posted July 08, 2006 01:19 AM
wow...he sounds amazing... 
From Body Mind Spirit Magazine
Writing an introduction to explain Peter is something I would have liked to avoid. Peter defies description. It is analogous to telling someone a funny story only to have them stare at you with blank incomprehension. You wind up saying Simply, "You had to be there."
Peter lives on a 12-acre parcel of land adjoining the Great Smoky Mountain National Park. A parcel of land that had somehow been "overlooked" by realtors and city officials until he showed up 20 years ago to buy it. He built a spacious three-story, 24-room house on his mountaintop with his own hands, often taking a piece of wood and cutting it to the exact length without ever measuring it (much to the discomfiture of those friends who accompanied and assisted him).
It is his friends, many of whom have moved to Tennessee to be near him, who will tell you why he is called "The Magic Man." Miracles and psychokinetic effects seem to trail him like an invisible circus. His friends tell of countless healing, candles that puff out and re-light themselves, a violin that plucks its own strings, and of wine that pours from his hand. I myself observed half-full wine glasses tipping over by themselves at dinner to punctuate our conversation. We laughed as though it was the funniest thing in the world while Ann, his companion , gave him a mock scolding for staining the tablecloth. These could be dismissed as musician's tricks, perhaps, but there are myriad "coincidences" as well, like the "overlooked" parcel of land, or the swarm of honeybees he wanted that arrived the day after he said he would be getting some bees as a "present from spirit" for the help he had given to someone who had been sick. His friends have gathered these stories together in a book entitled "The Magic Man."
I found that the gentler miracles lingered the longest after my visit: the light and love I was showered with, the curious deer, the ever-present bears that ambled out of the forest for a peanut snack on the deck, and the sight of a tiny bear cub climbing the tree nearest to Peter's bedroom - the tree his protective mother decided offered the greatest safety in a forest known for poachers.
Then there was Peter himself. He seems to embody all the heroes of myth and legend. He will remind one person of Buddha, another of Christ, and others of Krishna, Lao-Tzu, or the biblical Simon Peter. To me he was a combination of Castaneda's Don Juan and one of Tolkien's High Elves - alternately poking my self-importance and then entertaining me in the fire-lit hall of the mountain king. I despaired of getting any straight answers from him about himself. He would rather teach me about myself. One time I had to tell him to stop or "I'd explode." He laughed and said, "That's the idea!"
As I questioned him about his past, it seemed as thought he had to strain to remember, as though forcing his mind to step out of the present moment was a forgotten habit, a way of being that had been attached to an ego he had long ago discarded.
Body,Mind & Spirit:You create a mystique around you. You don't use a last name and you don't discuss your personal history. Why?
Peter: I don't speak about the past because it's not important to me. The only thing that is important is that I am. I just am. What you see is what you get. If you like me, then you like me. If you don't, you don't. I have nothing to claim, I have no credentials. I'm just myself - and I am most comfortable being myself.
Spirit: Were you very unusual from birth or were you like everyone else?
Peter: I have to answer that in two ways. One, I am very ordinary. I am just like everybody else except for one difference - I have a knowing. I know who I am. That knowing comes in much the same way as the blooming of a flower. Up until it blooms the plant has to struggle and deal with the obstacles of the earth - pebbles, or being stepped on - then all of a sudden the flower blossoms.
Spirit: Did this happen to you gradually, or was there a particular event?
Peter: There was a particular event. I had spent an immense amount of time meditating, praying and going through all the rubbish that everybody else does. I say rubbish, but it's not really rubbish because it does lead you to a certain point.
One day I just stopped expecting anything. I love to sit by the fire. One day I was sitting there thinking, "Oh well, it's my time to sit by the fire... for no reason at all ... because if anything was going to happen, it would have happened years ago." I never expected anything, I wasn't even interested in having an experience. And then something consumed me. I had never been so frightened. I was terrified. I was dying. Physically my body felt like it had turned to stone. I did everything I could to stop it, but once it started there was no stopping it and "I" died.
Now here I am, it's the same world - with cars and houses, where you eat food, go to bed, take showers and brush your teeth - but it's not the same.
Spirit: When it was over, what did you think?
Peter: Nothing, but I heard myself, as if I were in a tunnel, saying, "My God, it's real." And then I laughed - and I've been laughing ever since.
Spirit: What do you think of who you are?
Peter: I have absolutely no idea. What I am is just what I am. I simply do what I do. There's nothing to it. Everyone's basic nature is bliss, joy, happiness, compassion, tenderness, caring, love, truth, wisdom - this is what you are. When you are yourself, all these things emerge by themselves. And it's contagious; it's not a matter of teaching it to anybody. I'm not a teacher, but if you come here, it's what's "caught." It's an energy that cannot be spoken.
I'm not deliberately doing anything, but by not doing, I'm doing an immense amount. I ask people, "Why do you come here?" They say, "I don't know." I say, "I don't know either." (laughter).
But really I do. They're hungry, and they can smell something cooking in the kitchen. I don't have to send out advertisements - the bees always know where the honey is.
Spirit: What led up to your experience?
Peter: Self-honesty.
Spirit: A self-examination?
Peter: No. It is being so scrupulously honest with yourself that you could say it hurts. You refuse to lie to yourself any longer, you allow yourself to be just as you are.
Spirit: What kind of lies do we tell ourselves?
Peter: We lie every time we try to gain other people's approval. We lie when we say we're not worthy. We lie when we say we're limited or not loving, or not compassionate, tender or caring. That's your nature! Who told you you weren't that? You believed the lies!
When you can look at your true face in the mirror and say, "Ah, this is!" then all of a sudden, one day, it's different. But it starts with being honest with yourself, with seeing how valuable you are. You are the rarest of the rare. A priceless treasure.
That's not saying you're not one with everything. But the expression of God in your form is so unique, so special - yet, so ordinary! - that when you see it, you have to laugh at your own discovery.
Spirit: Do you remember your past lives?
Peter: At the time of my experience, or rather, as a prelude to it, I saw myself as many, many different people. I saw myself back in many time frames, yet they were like characters on a screen. I saw myself as all of them but, I must say, that was still part of the illusion of life. When the illusion stops it matters little whether you were sinner or saint. Because now you're awake. Until then you can dream anything on this plane that you want to. What I'm doing now is the same thing I did in my last life. I've just picked up on it. Except this time it's different; I have changed because now I know. It's really very simple.
Spirit: So other lifetimes don't really matter?
Peter: No, they do not matter.It's one of the diseases of the mind. The mind always wants to be in the past or in the future because if the mind is totally in the now it has to stop. The mind is made up of pasting and futuring. Every time you think, what are you doing? It's either about something that's already happened or something you're fantasizing about in the future. If you didn't do that, there'd be no thought.
Body,Mind & Spirit:There are wild bears wandering around outside like pet dogs. Did they just show up?
Peter: That was one of the things I noticed after my experience. Animals would just come to me. The first one was a fox. He came right up to me and let me touch him. Deer would feed from my hand. Then a crow came over and I shared my sandwich with him. Also, I had poisonous snakes come crawling over my feet. For some strange reason I just reached down and picked them up. I could feel their hearts in my heart, and when you love something, fear vanishes.
That's the way it is with the bears. One of the female bears has three little cubs. She wouldn't let any of the other bears near those cubs, she charged like a freight train. Yet she came right up on the deck and into my bedroom with them! I could have slept with them if I wanted to.
Spirit: One of the reasons they call you the "Magic Man."
Peter: The magic is that love is very entertaining. (laughter) I love to watch the curious things that happen, especially around a group of people.
Spirit: You seem just as surprised as the rest of us.
Peter: It is my joy to see people's amazement. I am enthralled, I love it. Things that people do not think are possible have happened. Everybody that is here or has come to be around me has had a personal experience. That's why they're willing to move just to be here. They have tasted something that they cannot explain. It's not a matter of doing tricks or illusions! It's a matter of personal transformation. A taste of something unexplainable, a taste of wonder and mystery.
Spirit: How do you heal?
Peter: I see you as whole. I am whole and I see you as whole. I see you as healed. I do not see you in imperfection.
Spirit: What if I've got a serious problem?
Peter: I dare you to have a problem here! (laughter) Love is the only healer. Where there is love there can be no pain. If I can love you so unconditionally that I can see you as whole, you have to work very, very diligently not to be whole.
Spirit: How about relationships? Is there such a thing as a soul mate?
Peter: Yes, it's when you fall in love with yourself for the very first time. When you no longer feel inadequate and in a state of want, you have met your soul mate. It is the unification of the male and female within yourself. When you are complete you don't need anything from the outside. Only when you are totally happy within yourself can you be happy with someone else. If you're not totally happy within yourself, having another person to lean on will only create misery. People believe their happiness is out there somewhere. I tell you, it's not out there. It will never be yours until you are whole, then the whole earth is yours.
Spirit: What about prosperity?
Peter: Money is just a permission slip. It gives you permission to play the game. It's just energy and what you do with it. And since people are afraid of power, they're also afraid of money. Because so many people misuse their money, others become afraid that if they had money, they'd misuse it, too. But I'll tell you one thing: a lot of the people who are so opposed to money are the ones who are responsible for polluting the rivers, polluting the atmosphere, raping the mountains and hillsides. They say, "We're not doing anything! We're just sitting here minding our own business and meditating." I say, "No, you're responsible. You're responsible because the plastics companies kill the fish in the rivers. You're responsible because they're building nuclear power plants." They ask, "How am I responsible?" I tell them, "Because you never said 'no' with the power you had - your money. Who's buying the plastic? You are." Actually, there's nothing wrong with plastic, it has its place. And there's nothing wrong with making plastic as long as you clean up after yourself - and don't make roses out of it. (laughter)
Money is beautiful. There's nothing wrong with money. People who think money is evil had better examine their own outlook about life and what they would do with their money. Use your heart in the right way and you will have everything and anything. Eye has not seen, ear has not heard, nor has it even been conceived in the heart of man the things in store for those that love their higher consciousness, their God-self.
Spirit: What are your plans?
Peter: When I grow up? (laughter) I want to be a fireman and put out everybody's fires - all the things that are burning them.
Spirit: I think you go around lighting them.
Peter: Well, that's true, too! I'm a spiritual arsonist. I light a fire in their hearts. I go around lighting fires in people's hearts and they don't even know I was there.
http://www.roaringlionpublishing.com/Merchant2/about.php
from 1990...
i'd love to read what he has to say these days sunchild... 
Lindaland
UBBFriend: Email This Page to Someone! 
posted June 14, 2006 11:11 PM
posted June 14, 2006 11:15 PM
posted June 21, 2006 07:51 PM
posted June 21, 2006 07:59 PM
posted June 23, 2006 02:06 AM
posted June 27, 2006 01:52 AM
I just sent you an email. 
posted July 08, 2006 02:05 AM
He's 'got it'!! 