A lovely gentleman from North Carolina named Keith reached out to me via Facebook messenger after reading my account about how I used Joshua P. Warren’s Wishing Machine last July 2020 to rid my cul de sac of the neighbors from the PIT OF HELL. Josh read my email on his podcast!

Keith wanted to ask me about all of the MANIFESTATION devices that I had saved up for and over time purchased from Josh’s Curiosity Shop.

I basically have been using the prayer board to give thanks and now and then to ask for blessings. I have NOT used it as directed. If you heard my excuse, you’d think I was nuts. Oh, hell you all think I’m nuts so here goes.

I placed the board and other items on a table in a room that had been my late aunt’s bedroom when I cared for her the last year of her life before having to be placed in an Alzheimer’s locked down unit. Trust me, she did some strange things in that room. I had the hospital bed and her dressers and effects removed and donated. Then I tried to set the room up as a meditation room while the master suite (OH dear we can’t use that word anymore – THE PRIMARY BEDROOM suite) was dedicated to taking care of the late Martin Clifton who suffered from several co-morbidities that would have done in him during the COVID 19 pandemic.

That room is now set up or was until Ryan and Little Man needed a place to stay as a mini shrine/temple and place to exercise – not that I used it because the cats confiscated the Feldenkrais massage table I was using to try to do yoga. BUT let’s get back to the Miraculous Prayer Board.

Keith wanted to know all about each item and how I used each and a host of other questions. He was super animated but, if you know me, I get in someone’s head invited or not and I had to stop him and made him do a visualization as I got a HUGE download of emotion. I’ve just texted him to see what happened after we hung up but he’s in a meeting.

So now, about the jet black 2017 Mustang GT muscle car my husband bought brand new. I hated it but he had fallen in love with Mustangs (not the ponies – I love those) after renting one on a business trip.

MINT condition. He kept it pristine – guy thing. My 2007 Ford F-150 has been trashed by dogs, trips to the dump, long trips to hospitals with someone vomiting in the front seat more often than not. But that car was gorgeous until – until Monday. Yup, the Board Certified Addiction Specialist who spent over 2 years detoxing serial killers and rapists and gang bangers and drug dealers got slammed into by a guy with an expired ID from

WAIT FOR IT

The address to the Las Vegas Correctional Center

AND he was driving so fast his air bag went off as his Honda Accord pushed the Mustang’s trunk up like a loaf of bread that’s been smashed at the bottom of a grocery bag. The Mustang then lurched forward and got pushed into a Lexus that sustained some damage as it lurched forward into an SUV on the corner of Rainbow and Flamingo in front of a law office with a host of witnesses!

BUT the fun part is the driver of the Hondo reached in and grabbed a backpack, yelled “FUCK YOU” at my husband who was screaming and took off. There was obvious signs of drug use on the front seat so I think the guy was on the way to do a drug deal. He came back as the police arrived about 40 minutes after the accident.

AH DEFUND THE POLICE – try calling Dispatch from out of the area

Press 1 if you’re suicidal!

Press 2 if you’re experiencing domestic violence

Press 3 if you want to murder the fiend from hell that invented automated phone systems – I actually shared a college office with the bitch in New Jersey back in 1979 that helped invent it so let me tell you BITCH is putting it mildly

I freaked out for a multitude of reasons – did he get a concussion, is the car totaled, how much do we owe on the lien, what is the book value of the vehicle, will the felon’s insurance company chisel on the value?

In a dead panic after seeing that the Kelly Book value was only about $5,000 more than then lien, I went into the room with bins of Alpaca and Llama and Merino fleece, and all the crystals and magical items and

POURED MY GUTS OUT to the Miraculous Prayer Board placing my fingers on it the way Josh depicts in his video and PLEADED with Sri Ganesha and Lord Kuber for at least enough money so my husband could get something to get himself to work at the clinic that just re-opened after getting evicted for helping the

HOMELESS

WTF is it with trying to help the homeless that seems to trigger a KARMIC APOCALYPSE?

I got up this morning thinking I needed to sell everything I had downsize when my husband called

MIND YOU I only used the Miraculous Prayer Board not long after chatting with Keith from North Carolina on Wednesday at 4:42 p.m. (that’s when we hung up) I think I used the board later that day.

Instead of getting crappy check for $5,000 or less, we got a wire transfer for $17,526.59!!!!!!!!!! and Ford got paid off.

Turns out my husband’s car was worth a lot more than the initial loan and the insurance appraiser, I think, gave us a very generous settlement.

So, does the board work? YES if you focus. REALLY focus. I’ve used it multiple times just not as often as I could.

Oh, you’re wondering why, right?

The room is FULL OF FAE – sometimes they want to be left alone so I set an intention and get out. With Brent’s permission, I need to write about how they chased him out of he room and down the hall back into the living room the day Brian, Brent, and David all tried on the Yei blanket. Oh that was fun. Brushing off unseen beings screaming like a tomb raider covered in spiders or worse with the three of us already spooked as it was watching him shaking them off.

BUT if I’m agitated enough or desperate enough or I’ve saged myself enough or have the time to go in and talk to the unseen to ask permission if I can sit down in MY OWN HOUSE mind you, then yes, it works.

KEITH? Does that clarify the barrage of verbage from Wednesday? And thankfully, now my husband wants to go back to driving a truck and a pre-owned one as we now know first hand NEVER BUY A NEW CAR!

Please comment. It’s okay if it’s not all complimentary. Constructive criticism is welcomed.

PS Travis, you and Keith might want to introduce yourselves. You might not live that far apart. Josh seems to be one of those connectors on a switchboard at the moment and I’m an operator. Feel free to use the comment section to give me permission to share your phone numbers or email.

PS Found a few typos after I hit Publish and I thought you needed photos.

My life took a wild detour off the beaten path last week when my friend “Ryan” was tasked with removing all of the weeds on a series of properties in Carlin, Nevada a good 34 miles from my house.

You really cannot live in Nevada or Texas or anywhere outside a city without a pick up truck, preferably one with a full size open truck bed because you need it to transport wood for a wood burning stove, pellets for a pellet stove, yard equipment, and you really need to take debris now and then to the dump. AH, the dump. I’ll write about garbage dumps someday and how the late Martin Alexander Clifton, V (1963-2018) almost killed me imitating a TV car dealership ad voice inviting folks to “COME ON DOWN” to the dump for lunch. At the base of the entrance to the dump in El Paso, Texas there was a roadside stall with tourist items and a food cart. I kid you not, they were selling burritos and tamales and the GODDESS knows what food at the DUMP!

The dump in Elko has some of the best fall foliage in the county. Yup. It does. But I digress YET again.

NOBODY wants to work. Ryan called everyone he knew to try to get someone to help with this job.

This video MIGHT give you an idea of why no one wanted to help PLUS everyone is collecting unemployment so why bother.

So, what is Scottish Thistle you ask?

But what you all might want to REALLY hear about is the ghost that Ryan heard taunting him the first day on the job. And how he met a local resident who told him in reply to “So has anything unusual ever happened around here” – Not really except for that weird kid laughing that no one ever sees!

I got to hear the ENTIRE account of how the day went when I brought Little Man and a change of clothes and toiletries to meet Ryan as he got out of the shower at the motel he had me book him into so he could get up early and be on the job site. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t usually meet guys – hell I have NEVER met a guy in a motel at an on-ramp to an interstate or any motel or hotel for that matter but it’s my job to help get this job done and that means getting food and ice to the site. And his dog. Ryan is never parted from his dog so I told him I’d bring him for a brief visit and then take him back with me. Best thing I ever did. Those two have a bond that is unlike anything I’ve ever seen.

You really should hear a ghost story sometime while sitting in a $75 a night hotel room with a dog and someone who can re-enact (photographic and videographic memory) blow by blow what happened. I’m the same way and it drives people crazy but Ryan has a real knack for it.

I’ll leave off here. I have to do more laundry for tomorrow.

Joshua P. Warren is famous for collecting haunted objects. He used to have an entire MUSEUM of haunted items.

Josh talks at length on his podcasts on I Heart Radio about “strange things”. His curiosity online shop has items that will blow your mind. Another site, I just found is:

I grew up with a mineral/crystal collection that I kept in an old book case with glass doors in my bedroom (where most girls would have had a dressing table). I used to have a rather large collection of dolls from around the world but I gave those away. I have been drawn to paintings or objects but never experienced anything like I did yesterday (July 11, 2021 in my own living room.

I had invited Ryan Stevens and Brent Churchfield to have a plate of homemade meatballs and pasta for a noon meal and to share stories about haunted Elko County. Brent really didn’t know any stories but Ryan did. After lunch I wanted Brent (who has been helping me clean fleece) to take a look at the Yei blanket Ryan sold me.

I wanted to test my working theory that it is a healing blanket so I had Ryan stand up and I wrapped it around him. He became emotional but he didn’t FEEL anything. We wrapped it around his dog, Little Man who just smiled.

I then had Brent stand up because he suffers, like I do, from kidney stones. He’s very tall. When you’re only 5’1″ anyone at 6 feet looks REALLY tall but he is REALLY tall so I had to lift the blanket up to drape it on him.

He didn’t scream. That would be an exaggeration. He didn’t scream GET IT OFF ME – but he yelled out that it was giving off TOO MUCH Heat and and I had to take it off him pretty much in less than 30 seconds.

I then draped it around myself. I felt like I was not getting a massage per se, but a penetrating sensation on my back. I had been suffering from one of those bouts of annoying stabbing on the right flank and the blanket at first gave a brief momentary relief. But only briefly when the stabbing intensified BUT it was the surge of kundalini that shocked me.

My hair was standing on end. My hair and scalp felt electrified. I took it off. Brent told me to be really careful with that. He didn’t hiss at it like a cat but he was spooked.

After they left, I draped it on again to see if I could treat the stone. I actually felt like I was wrapped in a warm and fuzzy baby blanket on a cold day with it snowing outside. MIND you, we here in Spring Creek, Nevada are having a heat wave and it was BRUTALLY hot out last night. And yet, I felt this lovely warmth and the sensation of sitting in the snow or that it was snowing. I did not get hot. It was ADDICTIVE. In my mind there was a kind of purr or humming.

Martha acquired the blanket well before 1984 but WHERE and HOW did a strict Lutheran who Ryan describes as a Calvinist, acquire this? IT sat in a cedar chest for years.

HOW is this possible? Brent admitted that he felt FINE after I got it off him and that it might have helped.

Has anyone ever heard of a Navajo ceremonial blanket STILL having healing energy imbued into after decades of being stored it OR

OR

OR

Are the Yei depicted on the blanket REAL YEI and not the loom weaver’s artist depiction of the yeI? Is this what the Tibetans call an empowered relic?

In June 2021, Yasmin Boland started talking about that dreaded topic of life changes – menopause, etc. Other than finding myself gaining weight each year and turning into the Venus of Willendorf’s body double, nothing horrible happened to me on a physical level or emotional level. But my life has had those OMG moments now for decades.

So let’s talk about Changing Woman. In April 2001, my husband drove us from El Paso, Texas up Interstate 25 and past Nageezi on US Highway 550 on the way to his parents’ house in Aztec, New Mexico. By the time we got near Dzil Na’oodilii (Huérfano Mesa), it was dark out. I was in the passenger seat staring out at the mesa/mountain and Harry was telling me about Navajo legends. I remarked that the mountain or butte was spinning and started blabbering on about spider woman spinning. He almost spun off the road. YOU see it? Yeah, its rotating clockwise.

Dzil Na’oodilii is translated as “Encircling Mountain” but I cannot find anything on the Internet, at least, that talks about the visual phenomenon of seeing the butte rotate while driving by it. We passed the butte on another trip during the day and it didn’t “move” but I swear I saw it spinning on that first trip.

Now for Yasmn’s replay of her Unity Radio program from Monday, June 28, 2021 where she talks about how she FINALLY sat down and started to read a book she got over 30 years ago called “Power of the Witch” currenlty published under a different cover.

Yasmin spent some time talking about matrilineal societies and matriarchal societies. Meanwhile, I need to back up to Sunday, May 16, 2021 when I drove into Elko and up Mountain City Highway towards Owyhee, to a house at the top of one of the steepest roads I’ve ever had to drive up, to a huge house with a stunning golf course lawn. The owner’s son had lost everything when COVID hit in Utah and he was forced to move into his parent’s basement. I’m not joking. He was living in the basement with his dog. Bian had listed a wall curio for $30 on Facebook and I had to have it. I’m trying to get all of my crystals into curios or into grids so off I went, with my dogs in the back seat of my 2007 Ford F150. Sasha had long since damaged the back seat so I had it removed. The dogs ride in pet beds with their toys.

Out comes Brian, and the sweetest dog I have ever met named Little Man. Little Man was the runt of the litter and was born on a reservation. The tribe named him Little Man. Because the ATM will only spit out $20 bills, and because I never carry cash, Brian says, no problem, opens the door, in hops Little Man and in hops Brian. Just take us to the Maverick gas station. So down the hill we went, past Home Depot, past Walmart, and into the Maverick station where he bought junk food while Little Man sat patiently at the door. MY DOGS were going wild. They had never been in the truck with another dog and they didn’t know Brian from a ground squirrel on the ranch at the bottom of the mesa. Brian gets back in, hands me $10 and off we go back to the edge of Elko, past a new housing development and up the hill from Hell.

BUT on the way, I learned that Brian cuts grass and weeds and PRUNES – not trims – professionally prunes trees. SO with a handshake – ick – COVID – no contact ICK – I hired him. He can’t drive, so on May 20, we all piled back into the truck and drove down the Lamoille Highway, climbed up the summit, at which point the highway drops about 500 feet with a bit of a curve down towards the Humboldt River. We crossed the bridge that crosses the Humboldt and railroad tracks, drove through town, back out to the very edge of town and then climbed that hill. There was Little Man and Brian with equipment. Little Man got in the truck, the dogs went wild. Brian got in and home we came.

About 90 minutes with Little Man in the front yard and my dogs in the back, they couldn’t stand it any longer and they had to play. Plus, Little Man wanted to come inside to explore. And that’s how Little Man became a regular play date. He now eats at the table with everyone else, sleeps in the flower bed or under a tree, and has learned that at my house we have SNACKS – peanut butter on saltines, marrow bone puppy biscuits, yummy sandwiches, etc.

So, you’re thinking, WHO THE BLANK cares. What on EARTH has this got to do with Changing Woman or anything of importance AT ALL? Well, Brian poured out his heart about how he only had ONE item gifted to him from his grandmother when he was 16 years old back in 1984. ONE thing of value and he wanted to sell it to buy a cheap car to get himself back to Utah to take a job he was offered now that COVID has let up.

And WHAT, you ask, was the item?

Brian insists it’s a rug. I insist it’s a handspun Navajo BLANKET. My husband insists it’s a SUPER rare ceremonial blanket there was NEVER supposed to leave the possession of a Navajo (Dineh) medicine man’s possession. Ah, can’t make out the details? It’s large. I didn’t stretch it but it’s roughly 63 inches wide and 34 inches deep and very thin and very light weight.

At first Brian just shared some very poor resolution photos taken on his $40 phone in hopes that I could help him confirm that it was authentic and not a Mexican fake. At first Brian had convinced himself that his grandmother had worked as a teacher on a Navajo Reservation when she was very young. After much grilling and trying to get him to focus, he asked his mother and learned that, no, his grandmother, the late Martha Smith (1911-1988) had NEVER taught outside of Wisconsin. That killed his story that the students had given it to her in the 1930s. We had no idea when or how a uber devout “NO PAGAN stuff allowed in MY HOME” Christian acquired this item but she had kept it in a cedar chest with mothballs and for some reason gave it to her grandson. He had no interest in it and kept it in a suitcase from that point on.

UNTIL on June 18, when I picked him up to cut the grass, he handed me the suitcase and a case of other items to “appraise”. I freaked out because in what little research I had done, I was pretty sure, as was Brian, that the item was worth at least $1,800.

I was too queasy to open it until a week later I figured I had to. I didn’t tell my husband about it because he grew up in Aztec and his father had served in Guam and the Pacific with the Navajo Code Talkers. The late Eluid Timothy Duran was CLOSE friends with medicine men, and he used to take my husband onto the reservation to visit families in hogans. Mr. T had been the head of the county social security office so he was very well known. Families that could not afford to pay him to help them get disability (once he retired he opened up an office of his own), would pay in livestock or RUGS. Alas, most of the rugs “disappeared” into the family. I knew Harry would be able to authenticate it and I was afraid he’d want to buy it.

NOW for the creepy part. After many years of sneering at my interest in the paranormal, my husband FINALLY watched a Linda Moulton Howe podcast and listened to one of Joshua P. Warren’s radio podcasts. One of the suggested videos was Mirage Men. That triggered a flood of memories from 1975 that I will omit. However, in one of the long TWO hour long, TWO and a HALF hour long, LONG phone calls, Harry said, and I quote, WHY am I seeing a CLOTH – YOU SAID CLOTH – “No, I didn’t” YES you said CLOTH – these medicine men are showing me a CLOTH that you have and they are telling me to lie face down on it.

I did not soil myself. How that didn’t happen, I do not know but I felt that the YEI in the blanket were ratting me out. So I shared the photos. He freaked out. We are in the process of saving the money to pay Brian for it. I already drew up a Bill of Sale!

And NOW, to bring you back to Changing Woman and Yasmin’s videos about MATRIARCHAL societies!

The above screen shot is from the Nizhoni Ranch Gallery website. One of many that I poured over trying to find anything comparable. The Yei became a popular “motif” but not all YEI blankets and rugs are the same. In 1974 in the Bandelier National Monument gift shop I bought a Dover Publications paperback originally published in 1914 and then republished with some color plates.

The first time the word “yei” is used is on page 76 when G.W. James introduces The Night Chant, A Navaho Ceremony. By Washington Matthews – May, 1902

cited in this very informative piece.

Archive.org, is an amazing resource. I learned about it at a workshop when it first launched. I’m THAT old. Not wanting to rekey the pages 139-141, I searched for a PDF and found this fantastic version of the original! You can download it as well and use Adobe Acrobat Professional to convert it to text if you ever want to extract a quote.

PAGE 139 “In the Hopi and Zuni pantheons there are certain divinities of greater or lesser power and importance, called Kachinas. These are often represented upon the baskets of the Hopi, as in Fig. 199, and these are called Kachina baskets. Corresponding  somewhat to these Pueblo divinities are the Navaho Yei, representations of which are common in the sand-paintings. To reproduce these, however, in any unauthorized or secular fashion has always been  deemed impossible by the reverent and devout Navaho.  Even to see a photograph of a sand-painting, if it contained a representation of the Yei, gave a shock to most Navahos, and while the medicine-men chanters never resented Dr. Matthews’s making pictures of the paintings, and, indeed, as he says, often came to ask to look at them  when instructing younger  members as their assistants, this may be regarded as the familiarity of the professional rather than the normal attitude of the ordinary lay member of the tribe.

Keep in mind the above excerpt was written in 1914.

Page 139 “With these thoughts in view it can well be understood with  what shocked surprise, thrilled horror, and fierce condemnation the  Navahos learned that a blanket, clearly of Navaho origin, was on exhibition at a certain trader’s store into which was  woven as the design the figure of one of the yei”. (Story goes on to tell the tale of how the trader refused to give up the rug and was almost shot).

Page 140
“For a long time it  was not known who the weaver of this blanket was, but it eventually became known. She is one of the inventive geniuses in design, whose taste invariably goes to figures. Horses, sheep, cattle, men,  women, etc., she loves to picture as she weaves, and her skill in manipulating the yarn is as great as her designing ability. She it  was who, having lost the superstitious fear that oppresses most Navahos, men or women, as to the evil power of the Yei, determined to make the blanket, incorporating their sacred figures as her design. The blanket  was seen by a collector and sold to him for several hundred dollars.  For some time the weaver refused to make another, but finally produced one of others of the gods, and later still another. There are only  some six or seven of these Yei blankets  known to exist. Two of them are now in the possession of  Mr. Richard T. F. Simpson, Indian trader at  Canyon Gallegos, near Farmington, New Mexico, one of which is reproduced in Fig. 200, and another is  owned by  Mr. William MacGinnies, of Boulder, Colorado.

Having probably read this passage while studying anthropology and yes, I took a college level course on textiles which never paid off until now, I hope, I freaked out when I saw the ALL WHITE yei with brown and black or brown and red skirts and green necklaces. Plus, Brian’s grandmother’s blanket has two rainbow yei. (Shown below are the “regular” yei.)

BUT BUT BUT WHO cares? What’s this got to do with Changing Woman and that moving mountain?

Believe it or not the easiest to read explanation I can find to explain the yei is from this 1993 edition of the Sacred Hoop. Or you might want to read Click to access DineCreation329.pdf

I want to start with this introduction because I think Yasmin Boland will want to use it in one of her Unity Radio shows or in a lesson for her Sun, Moon, and Stars subscribers:

“The Diné see the universe as made up of myriad interrelated living elements, from ants to mountains, and hot winds to hail and thunderstorms. In their cosmology, all beings have a natural place in creation, and when beings are in harmony and balance, the universe is in a place of hozho (beauty) – this is a Diné term for harmony and has nothing to do with attractiveness”. Joshua P. Warren openly admits that he believes that everything is animated even inanimated objects. Sentience is complicated but those of us with large crystal collections KNOW they are sentience so why not a table or a chair – they all can become haunted, right?

“THE HOLY PEOPLE

To the Diné the universe is alive, and each aspect of it has spirit power and a soul. Then, in addition to these, there are the larger ancestral spirit beings, the cultural gods and goddesses. These include Changing Woman (Asdzáá Nádleehé), who is deeply connected to their sacred traditions, and is the Diné’s most beloved spirit being. Changing Woman has twin children, Monster Slayer (Naaytt’ Neizghlini) and Born for Water (Tóbájíshchíní). Their father is the Sun, and the four of them form a holy family that is encountered in many Diné stories and ceremonies.

There are also many other spirit beings in Diné cosmology, collectively called yei. These include beings with such names as ‘Growling God,’ ‘Black God,’ and ‘Water Sprinkler.’ Each of the yei has a specific place in Diné ceremonial cosmology, and during ceremonies they are sometimes portrayed by masked dancers.

These ‘Holy People’ do not necessarily care about humans or wish them well, mostly they are considered to be indifferent.”.

AND YET the “YEI” are invited to to “merge” with or assist in healing ceremonies. And my husband IS a physician and I am, well, able to do energy healing so DID they seek US out because I hardly ever go anywhere and it’s not like there’s anything to do in Elko County anyway. I missed the Art in the Park festival – too hot. I went once to the Lamoille Festival and vowed not to bother in the future. We do have three museums but I haven’t visited them in a long time. So imagine having a suitcase handed to you with a YEI blanket and then this happened only a week later!

My husband was told that the clinic where he works was closed on Thursday, July 1st. He assumed one of the social workers who owns the clinic was sick. Friday he found out NO; they had been EVICTED – – without notice – – because the homeless, who make up many of their patients, had been hanging around the parking lot and the other commercial tenants were fed up. NO letter. No process server. Just GET OUT. They are consulting their attorney.

And get out they did. Everyone was packing up office furniture and supplies and files and the donated items – mostly clothes and shoes. My husband wandered into the back room and ON THE FLOOR he found this! He said not a word. Picked it up and walked straight out the front door to his car and put it in the trunk.

Do you all know what this is? Yes, a painting on what appears to be copper then mounted on several layers. But what is the painting of?

A KACHINA! – Another supernatural entity that most of you have seen in the form of a doll but they also are depicted in paintings. My next task is to contact art galleries and see if anyone recognizes the signature.

The Brooklyn Museum has 287 kachinas that you can view online. I’ve searched multiple databases and cannot find a kachina with this coloring much less a turtle next to it. It appears to also have an eagle’s claw and arm with a dream catcher. But if you’re interested in kachinas, this is a great place to start:

So, to summarize, I believe that I “saw” Changing Woman spinning (by the way I am learning now to card fleece and spin it using a kick spindle). Spider Woman weaves intricate webs so maybe the two wove this tale?

But I find it VERY odd indeed, that after 30 years Yasmin Boland finally got around to reading her book.

Did anyone else pick up on the fact that Changing Woman’s story sounds a LOT like the Wicca’s Goddess’s Wheel of the Year, mmmm??????

Please leave lots of comments. If you recognize the artist who made the kachina, PLEASE contact me. If you are an expert in Navajo blankets, please contact me. If these yei speak to you, PLEASE contact me!

UPDATE: March 14, 2024

Brian’s dog was attacked by pit bulls on Last Chance Road in a junk yard on July 8, 2021. He called me and I raced the dog to the Elko Vet. The bill was $2,100 the price Brian wanted for the blanket and a basket.

When Brian took off, I renamed his dog Mr. Littell. This is how he looked in November 2022.

And this is Mr. Littell staring in one of his YouTube shorts. He’s quite a sensation.

This evening while telling my friend Tom i had met his cousin and she knows a Navajo who might be able to tell me more about the blanket, he said “Send me photos. I have a friend who actually weaves those blankets”. There is no such thing as a coincidence and NOTHING EVER happens unless it’s part of the script written for us.

TO BE CONTINUED:

In the last blog on the Siddhars, I talked about Sri Hanuman. Hanuman-ji is beloved in India and in many parts of the world as well. I wish to thank Jim R. McClanahan for recommending Hanuman’s Tale: The Message of a Divine Monkey by Philip Lutgendorf. I managed to find a used copy on Amazon from Goodwill of all places and am now marking it up with colored Post it flags. Jim’s blog on the Journey to the West contains some of the most outstanding research I’ve ever seen but I did not know he had done a blog on primates!

Fascinating material but I digress a bit. Lutgendorf writes on page 45:

“The extraordinary beings who come to the aid of the human hero of the Rámáyaṇa beginning in its fourth subbook, Kiṣkindhākānda, are described with the usual Sanskrit terms for ‘monkey.’”

The next few sentences are the standard academese describing monkeys but then comes the wording I had hoped to find in the book and why I bought it.

“Yet the forest beings of Valmiki’s poem clearly are not ordinary simians: rather, they have certain of the supernatural powers (immense strength and ability to change their shape at will) and characteristic flaws (unbridled sexuality and unacceptable intersibling rivalry) of Rama’s demonic adversaries. But whereas Valmiki’s rakshasas (rākṣasa) have identifiable precursors in the Vedic literature of the preceding millennium, his vanaras apparently do not. Did the poet, then, ‘‘invent’’ them?

IMMENSE STRENGTH and the
ABILTY TO CHANGE THEIR SHAPE AT WILL!

Were the vanaras similar to the Siddhars but not as advanced in that they did not possess the entire array of siddhis?

And if you are not familiar with the Rámáyaṇa nor the Puranas nor any of the many stories/tales or ACCOUNTS (if you believe these events are historical and not fictional), then one must look at the asuras – a race of beings who are usually simply described as demons. They are far more complicated than the demons in Jewish, Islamic, and Christian literature (notice I avoid the word mythology because there are too many accounts of demons in each tradition to be lumped into the fiction section- plus I saw an entity standing next to my late mother’s roommate as that lady lay dying). Each asura was famous or infamous for having mastered a supernatural skill or set of skills.

The late physicist, M.A.Padmanabha Rao, PhD (AIIMS) born 19th Sept 1937, at Vemuluru, Kovvuru Mandalam, West Godavary District, Andhra Pradesh and who died in New Deli on 12 June 2020 according to a post on his Facebook page by his son was a huge proponent of the veracity of the Rámáyaṇa as an historical telling of real events and not an epic poem filled with fantastic tales.

Dr. Rao was a former Professor of Medical Physics (2001) at the Himalayan Institute of Medical Sciences, Swamy Rama Nagar, Uttaranchal. India, a former Deputy Director, Defense Laboratory, Jodhpur, Rajasthan ,India (1983-1997), and a former Lecturer in Medical Physics, Department of Nuclear Medicine, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, (1964-1983). I trust his academic curriculum vita work experience puts him in the category of a SCIENTIST.

Physics aside, Dr. Rao was obsessed with drawing deities who he swore to his death visited him and sat for portraits. He also had the ability to see dead souls and the ability to pray specific mantras for them to pass over when and if they approached him for help. I kid you not!

We used to chat back and forth for several years on Facebook and we even emailed one another.

In case you’re now thinking I have veered off the road and am never going to talk about Sri Hanuman, you just wait. I recently learned that Mercury was in Gemini on the day I was born along with Gemini as my Rising and Gemini Sun sign! I promise, I will tie this together and you will be pleasantly surprised!

On December 7, 2018, Dr. Rao uploaded a YouTube video with this description:

Rare Sanskrit Slokas in praise of Hanumanji, a prominent Vanara leader of Ramayana period. Firstly, Slokas are on Hanuman ji then on Rama, the king of Kosala kingdom with Ayodhya as Capital, thousands of years ago. On request of Sita in captivity in ancient Sri Lanka, Hanumanji describes the abilities and nobilities of Rama. While reciting complex Sanskrit Slokas Hanumanji displays his supreme knowledge on mine Sanskrit grammars as Nava vyakarana Pandita. These Slokas are from Sundara Kanda in Valmiki Ramayana. At the end, you can also Mangalaharathi of Rama and his associates, on Venkateswara Swamy, Hanuman ji and Gurus. Sang by Dr.M.A.Padmanabha Rao, PhD (AIIMS) and Leela Devi Manchiraju (Damaraju)

The image on his computer or IPAD screen is of one of his portraits of none other than Sri HANUMAN who, Dr. Rao INSISTED appeared in his room or house, on a regular basis and who taught him this very rare sloka. Dr. Rao also wrote a paper claiming that his research showed that the blocks of stone between Rameswaram Island, off the south-eastern coast of Tamil Nadu, India, and Mannar Island, off the north-western coast of Sri Lanka were indeed the stones used to build the bridge used by Sri Rama and his army as documented in the Rámáyaṇa. I did not keep the paper he sent; as it was not as well written as I had hoped, but, I remember he calculated that the bridge was built around 200,000 to 164,000 years ago. I don’t speak Hinid but you can hear him in this interview.

In this post, Dr. Rao includes one of his portraits of Sri Ram himself. His writing is a bit awkward and Dr. Rao was VERY VERY passionate about injustice but take note of the last few words:

I wish the poor man had taken art lessons but he insisted in texts to me that the deities actually approved of his sketches.

DRAWN WITH MANTRA SIDDHI – and that’s the key. Dr. Rao chanted every day for hours on end ever since he was very small. He posted on Facebook about how, as a child, he had met this saint or that, or had spent time with this Brahmin or that. He wrote about (to be honest he kinda bragged) how he had lead this INCREDIBLE life of devotion, although, I must add, he was very bitter about never getting the awards in physics nor the international recognition for his discoveries that he had hoped to received before he passed on.

Dr. Rao never mentioned being able to heal anyone using a siddha power but he most definitely claimed he could “see” and “talk to” deities and dead souls. He also truly wanted to help people. He asked me specifically to test out his sloka to see if it improved my life. Not sure I can say that it did but it is hard to say. I can say that I am now more than just academically interested in Sri Hanuman.

TO BE CONTINUED