Welcome to the first installment of The Metaphysical Traveler!

The very fact that you are reading a blog with such an esoteric title means that you are curious, a seeker of knowledge, of experiences outside yourself, greater than yourself. It means that you are, like me, a traveler into the metaphysical.

As you read The Metaphysical Traveler you will journey with me around the world to places that are sacred or spiritual, places that are paranormal, or just plain weird. You will see them as I see them, hear them as I hear them. I will show them to you in all their glory and show you how they affect me. It may be that you will be touched by them in the same way, even if only virtually.

Imagine standing with me on a windswept cliff in Malta watching the sun rise above the Mediterranean Sea, its rays painting a golden patina upon the ancient stone walls of the Ggantija Temples, the oldest man-made structures in the world, older even than Stonehenge or the pyramids in Egypt---a place where Goddess worship continues to this day.

Can you picture us inside the Disneyesque Cao Dai temple at the faith’s Holy See in Tay Ninh, Vietnam, pastel colored dragons winding around the columns surrounding us, the windows in the upper level left open for spirits to come and go? Can you picture us wearing traditional Vietnamese aoais as we attend the wedding of the first Westerner to ever be married in the Technicolor temple?

Visualize us walking the length of the great Serpent Mound in southeastern Ohio, built almost two thousand years ago by Native Americans and obviously built to be seen from above. . . but by whom? Is it only by chance that the enormous serpent’s orientation mimics the Little Dipper constellation, or is it by design?

And while we’re walking, we can slowly wind our way through the elaborate labyrinth at the medieval cathedral of Our Lady of Chartres in France, deep in reflection while gorgeous colors stream through the magnificent stained-glass windows, blessing the sacred space with their brilliance.

Maybe you would like to join me as we accompany Mexican families to cemeteries during the three days of Los Dias de Muertos, a time when the dead return to receive the prayers and offerings of the loved ones they left behind, a time when families clean and decorate gravestones and picnic in the cemeteries with their spirit relatives.

From Mexico we could travel to Singapore for a similar ritual, the Hungry Ghost Festival. We could watch celebrants burn intricate paper models of everything from food and clothing, to luxury cars, and houses, even Hell money and credit cards--anything and everything the departed need for a happy afterlife--all in order to appease their “hungry” ghosts. Does it work? Are they appeased?

Come with me to the barren desert of Roswell, New Mexico where many believe an UFO crashed in 1947. Something certainly crashed in the desert, but was that something from outer space? Were there aliens aboard? Perhaps, we’ll discover some new clue among the burning sands.

These are just some of the places I might take you through The Metaphysical Traveler blog, only some of the ceremonies and rituals you might experience. As you read the blog you may become more convinced that there is magic and mystery in the universe, that some experiences remain ineffable, sublime, and perhaps even divine.

I do hope that is what you will think as you read The Metaphysical Traveler. I hope that, like me, you will learn to accept that all things are possible, that we do not have the answers to all questions, and that we truly know far less than what we believe we know.

The X-Files fictional agent Fox Mulder said, “The truth is out there.” I don’t know if it is or not, but let’s find out, shall we?

John Kachuba

The Metaphysical Traveler