ROBERT JOHNSON:
2/4/99
Balancing Heaven and Earth:
Paul's Dream - Cosmic forces initiating the artist -
Time and place: 2:00am, February 1990, in my meditation room
I'm in a room with lots of flowers and plants around and a large bed and I'm sitting at a wood table.
I am listening to two spirits talk. I say to myself 'This is going to be a valuable dream because
I am fully conscious at this moment in time.' The two spirits are discussing what to do with me
and I realize that one is an older spirit, feminine, giving a younger spirit directions. I am thinking
'I can hear spirits now.' Then the younger spirit manifests as a fully-naked woman with long,
red hair. She reminds me of the woman in Bottecelli's Birth of Venus. She beckons me to come
to bed and make love to her. So I follow her to bed and I'm feeling how wonderful it is to make
love to this beautiful woman spirit. As I start to make love to her, I witness a radical transformation:
for she becomes Little Red Riding Hood. I' m astonished as I look into the eyes of this beautiful
young girl. And then she changes into the Big Bad Wolf. And the scene changes. I'm sitting in
a Japanese temple with transparent walls. I am sitting at a bar drinking pure water and looking
through glasses in four directions. I can see for miles and miles and miles crystal clear. Almost
like a vision. And I begin to cry and cry because everything in this nature scene is profoundly
beautiful. I hear thunder in the sky and all of a sudden I am lifted up and placed down on the earth
like a big "X." I look into the sky as it opens into heaven. A hand comes down and lifts me up up
into the open heavens and I hear tremendous thunder Suddenly, I turn from the heavens and I
look down and see the earth below. As I am taken down closer to earth, I can see that the earth is
made up of a sea of red and blue hands. And as I start to go under this sea of hands, I enter the
matrix where everything in the universe is connected. And finally I pass into the realm of the
unsayable. I remember everything so clearly but I have no words to share the rest of the dream.
Dream Interpretation:
Some thoughts: a dream of this magnitude is 'public domain' and belongs to all of mankind.
It touches me profoundly just to hear it and I take the liberty of 'borrowing' it from you.
The alchemists said that one could take a chip from the philosophers stone, watch it grow full size,
without the original stone being diminished in any way. So I (and many others as well) 'chip' your
stone to their great benefit.
I think the dream is a rapid evolution laid out before you - out of time but begging to be brought into time.
I am glad you are an artist for that is virtually the only language that can cope with this process.
The process goes DOWNWARD and into some startling dimensions. It seems that God is no longer
'up' but is now 'down.' This is such a shock to a people and language and tradition that has always
looked for God in an 'up' dimension. Few people comprehend this and one is lonely for company or
support in this new direction.
Can you take it as an evolution that your beloved goes from gorgeous woman to girl or wolf? That is
required to take us back* to roots and instinct and the origin of things.
You are safe and capable of taking the often-incinerating splendor of God.
* It is reassuring to know that the word REPENT (as in the Scripture, Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven
is at hand) means to WALK BACKWARD, that is, to return to ones roots. The word means to be sorry for
or guilty to most people but its original meaning was to return. The Greek is METANOIA, to turn around.
This requires the ultimate of courage for a modern person of our culture.
ROBERT JOHNSON:
6/1/02
Paul's Dream - Left-hand path
Time and place: 3:00am, May 2002, island of Mallorca
I am standing on the world looking across a body of water and seeing millions of people on the
other side of the body of water. My consciousness moves way high in the sky and I can see over the
horizon. All the people are headed to the right. From the heavens I see a huge dark cloud in the
direction they are headed. As I put my hands on my heart, I'm thrown back into my body on earth.
There is a woman with long strawberry blonde hair. I put my hands on my heart and run to the left.
The long-haired woman falls very close behind and never leaves throughout the dream. I see a few
other people running to the left with their hands on their heart also. A huge wave is coming towards
us carrying a message that carries society's message, "Don't go in this direction! Go around and
turn back with the others!" We hold our hands on our hearts as we run into the wave and as it passes,
some of the people don't make it through. I notice other people are there with their hands on their
hearts, and they are also running to the left with us. Another gigantic and menacing wave comes
toward us carrying another message from society saying, "Stop! Turn around! Don't continue this
way!" And we hold our hands over our hearts as the we pass through the wave. It's almost magical
as the wave feels transparent. This goes on seven times. And as the seventh wave approaches,
I notice that I am also in a very large house going through all the rooms. And as the wave approaches
and passes, I am on a spiral staircase that leads up to heaven. With my hands on my heart, as I look up,
I see the room transform into heaven. And as I am about to enter the sky, I realize that I am to give up all
my power. And I look down at the long-haired woman. I tell her, "This is as far as I can go; take the rest
of the people and enter heaven." As I surrender my power and die, I awaken outdoors holding a small,
green vase over my heart. In this vase is a spoon. I know it is filled with a nectar that sustains life.
I first feed the long-haired woman. There is an elderly man sitting on a chair alongside an elderly
woman with white, long hair sitting on a rocking chair. I give them both the nectar as well. And we
are telling stories about existence and the trials and tribulations through life. We are laughing.
Then I awaken from the dream.
Dream interpretation:
A magnificent dream! There are legends from many places and times in history that there is
a "Hermetic circle"of people, a very few, drawn from all levels of society, all ages, who, though their
number is few, hold the safety of mankind in their hands. These are the conscious few who are the
hope of mankind. Your dream is of this nature.
If I hear the dream correctly, it is saying that the vast multitude of people is going to the right
(the 'doing' extroverted side of life) and going into dark storm clouds. Certainly our society is
caught up in a mad rush in that direction. But a few are going to the left (the introverted, in-turned
side of life). This is difficult and they are assailed by great waves of collective opinion which keep
trying to turn those few people back into collectively 'right' behavior. The waves are dangerous
and kill some of the brave souls who defy public opinion. But you, with your feminine companion,
are safe. Just at the last moment of the left-hand journey, it is required that the masculine side of
you give up your ego identity - which at first looks like total defeat. But the defeat turns into a spiral
into heaven and you end up giving the nectar of immortality to the few people who can hear you.
The details of the dream say many more things but this is the main course of the dream.
It is indeed a magnificent confirmation of your life.
Your book is a confirmation of your dream and immensely valuable. You have a rare art
of making the inner world comprehensible, of bringing the archetypal world into assimilable form.
This is the task of the Hermetic Character.
Something for the jacket of your book? Please draw some of this together and make a short
presentation of it and I will sign it - with appreciation.
My profound respect, Robert
