Chestnuts roasting on an open fire on American Thanksgiving Day!

Happy Thanksgiving Day!

I specify, “American Thanksgiving,” because I grew up in Canada where Thanksgiving was celebrated last month, in October. I guess it’s because the harvest occurs a month earlier in Canada’s colder climate.

Today, it being American Thanksgiving, almost every household is eating exactly the same thing. For a typical American Thanksgiving Day menu, scroll down to the (*).

Chestnuts eaten during the Holidays

However, today, in our house, we are also roasting chestnuts. Yes, I know chestnuts are supposed to be part of the traditional North American Holiday feast, as the popular Yuletide songs says. Nonetheless, Italian chestnuts are now available in the grocery stores, and I simply can’t wait until the end of December to indulge in them.

Happy Hanukkah! 

And, speaking of the Holidays, it’s Hanukkah! Evidently, Hanukkah coincides with U.S. Thanksgiving only every 60 years, so, in a way, we are celebrating the Holidays.

Although my home-oven-roasted chestnuts will not measure up to the roasted chestnuts of my youth, I know I will especially enjoy them, because they bring back fond memories of my years on Toronto Island. I wrote about how Toronto Island residents had peacefully and determinedly kept their homes, so beautifully interspersed with nature, from being bulldozed, as an example of how all of us can preserve the natural world in the “Message from Pan,” chapter of my book When We Were Gods.

Chestnuts bring back memories of Toronto Island days

Chestnuts evoke memories of Toronto Island, because, during the time I lived on Toronto Island, during this time of year, the fragrance of roasting chestnuts would greet me as I entered the ferry docks to board the ferries that would take me home to the Island.

Street vendors, swathed in scarves, hats and padded jackets against the cold Canadian weather, would man their steaming carts and shout out to us to buy a bag of their roasted chestnuts. How could I resist? These cart-roasted chestnuts had an exquisite flavor, especially on a brisk or even bitterly blustery cold day while sitting in the outside waiting area for the ferry, not to mention how they warmed up my frozen fingers.

Chestnuts are an Alkaline Food

Chestnuts are one of the few nuts – almonds being the other ones – which are an alkaline-reacting food. They’re also rich in protein.

How to Roast Chestnuts

Here’s a link to a video on how to roast Italian chestnuts. There’s also a transcript if you prefer to read instead of watch a video. 

*Typical American Thanksgiving Menu:

• Roast turkey
• Turkey stuffing
• Turkey gravy
• Cranberry sauce
• Mashed potatoes
• Mashed turnips or rutabagas mashed with carrots
• Candied yams or sweet potato casserole made with marshmallows and brown sugar
• Green bean casserole with a delicious crunchy onion topping
• Pumpkin pies topped with whipping cream

Reviews of When We Were Gods

Over the years, I have been blessed to received feedback from many individuals about my book When We Were Gods: Insights on Atlantis, Past Lives, Angelic Beings of Light and Spiritual Awakening. Several professionals have also written reviews.  I’ve included some of both below. In addition, reviews have been posted on Amazon.com as well as some on Amazon.co.uk, including one by a top 500 reviewer.

John Anthony West
Author of Serpent in the Sky: The High Wisdom of Ancient Egypt

“The writing is professional, the first person approach direct, unselfconscious, and uncluttered. I was interested in reading more—that doesn’t happen often.”

Christopher Dunn
Author of The Giza Power Plant

“We should not underestimate the discrete, immeasurable influences of nature. In When We Were Gods, Carole Chapman unfolds a personal quest and vision that is not only entertaining, but inspirational.”

Susan Lendvay

Associate Editor, Venture Inward

“An incredibly interesting book, beautifully written. It reminds me of Shirley MacLaine’s The Camino—about the time before we had bodies, when the sexes weren’t yet separated.”

Ricki Baer, PsyD
North Carolina, USA

“I cannot imagine the courage it took to write this book . . . Slowly we realize that we are not simply enjoying a dramatic adventure . . . It is an epistle of enlightened facts, divinely inspired and beautifully written, providing astounding insights into our world’s fundamental mysteries and our own deepest knowledge.”

Verna J.
Reader, Ontario, Canada

This book is incredible. The information that came in to the author was information I was looking for-of how the soul came to Earth, about Atlantis, and the future. It’s very spiritual but also very logical-how things work and why things work.”

Virginia Hulsey
Reader, Richmond, Virginia, US

“I just read your book, When We Were Gods, for the SECOND time, something I very rarely do. But there is so much information in it, I really felt like I wanted to read it again. I have been an [Edgar Cayce’s] A.R.E. member for a long time, but I have to say, you really brought some pieces together!”

Nancy O.
Connecticut, US

“This is a POWERFUL book! Part adventure story and suspense mystery, full of Biblical references and New Age insights, it will appeal to many minds. We are kept riveted to our seats. As When We Were Gods unfolds, we become aware that Carole’s story is OUR story.”

Brent Raynes
Editor of Alternate Perceptions and author of Visitors from Hidden Realms

“When We Were Gods is a thought-provoking first-person account of Carole Chapman’s hypnotic exploration of apparent and ancient past life memories of a most incredible nature—‘memories’ that cited an extraterrestrial origin, as well as a past life, a strange root race, and the superior and mysterious technology of Atlantis, with a thing called ‘snake travel’ (would quantum physics call it a ‘wormhole’?) thrown in the mix. What you have is a fascinating autobiographical accounting of Carole’s memories, how she initially reacted to them and eventually came to deal with them, and the efforts and lengths to which she undertook to try and objectively confirm the truth of their reality—a journey and search that took her to Central America and Egypt. What she learned challenges conventional science and understanding, and it may take the emerging science of theoretical quantum physics  to eventually confirm the actual truth of their bewildering ‘memories.’ A genuinely intriguing and thought-provoking book.”

Mary D. Jones
Curled Up with a Good Book

“When We Were Gods tells of the amazing and true stories of one woman’s discovery of her destiny. Author and spiritual seminar leader Carole Chapman went to a hypnotherapist to try to lose weight, and instead got an entry into a world of spiritual guides and powerful messages for the good of humanity in this intriguing story of awakening.

“Chapman had no idea her goal of losing weight would lead her to uncover the inner secrets of lost civilizations like Atlantis, and what they might mean for future generations of Golden Ones, children who would transform the world with Atlantaen wisdom and technological savvy. Her story mirrors that of many spiritual seekers who have also reported channeling information from other worlds, especially messages meant to give hope and a new outlook to those of us locked into the fate of this world. As the author makes her discoveries through various sessions with her hypnotherapist, she reveals all the important information she is being given to pass on to others, all the while remaining just a little skeptical of her newfound connection to this lost wisdom.

“The book covers much of the usual New Age territory, such as the presence of special “root races” throughout history that have transformed society and human consciousness, and she even talks about Indigo Children, a subject oft-mentioned in New Age sources. But one thing she does do that other books don’t is really get into the Jesus thing, with plenty of info about the Christ consciousness and the power of Christ that is available to all of us.

“The best parts of When We Were Gods are actually the intimate conversations Chapman had with her husband and children, during which she was forced to confront her own skepticism and doubts. These conversations provide the reader with a more personal look at how the author processes the unusual events happening in her world, especially in context with how she is being viewed by those closest to her.

“I found When We Were Gods to be interesting, hopeful and inspired by the sincere desire of the author to understand what she was being told by these divine messengers, and why she of all people was chosen to pass the info on to others. Much of the material will be old hat to those immersed in New Age and metaphysical subjects, but her insight does provide some new perceptions about why God allows suffering and what the destiny of the current “root race” may be. Whether or not it is all true, what matters most is that the author believes in a more Golden time to come, and her hope is infectious.”

Originally published on Curled Up With a Good Book at www.curledup.com. (C) Marie D. Jones, 2005

Daniel Kolos
Egyptologist, poet, and co-author of The Name of the Dead: Tutankhamund Translated

“Dreams connect us to our own innermost consciousness. Those of us who don’t take our dreams seriously miss out on life-changing signals. Then, years later, we begin to listen to our dreams and what happens? These dreams are still the same old, stale, outdated ones that were trying to get through to us years before! If we turn away from our dreams a second time, we may never have their benefit. But if we record them patiently, soon the dreams begin to catch up to our present, become meaningful and take their place as an equal contributor to our ‘mind’ along with intellect, intelligence, intuition, and many other functions.

“Carol Chapman listened to her dreams. She shared them with a friend and together they expanded Carloe’s dreams to include past life memories.  Her consciousness expanded outwards to encompass the stars, and inwards, to the awesome operations of her chakra-system. Then she found the ‘Golden Ones’ children of this world whose souls were aligned with God in order to bring in a New World in which there would be a thousand years of peace. Carol’s purpose in this lifetime was to awaken these Golden Ones to their destiny!

“Carol’s path paralleled her daughter’s. Clair’s nonchalance gave Carol the courage to continue. They spoke of the Fifth Root Race, the Great Pyramid of Giza and Atlantis. Carol’s timidity often got in her way and time and again she heeded other people’s help to ‘get on with it’.  Along the way, however, she missed some obvious observations. About the Great Pyramid, for example, she could have easily noted that all those millions of people who have visited this mysterious ‘power plant’ have likely been unconsciously stamped with ancient Atlantean knowledge. In turn, all these people carry that knowledge about with them, waiting for it to awaken into their consciousness.

“In order to awaken the Golden Ones, Carol had “to write a history of the soul on earth.” Along the way she was forced to think, to consult with a friend, and she came upon insights most serious meditators inevitably find, but in her own unique way: “The light beam knew no sorrow.” For me that would have been ‘unconditional love was not mitigated by sorrow.’

“That the light beam “indulged in sexual play” was obvious to some of the ancient people. In Greek mythology, Danae, whose father had hidden her in a subterranean chamber, was sought out and impregnated by Zeus himself in the form of a shower of gold.  Similar stories have the maidens impregnated by the sun, whose color is gold. (Frazer, The Golden Bough, Chapter 60, section 3)

“Carol asks the age-old question whether or not sexuality was the cause of the ‘fall’, and, in the process discovers the duality of light and darkness. Light was pure energy while darkness was the change of energy into corporeality.  Unfortunately Carol names this descent into bodily form the work of ‘Satan’, although she realizes that the ‘sin’ or the mistake of having been drawn from a consciousness of an energetic being to that of a corporeal being was a choice she had made. She calls this choice of becoming trapped ‘disobedience’ and lack of humility. In a sense Carol comes to the same conclusion Rudolf Steiner reached a century ago and he also portrayed Satan as a suave, sophisticated tempter whose job it is to make people forget their connection to their own energetic selves, to pull them into the unbalanced trap of indulging in their physical pleasures and prowess and to forget the way out. In this sense Carol traveled the well-worn path of the cathartic rediscovery of her own light-being.  In another sense, Carol had figuratively impregnated her consciousness and was reborn to the realization that there is a life beyond the physical body, something our culture takes great pains to suppress.

“Carol does not examine the source of disobedience that caused her own ‘original sin.’ She does not make the connection to her own responsibility of being able to make a choice. This ability is akin to the vast difference between Christianity as we know it, and the ancient Gnostics:  orthodox religion demands that we believe, while Gnosticism assures us we are ‘able to know’ God. And if the essence of God is reflected in a light beam, and or inner selves are part of that light beam, then indeed we not only are able to ‘know’ God, but carry God’s essence within each of us! So when Carol begins her with the observation that a ‘light beam knows no sorrow,’ she is actually re-initiating this Gnostic process of examining her own connection to the essence of God and trying to figure out how she lost it in the first place!

“Duality causes paradoxes and Carol discovers these in her own life as well as in the life of Christ. By reconnecting with her own inner light being, something that is part of her every cell, every thought, she realizes that she is not lost in her own physical mire and sees the way home, where dualism resolved itself back into the light. And she accomplishes this process through the trance of hypnotherapy.  And in that realization she discovers the history of the soul!

“Having practiced past life therapy ever since my own ‘therapist’ passed into his light being, I was touched by Carol’s persistence to continue this process of self-discovery that proved to be far greater than the self.  It took into the presence of illuminated beings, solved the mystery of Christ’s washing of the feet of his disciples (teaching by doing, or role-modeling). This experience leads Carol to discover unconditional love.

“Some questions arose in my mind, as they did in Carol’s. Was she being self-centered, self-indulgent in putting herself as the center of the universe from which she was supposed to radiate light to the rest of us? To stop with a facile answer to that question is to fall short of the process of self-discovery.  Having studied developmental psychology and the related neurobiological field that is still expanding exponentially as the fastest growing field of study, I concluded that just as every human being has to go through childhood in order to grow and develop into an adult, physically, emotionally and intellectually, we also have to go through that process spiritually and likely in several other yet unexplored areas of our existence.  Spiritual development, usually repressed by culture outside such controlled environments as churches, mosques and synagogues, is usually repressed by culture because it is socially uncontrollable and unpredictable. But once an individual begins the spiritual development, it is like any other form of development. Spiritual awareness has its own infancy, grows through its own ‘childhood’ before it unfolds into maturity. Most adults do not wish to go through such seeming infantile regression! And Carol, self-conscious of the self-centeredness, wondering why she has to go through it, nevertheless persevered through it. Along the way she finds Christ’s message, including the Second Coming, deciphered.

“Carol reached her next cathartic moment when she realized that spending time in the spiritual dimension comes with a price: the seeming loss of the senses, the transcending of the body. We tend to equate the loss of the senses with being insane, and it is well documented that thousands of people under psychiatric care lost their senses and sanity. Carol struggled with the seemingly vast gap between the information filtering down to her as a ‘light being’ and her everyday life, which seemed so mundane in contrast to such grand events as the Second Coming, reincarnation memories from Atlantis, and being charged with writing a book to awaken the Golden Ones!

“Even Pan had a hand in writing this book! In some of her visions he dictated too Carole how the book should begin.). He seemed to know about Atlantis, Egypt, the role of the Great Pyramid and Carole’s calling.  but he also had overriding concerns, asking humanity above all to ‘do no harm!’ His greatest lesson to teach us is that “death and re-birth is a gift.” Finally Pan left with a piece of advice for us all, to do some gardening: “Grow something!”

“Carole did a stint on Toronto’s Ward Island at the time city hall threatened to remove its residents. It was a great school for grass roots cooperation in the face of bureaucratic insensitivity.

“Carole returns to her self-doubts again and again. All people have doubts of one sort or another, but Carole seems to use hers for self-motivation: to return to hypnosis, to contact her inner self.

“The Five Root Races are:
1. Light beam
2. Wisp-of-smoke, translucent amber beings
3. Going in and out of bodes in Atlantis
4. Modified animal bodies as we know ourselves now
5. Golden, unchanging auras, loving people who do no harm, They will be able to return to the light beam and back into their body at will.

“In the meantime, a loose form of Christ-centered Brotherhood begins to emerge from Carole’s writing. This Brotherhood is ‘etheric’ or, more precisely, part of her visionary energy. But when I began to read about the Brotherhood and Carole’s curious interaction with them, I began to ‘know’ what she was going through. I have read about this energetic Brotherhood a long time ago, and through the help of various selfless people, I encountered them in 2003 at a conference in Allegan, Michigan. Carole was there!  She didn’t know what I was going through, and I didn’t know at that time the focus of her ‘work’. I was pursuing a study of the role of Goddess worship throughout history. I had spent the previous year working with the ancient Egyptian Goddess Sekhmet, the lioness Goddess of both Destruction and Healing. Carole had encountered a ‘lifetime’ when she was an Egyptian Goddess!

“Then I turned to the last thousand years of history and the role of the three Marys and their relationship to the Knights Templars. It was after one of my more animated presentations in Allegan about the Knights having sailed to the Americas centuries before Columbus, that Mary Hardy, our host, asked the speakers to form a meditative circle and introduced us to the etheric Knights Templars who have accompanied her and have supported her work for years. That is where, with head bowed, these Knights also appeared to me and spoke about their ‘Brotherhood’ that transcends all organizational ties humanity has created.

“As I read Carole’s Chapter 17, I shivered: I also went through a time of medically untreatable skin irritation (in 1984-85) that only cleared up when a friend recommended I explore my past lives and I found the ‘cause’ of my unresolved problem in ancient Egypt! I also had to decide to forego ‘fame’ and work closely and selflessly with smaller groups of people. When I read Carole’s dreams of knowing about a secret chamber in the Great Pyramid that contained Atlantean records, I also remembered a 1963 dream in which I ‘saw’ three other people open that chamber, exactly as Edgar Cayce had foreseen it, and I was one of the follow-up people who helped to translate the ancient texts! I too have come to the personal realization that Christ’s Second Coming is a personal matter unique to each individual. When I finished Chapter 17, I recognized that Carole was following her own divine guidance.

“The rest of the book was almost like ‘deja vu’. Many years ago I struggled with Rudolf Steiner’s concept of the “Egyptian Mysteries” wherein humanity had descended into our current physical bodies in similar stages as Carole’s Five Root Races.

“Some years ago I had studied the Chakra system and its relationship with the body’s endocrine system, and acknowledged that each ‘chakra’ might be a transmitter and receiver of different energies, giving us another seven levels of sentience over and above our five senses. Then, when Carolyn Myss came out with her first book, everything fell into place for me: our chakras are indeed our connection to our light bodies.

“We change the world by changing ourselves, one at a time. Perhaps it is a chain reaction, and the Golden Ones to whom Carole Chapman has dedicated her life, will get the message and see the light, see their potential to return to their light bodies by following the examples and role modeling that people like Carole provide them.”

Find out more about When We Were Gods.

When We Were Gods Table of Contents

When We Were Gods: Insights on Atlantis, Past Lives, Angelic Beings of Light and Spiritual Awakening

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements
Foreword
Author’s Note
Author’s Notes to the Second Revised Edition

Part I: When We Were Gods

Chapter 1: The Man of my Dreams
Chapter 2: Trouble in Paradise
Chapter 3: In the Beginning
Chapter 4: Fat Karma
Chapter 5: The Vision
Chapter 6: The Golden Ones
Chapter 7: God is Greater
Chapter 8: The Light Without
Chapter 9: The Dark Force
Chapter 10: The Light Force
Chapter 11: The Life to Come
Chapter 12: Love of the Physical
Chapter 13: Going Crazy
Chapter 14: A Message From Pan
Chapter 15: Flying Snake
Chapter 16: The Fifth Root Race
Chapter 17: The Brotherhood
Chapter 18: The Tower and the Crystal
Chapter 19: Snake Transportation
Chapter 20: The Great Pyramid
Chapter 21: When We Were Gods
Chapter 22: Death is the New Thing
Chapter 23: Feathered Serpent
Chapter 24: A New World
Chapter 25: Epilogue

Part II: Articles

Chapter 26: Introduction to the Articles
Chapter 27: “From Obesity to the Fifth Root Race” published in Venture Inward
Chapter 28: “Melting Off the Pounds: The Sun Diet” published in Whole Life Times
Chapter 29: “Arcturus is Home” published in Fate
Chapter 30: “The Great Crystal” published in Circle Magazine
Chapter 31: “Searching for the Hall of Records in the Yucatan” published in Venture Inward
Chapter 32: “The Man of My Dreams” published in Dream Network
Chapter 33: “In the Mouth of the Snake” published in Alternate Perceptions

Bibliography
Index
Author Biography

Read more about When We Were Gods.

Findhorn founder Dorothy Maclean used to work for “Intrepid” the British spy who inspired James Bond

Aren’t life’s synchronicities amazing? As you know, I’ve been reading about Dorothy Maclean one of the founders of Findhorn, the spiritual nature-cooperating community in northern Scotland. Much to my surprise, when she was younger, she worked for the British secret service (at the time Canada was still a part of England) and her boss was William Stephenson. I had read about Stephenson many years ago in the biography “A Man Called Intrepid” and really enjoyed the story. He is also somewhat indirectly famous in that he is the spy that inspired the James Bond 007 character. Although he worked as a British spy, he was born and raised in Canada.

Dorothy Maclean reveals an extraordinary life

The Beauty of Nature

I’ve been reading this great book about Dorothy Maclean, one of the founding members of Findhorn – the community in Scotland known for it’s close connection with nature spirits. Thought I’d mention it just in case some of you would like to check it out. The book is called, Memoirs of an Ordinary Mystic, but Dorothy was far from being ordinary. She’s the one who heard messages from the nature spirits, which she called devas. I’m enjoying the book immensely, because it describes her ordinary beginnings in the Canadian town of Guelph, and how chance circumstances brought her to a life of spiritual dedication and eventually to begin the marvelous gardens in Findhorn.

Nature quote from the “Message from Pan” Chapter in When We Were Gods

Another nature quote excerpt from the “Message from Pan” chapter in When We Were Gods:

“We need you to preserve our homes…don’t clear-cut. Leave trees, brush—homes for birds, rabbits, and raccoons. Make small changes in what you do.”

Nature quote from Mohandas Gandhi

It’s that time of year when our thoughts turn to gardening, which invites an intimate relationship with nature spirits. Here’s an inspirational nature quote from Gandhi on gardening.

Inspirational nature quote and photo

Continuing on the theme of how nature can clean the earth, here’s an encouraging inspirational quote. It not only says that nature changes dirt into beauty, but also gives encouragement to slog through our own dirt to produce beauty in our lives.

Celebrate nature! Apple blossoms

Inspirational photo: Celebrate nature! Apple blossoms. 

In When We Were Gods, the nature god Pan said that if we appreciated nature, the natural world would gladly clean up our mess. This apple tree is not only blooming with beautiful and fragrant flowers to delight us, but is also producing food for us to eat and converting our carbon dioxide into oxygen. And, it’s roots, which are close to the drain field of our septic tank, is converting sewage into antioxidants. Wow! Talk about cleaning up the mess!

Message from Pan Lord of the Wilderness

Message from Pan Lord of the Wilderness: Following, please find an excerpt from When We Were Gods. While writing the book, I was awakened in the night and, for the first and only time in my life, received channeled information.