Sage
Theatre Presents Edward Tabbitas
i
How
to Open
On July 1st, 1999, I stood staring out the window onto
the balcony garden of my mid-town Manhattan apartment awaiting the
hour I would for the second time be attending one of Edward
Tabbitas’s psychic sessions at the Raw Space Theatre on 42nd
street.
What had currently caught my eye (or better yet, my
mind’s eye) was the burgeoning buds of a group of day lilies on
the brink of blooming.
It seemed that from a new state of mind, having attended
Mr. Tabbitas’s first reading and discussion a few months
earlier, I had become gratefully aware of a significant
acceleration in what I felt was my own spiritual development.
As I paused anticipating the coming evening and the
infinite possibilities of human potentiality therein (for to talk
with Mr. Tabbitas at any length is to walk away with a greater
sense of personal wonder and power), I entertained the idea that
like the verging flower buds before me I was at the threshold of a
spiritual coming of age.
I dared to imagine what it would take to assist the lilies
in their blooming, for no better reason than that we might bloom
together, to coincide, as it were, in mutual glory. To
radiate encouragement.
It occurred to me that this was what Edward Tabbitas had
already begun fostering in me; a greater measure of light.
Later
that evening at the Theatre on 42nd street I was struck
by the number of familiar faces, several of which had been present
at the first group reading/session.
I thought this spoke well of Ed’s impact on his
audience/clients.
I suspected then that this was not going to be simply
another evening’s entertainment in the theatre; though I was
determined to leave my expectations at the door, I sensed the
stage was set for an earnest dialogue between a true guide
and those in search of guidance.
The evening began with reading excerpts from seven readers (corresponding
with the seven charkas?).
I found the writing surprisingly straightforward, with the
occasional humorous observation.
There was a definite sense of no
nonsense style about it.
The readers on stage took turns laying the groundwork for
what would be the second half of the presentation, a candid
exploration of several of the audience member’s psyches.
The
first excerpt reading was a surprisingly sober remembrance of the
first and only occasion in which Mr. Tabbitas had discovered and
exercised the power of telekinesis.
The chapter was entitled “The Fan” and it told of a
time when Ed was a young man and how he’d shown his Mother (who
had an innate fear of the paranormal) that he could turn a fan on
without having to walk over and flip on a button.
Other than the obvious description of this rather
astounding ability, the prose remained matter-of-fact, curiously
rendering the material all the more startling.
Another
chapter recalled Mr. Tabbitas’s reluctant first visit to a
psychic at New York’s renowned “Green Tea” room.
On arriving, the woman behind the tarot deck looked into
his eyes and asked what on earth he was doing there.
Edward looked puzzled and replied, “I’m here for a
reading.”
The woman proceeded to inform him that he belonged on the
other side of the table.
“Young man, you are highly gifted,” she said, “You
hold the keys to the universe.
You have a natural gift, or should I say, gifts of psychic,
telepathic, audio clairvoyance, and psychometry.
You were born with these innate abilities.”
She went on to enlighten him on the fact that he had many
visits from the dead already in his lifetime and there were sure
to be many more.
Here, without a doubt, was a messenger of great portent.
Later, when Edward attempted to contact her again, she was
nowhere to be found.
Had she simply vanished from the face of the earth?
During
the course of the readings I noticed a rather distracted,
middle-aged woman get up and leave her seat to escape to the lobby
on two separate occasions.
The second time she did this I noticed Ed file down the
steps from the back of the theatre to follow her.
I knew he had gone to intercept her and I wondered on
seeing her a few moments later, with what healing words he had
coaxed her back.
Threaded
into the stories we were listening to were an abundance of healing
messages.
We
are capable of manifesting everything we need.
Every word in a book is a key.
We are mirror reflections of one another.
God’s light is a bright beacon.
Conquer fear and be free.
Man makes himself according to his thought.
When
the readings were concluded, Steven Thornburg introduced Mr.
Tabbitas as an old friend and a person who could speak with the
dead, something he admitted with reluctance that he could not do.
Immediately Ed’s presence put all of us at ease.
His easy manner and sensitive, bright face made a natural
cradle for the thoughts that had come before.
I felt a kind of relief set in.
I was reminded how soothing it was to be addressed in a way
that acknowledges the inner man before the outer, as opposed to
the more customary outer before inner.
Happy was I to have found this man to be no
psychic salesman.
Perhaps because our culture rarely acknowledges the soul or
spirit, instead choosing to peddle to our egos (if I may be
allowed to personify) a bag of goods with which it purports to
empower us, I was doubly impressed.
Here was simply a man with a gift, quite willing to share
it with all of us.
ii
How
to Grow
The
second half of the evening was taken up with hands-on insight
therapy as Edward chose to address certain individuals in the
audience.
I use the word therapy
because as the night went on I witnessed again and again persons
urged closer to self-discovery through Edward’s words.
During the proceeding readings, Ed had jotted down
spontaneous notes regarding certain members of the audience.
It seemed that he was in a constant receptive state of
incoming impressions; so much so it made me wonder at how he had
lived his life with such a perpetual influx of information.
How had he grown up?
It reminded me of what many beginning journalism courses
illustrate often on the first day of classes.
Many times the Professor of such a course arrange to have
someone burst in with a rubber gun demanding a classmate’s
pocketbook or wristwatch.
When the man makes a clean getaway, the students are asked
to describe what just occurred framed in who, what, where, how and
when construct.
(Notice the absence of “why,” very rarely being the
journalistic approach’s strong point).
Inevitably there are great differences in the students’
observation.
I wondered what Ed would do in such a situation?
Would he proceed to tell us of the criminal’s childhood
or what he had eaten for breakfast?
Who knows, perhaps it would help to know that the
criminal’s favorite color was blue and that his mother had
thrown away his favorite toys in the same week she had moved the
family to a new town.
Edward’s
book is subtitled “Tell Me How to Die, I’ve Never Done This
Before” and at first glance I admit I found it perplexing.
I knew by now that Edward would never presume to tell
anyone how to live.
It quickly became clear to me that he would not be merely
giving us the answers to our questions as some might wish or
expect.
Time and again he responded to questions in a way that
allowed the person asking to discover the answer to his/her query
on their own.
Often he seemed to be simply channeling random information
that left one occasionally confused at the outset … until, of
course, minutes or hours later when the meanings often became
clear.
So how could it be Edward’s purpose to tell us how to
die?
A moment later and the irony struck me, causing me to smile
at the humorous absurdity of it all.
According to Edward Tabbitas we’ve all lived before, many
times.
It stands to reason that if we’ve lived before many times
… we’ve died before many times as well.
To accept this conundrum is to put one in touch with a
deeper understanding of life itself.
Why are we here?
What are we to learn?
To begin to digest the idea of reincarnation and karma is
to begin to come to terms with our lives in a more responsible
hence consequentially more highly informed way.
At one point Edward urged us not to assume that just
because something terrible befalls an individual that that
condition might not also be serving a divine spiritual plan that
is both purifying and empowering to that person.
Most of us come at this thing called life all wrong.
In hindsight I suspect our questions are more often than
not absurd in the light of a greater understanding.
If nothing else, Mr. Tabbitas has held up a mirror with his
book and it’s peculiar title and dared us not to overlook out own answers.
Are we not our own answers?
Watching
Mr. Tabbitas work that night on stage, particularly as he opened a
kind of dialogue in lively relationship with the fourth dimension,
I was struck by a sudden analogy.
It seemed to me that our lives are as though we all are
actors upon such a stage, sealed somehow in that sacred playing
space with it’s imaginary walls and literal light.
In this way the seemingly disregarded audience is a
consciousness apart; much like angels or judges in a separate
dimension.
It is not likely the actors will acknowledge us, rarely in
fact do they ever leave the [] of the stage.
Even more rarely are we as an audience ever a part of the
action at all.
Then along comes a man who leaves the confines of the play,
stepping off the stage and out into this other reality, breaking
the fourth wall and addressing those who quietly watch.
This surreal relationship defines exactly the excitement
Edward generates when he works with those who’ve long grown use
to merely watching.
To be chosen, as I was one evening, is to be drawn into a
miraculous second sight.
To be admitted into a previously forbidden territory where
anything is possible and our literal minds experience an odd
defeat.
Does this alone not heal?
iii
How
to Bloom
“As
above, so Below” states an ancient esoteric maxim.
That which grows has a root.
Tell me how to die, I’ve never done this before. The
riddle of existence.
Why do we do the things we do?
Trace a behavior to it’s root.
When
I arrived back home, my mind was reeling with the implications of
the evening.
Two hours in Mr. Tabbitas presence and I could believe that
even stones have a soul.
Why was it that now I felt I could live more contented
among things?
What was it about Ed
Tabbitas that had moved me so much closer to a feeling of personal
empowerment?
A man had honored that which is invisible … and the world
seemed to make more sense.
I
went to the window in search of a bookend, a circle, one last
realization … to find my trinity of day lilies had opened wide
their blooms.
-Peter
Valentyne
July
11th, 1999
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