesmerism. Books on Druidism, Fairies, Werewolves and Magick
were hugging the walls. I spent a lot of time there and at one point rented
a room in the North Shores house of a prominent Theosophical Guru.
One day we
ended up at the Spiritualist Church which was in Pitt Street. I met Kevin
Marsh, a talented Medium and had personal readings from him.
Through Jack
I met the entertainer and 2GB Radio Station's
Gordon Chater, and was taken for a tour of the ABCs Television studios
in North Sydney.
We visited
the Astronomy observatory near the Sydney Harbour Bridge and had a strangely
private tour of the AWA Building late at night where we checked out the sky
search light on the roof under the tower.... He introduced me to a person
connected "high up" with the Art Gallery and Sydney Opera house. Also a
senior Theosophical sculptor named "x" ....who made human sized bronze
statues...
Jack
introduced me to Sister Edith Lindsey and elderly 80 year old lady of very
fine character who lived in the top story of the last Terrace House in
Macquarie Street of the City of Sydney. Apparently the building was owned by
the cigarette company WD & HO Wills. She became my "adopted relative" and
she insisted I add her name to mine as a double barrel name. So it would be
Broughton-Lindsey. I used it to buy shares on the stock market and it was
fun pretending to be a bit "high brow" at the time... She said she wrote me
into her will eventually as we were so close... like I was the grandson she
never had. Her main admirer was an Orthopaedic Surgeon in the Sydney
Hospital. Edith Lindsey was a nursing sister of the old days...Her closest
friend was the poet Henry Lawson. She would sit on her balcony and watch the
galleons sailing on Sydney Harbour.
A few years
later she died while I was away in England from February 1972 to later in the
first quarter of 1973 trying to get back to Australia after a disastrous
time in the Sea Org of the International Church of Scientology.
All this
took place from 1963 to 1973. A most complicated, exciting, overwhelming but
most expansive time of my
younger days. More detail and adventure not covered will be added over time.
