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| Arthur Morgan in RDR2 and Roger Clark who plays him. |
I won't get into the particulars of this epic game that others have covered. (Red Dead Redemption 2) My point is that as technology improves, we are able to experience "life online" the way that we experience "life offline."
For fans of my research into the Flipside, there are multiple layers of the meaning of "offline" and "online."
In the 50 deep hypnosis cases I've filmed, and the thousands I've examined from Dr. Helen Wambach and Michael Newton ("Journey of Souls") they report consistently that life "here on the planet" or "online" is like a performer going on stage, choosing props, a costume, a role, doing their best at learning something or teaching lessons, and then when the play is over, they drop the costume, props and leave the stage.
Where do people go after their "lifetime" on stage?
They go "home."
In the first case I was filming for the film "Flipside: A Journey into the Afterlife" a woman in a conference in Chicago was recalling her last moments on earth during her lifetime that ended in a gas chamber in Auschwitz. I was startled by what she was saying for a number of reasons - I later found her records online, I later was able to confirm who she had been, I was startled because she was giving such a graphic description of a difficult lifetime the first time I turned my camera on to film one.
But more importantly, when she was asked after the end of this difficult lifetime where she went, she said "Home."
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| "Flipside" is about the research of Michael Newton |
At first I wondered if she was talking about the town in upstate New York this woman was from, or if she meant Warsaw, the town that this woman had remembered growing up in and being torn out of it. Neither in fact.
She was referring to "home" as in - where we all come from.
Since then I've had people give various descriptions of "home" - the hallmarks are the same, "a place of warmth, no judgment, unconditional love" but the visuals are not. Sometimes people see their loved ones, sometimes they see guides, teachers (yes, even ones "wearing wings" which appear to be a visual metaphor for speed and not countenance) - but be that as it may, they all say the same thing about where they go after the memory of a previous lifetime.
Home.
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| Home? |
So that forces us to look at the stage they were just on. People consistently report that they "chose their lifetime" that they chose a life with difficulties, with the possibility to learn or teach or love - sometimes they choose difficult lifetimes, sometimes they choose incredibly difficult lifetimes. In this woman's case, she said that between lives her guides showed her that she had the option of playing different roles, including a "perpetrator." She said "from what I'm seeing, I know this is hard to express, but from my perspective, I'm glad I chose the role I did instead of the perpetrators, because they had a harder time of it."
Easily the most difficult sentence I've come across in this research, but it was on the very first day I started filming,the first person that I filmed. She went on to say "Every day in the camp was like an intense lesson in many topics; compassion, forgiveness, redemption, love. But from my perspective, I'm glad I chose what I did in that lifetime."
Which brings me to Arthur Morgan.
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If you're playing the game and don't know what happens in Red Dead Redemption 2, STOP READING NOW.
Our family had not seen the original game, so we had no clue as to what would happen or how this game might end. Our son played it over spring break, and has been caught up in the world of Arthur for weeks.
I too enjoyed decoding some of the things he would find - the references to Nikola Tesla (there's a lightning shack in Colorado, reminiscent of Tesla's own lab), the references to how slavery hadn't changed men's minds even 20 years later, to many sorts of political easter eggs buried inside this vast amazing story. (Winning points by killing off the KKK, for example.)
The CGI is so brilliant, that one feels as if they've been horseback riding for most of the day. The gunfire is pretty frightening as well. But overall, one gets a sense of "time and place."
But there's much more to this game - because at some point, it becomes apparent that our hero, the outlaw Arthur, has a chance at redemption. The choices that he makes become more about "saving" lives than taking them, more about "helping others" than robbing them. Like in life, we all have a choice to choose which path to take. And there are consequences here while having that journey - but those same consequences in the game lead to its conclusion.
Are you someone who is a helping hand? Or are you a cruel person caught up in the same cycle of violence? Those choices predict how you'll end up. We had no idea of where this story was headed - and the ending, as played, brought us all to tears. Someone whom we had come to know, who had changed his stripes during the course of the story, someone that my son came to know and understand - was no longer on the planet. And there's no way to reincarnate inside of this person any longer - the only way to view "what happens next" is to shift consciousness into someone else.
A bit like life. Well, alot like life.
We are here, and we play our role - and depending upon our choices, actions, we will find ourselves at the end of our journey looking back upon what we forgot to do, who we didn't help, and what the consequences of those actions are. In my son's case, his "honor" had risen to the highest amount he could get, as a result his passing was filled with beautiful music, and a gorgeous last sunrise on the planet.
However, we weren't prepared for this outcome - and when we realized we were in someone else's consciousness looking at our own tombstone - that was as impactful as that sentence sounds. Like looking down at your feet and seeing your name carved in stone. "Here Lies You." "Wait a second! I wasn't ready to leave the planet yet! You mean I have no option to save myself? To continue on?"
Well... yes and no.
No, we have no option to continue on as the person we once were. For those of us who were once caterpillars, indeed, the chrysalis is the end of the line. That's it. No more crawling on leaves, chomping on green objects, or spinning silk. We don't do that anymore. But we do have this other option - to fly. To open our wings and take off. We can come back and visit this earth at any time, but it would be insane to not open up those wings and try them out.
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| Real Arthurs. |
So Arthur is a character that exists in time and space.
My wife had a dream about Arthur last night - saw him riding his horse in a field of yellow daisies. When she woke up she remembered the last time she saw those daisies - in a dream she had about her dog the night he died. She said she was in a field, but there was a turnstyle that prevented her from going over to where her dog was - romping through this giant field of daisies.
I pointed out the turnstyle represented a metaphor for us "not being able to go over there." But also the field of daises represented the flipside - as I've noted often, we create our own paradise once we return. And by dreaming of the field of daises - with a character and his horse no less! - she was seeing what that would have meant in our world.
But then one has to ask - does Arthur exist, or does he not exist? Certainly he was created by an actor (the way Travis Bickle existed, or Ethan Hunt) and by seeing them in our dreams, we can see that it's a metaphor for what we perceive. But in this case - my wife was seeing a character and his horse in the afterlife. Easy to say "because she wanted to" but wasn't aware of how that field of daisies represented the flipside. Unfortunately for her, she's married to someone who can.
Indeed, an actor went in and spent the better part of five years inhabiting this fellow - that is the voice of actor Roger Clark - and the essence of who Roger Clark is, is also the essence of who Arthur Morgan is. His comments to his horse, his conversations with strangers, native Americans, bad guys, bandits, good guys, Pinkertons - all filtered through who Roger is. And that avatar now exists in some other world. Not the flipside per se, but somewhere.
I just wanted to comment on how Red Dead Redemption 2 captures the essence of this flipside research; imagine the writers sitting around creating his story the way that guides and teachers sit around and come up with a story for a person choosing a lifetime, how they can argue what the best outcome would be - how they give the person tests and options to take, how it's up to free will for them to follow the "good path" of learning or to screw up, and not accomplish what they set out to do.
How ego, wrath, anger, jealousy, cowardice, lying - all can lead to unhappy, unfulfilled outcomes - and how the opposite can lead to much more entertaining, learning outcomes. And when the avatar who plays this character is done with their journey, the writers are there to applaud their return, to compliment the actor on all that they accomplished, learned, taught or experienced.
And on to the next play.
As You Like It, Act II, Scene VII
All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages.
At first, the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms.
Then the whining schoolboy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school.
And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress’ eyebrow.
Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honor, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon’s mouth.
And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lined,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part.
The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slippered pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side;
His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank, and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound.
Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.
William Shakespeare, 1564 - 1616
Oblivion? Or the flipside. It's your choice.
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| My avatar circa 23 years old. |
