Profile:Paul Crockett

-

by Gary Richardson

Truthful I call him who goes intogodless deserts, having broken hisrevering heart. In the yellow sands,burned by the sun, he squints thirstilyat the islands abounding in wells,where living things rest under darktrees. Yet his thirst does not persuadehim to become like these, dwelling incomfort; for where there are oasesthere are also idols.

Hungry, violent, lonely, godless:thus the lion-will wants itself. Freefrom the happiness of slaves, redeemedfrom gods and adorations, fearlessand fear-inspiring, great and lonely:such is the will of the truthful.

It was ever in the desert that thetruthful have dwelt, the free spirits, asmasters of the desert: but in the citiesdwell the well-fed, famous wise men—the beasts of burden.

—Friedrich Wilhelm NietzscheThus Spake Zarathustra, 1885

Six years ago Paul Gaylord Crockettcame to Death Valley, a place whosevery name captures the mystique ofthe desert to which Nietzsche alludednearly a century ago. Crockett, a home-spun guru possessing a down-to-earthwisdom, was prospecting for gold.There is an old saying among prospec-tors that "gold is where you find it."While exploring west of Death Valley,Crockett found not only ore containingthe yellow metal but also a differentkind of unrefined gold. In Goler Can-yon, an isolated draw in the Pana-mint Mountains, he came upon twomembers of a group calling themselvesthe "family."

"In the evenings we'd sit aroundand talk," Crockett recalls. "Then I'dget up in the morning and go back up

Gary Richardson is a freelance writer.He is currently at work on a book,The Power of Agreement, about PaulCrockett.

30

*^/^£^S?g£

. \- ''flBHBMi v i .

Paul Crockett probes the melted ore that will soon become free gold.

in the mountains. I began to pick up alittle bit of the story as we went alongeach evening. I was just gonna stay acouple weeks. Then after I got to lis-tening to what they had to say aboutCharlie Manson, I had to stay anothercouple weeks to see what was reallygoing on. First thing I know, I'd beenthere about eight months."

During those eight months of thespring and summer of 1969 Crockettdeveloped a close rapport with two dis-sat isf ied members of the f a m i l y ,Brooks Poston and Paul Watkins, whotold him how they had become followersof Charles Manson. Manson had donesuch a thorough job of gaining theiragreement to his description of realitythat Poston and Watkins did not knowhow to break from him even thoughhe was hundreds of miles away. (Croc-kett's knowledge of the way reality isstructured by agreement enabled himto understand what Manson was up to.)

"Agreements are the forces we useto locate ourselves in time and space,"Crockett points out. "Everything thatwe do is from some agreement thatwe have set up. Everything that we havein this physical universe is somethingwe have laid out and agreed to. Mostpeople never set time limits to theiragreements, so they are forces thatcontinue with no end." An agreementis a line of force which continues ineffect until it is fulfilled or otherwisetaken down. Crockett told Poston andWatkins that if they wanted to get freeof Manson, they had to get Manson torelease them of all their agreements tohim. When Watkins went to see him inLos Angeles, Manson granted theirrequest; and before he realized whathad happened, Watkins and Poston nolonger considered themselves bound tothe family.

"We make agreements or allowothers to make agreements for us fromearly childhood on," Crockett says,offering a simple example: "It mightbe an agreement that Grandma put onus that we didn't contest. Grandmasays, 'Oh, aren't you the cutest thingthat ever . . . You're a little rascal,you are!' We accept it for that day, butit becomes an impulse in our life. We.have to become a rascal in order to keepthis line of force going which was putthere for us."

According to Crockett, when wemake or even tacitly accept an agree-ment, we put attention into it althoughwe often fail to observe ourselves do-ing so. The attention we put into anagreement is the power that enforces

Psychic—September/October 1975

it. "Attention units," he explains,"are really extensions of beings and arepart of agreements. They're like therays of the sun; they come out from theindividual and get involved in every-thing that's going on. Our agreementsare literally circuits we build in ourworlds. As they extend further andfurther, iwinding themselves in and outof other worlds, they begin to lose theirpotency. When they begin to cross,one with the other, our worlds are sointerlaced with contradictions that webegin to blow circuits. Pretty soonwe can't do anything because we'recrossing agreements that we've madesince early childhood."

Philosopher Paul Crockett: ''Anagreement is a line of force which con-tinues in effect until it is fulfilled orotherwise taken down."

Crockett realized that to enable Wat-kins and Poston to place their attentionback into a world of their own choosinghe would have to help them break upthe circuitry of agreements they hadbuilt in Manson's world. They hadgotten Manson to release his end ofthe circuit, but they still had to unraveltheir own confused pictures of theworld. Using prospecting in much thesame way the ancient alchemist usedthe search for gold to transmute levelsof consciousness, Crockett set up aseries of rigorous disciplines to showPoston and Watkins ways to bypass theold circuits by putting their attentioninto their present activities. This heaccomplished by giving them tasks soarduous and different from what theyhad ever done before that their verysurvival demanded full attention to

what they were doing.In the summer heat of Death Valley

(120 degrees or more in the shade) hehad them hauling heavy sacks of oredown steep, narrow, winding trailswhere one misstep could be fatal. Hehad them learn the arcana of gold re-covery from the operation of the pickand shovel and ore bucket to panningand working the ore into free gold. Ina sense the process of extracting theore from the earth and refining the goldfrom the ore was an initiation rite intoa new reality for the young men. Asthey practiced it, a new level of aware-ness began to crystalize within them.

Crockett kept close watch over theirprogress, making sure their attentionwas fully absorbed in "right now.""When I began to see that their atten-tion was fanning around, that theywere splitting their attention, putting iton the trail every once in awhile sothat they could gaze off in the yonderand watch the pictures that were goingin their heads," he recalls, "then I'dgive them a sack with a whole bunchof rock in it and tell them to carry thatdown the mountain. This extra weightwould create counterbalances in theiruniverse which would make them haveto pay more attention to what they weredoing instead of watching the imagesthat were formulated in their heads."

Adding yet another counterbalance,Crockett recommended that his appren-tices develop a goal. It was time forthem to apply what they were learningabout the direction of their attention to,yet another dimension of reality — thefuture. "We live in a world of the past,the present, and the future," Crocketttold them. "If you live in the worldof Charlie, it's in the past. If you livein 'right now' all the time, you aren'tgonna do anything because nothingexists in just now. You have to havesomething to do, someplace to go, some-thing that is out of now into the future."Since both Watkins and Poston hadsome famil iar i ty with music, theyagreed to Crockett's suggestion thatthey begin a new line of force in musicwith his help.

About that agreement Crockett re-calls thinking to himself: " 'Goodgod! What do I know about music?'But I remembered that every person isnothing more than a tuning fork in theuniverse. Every person has his ownmusic — t h e things he listens to, thethings that harmonize in his universe.So I thought, 'I don't need to teach himanything about music if I can get himout. Then he'll play his own music.' "

31

Crockett sometimes uses seeminglyunorthodox methods to extract goldfrom the ore discovered in the desert.In the evenings, after they had ex-hausted themselves prospecting themountains, Poston and Watkins learnedto project sound, one note at a time, asthey had learned to direct their "atten-tion units." They learned to by-passthe "mechanical functions" whichblock the self-expression of manymusicians who learn prescribed struc-tures and styles of music by imitatingthe patterns of other people. Watkinsand Poston began to play their music,developing an original style they call"conscious music."

Poston and Watkins founded themusic group Desert Sun, which hascome to learn the laws that governreality, and understanding of whichenables one to create, to express one-self. The sun, of course, is the heavenlybody associated with gold. The musicof Desert Sun, therefore, is an expres-sion of the lessons the members of thegroup are learning. Many of their songsreflect the teachings of Paul Crockett:

The Flying Song*

We're free souls flying over the seas,Over the mountains, beyond the

trees.Vibrating rivers of energy flowOut to where the clear light glows.

If you're looking for your place,Look outside of time and space.Do you think this is all a mistake?Or is it what you make?

Spirit soaring through the air,Omnipresence is everywhere:Out to where the angels roam,"Hello, hello, my friends. Welcome

Home!"If you're looking for your place,Look outside of time and space.Do you think this is all a mistake?Or is it what you make?

Just appearing from star to star,In no time there you are:Omnipotence is, oh, so strong.Have you been that way for long?

Paul Crockett is a man of the desertsof the American Southwest, where hewas born in 1924. The son of a ministerand a school teacher, he learned at anearly age that the teachings of neitherchurch nor school could adequatelyexplain many of his experiences. Atvarious points in his life he has beenthe subject of experiences which many

*©1971 by Desert Sun, words and music by PaulWatkins and Brooks Poston.

32

would explain away as "miracles,"but which for him became impulsestoward knowledge.

For instance, at the age of fifteenCrockett was hurled from a speedingcar. "As I was falling," he recalls, "allsound ceased and time seemed to slowdown. I reached my hand out but quicklywithdrew it when I felt the pain as itneared the ground. I held my arms inclose to my body, which seemed to beenclosed in what I later came to call a'force field.' When I finally landed inthe gravel along side the road, Iwasn't even scratched. I just stoodup to brush myself off but discoveredI wasn't even dusty."

During the Second World War Croc-kett flew fifty-two combat missionsover the South Pacific as a B-24 naviga-tor. On one of those missions his planecame under heavy anti-aircraft fire.Flak which shot through one side ofhis compartment and out the othershould have penetrated him as well.But again, protected in a way he did notunderstand, he was untouched by thedeadly shrapnel.

During each of these events and otherslike them, Crockett notes, "No matterwhat was going on around me at thetime, everything became very still;there was a total lack of any type ofsound." He came to recognizesuch periods of silence as times when hewas capable of performing seeminglyimpossible feats, t imes when hefound himself "outside of time andspace."

These were only a few of the unusualexperiences which prompted Crockettto search for "knowledge,"a termwhich he carefully distinguishes from"belief." "Believing is an impulsetoward uncertainty," he points out."As an impulse into the unknown, be-lief is all right for a short time only;but there's no lasting reality in beliefor 'maybe.' If you let somebody elseput something in your world, then youdon't know when they're gonna takeit away. The only thing that you 'know,'as we commonly use the term, is whatyou've been told or shown. True knowl-edge is the by-product of what you do,not from mechanics but from aware-ness. The understanding of this by-product comes about from yourawareness of how you did it. The right-use-ness of this by-product is calledwisdom and has little to do with whatwe call intelligence. Intelligence isthe ability to use our attention units incomparative analysis, which is nothingmore than moving blocks."

In 1949 Crockett met Dr. S.L. Bailey,a New Mexico chiropractor and con-cept therapist who was able to answerthe questions raised by Crockett's un-usual experiences. "He didn't giveme any i f s , and's, but's, or maybe's;he told me straight across the board,"Crockett says. "What he said fit sowell with my own experience that Istudied with him for nine years. Thenone day he shook hands with me andsaid, 'Well, I got you in good shape.'I wondered what he shook hands withme for, and about two hours later myfriends came to tell me that Doc Baileyhad just died. First time he shakeshands with me in nine years, and hegoes and dies."

Bailey was the first of several peoplewith whom Crockett studied variousscientific, philosophic, and esotericsystems. "I studied under no man," heis quick to point out, "but I studiedwith a bunch. I would study the Upan-ishads; then the Tibetan Book of theDead might be my bible for awhile, orthe work of Edison and Tesla, or theteachings of Socrates. But whatever Istudied, I tried it to see if it worked;I didn't just mouth it."

Crockett admits that much of hisinterest in mysticism and ancient wis-dom had been stimulated by his ministerfather's preachings about the prophetsof old and their miracles. "I had afront row seat every time the churchdoors opened," he recalls. "My dadused to preach quite a bit about Solo-mon: Solomon got wisdom because heasked God for it, and God gave it tohim. I began to wonder why, if Hegave it to a guy then, He wouldn't giveit to you now. I had to find out whythey could perform miracles then, andmen seemed unable to do them today.I discovered that somebody came alongand said that this will never happenagain, and it gave everybody a licenseto be lazy. People's agreement that itwill never happen again is the wall thatseparates them from their God, whichis them."

Crockett is particularly adamant aboutour misunderstanding of our godhood,or godhead. He feels there is a definiteneed to remove the mystery in whichknowledge is veiled by the terms ofoccultism. "The higher law or 'god-head'," he explains, "is the attentionunit in its pure form. When you bringit down into the material universe withimpressions, pictures, etc., it is nolonger the attention unit; it becomesthought patterns. It may have startedout as an attention unit and finished up

/

in the material world as a bad feeling.If it passes the emotions in its pureform, the attention unit is the powerthat will move the existing form. Butin nearly all physical forms it isstopped. Energy is brought down outof godhead and into personality whereit is tied up in emotions., conflicts, etc.When we disavow that we are gods, wehave separated ourselves from oursource, which is us. It takes a great dealof energy to make ourselves separatefrom anything.

"We'll never be able to find our-selves by starting at the material endand working back to godhead," Croc-kett continues. "But if we are gods,then it's not too difficult to see what weshould be able to do by taking theenergy of the godhead and turning itinto all the elements of personality. Byviewing from the world of action to theworld of reaction you can see wherethe stops come in — opposition, en-croachment, enforcement. Contentionis the mode of life for most people — theonly way they have of feeling that theyare alive. Contention is created in thestress of attention. The attention unitis the real life force; our feelings areactually the disintegration of our en-ergy."

Crockett is a self-made man. He hasa keen understanding of the institu-tions which shape the prevailing atti-tudes and patterns of society, "theagreed upon reality" as he calls it. "Ispent the first third of my life gettingeducated," he says, "the second thirdfinding out what I got educated to, andthe last third getting de-educated."During the '50s and '60s he operateda small repair business and bicycleshop in Carlsbad, New Mexico. Thebusiness provided a testing ground forhis studies of the laws that govern manand the universe: "In one town I got tosee people grow up and have kids. WhatI saw fit so well with the law I wastaught, that I could see what they didand how they wound up where theywere."

From his observations Crockett hasseen that most people are where theyare today because they consider thatthey themselves know nothing. Byagreeing to the patterns of perceptionand behavior laid down by parents,schools, churches, governments, weallow ourselves to be programmed,like robots. "The agreements that wehave that say we can't remember, thatwe don't know anything and we haveto go to school to know something, be-come walls or corridors in time and

34

space in which we can function, butwhich limit us in our ability to do. Theyare created by us or for us because wedo not know how to accept or rejectwhat other people say to us. Most peo-ple do not have the ability to say, 'No!'This inability is formulated on the ideathat Mama and Daddy know best, thatknowledge is in the schoolhouse or inthe church house, and that wisdom isthe possession of our leaders."

Crockett's is a cosmic perspective,from which he sees individual humanbeings as alchemical stations in an elec-tronic universe. Adopting the call-let-ters of his name, each individualtransmutes the energy of his godhead,locating it in time and space, lockinghis attention down in the elements ofpersonality. Through personality oneenters into agreements with otherpersonalities, thus creating the com-plex circuitry of the "agreed uponreality" in the physical world. Conten-tion points, which stop us from present-ing ourselves to one another as gods,act as capacitors and resistors to con-strict the flow of energy and hold itfor future use.

In time, with our energy deeply in-volved in maintaining the circuitry ofour agreements, absorbed at points ofcontention and blown out by the cross-circuits of disagreement, we forgetour godhead. Forgetting its source weendow the material world to which wehave transferred our attention with im-portance. We are no longer free beingsable to postulate and perceive, to buildlocation points in time and space at will.We are no longer able to act, to do;we become automatons dominated bythe machines of personality programmedin a forgotten past, able only to react,to be manipulated. We lose our creativeability and blame what is created on anoutside god. Having forgotten our trueGod we fear the timeless void, the un-known, and cling to the idols we havemade.

We are trapped in a world of our ownmaking. Is there no escape? "Considerthat we are a god," Crockett says. "A.god supposedly has the ability to doanything at any time under any set ofcircumstances. In other words, a god inhis full dominion has the ability tocreate. There would never be anythingin the realm of a god that was importantbecause there would be no scarcity.One who knows, knows this. Only apersonality could have anything thatwas important. We create the ele-ments of personality because we'relazy. These are machines based on

belief, faith, i f s , and's, arid but's.They are our alibi for not being whatwe are. But personality is a tool thatwe use; it is not us. When we quit tyingup our energy in contention points,personality dies. To achieve freedomexpect anything and act without re-sistance to it. Jesus said, 'If a man tellsyou to go a mile, go two.' All he wassaying is take the point of contentionout of it. 'But great is the man who cando these things.' "

Paul Crockett sits at the kitchen tabledrinking coffee, smoking Pall Malls,and playing solitaire with an old deckof cards as he spins out his yarns. Croc-kett constantly reminds his listenersthat knowledge cannot be stated be-cause the moment it is fixed in wordsit becomes data. Locked down, it doesnot exist as knowledge anymore but asbelief. "If you see what I'm talkingabout," he urges, "you should beable to do it."

In the desert behind his house, Croc-kett has set up a small furnace, wherehe can often be found in the early hoursof the morning melting down anotherbatch of ore. He throws in a handful offlux, a few ounces of lead, stirs andprobes the molten mass. Soon, hesays, he will hold in his hands as freegold the precious metal detected by x-ray refractions and various assays.

Desert Sun, practicing in the nearbygarage, will soon release their firstrecord album. They are fulfilling anagreement made with a gold prospectorin Death Valley, an agreement to givemusic back to the people and:

Make the world a better place to live.My life is all that I've got to give,Making the world a better place to

live.Been in the city too long;The country life's where I belong.What is there left to doBut make the world anew?I know there's somethingThat I came here to do;And now, at last, it comes into

view:Make the world a better place to live.Making the world a better place to

live,My life is all that I've got to give.*

*"Make the World a Better Place to Live" ©1972 by Desert Sun, words and music by BrooksPoston, Paul Watkins, Gerald Hauser.