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A Handbook for Unicorns: Preface and Acknowledgements

This is the page that would ordinarily be reserved for a statement of copyright. After much thought, I have decided against such a statement. It seems to me that the whole idea that an author has a right to his or her written material is limiting to the human mind.

Perhaps after you have read this book, you will understand how this is.
Please use this book or any of its contents in any way you see fit. I only ask that when you do so, you do it from above your ego. Love donations are accepted, but unnecessary.

Jim Andrisse,
4951 Laclede #IE
St. Louis MO 63108
October 28, 1983

Preface and Acknowledgements

To begin with, I hope I am humble enough to realize that what is presented within these pages could well be clouded by the pretentiousness of my ego. This is the situation in which nearly all human beings find themselves, but humbleness is especially important when dealing with complex and fundamental moral and theological issues. In fact, the mark of spiritual maturity may well be the ability to combine intense devotion to a certain metaphysical viewpoint with compassionate appreciation of the truth embodied in alien theological frameworks.

I feel called to say a few things about the process by which I produced A Handbook for Unicorns and the people who made this book possible. The simplest thing I could say about the process is that these opinions were arrived at both through intuition and reasoning. However, so little is known or recognized about the process of intuition in the West, that I would like to elaborate. And since so little knowledge of a general nature about this process is available, I must necessarily talk about how it was that I came to be able to access my own intuition. In the course of describing the history of my spiritual development, I shall mention the people who, it seems to me, have more or less contributed to this Handbook.

I have come all the way from embracing Western Rationalism as my fundamental ethics and theology, to espousing a metaphysical holism that sees Western Rationalism as a limiting end point of our knowing capacities. How, then, did this transition occur?

It occurs to me that there was a necessary foundation laid for my intuitive knowledge in my childhood. My mother's side of the family believed heavily in such things as tokens (signs of things to come), fortune telling, prayer, and miracles. I was also read to from the Bible by both my parents. Even though my totally secular public school and college education had presented a rational case for the nonexistence of spiritual phenomena, I retained a somewhat closeted connectedness to things occult. For instance, I had maintained an interest in card reading all through my graduate education, which I occasionally did to the horror of my academic friends.

In 1973 I took a lover who was more a creature of intuition than reason. As it turns out, he was to introduce me to many new directions. One day, early in our relationship, he was analyzing my ways through the instrumentality of astrology. I, in turn, was plying my logical trade by exhibiting a totally negative scepticism toward astrological thinking. He said to me simply, "You call yourself open-minded, but, in fact, you are not. Have you ever actually studied astrology in any detail?" I had to admit that I hadn't. And because I was in love with David, I took this as a challenge. Eventually, I became quite good at astrological analysis, and began to recognize that some form of truth was embodied in its principles. David also was into Transactional Analysis. We both entered therapy with Jim McKenna and through this I became exposed to the powerful ideas of Eric Berne and Fritz Perls.

About this time, I also met a young man named Jim Burgess who told me about the Metropolitan Community Church. Again, I espoused my usual rational scepticism of the validity of religious thought. Just as David had done, Jim said to me, "Why don't you just go there and experience it?" So this curious Sagittarius went and sat in the back of this strange church. The Pastor was Carol Cureton, and she was filled with inspiriation and enthusiasm. When communion was served, I experienced a strange longing to participate in the ritual. However, thirty years of conditioning, plus the ego investment involved, prevented me from doing so.

At my next therapy session with McKenna, I told him of my longing. Fortunately, he was open to exploring these particular subcomponents of my self, and I had a dialog with God right there in therapy. As a result, I did go back to church the next Sunday, and I took communion. At that time I experienced the Holy Light of God and felt a total protectedness which lasted for months. Thus did I open up, as a mustard seed sprouts, to the process of communion with God.

A few years later, after attending church off and on, God spoke to me a second time. Early in 1979 my grandmother, who had always wanted me to get baptized, had become critically ill, but I had no rational knowledge of this. As I was driving home, I became certain that there was a message about her impending death waiting on my answering machine. And thus it was. To make a long story short, while flying home, I became convinced that my grandmother would not die until I had been baptized. It was just a feeling.

While at home, I was told that X-rays revealed that my grandmother's heart was too enlarged to functon more than a few days. In the midst of her suffering, I prayed to God for her to be healed or taken. Waves of healing energy burst from my hands and entered her body. A week later, the X-rays revealed a normal heart. But this incident confirmed in my mind a belief that I needed to be baptized. Thus did the order of miracles bring me Easter Sunday morning in 1979 to be baptized by Rev. Roy Birchard.

As early as 1975, my friend Byron Davidson began introducing me to New Age literature. The first book I read was Thompson's Passages about Earth, followed in about a year with Roszak's Unfinished Animal. These books opened me up to the growing field of transformational metaphysics, in which I have read insatiably in the intervening years. Pearce's Crack in the Cosmic Egg completed a trio of books which I studied intensely. I must add that Byron acted as my patient guide during these years of exploration. This foundation being laid, the single other book which was most influential in breaking the hold of Newton and Descartes on my mind was Bentov's Stalking the Wild Pendulum.

Late in 1979 I happened to enter the School of Metaphysics at Edwardsville, Illinois. Its founder, Jerry Rothermel, had collected a broad spectrum of esoteric books for the School's reading list. These readings included theosopy, prosperity metaphysics, visualization, and metaphysical dream analysis. Through the School I also met Jean Walters, whose astoundingly accurate health readings completely opened my mind to the possibility of ESP.

The director of the School at Edwardsville was John Ellsworth, and he was destined to change my life in a number of important ways. To begin with, he took my best friend, then Rosanda Richards, and married her! And as synchronicity would have it, I drew him as my teacher in the School. Through the School, John had become aware of the teachings of Paramahansa Yogananda which were available as a series of lessons from the Self-Realization Fellowship. John organized a meditation group in Edwardsville, which I still attend. More than anything else, it has been the guidance of Paramahansaji which has opened my spiritual eye the tiny crack that it has. John also sold me the very finest toy, tool, and toil my rational-logical intelligence has had the pleasure to kriow, my Apple II computer.

About the same time, I was corresponding with Paul Beyerl in Minneapolis. He was responsible for disseminating a neo-pagan newsletter, called The Rowan Tree. From this letter derives my first sensitivity to the unicorn as earth manifestation. Paul was to introduce me to many new ideas and some important books, such as Haich's Initiation.

In 1981 I contracted hepatitis, yet this time of illness brought me ever closer to God. It seemed as though the sicker I got, the more at peace with my death I became. I might add, that having contacted some memories of past lives over the years, death was less a threat than it otherwise would have been. One wonderful consequence of my serious illness was my discovery that there were many people who truly cared about me. I was essentially healed of lonliness by this experience. In addition, the illness allowed me to finish some reading, of which Zukav's The Dancing Wu-Li Masters is notable.

Early in 1982, I received a second baptism at the hands of Dixie Ruliffson of Christ Fellowship of Love and joined the Church. My friend Wayne Huber also introduced me to a weekly Course in Miracles group.

As my health continued to improve, all my latent powers seemed to come out. I took a trip around the country in the summer of 1982, and dowsed many important books which are scarcely readily available through standard academic channels, e.g. Macintyre's Mind in the Waters and Hitching's Dowsing. During this time, God and the Spirit of the Earth spoke to me in magic songs, the lyrics of some of which are printed in A Handbook for Unicorns.

In the fall of 1982 my book dowsing abilities received what to my mind was a convincing test. I had attended the first session of a workshop by Fred Wolf and learned from him of Targ and Puthoff's book Mind Reach. I tried for two days using my rational mind to find this book in St. Louis to no avail. In the middle of the week it occured to me that I could find the book by intuition and set my mind to that. The next day, clear as a recording, a disembodied voice said to me, "Call B. Dalton books at St. Clair Square." Within an hour I had my book and a verification of my own ESP.

In 1983 I wrote a paper for the American Humanistic Education Conference which pulled all these threads together and made me realize that I had in fact adopted a transformational metaphysical position. Byron kept saying, "Well, your training is over, now it's time to act."

In the Winter and Spring of 1983, I went through a final process of catharsis and healing which was too complex to detail here. I do, however, wish to thank these people, all of whom were involved: Shelia Dugan, Leatha Hill, Merrill Harmin, my brother (Tom Andris), Father O'Laughlin, Dixie Ruliffson, Ed Hrebec, Geoff Beal, and last but not least, Dr. Joe Unger, who helped me to unblock my fourth body.

The summer of this year saw me attending the Second Annual Midwest Men's Festival. Just the experience of this much trust and love between men was transforming. But I was to attend a workshop by Peter Demers. In some magic way, he finished, through his words and presence, connecting me to my rainbow
body. I had started the process some years before by studing Ken Keyes' Handbook to Higher Consciousness and Leadbeater's The Chakras.

The stage was set for A Handbook for Unicorns to emerge. But a final healing was still required. I took my parents on a trip to Michigan. We had not vacationed together in twenty years. Yet we each had a wonderful, peaceful time. Months before, I had picked up the marvelous little Unicorn Notebook, which was illustrated by Michael Green, at a bookstore without really knowing what I would use it for. I also had developed an unexplained interest in calligraphy, unusual for one with such an illegible script.

In the total peace of a new rebirth in the Upper Michigan Peninsula, harmonized with the souls who had born mine onto this planet, I began, day by day, to write in the Unicorn Notebook in beautiful italic hand. In the beginning, I wasn't sure what was supposed to come. Yet each day, the words seemed to flow ever more naturally. Yes, it is true, what you will read in the following pages is set down just as it came to me, without planning, without foreknowledge.

Having written this account of the opening of my intuition, I see that an important factor has been left out. My attachment to my own carnality has indeed blinded me over the years. I have especially, but not exclusively, suffered through the pleasures and pains of sexuai bondings. I have not recounted these experiences because of their privileged, personal character. However, I can safely say that these special relationships were an instrument towards my "New Age baptism" as discussed later in these pages. I could not see as I do today, had I not experienced these bondings. They were essential to my transformation, and I thank God for the souls who brought these adventures to me.

I see now, in retrospect (and with a little prodding from Byron and Ruth Hanna) that the first three sections of the book are evolutions in my awareness. In the first section I am setting down all the facts I had gleaned about unicorns. In Section II, my rational mind is able to pull together the strings and offer a clear account of a new (for me) metaphysics. Since I have never before written in mytho-poetic style, Section III seems obviously to me to be a channeling. In fact, there were many times when I was very aware during the writing of this section that my hands, indeed my whole body, were channels for these ideas. It is in Section III that I am most clearly guided by and able to harmonize with Michael Green's vision.

Finally, I thank Ruth Hanna and Byron Davidson for reading and commenting on the manuscript, and in addition, thank Ruth for suggesting this preface. I thank the New Age Community in St. Louis, confident that the people in it will know how they have helped this Handbook to manifest. And though I have not mentioned all my loved ones, they, too, know who they are, and know how much I appreciate them. In addition to those people already acknowledged in this preface, I am especially indebted to the continuing loving support of my family, Pat Artrip, Gil Fisher, Tom Dewey, and Merrill Proudfoot.

Jim Andris
October 26, 1983