I don’t have a television and rarely watch movies (maybe one every two or three years). Recently however, I watched the movie Inkheart online. I had it seen before around twelve years ago and was no less than shocked at all of what was featured in the movie (some of the characters, their attributes, actions and the main theme) that indisputably and miraculously correlated with my life at that time; synchronicities in other words. So I wrote them down. Recently, in April 2020, I came across the movie online and decided to watch it again which led to even more synchronicities and a profound understanding of the purpose of our lives, why we are here.

Mo, the protagonist in Inkheart, loves to read, is a collector of antique books and restores them for a living. When reading aloud from an out of print book, a fantasy novel titled Inkheart, to his little girl Meggie and his wife Resa, he noticed something strange, that what he reads seems to actually happen in the world around them, like a terrible dark shadow and storm suddenly occurring. And it seemed to him that some of the characters featured in the book briefly appeared in the room then ran off. Then he noticed that his wife had disappeared. What he did not know until that moment was that he was a “silver tongue,” a person who reads aloud and when they do they bring the two dimensional figures, things and events written of in the pages of a book, into their three dimensional world. The book, out of print, also disappears. Mo has lost his wife, his little girl has lost her mother and the book is nowhere to be found.

His daughter, Meggie, now twelve years old and also a lover of books knows not what happened to her mother; if her mother abandoned them, or was kidnapped, or what. Her father never talks about what happened to her. Meggie goes on journeys with him to book fairs, antique book stores, etc., during which she observes that he seems to be looking for a particular book but that’s all she knows. What she also doesn’t know, until  toward the end of the movie, is that she inherited from her father the gift of the “silver tongue” able to turn aspects of fictional two dimensional stories into three dimensional actualities.

Over the course of the movie a character, an elderly woman, Aunt Elinor, is featured as well as a fictional character called Dustfinger who had jumped out of the novel years before. When Dustfinger puts his hands close together a ball of energy forms between them which he can then transmute into flames that shoot out from the palms of his hands. In Inkheart this character performs magnificent fire acts in public. He has been covertly following Mo in his search for a copy of the book for he desperately wants to get back inside the book to return to his wife and family.

Another prominent character is The Shadow that appears in the sky as a beastly dark cloud-like destroyer with a malevolent face, red glowing eyes and an arm and hand that reaches out and grabs its prey. There’s also a witch named Magpie.

Mo, Meggie, Dustfinger and an elderly woman, Aunt Elinor (also a lover of antique books), are all in Italy where Aunt Elinor lives. There is a castle in Italy where the many villainous characters that jumped out of Inkheart have since taken up residence and have also found another, although rather weak, silver tongue who manages to bestow riches on their heartless narcissistic leader, Capricorn. It is at this castle where Meggie’s mother is held as a prisoner and slave. She’s also lost her voice.

The characters who jumped out of the pages of the book and live at and guard the castle have text inked, like tattoos, onto their faces and arms. None of them want to return to being two dimensional characters in the novel. Capricorn keeps a copy of Inkheart hidden and locked in a safe at the castle.

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THE SYNCHRONICITIES – strongly suggesting that life is fictional, or a dream perhaps.

Meggie the young girl: My maiden name was Maggy (in the movie you can’t hear the difference between Meggie and Maggy). When I was a child kids often called me Maggy, it was as much my name as Leslie was.

Magpie the witch: Magpie was a disparaging nickname I was referred to on occasion by kids at school.

Aunt Elinor: My Aunt Eleanor (pronounced the same as Elinor), Eleanor Chappell, was my favorite aunt. When I was a young girl she had a birthday party for me at her home where I got an easel and a girl scout uniform for presents. I was so happy that day!

Silver Tongue: Meggie inherited her silver tongue talent from her father, Mo. I inherited from my father, Amos Maggy, the talent to paint and draw extraordinarily realistically. I never needed lessons; I just knew how to, what materials I needed and how to use them. I take the three dimensional world and make it two dimensional whereas silver tongues take the two dimensional world and makes it three dimensional.

“The Musical Path”  oil on canvas  36″ X 48″  artist: Leslie Taylor

Mo, Meggie’s and Aunt Elinor’s love of reading and books: I love to read and as previously mentioned I don’t much watch TV, videos and movies (and for good reasons). I also love to write and sometimes lose all sense of time, hours even, when I write. My father loved to write as well and when elderly he tried to become a published author.

Dustfinger, The Shadow and Capricorn: The synchronicities associated with these characters require an involved explanation of my circumstances at the time of my first watching of Inkheart. 

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CRIMINALS SURROUNDING THE ART STUDIO 

I was in a most difficult situation when I first watched Inkheart over a decade ago. My ex-husband and I had purchased a small rooftop condominium on top of a three story building in downtown Boulder, Colorado partly as an investment, a second property (along with our primary residence on the outskirts of town) for us to enjoy on weekends and as an art studio for me to work at and hopefully sell artworks from. What we did not realize at the time was that the  residential and commercial property owners (twelve properties in all) in the surrounding neighborhood were all members of organized crime involved in prostitution and pornography and who knows what else. In fact, eventually I learned that our condominium, my studio, had been used for those purposes just prior to our purchasing it. The real estate company, my neighbor in the same building as the art studio, also managed 1,600 (according to their website at the time) university student housing properties.

The cost of replacement or repair of things, the stress and fear were over the top. When I told others what I was dealing with, including the police, they didn’t seem to believe me assuming I was crazy which is an intended aspect of the terrorizing for it seems to make no sense; no rationale nor motive for the menacing. It was exceedingly isolating for no one wants to deal with the targeted individual believing they’ve lost their minds or being concerned for their own safety; both understandable reactions. And I certainly did not want to imperil anyone else.

Over time, and it went on for years, it was apparent to me that the tactics were psychologically sophisticated and involved a number of persons’ participation. For but a few dollars people would willingly participate in the psychological torture of another; someone they did not know nor know why they were torturing them. In fact, I learned that this sadistic method of destroying lives is familiar among those working in law enforcement and is officially called “gang stalking” or “hands-off torture.” It is intended to forcibly recruit someone or drive the person to commit suicide, or eventually be murdered and made to look like a suicide (in my case there were reports by the police that portrayed me as paranoid).

It was during the ordeal, not before or we would not have purchased the property, that I learned who my neighbors were, members of organized crime, and what they were involved in, prostitution and pornography. And, knowing of their student housing management business giving them full access to the living quarters of 3,000 to 5,000 youths, I felt regardless of the risk of losing my life (which I was certain I would) I had to do whatever I could to report of their activities to law enforcement officials. The whole thing was far more bazaar, meaning who was actually behind the terrorizing (not just the mafia), and lasted far longer and was far more difficult to get help than I could have ever imagined it would be.

*Update: Though it had taken many years, two of the three offices out of which these people operated in Boulder and Denver did close. 

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Former NSA (National Security Agency) agent, and now whistleblower, Karen Stewart claims that tens of thousands of American citizens labeled as dissidents are being terrorized in this manner, gang stalked by the U.S. government. As a result she is now a targeted individual. There is another whistle blower that I’m familiar with who was a gang stalker trained by a large security corporation and makes the same claims; he says as many as a million U.S. citizens, and mostly women, are targeted as he was then too. He goes on to say that the government contracts security companies who train gang stalkers (many are military veterans) or the mafia for they are already familiar with and have utilized these tactics for decades.

I had fervently protested the invasion of Iraq in marches and in the newspaper. When President George W. Bush stated, “You are either for or against us,” this was no idle threat. It was years, in fact only fairly recently, before I learned of and considered this as a possible motive.

The holy instant as described in the book A Course In Miracles: “The sense of being transported beyond oneself: It is a sudden unawareness of the body, and a joining of yourself and something else in which your mind enlarges to encompass it. It becomes part of you, as you unite with it. Both become whole, as neither is perceived as separate. What really happens is that you have given up the illusion of a limited awareness, and lost your fear of union. The Love that instantly replaces it extends to what has freed you and unites with it. This can occur regardless of the physical distance that seems to be between you and what you join with; of your respective positions in space and of your differences in size and seeming quality. Time is not relevant; it can occur with something past, present or anticipated. The “something” can be anything anywhere; a sound, a sight, a thought, a memory and even a general idea with specific reference. Yet in every case, you join it without reservation because you love and and would be one with it. The holy instant teaches through comparison using opposites to point to truth.”

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In Boulder In 2002 I had a dream that I was at a political event where President George W. Bush was speaking. Few people showed up and those who did were jeering him. (In reality, he still had substantial support in the U.S. at this time). I was close enough to the stage to see that the expression on his face indicated that he was quite distraught by this. He then looked directly at me from the podium where he was standing. Then suddenly, our eyes, and only our eyes, no bodies nor faces, were separated by just a few inches as we continued looking directly at one another. Next, it was as if we both looked through and beyond one another’s eyes and deep into each other’s soul. It also seemed as if there was a third, yet not visible, presence with us. Then it was as though we were one, not two (or three) separate beings completely immersed in a non-physical spiritual state; floating in pure love. All was white, not a brilliant white light, just pure white; there was no differentiation separating us. It was the most beautiful feeling I have ever experienced and it lasted a bit even as I awoke from the dream.

“Reality is changeless and miracles but show that what you have interposed between yourself and reality does not interfere with the truth of who you, your brothers and all others are. The cost of the belief there must be some appearances, some illusions, beyond the hope of change is that the miracle cannot come forth from you consistently, for you have asked that miracles be limited, thus withheld from the power to heal all dreams. By your judging what you would heal, He Who gives all miracles has not been given freedom to bestow His gifts on His Son.”

“Would God have left the meaning of the world to your interpretation? If he had, then it has no meaning. This understanding is the only change that lets the real world rise to take the place of dreams of terror. The real world is achieved when one perceives the basis of forgiveness is quite real and fully justified. Forgiveness heals, it gives the miracle the power to overlook illusions.”

“Look not to isolated dreams for meaning. Only dreams of pardon can be shared for they mean the same to all being in line with what we really are. We have one interpreter and through Him we are joined, for forgiveness has been given to us all and we can communicate as One once again” (Christ consciousness).

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MORE SYNCHRONICITIES

Little Women 

Years later, In April 2020, after having just watched Inkheart for the second time and reviewing the extraordinary synchronicities I decided to watch another movie. I chose Little Women based on the autobiographical novel by Louisa May Alcott (1832 -1888) but quit the movie about a third of the way through. I quit it after the scene where Louisa’s mother was volunteering, helping people in need during the American Civil War (1861 – 1865). She encounters a heartbroken and destitute man who tells her that he had four sons: two were killed in combat, one held captive as prisoner of war and the fourth was in the hospital grievously wounded. She responded saying, “Thank you for your service.” That wasn’t the only reason I looked for another movie to watch, I just didn’t much care for it.

A Course In Miracles addresses war: “The justification being that what is another’s you have taken and becomes your gain, your victory, and their loss. In warfare, the righteous are forced into attack by the unscrupulous behavior of the enemy. For, in a savage world the kind cannot survive so they must take (life, liberty, property) lest they be taken from.”

“Can attack in any form (assault, condemnation, ostracizing) be love? Who makes his brother, his savior, powerless and finds salvation? You cannot seek to harm him and be safe, for who can find safety from attack by turning on Himself?”

“War is division, not increase. No one gains from strife. Peace is stronger than war because it heals.”

A Rumor of Angels

I then searched online for another movie and found A Rumor of Angels assuming that with a title like that it would be a pleasant, uplifting movie and it was. The core of the story, which I had no knowledge of prior to watching, was about a boy whose mother had died in a car accident. He was in the car with her when the accident occurred and the movie was about his dealing with the loss of his mother and death in general. His father could not adequately speak of their loss to his son.

It takes place in a small village by the sea. The boy befriends an elderly woman whose son was killed during the Vietnam war and had written a small book that she claimed were communications from him in the afterlife. Visible from her house, off shore in the distance, was a lighthouse, no longer functioning, which miraculously produced spiritual, Morse coded messages (which the boy and woman both knew). The elderly woman, her little book and the lighthouse miracles transformed, healed the boy and his family, all struggling with the loss of his mother.

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The Secret of Roan Inish

Portrait of Ryan oil on Canvas artist: Leslie (Maggy) Taylor. This portrait is not actually of Adam’s son, I am using this painting as an illustration.

You can imagine some of the angry feelings and fantasies that crossed my mind when I thought of Adam’s pregnant girlfriend and not long after having become his wife. They were not at all nice thoughts (a car accident, a fatal disease perhaps, the funeral, etc.). However, as bad as those vengeful thoughts were, I quickly checked myself and would soon cease the fantasies, maybe three, nor was I at all inclined to go into any sort of sordid detail, thank God.

Nevertheless, though many years have passed since and given the recent series of synchronicities involving children who had lost their mothers I knew exactly what I had to do. I had to forgive. And with a heart filled with sincere forgiveness I wrote a script on a piece of paper that included these words repeated over and over:

“Adam’s wife Demi will live a long, happy and healthy life and will always be a loving wife and mother throughout his and their son’s lives.”

ANCESTRAL COINCIDENCES – REINCARNATION AND WHY WE REINCARNATE

Many would begin reading the information below citing many remarkable familial coincidences highly suggestive of reincarnation and think, “That’s her family, why should I be interested?” The written word is very powerful. Though the facts may seem tedious at times,  should you follow the cases cited below you will begin to discover, and often synchronisticly, similar cases in your own life. This will reveal to you the reason you, and those close to you, are here in this life and what you and they are to do: to understand, to reconcile, to make amends and to forgive, to say nothing of rediscovering who you, and they are in truth, your Self.

On Time and Eternity – A Course In Miracles [chapter VI. pg. 86] states: “The Atonement – the solution of the undoing of guilt thus its effects. Delay does not matter in eternity but is tragic in time. You have chosen to be in time rather than eternity and therefore you are in time.” (Chose perhaps due to guilt carried over from past lives, though in truth there is no past only eternity). “Yet, your choosing is both free and alterable.”

“Guilt feelings are the preservers of time. They induce fears of retaliation or abandonment thus ensuring the future will be like the past. When you choose to exchange time for eternity (which you could not possibly have left) you will simultaneously exchange guilt for joy, viciousness for love and pain for peace.”

“My role is to unchain your will and set it free.”

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Note: I would like to acknowledge Cynthia, my mother’s cousin, who provided me with my maternal ancestral information and Cindy, my cousin, who provided me with my paternal family information referred to here (both named Cynthia and both cousins).

Extraordinary Familial Coincidences

When Adam and I first met in San Francisco in the 1980s (and I clearly remember this to this day) I could not prevent myself from giggling when I looked into his eyes. It got to be embarrassing enough that for a time I avoided looking into his eyes until the reaction ceased. It was as though I was subconsciously aware of and amused by his current incarnation having known him well in a previous life. I say subconsciously, for at the time I was aware of the concept of reincarnation but knew very little about it and what I did know did not make any sense to me. I recall thinking back then, “Why come back as another, different person without any knowledge of one’s previous life, or lives?” How is that helpful? Now, years later, I know more of the theory behind reincarnation and consider it quite plausible. There were also a few occasions over the next couple of years when I emphatically thought to myself, “My gosh, he’s my great grandmother Esther Chappell” (more on her later) and while not being a believer in reincarnation.

An amazing aside: But a few months before moving to Idaho from Colorado in 2017, I was reading The Roots of Consciousness (the original version published in 1975) a book by Jeffrey Mishlove, PhD that documents historical and modern scientific efforts to investigate and understand the supernatural world, synchronicities and psychic experiences. It’s encyclopedic, well researched and was a highly regarded and renown work at the time. Dr. Mishlove got his undergraduate degree in criminal psychology and his PhD in paranormal psychology from the University of California at Berkeley (all fitting in here like a puzzle piece). I was sitting on the couch in my living room looking at the illustrations of a falcon in the book when one suddenly alighted on a fence post just outside the window to my right but a few feet from me. It just stayed there for around fifteen minutes as we stared at each other. I had never before seen a falcon in my backyard prior to that or afterward.  

The entry to my apartment building in San Francisco at 20 Dashiell Hammett Way where I lived while in my thirties. Adam lived directly across the alleyway when we met. The awning acknowledges that this is where the author lived when he wrote “The Maltese Falcon” later turned into three Hollywood movies from 1931 to 1941. The awning was not there when I, and decades before, my Uncle Darrell, coincidentally, also lived there.

The alley was originally named Monroe Street and later renamed Dashiell Hammett in honor of the famous author who lived there. Note the ongoing book theme throughout this piece.

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In 1989 Adam began graduate school at the Hass School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley and we moved from San Francisco to Berkeley, where I was born. We rented an apartment but four blocks from where my mother’s parents owned an apartment building and where my other uncle, Robert Maggy, lived while he was getting his PhD in mathematics at Berkeley. This is how my father, Amos I. Maggy III (1926 – 1997) and my mother Esther K. Hall (b. 1928) met; at his brother’s apartment. My father, his two brothers and Adam had all received graduate degrees from the University of California at Berkeley.

The image above is of my parents standing in front of the very apartment building my grandparents owned and where they met but a few blocks from where Adam and I lived in Berkeley. 

One evening I joined Adam at the computer lab at Hass (before PCs and laptops were common) while he did his homework there. At one of the computers I searched my father’s name and discovered that he not only got his bachelor’s degree but his masters degree in business administration, or MBA, from Berkeley just as Adam was in the process of doing! My family is not at all close which is why I did not already know this. I also learned, much to my surprise, that my father’s undergraduate thesis was on the same topic as Adam’s MIT undergrad thesis!: extracting natural gas from shale; the holy grail of the energy industry at the time and now known as the controversial fracking process. Adam’s undergraduate studies at MIT were centered around energy engineering. My father had a very high IQ [169] and a prodigious memory, both of which he was known for. He also worked as a decoder during WWII in the U.S. while in the military. Adam was honored as valedictorian of his class at Berkeley.

Once Adam had finished with his education there his best job offer in the energy consulting industry was from a firm in Boulder, Colorado which he accepted and we moved there. Colorado is beautiful and Boulder is a college town. We bought a brand new home with views spanning a spectacular portion of the front range of the Rocky Mountains. For nearly 15 years I thought we landed in Heaven on Earth. Then that was to dramatically change. 

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Those That Have Passed Before Us

Here, if I may, I will interject that my, and many others, findings confirm that those who appear to have passed before us, are other than us even, are present, interested and engaged in our progress here on Earth, for it is in the interest of one and All. The intention is to merge with the real, the true state of Heaven in accordance with our choices; our will as one with God’s will. And this is guaranteed, already done in fact. For in Heaven, eternity, there is no past nor present, no spacetime between this and that, therefore no separation throughout or outside of eternity, which would be a contradiction. In this piece, and throughout this Miracles For All website, one can see that space and time and causal linear processes play no part in the connected synchronistic, and miraculous events that regularly occur in all our lives.

Back to: Extraordinary Familial Coincidences

Edwin Rutherford Chappell (1875 – 1919) who was my maternal great grandfather married Esther Cecilia Collins (1874 – 1960). Dearie, as she was known to me and my siblings, was my great grandmother and I remember her well. She died in Walnut Creek, California in 1960 when I was 9 years old. Adam was born in 1961 (I’m 10 years older than he).

My great grandmother Esther Cecelia Collins (1874 – 1960)

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I was quite surprised to have only recently discovered that Edwin, as was the case with his mother, Eliza Chappell, was born in Baltimore, Maryland. So was Adam, his father and grandfather. Adam’s grandmother was from England as was Edwin’s grandfather and grandmother. I had known that Edwin Chappell and his wife Esther (my great grandmother) moved from Chicago, Illinois, where he had graduated from law school, to St. Louis, Missouri after they eloped. She and her family were from St. Louis where Edwin worked as the Assistant District Attorney. One can imagine what sort of crimes and criminals he was exposed to in the course of his work.

I never knew this man existed until in my early fifties when I received from my mother all her family photos. There is but one photo of him among the dozens of my mother’s family photos dating back to the 1850s. Yet, he was the father of his and Esther’s three children including my maternal grandmother Esther Chappell Hall (1901 – 1979), the young girl on the right in the photo below. The only husband of my great grandmother’s that I was aware of was Clarence J. Hicks (1863 – 1944). He was the executive assistant to the president of the Colorado Fuel & Iron Company bought by John D. Rockefeller and the Standard Oil Corporation following which Clarence Hicks worked as executive assistant to John D. Rockefeller in his offices in New Jersey.

Clarence Hicks had a bachelors and law degree from the University of Wisconsin and received honorary degrees from Princeton and the University of Michigan. He was a regular speaker on industrial relations between industrialists and workers at Harvard, Yale, Princeton and other major universities (the result of his successful mediating between the striking miners at Ludlow, Colorado and Standard Oil Corporation in 1914) among other notable career achievements. Mr. Hicks, the only maternal great grandfather I was initially aware of, was my great grandmother’s second husband and not my great grandfather at all. Given the professional prominence of her second husband and, historically divorce was considered disreputable, especially for women, the very existence of Edwin R. Chappell was completely forgotten about; save the one photograph I now have of him. I was also informed by my mother’s cousin, Cynthia, that during his marriage to Esther, or Dearie as I also knew her, he was never treated respectfully by her prominent family. 

Above: Edwin Rutherford Chappell (my great grandfather) on the lower right seated with his mother, Eliza Chappell. Robert Chappell (my Uncle Bob) is the boy on the left. Rutherford Chappell (an orthopedic surgeon who died early in his career and I never met) and Esther Chappell, (my grandmother named after her mother) is on the far right. 

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Edwin’s career had not been successful. I was told by a relative that he would get so caught up in researching a case that he would not be prepared in time for trial (his father was a scientist which may be an explanation). His wife and three children had abandoned him and he moved to Colorado where he lived for a while with his brother Phillip in Cannon City. Edwin and Esther Chappell, according to my mother, like Adam and I, were divorced in Colorado.

He then contracted influenza and his mother, Eliza Chappell (1803 – 1919) moved into her son’s, Phillip’s, home in Cannon City where she cared for Edwin until his death. This resulted in her also contracting influenza and she died soon thereafter

One can easily imagine how Edwin must have felt as he was sick and dying. He was not respected by his wife’s family, his career had not gone well, his wife left him for a very successful and prominent man leaving Edwin to be abandoned and forgotten about by his wife, in-laws and children (although we cannot know how his children felt about the treatment and loss of their father). Thank God for Edwin’s mother, though it must have been so very heartbreaking for her to see her son’s life end like that. And, of course she sacrificed her own life to care for him. 

Consider also that at the time of this writing, April 2020 one hundred years later, the Covid-19 virus has spread worldwide and people are mandated by their governments to stay home, no socializing. Schools, library’s, and most businesses, have been instructed to close (called a lockdown which is a prison term) until told otherwise. When absolutely necessary to be around others, like when shopping at the grocery store, all are instructed  to maintain a separation of two meters from one another (referred to as social distancing). Wearing masks across the lower part of the face when in public places is also being demanded and enforced.

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How the Death of a Parent Affects Children

One can also imagine how the treatment of Edwin, and his death, must have affected Esther’s and Edwin’s three children, and here specifically Robert Chappell, the youngest. 

I recall my grandmother, and mother (who never met her real grandfather) speaking lovingly of Clarence Hicks, they called him Papoo, and never mentioned Edwin. As for the older boy, Rutherford, I have nothing to go on. But as for the youngest child, Robert Chappell, and once grownup, Aunt Eleanor’s husband along with their daughter’s (Cynthia) father and whom I knew as Uncle Bob, I do have some information. Recall that Cynthia, now in her eighties and is my mother’s cousin, is the one who researched and provided me with so much of my maternal ancestral information. 

Cynthia told me that her father Robert and his mother Esther, my great grandmother, had a strained relationship throughout their lives; he felt that he was not a wanted child and that she did not love him. It’s quite likely he dearly loved and missed his father and as a child had no information as to where he was and what happened to him. This would have strongly impacted his relationship with his mother and stepfather. And later when he discovered when and how he died, how incredibly heartbreaking, frightening even, that must have been for him. 

As a grown man Robert Chappell and his family lived a comfortable life in Danville, California very near where I grew up. He died in the 1960s and I have no more information than that. I do recall that he did not seem well, took lots of medication at meal time, and his daughter told me that he suffered from depression and was an alcoholic.

One can see here how Robert, his mother Esther Chappell (then later Esther Hicks) and his step father, Clarence Hicks had much unfinished business.    

The current incarnated relations: As already stated I believe that my great grandmother Esther Chappell, then later Esther Hicks, is reincarnated as my ex-husband, Adam. And again, I consider it quite possible that my great grandfather, Edwin Chappell, is reincarnated as me, Leslie Taylor. Adam’s wife, Demi, quite possibly was Clarence Hicks in her previous incarnation. And Aunt Eleanor’s husband, Uncle Bob and as well Esther’s youngest son Robert Chappell, is incarnated in this life as my ex-husband’s and his wife’s son Ryan.

Above: The lady in the upper left is my great grandmother Esther Chappell (later remarried as Esther Hicks) and now reincarnated as Adam Taylor. The boy in front of her is Robert Chappell, my Uncle Bob, now reincarnated as Adam’s son Ryan Taylor. Seated is my great, great, great grandfather Eli Collins and above him are Robert’s brother Rutherford and his sister, my grandmother, also named Esther Chappell.  

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Let us here note that Adam worked, and still does as Clarence Hicks did, in the energy industry as consultants, yet in different capacities. And, like Mr. Hicks, both my father and Uncle Robert worked for Standard Oil in San Francisco. Robert Maggy was a Vice President there for many years. These and the other synchronistic connections listed above (and there are more) were not the result of any familial connections. No one on my mother’s side of the family knew anyone on my father’s side of the family and were from opposite sides of the country, the northeast and the northwest. The energy industry and Standard Oil connections are all coincidences.

Esther and Clarence Hicks at their home in Pelham Manor, New York 1938

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Another seemingly minor coincidence is that my paternal great grandmother’s maiden name was Hicks, Matilda Hicks (1868 – 1932), as was my maternal great grandmother’s (Dearie’s) second husband’s surname, Clarence Hicks. Thus, both my maternal and paternal great grandmother’s last names were Hicks. Both couples were from opposite sides of the country and in no way related. Matilda Hicks married Amos I. Maggy Sr. (1861 – 1935) in 1888 and they lived in Spokane, Washington. I lived with friends in Spokane during the summer of 1971.

Amos I. Maggy Sr., my paternal great grandfather, died in Wilder, Idaho in 1935. I moved from Boulder, Colorado in 2017 and now live in Boise, Idaho but 40 miles from Wilder. My decision to move to Boise was based on real estate values and needing to leave Boulder out of concern for my safety and psychological well being (needing to forget what all happened in Boulder) prior to which I’ve never had any reason to give Idaho much thought.

During our marriage Adam supported my (commercially unsuccessful) career as artist. I could not for the life of me get a reputable gallery to exhibit my paintings among numerous other failed marketing ventures due to my own missteps, the difficulties at the art studio, and the art market has for decades now become completely senseless. All modesty aside though, the works contributed to our home and the one I now live in being quite beautiful inside. Besides, I’ve come to feel that I could not be without the painting below hanging in my living room.

Soaring – a 36″ X 48″ oil painting by Leslie M. Taylor

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During those years Adam and I were together I benefited not only from having the time to paint, to pursue ongoing learning in general on my own and take up the piano then later the flute. Yet, initially Adam’s family did not treat me with much respect (recall Esther’s family’s treatment of her husband, Edwin). These, along with other factors, over the first eight years threatened to ruin our marriage. We sought marriage counseling which was quite successful.

Let us here recall that Edwin Rutherford Chappell was struggling with his career as Assistant District Attorney in St. Louis which most likely contributed to his divorce. I have no doubt that the struggles I had with my career and later, the sophisticated mind breaking techniques utilized on me by the mafia at the studio contributed to the destruction of my marriage. 

Since our divorce, to my ex-husband and his entire family it is as though I never existed. This is exactly how my great grandmother and her family, including their three children, treated Edwin Chappell. I suspect Adam’s family thinks I’m insane. This seemed to be the case with members of my own family. The police portrayed me as paranoid in their reports, and in public on a couple of occasions I was treated suspiciously by the police as though I were a dangerous person. I cannot begin to describe how strange and stressful this all was; for years I was shaking inside. And the extreme stress was no doubt apparent to others further contributing to their opinion that I was mentally imbalanced.

Regardless, I persevered in attempting to expose these criminals and their activities. And, thinking that I may very well be the reincarnation of my great grandfather Edwin R. Chappell, the prosecuting criminal attorney whose life had ended early and tragically at a time in his life while it was at a professional and personal nadir but served to further encourage me. I had to prove myself regardless of my being without any support from anyone (unless I had help behind the scenes from the police and/or the FBI that I am unaware of). It became a mission, for I thought I was in that circumstance for a higher purpose.

It was, only I did not know what that purpose was until now, that being to choose forgiveness and therefore ‘seeing’, not in darkness but in light, revealing the truth and knowing who and what we are. To choose eternity over time, oneness (or Christ consciousness in Christian parlance) instead of the ego, or separateness, to choose Heaven.

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A Course in Miracles repeatedly advises the student, the reader to, above all things, pray for seeing.  

A Metaphor, Religious Nomenclature and ‘Seeing’

One of the problems I had when first reading a Course in Miracles was its repeated use of traditional religious nomenclature. Atonement for example, in Christian theology it is the reconciliation of God and humankind through Jesus Christ, or Christ consciousness. Another use of the word atonement in the book is written as ‘at onement.’ It also refers to it as the undoing; the undoing of guilt, of separation, it is the correction. Initially, and in particular, I had trouble with the name and concept of the Holy Spirit. The book uses an interesting metaphor to describe the Holy Spirit:

“Who hangs an empty frame on a wall and stands before it in deep reverence as if a masterpiece were there to see? Yet, if you see your brother as a body, it is but this you do. The masterpiece that God has set within the frame is all there is to see. The body holds it for a while, without obscuring it in any way. Yet what God created needs no frame, for what He has created He supports and frames within Himself. His masterpiece He offers you to see. Would you rather see the frame, and the picture not at all?”

The Holy Spirit is the frame set around the part of Him you would otherwise see as separate. Yet this frame (the Holy Spirit) is joined with its Creator, one with Him and His masterpiece. Do not make the picture you choose to see in its place. This is the Holy Spirit’s purpose – to uphold God’s masterpiece to Him and to serve His purpose, not yours apart from His. It is your separate purpose that obscures the picture, and cherishes the frame instead. Whereas His masterpiece is set within a frame that endures forever when your frame has long since crumbled into dust. What God creates is safe from all corruption, unchanged and perfect in eternity. Accept God’s frame (seek the Holy Spirit’s perception) instead of yours and you will see the masterpiece.”

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A list of the some of the familial synchronistic connections and what they reveal:

~ Adam and Leslie are married in Berkeley. Leslie’s parents, Amos I. Maggy and Esther K. Hall, were married in Berkeley.

~Leslie’s mother is named Esther after her mother and grandmother. Her father is named Amos after his father and grandfather.

~ Adam and Leslie moved to Colorado from Berkeley, California. Her maternal great grandfather, Edwin Chappell, moved to Colorado to get a divorce from Dearie, from St. Louis, Missouri and died there, in 1919 in Cannon, Colorado 140 miles south of Boulder, during the flu epidemic (a hundred years before the covid flu and catastrophic responses). As well, Leslie’s paternal great grandfather Amos I Maggy Sr. died in Wilder, Idaho. In 2017 following her divorce from Alan Taylor, Leslie moved from Boulder, Colorado to Boise, Idaho but 40 miles from Wilder.

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~ At that time, her maternal great grandmother, Esther Chappell, moved to Colorado from St. Louis for a short time while during which time Clarence Hicks (who became her second husband) lived and worked there as an attorney and aid to John D. Rockefeller.  Therefore, both Adam and Leslie Taylor and Edwin and Esther Chappell moved to Colorado from across opposite sides of the country.

~ Edwin R. Chappell, was a criminal prosecution attorney – assistant District Attorney in St. Louis, Missouri. Leslie was involved for many years endeavoring to provide evidence to law enforcement agencies and the DA in Boulder of organized crime activity (and victimized by them). 

~ Edwin, as was the case with his mother Eliza Chappell, was born and raised in Baltimore, Maryland as was Adam, his father and grandfather. Adam’s grandmother was from England as was Edwin’s grandfather and grandmother.

~ Edwin Chappell was not well regarded by his wife’s family nor was Leslie by her husband’s family. Esther and her entire family, including their children, ceased to acknowledge Edwin’s existence. The same is true of Adam’s family regarding Leslie since their divorce.

~ Clarence J. Hicks, Leslie’s great grandmother’s second husband, worked as attorney and executive assistant to John D. Rockefeller and the Standard Oil Corporation in Colorado, then later New Jersey and New York. Leslie’s father, Amos, and Uncle Robert worked for Standard Oil Corporation in San Francisco (no connection between these parties). Her other uncle, Robert Maggy was a vice president at Standard Oil for many years.

~  Leslie’s paternal great grandmother’s maiden name was Hicks, Matilda Hicks, as was her maternal great grandmother’s second husband’s surname, Clarence Hicks. Therefore, both of her great grandmothers’ last names were Hicks. They were not related in any way and from opposite sides of the country.

~ Matilda Hicks (1868 – 1932) married Amos I Maggy Sr. (1861 – 1935) in 1888. They lived in Spokane, Washington and Matilda died there. Leslie had lived in Spokane for a summer when she was 19 years old. As previously mentioned, great grandfather Amos Maggy died in Wilder, Idaho. In 2017 Leslie moved from Boulder, Colorado to Boise, Idaho but 40 miles from Wilder.

~ Adam met his current wife Demi at a dance class in Boulder, Colorado. She had grown up in Claremont, a small district in the Berkeley hills where the beautiful historical hotel, the Claremont Hotel, is located. After Alan’s and Leslie’s wedding ceremony at the university’s Faculty Club on campus and having changed clothes, a limousine drove them to the Claremont Hotel for some relaxation and a cocktail prior to attending their wedding reception.

Portrait of Adam – oil on canvas  artist: Leslie Taylor

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WHAT THIS TELLS US

What this tells us is that we not just were, but are our close relations (relatives, friends, neighbors, co-workers, etc. everywhere, in every nation and throughout time). There is no spacetime separating us, though we believe there is a separation. So we see bodies that confirm this: our differences spatially and temporally, currently or long ago (whereas in truth all that is and ever was is present here and now). We see differences in gender, ethnicity, hairstyles and clothing, how we get around, changes in our physical condition over time. And we judge: he or she is ugly or beautiful, rich or poor, stupid or smart, dangerous or trustworthy, deceitful or honest. And here our perceptions are determined by and about us! If briefly we are fortunate enough to be well and prosperous, over the course of time (and not surprisingly) we’re often sick, constantly weakening and eventually found dead. How unpleasant!

A few mornings ago (while working on this piece in April, 2020) soon after I awoke I was ruminating over the corona virus situation and all the pitiful people at the grocery store wearing face masks in allegiance with the government’s position that we are weak, sickly and contagious and therefore the need for a government social distancing and stay at home mandate establishing even further separateness. And how this is often officially referred to as a lockdown, a prison term. Then I heard a very faint yet distinct voice ask me, “Leslie, what are you projecting?” I then wondered if the voice was from inside my head though it seemed not like my voice, or if the source was external, from outside my head. And the response was, “Is there a difference?” 

Later I read this in A Course in Miracles: “In the mind of the thinker, only He is judgmental and only in order to unify the mind without judgement. The undoing of judgmental thinking, to be without judgement is necessary in one’s own mind so that you do not project instead of extend. To love is to extend,” Christ consciousness.

The book also states: “Having thrown truth away, you see yourself, and all others, your brothers, as you and they are not in truth. What you’ve made instead has imprisoned your will, separating it from the will of God, and made a sick mind that must be healed. Your vigilance against this sick mindedness is the way to heal. Once healed, your mind radiates health and thereby teaches, lovingly extends, healing.”

In addition, the main teaching in A Course In Miracles, and it can’t harp on this fact enough: We are not bodies, we are spirit with no less than the light of the Son of God in each and every one of us. And by this light we can see past illusions. We are not separated at all but rather one with all others and one with God; that which is true and unchangeable, infinitely united as one in Heaven. We’ve never left in fact, for how can you leave that which is infinite other than in a feverish dream of sorts (what this world is). As for sickness, misery and death, would God, Love Itself, do these things to his Own Son?

Miracles and synchronicities, by-passing cause and effect over space and time, are natural occurrences to the awakening Son of God.

In the book “Walden” the author Henry David Thoreau (1817 – 1862) states, “That as one advances … he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours. He will put some things behind, will pass an invisible boundary; new, universal, and more liberal laws will begin to establish themselves around and within him … and he will live with the license of a higher order of beings.”

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ADDITIONAL READING

Dr. Eben Alexander – From his book “Living in a Mindful Universe“

Complex synchronicities and their meaningfulness; here specifically regarding ancestral syncronicities:

Neurosurgeon Dr. Eben Alexander experienced a remarkable near death experience while in coma and miraculous recovery from a rare and deadly bacterial meningitis that destroyed his entire cerebral cortex. He has since written three books on his experiences and follow up research and findings as to what his experiences suggest spiritually. It should be noted that as his adoptive father was a neurosurgeon and due to his father’s influence he too chose to become a neurosurgeon. Here are a few excerpts from his book:

“During my neurosurgical residency, I spent two years (1985 – 87) investigating cerebral vasospasm, a particularly deadly complication of subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH) from aneurysms that maims and kills approximately one-third of the patients who survive the actual hemorrhage. Following residency, in 1987 I pursued a fellowship in vascular neurosurgery, intensely studying the surgical management of aneurysms, before securing a position at Harvard Medical School heading up vascular neurosurgery at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital.”

“I was adopted, and in the search for my birth parents, I later learned that this hereditary affliction was a part of my biological family’s medical history. It was this hereditary condition that motivated my birth sister to reach out to the adoption agency (in search of her brother given up for adoption), a crucial step in our eventually reconnecting. Information revealed to me in February 2000 indicated that my maternal grandfather had suffered an aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage that left him badly impaired for a few months before he finally succumbed in 1966. My birth mother had two sisters, and in 1978, her youngest sister suffered an SAH and died within a day. Her other sister endured an SAH in 2004 at age 65, which seriously incapacitated her for about 3 years, although she has gone on to a miraculous recovery (to the point where she has won several local golf tournaments in recent years). (Let us recall his own brain disease and miraculous recovery as well as his medical specialty, SAH). I initially reacted with amazed shock at this seeming coincidence, but perhaps my career choice in the 1980s had some deeper (subconscious) connection with my personal biological predisposition two decades later.”

“In some of my meditative explorations, I have sensed an awareness of the soul agreements of my adoptive parents, birth parents, and birth grandparents to set up their lives in the ways that resulted in my personal adoption drama, but of course validation of such sensation can be quite difficult. It seems the whole matter of the infertility of my adoptive parents (they later had two biological daughters, Eben’s sisters) and my birth parents giving me up were agreed on by them before birth, and ties together our soul journeys”

“Even my Great grandfather, then known as Eben Alexander Jr., made himself known during a series of fundraisers I spoke at for the Children’s Home in North Carolina. Readers will recall this is the organization that cared for me as an infant and arranged my placement with my adoptive parents.” “… the book “Adoption Means Love,” a history of the Children’s Home includes a mention of a previous Eben Alexander, whom I confirmed to be my great grandfather.”

Here we observe in both Dr. Alexander’s and my family’s history surprising coincidences that I suspect, as does Dr. Alexander, suggest that we are members of a system as work within soul groups with an evolutionary intent involving the whole of the group and beyond.

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A brief history of the Ludlow Massacre, Ludlow, Colorado 1914

The Ludlow massacre was an attack by the Colorado National Guard and Colorado Fuel & Iron Company guards on a tent colony of 1,200 coal miners and their families at Ludlow in 1914. The chief owner of the mine, John D. Rockefeller, was widely criticized for the incident. There were 11,000 miners in southern Colorado who worked for the Colorado Fuel & Iron Corporation which was owned by the Rockefeller family. They went on strike against low pay, dangerous conditions, and the feudal rule of their lives in shanty towns run by the mining companies. One of their grievances was that they were not paid for the construction of safety beams in the mines so that the mines would not collapse on them! When the strike began, the miners were immediately evicted from their shacks in the mining towns. Aided by the United Mine Workers Union they set up tents in the nearby hills and continued with the strike picketing from these tent colonies.

In April 1914, the National Guard was stationed in the hills overlooking Ludlow, the largest tent colony of strikers housing a thousand men, women and children. Initially the miners thought the Guard was sent to protect them and greeted their arrival with flags and cheers. They soon found out the Guard was there to forcibly put an end to their strike. On the morning of April 20, a machine gun attack began on the tents. The miners fired back. Some women and children dug pits beneath the tents to escape the gunfire. At dusk, the Guard moved down from the hills with torches, set fire to the tents, and as the families fled into the hills thirteen people were killed by gunfire. The following day, a telephone linesman going through the ruins of the Ludlow tent colony lifted an iron cot covering a pit in one of the tents and found the charred bodies of eleven children and two women. The miners had lots of public and media support but the country was soon distracted by other political events and WWI.

(Images above of some of the miners and their families at the tent colony and the newspaper headlines following the carnage).

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Chaos Theory And How It Applies Here 

Mysteriously corresponding behavior between parties over space and time.

Chaos theory in mechanics and mathematics is defined as the study of apparently random or unpredictable behavior in systems governed by deterministic laws. An attractor, in chaos theory, is a set of numerical values toward which a system tends to evolve from a wide variety of starting conditions within the system. A strange attractor is an attractor in which the evolution is non-linear, non-local, and demonstrates seemingly chaotic randomness, yet resulting in an evolution through a series of states. Stated differently, chaotic systems are inherently unpredictable yet deterministic, ultimately resulting in an orderly outcome. 

“The ancestral coincidental events documented here demonstrate synchronistic acausal effects (in Jungian psychology acausal is defined as: related by meaning rather than causation) and seemingly random, non-linear, non-local effects (mysteriously corresponding behavior between parties over space and time (across the country and in past and recent times)).” Yet, a collective intent, throughout and all along, though not consciously realized by any of the parties involved, may very well act as a guiding influence toward a predetermined end result. In economics the term  “Adam Smith’s invisible hand” gives us a good analogy.

There is an intention behind reincarnation yet the incarnate souls are unaware, for the most part, of the intended result when reincarnated thus allowing for choice; if you know the outcome of a choice there is no choice involved. The collective activity, as in ancestral up to the present familial groups, can be compared to self-organizing systems observed involving, for example: at quantum levels the formation of crystals, or the processes involved in cellular differentiation from a single fertilized egg to a full grown adult organism. These and other self organizing structures, or systems, come into play then start interacting with other self organizing structures, or systems. This, in fact, is also how eco systems, societies, and stock markets behave – solar systems even. There are countless examples at all scales from the very origin to the increasingly complex evolution of the universe itself.

There are clearly deterministic evolutionary processes at work toward a predetermined  outcome although not necessarily apparent to any one atomic particle as in the growing crystal, or a particular cell out of the trillions of cells as in the case of a developing human organism, or a single human being out of the whole of humanity. And learning, choices (that which doesn’t work is not repeated and what does is) seems to occur over the course of these processes taking anywhere from Planck units of time [10^–43 seconds] to eons. (Planck units are the tiniest units of time, lengths and geometries to emerge from the spaceless timeless infinite, infinity, named after the physicist Max Planck who specifically quantified these units).

However, a consciousness from a vantage point seeing a greater whole of the activity of these various parts and processes can legitimately conclude that an evolutionary intention guided by higher, spiritual, deterministic laws toward an already perfected divine state is at work in all evolving and interacting systems or states. And, where an individual consciousness is, at what evolving state, depends on the expanse (Love being the only expanding attractor, if you will) of that individual’s consciousness.

Note: My description of chaos theory is exceedingly simplistic. There is much more to it that what I’ve referred to here such as sensitivity to initial conditions. For example, within a complex or a non-linear dynamic system as in the weather, any slight change in the initial conditions changes everything. The theory was summarized by the atmospheric scientist Edward Lorenz who applied the phrase “the butterfly effect” to it. The butterfly effect describes how a small change in one state of a deterministic nonlinear system can result in large differences in a later state, e.g. a butterfly flapping its wings in China can cause a hurricane in Texas.

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For an excellent lecture on chaos theory go to Modern Science, Chaos Theory by Steven Gimbel, PhD: