November 3, 1998
Test #4—Past: Third perspective
I am going to attempt a similar recreation of an experiment conducted 5 years ago by Adriaan Pecora. He was able to project not just his mind but his physical body into the past. Based on his tests, immense pain must be inflicted to launch the spell into action. The farthest he traveled was 4 years into the past, watching events fold over for 2 hours, returning to the present 3 minutes later.
Pecora was able to develop a formula that combatted the missing-limb effect, and all of his trips were successful. Until he vanished in 1994, most theorized that he went on a trip to the future or past and never returned. I will be using the exact method of his most successful trip that Pecora called The Quantum Chrono-Circuitry Rite:
Materials:
A specially crafted Chrono-Circuitry Matrix (Aetherite crystals, Temporalium, Quantum harmonize)
Temporal anchors
Chrono-Inscripted robes
Essence of Chronal Aether
Steps:
1. Prepare by setting up the Matrix in the center of a sacred circle, wearing the robes, and placing the anchors around the circle.
2. Activate the Matrix by dropping into a meditative state that synchronizes breathing and focus on the desired period. Channel the essence of the Aether into the Matrix
3. Temporal alignment (focus on a point in time and use Anchors to create a link between past and present)
4. As energy fields intensify repeat a mantra to channel forces as time begins to bend
5. A flash of light will blind your vision as the transition takes place. You will find yourself in the past, appearing where your body last was. You can interact but cannot be seen.
To return to the present use a Temporal Key, which when activated within the past will reopen the Matrix and allow you to return to the present. [1]
I plan to send myself back 3 weeks for 4 minutes. At that time, I was in my office alone, finishing grading papers. I want to go back to a time when I was not around others, still unsure of how events would unfold if I interacted with people in my life or changed events. Pecora claimed that you could not be seen but could interact with the past. I did not find any specification on that statement.
Test #4—Results:
My first physical trip to the past was a success, everything unfolded as I had planned and it feels good to experience some success with work that was so uncertain and variable. I returned with all my limbs and the only difference I found was that my hair had thinned a bit.
Pecora was correct that people in the past could not see me, and I stood watching myself for a few moments while I sat in my desk chair, papers covering the desk. I waved at myself, clapped my hands, and shouted, and I could hear the sounds I was making but clearly, the past-me did not. But when I walked to the corner of the desk, I knocked over a stack of books. They crashed to the ground and my past-self swore as he stood and picked up the mess. I flashed back to the present as one of my TAs was opening the door. When I returned, I remembered the trip clearly and so my memory was not altered to include the falling of books.
There are a few changes I may make to Pecora's theorem, but despite my thinning hair the past and present moved smoothly despite my extra presence.
November 8, 1998
Test #5—Past: third perspective (session 2)
In this test, I will return to the same location as Test #4 but will linger longer and let the scene play out with other people. I will replicate the session the same as before, except I have added aeonium to the Chrono-Circulatory Matrix. The metal has been found to be resilient to temporal fluctuations and I think it can assist in the structural framework of the Matrix, hopefully helping to ensure its stability during temporal transitions.
There is less information regarding what I should expect from this test. Some experts argue the possibility of altering the present by changing the past, and many disagree. The experiences can be so variant or specific that it makes sense that some attempts will work while others may fail.
I plan to begin small, influencing the past with a consciousness other than my own may show different results.
Test #5—Results
I applaud Pecora's theorem and think it was the right choice to add aeonium to the Matrix.
When I appeared in my office 3 weeks ago, I let the scene play out as I remembered. It is remarkable to journey physically to the past compared to transporting just your consciousness. Though the third perspective method is much more risky and challenging, it is almost a new scene. When in first perspective past, you see things through your eyes and see things exactly as you remember them. The focus and view are the same and it feels almost comforting compared to third perspective transportation. Then, you can see things more clearly for what they really are. I was able to notice the spiderweb forming in the corner of my office and noticed the color of Amanda's shirt with the small flowers that I surely would not have noticed had I been looking through my own eyes.
When Amanda entered I stood in the corner, stepping slowly into the open. Amanda is a clairvoyant, so I was curious if she would react to my presence. I knew she would not be able to see me, though she is observant, but she behaved as expected.
When she was close enough to my desk, about to drop reports on the table, I pushed over my glass of iced tea that stood on the desk. The tea swallowed the surface of the desk, drenching the papers and spilling onto Amanda's shoes. She jumped back, muttering a swear, and then I felt a shudder rush through my spine. The past me did the same, and for a moment I thought my head was going to split open. I retreated from the scene before the pressure was too immense.
When I came out of the trance, my head was in agony for a moment, then all the pain evaporated. New memories were in my head. I remembered the spilled drink and Amanda's frustration. I remember sending a notice to all my students that I would need a fresh resubmission of their reports. In the corner of my office, I found the fresh papers and saw the tea stain on the carpet by my desk.
There is no documentation of results such as these, as former belief declared that changing the past was impossible. I must reexamine my process and method. I feel my heart rate beginning to quicken through my body, anxiety shaking me as I think of the endless horizon that may begin to unfold.
November 10, 1998
I was anxious to jump into another test before I felt some symptoms of the trip ignite and I wanted more time to rest. First, my body broke into a hot flash that had me stripping off my clothes in my office, my muscles tensed, and I felt paralyzed for a moment. But the feeling was gone as quickly as it came and I gained control of my body before I could fall to the floor. A rush of relaxation coursed through me when I dropped into my chair and suddenly fell into a sleep that felt like it lasted lifetimes, but when I opened my eyes I saw 6 minutes had passed. I did not know sleep—emptiness—could last so long, and that scares me. Then the dreams started, where I was watching myself live a life of lies. Only I can see what this creature is, hiding in my skin, wearing my clothes, pretending to be me as he spoke to students and chatted with colleagues. He would glance at me from time to time and I could see flames inside those sockets, casting my soul from its anchor and riding a new wave of life. Are these warnings? Am I endangering myself with these tests? But I have gone too far to stop. My mind keeps forwarding and rewinding events, and I think about the past and the future more than I live in the present. I want to be free of the fear consuming me.
November 12, 1998
I blacked out almost my entire day yesterday. I remember waking up in my bedroom—I can never forget that obnoxious alarm—and I can recall the cool touch of the tile floor of my bathroom on my feet…and then nothing. The blackness felt as long as ever and when I opened my eyes I was at my apartment door, the sun gone and I was wearing a strange stained sweatshirt that was not my own. I tried to track down the events that had occurred but have not had much success. According to the school staff, I did not show up for my evening class and my neighbors never saw me leaving or entering my apartment (Jenny is a 73-year-old who is always home and watches everything around here from her living room window). I have been experiencing repeated hot flashes which last just long enough for me to break out a sweat before it dissipates.
Dreams are becoming more vivid; myself as a child, then as a teenager, reading in my room and setting paper towels on fire in the backyard (I was a bit of a pyromaniac when I was 15), and then I see myself on my deathbed. I am alone, sinking into the mattress while I watch blank walls and emptiness consume me and I drift away, forgotten.
I read an article by a researcher named Marina Clemente who had studied some of the psychological effects of various occult practices including time invocation, observing her father who engaged in risky and sometimes illegal practices. Her father began tampering with time invocation when she was 8 years old. Already an intelligent child, she would study his methods, remembering everything he said until the day he threw himself from a 5-story window when she was 16.
Ramin Clemente began his work to help others and provide aid, engaging in studies that could help ease the subconscious after going through a traumatic incident. He believed that trauma existed as a permanent presence in a person's life, viewing people's lives as a line that was predetermined, everything already written out in a clear, timely order. But 'if you transport consciousness to a previous or future self, it can help smooth out the wrinkles created by a disturbing event, convincing the mind that it has already overcome the experience and would soothe the mind in the present.' [2]
Some of his other research on the mind included the study of psych scrying, mind's eye alchemy, soul fragment retrieval, and psych shielding meditation. He published 34 papers and articles throughout his life, and much of his research is still studied today. This was all before he delved into the possibility that time invocation could also heal the subconscious.
Ramin Clemente was doing this work for his wife—Marina's mother—who had suffered a near-death experience that had left her mind fragmented, taking her down a path of depression and substance abuse. Marina only had a memory of her mother in this broken state and wanted her father to succeed in his work, so she tried to help him when she could. She would track her father's psyche when he was moving between timelines, timing the duration of his trips to help specify his journey to send the mind to exactly the right moment that could move lingering trauma into the past.
At first, Marina's notes revealed successful trips. Ramin practiced a trip that was similar to some of the methods I have engaged in with first-perspective time invocation, but he made some variations. He burnt serenleaf herbs, which helped alleviate stress and anxiety during meditation, and practiced a chant as he let his consciousness drift. This idea of a chant helped to soothe the mind, not looking to change his past or future, not intending to watch scenes play out in front of him but to latch onto the emotion he felt in this past or future self, allowing those pleasant emotions to flow through him and hopefully come back with him to the present.
Mariana documented how her father began with trips to the past, an easier task as he could home in on a specific memory that he knew he had experienced positive or tranquil emotions. Ramin was a talented traveler and his consciousness was designed to be stretched and tested, and it was recorded that in one trip he was able to travel back almost 30 years, to a point in his boyhood. Mariana predicted that this type of time travel—the focus on emotion instead of scenes and memories—was easier to accomplish.
Ramin's theory was that taking multiple trips and increasing time difference gradually would continue to strengthen his subconscious, working out a muscle until it was bulging and powerful.
Marina Clemente began to develop her own theory as she helped her father with his work. She believed there was no muscle to be stretched, and no strength generated from multiple trips. She believed her father mistook his talent for a common ability, that he was morphing his mind in a way it was not designed for, the bend only creating strain and threatening to snap.
Ramin Clemente had heat flashes consistently, fell asleep in his chair in the middle of the day, and experienced lots of mood swings. Some days he was beaming with joy, getting excited about little things in life like when a package would arrive for him or he was looking forward to a meal Mariana was cooking for him. He talked optimistically about his work and the hope he had for his wife to recover. Other times he fell into a pit of depression that only got worse when he was around Mariana's mother, who had become more and more isolated in the days that Ramin was experimenting with his work and talent.
The curious event that occurred based on Mariana's notes was the sudden rise in her mother's mental health as her father began to deteriorate. Her mother found assistance in prescribed medication, practiced her own forms of meditation, and tried to make herself involved in her daughter's life. She was losing empathy for her husband, though, as the man continued to slip off his mental hinges.
Mariana's mother became cold and stable and her father became hot and irrational. By the time of his suicide, he was not recognizable to anyone, physically or mentally. The man grew blisters on his face, lost his hair, ripped out his fingernails. By the end of her article, Mariana stated she was still unsure if her mother's sudden increase in mental health was in any way a push from her father's mental decline, contemplating the balance that people share in each other's lives, a strange dance that sometimes finished gracefully, other times falling into apart in a depressing conclusion.
Should I allow my mind to snap like Ramin Clemente's? But how can I fix the damage that has already been done? I could not find a solution in Clemente's work and have not found any other source material that has helped. I hope to make another journal entry soon. I don't want this work to end, and I feel like I am getting so close to answers preceded by massive questions.
[1] Pecora, A. (1981). "Brewing Chrono-Elixirs: A Chemical Compendium of Potions and Rituals for Physical Temporal Translocation." Journal of Arcane Sciences
[2] Clemente, M. (1991). "Temporal Journeys and Psych Resonance: An in-depth Exploration of the Psychological Ramifications of Mind Alteration." Journal of Cognitive Chronology