My 200TH POST!  I suppose it looked for a time as if I wouldn't make it this far, eh?

In keeping with previously established tradition, I'm going to make this here "post-Christmas" post a thing of weirdness and wonderment.

Let's talk "magnetizing".

I served a two year mission for the LDS church in the Arkansas Little Rock Mission. Much of the time spent in the Memphis, Tennessee area.

In one area (Tupelo, Mississippi I believe), we had an investigator who was really into "new age" reading and study. When we shared the Gospel with her she gave up a lot of her "new age" books.  That was how I got to read "Illusions" by Richard Bach.  A book which introduced me to the concept of "magnetizing". Briefly: the way to bring anything into your life is to (vividly) imagine that it is already there. There are a few other details involved ("imagine the object surrounded by golden light"), but as I already mentioned, it is a New Age book.

Sounds like a lot of Hokum, right?

I've already used this technique, 'tho perhaps not for its intended purpose. I use it to find things that I've lost track of. Also, it has been some time since I last used it.

I've been quite forgetful lately. (Which reminds me, I've got to go retrieve that Xmas card Kathy and Grant gave me on Sunday last - I think it's still stuck in their couch.) One of the things I recently misplaced was the key to my new(ish) VW Passat.  I last remembered having it in hand on or about December 12th.  I first noticed it missing on December 20th. Way to maintain that mental acuity, eh? After fruitlessly searching for it in all the places I thought it could be, it dawned on me that I could have, in a moment of paranoia, hidden the key...and forgot all about where I had hidden it. It looked like I would be paying my local VW dealer to have a new key cut for the Passat.

As I have used the "magnetizing" technique to find lost objects before, and as I was at a loss for what else to do (apart from giving up and calling the VW dealer), I decided to use the technique once again to see if I could make the key "magically" show up. The key is a familiar object, as is the Teamsters key fob it's attached to. I know the size, shape, heft, texture and surfaces of that key so well I would know it even in total darkness.  So I sat down a couple days ago and spent a few minutes meditating on it, as if it were already in my hand. I spent a little time yesterday focusing my thoughts in like manner.  Then this morning, as I was waking up, I spent a few moments on the exercise...and I got the distinct impression that I had left the key (paranoia, remember?) in a jar on top of the fridge.

And there it was. On top of my fridge. In a glass jar. In plain view. I had probably been looking directly at it at least a dozen times in the past two weeks and simply had not seen it...until then.

If I'm this good with "lost" items, I wonder how effective this would be in finding a new career?

...or a slimmer, healthier body?

...or a new companion?

...or anything, really?