Through a Child’s Third Eye

When I was little I was playing in front of the TV while Grandma watched some WWII movie.  In it, there was mention of Chinese water torture.  I remember a man, with water dripping relentlessly on his forehead, his face in shadows of black and white, his face twisted in a portrayal of agony.

I couldn’t imagine how simple drops of water could be so painful.  The man wasn’t the Wicked Witch after all.

Later, in the bathtub, I lay back and dripped water from my washcloth onto that center spot on my forehead.  It tingled.  Tingled in a good way.  It felt lively, lovely, and made me feel a sense of well-being like having the back of my neck stroked.  It almost gave me goosebumps.  I guessed that if one dripped water on that spot for hours, it might make one crazy, but my experienced was a pleasant one.

It wasn’t until years later that I learned about chakras, those energy centers of the body, and specifically about the third eye.  The minute I read about the third eye, I remembered my little experiment in the bathtub.  My third eye was apparently open and sensitive even in early childhood.

This is one of those little clues that I have had my whole life that I was more than just a physical human being—that I was a greater being than my body.  But also that I seemed to know more than my peers.  I remember learning things in school and thinking, “I knew that” but couldn’t for the life of me understand how I had already learned it.   

When I was about seven, walking to school in the morning alone meant a half hour of imaginative mind-play.  I pretended I was all grown up and that I had children and we were walking together.  But I distinctly remember that my imaginary children did not seem real to me.  I knew they were imagined, creations from my own head.  I had no emotional attachment to them.  But I realized one morning that I was certain that I knew what it felt like to be a grownup.  I knew. Somehow, I must have been a grownup before—before I was little Kitty Anthony.

One afternoon, I asked my father about this.  I remember him clearly sitting in the gold vinyl recliner that had been recently purchased.  We were in the living room of Grandma’s house and he was reading a magazine. 

This conversation went something like this:

“Dad?”

“Hmm, what?”

“I have a question.”

“OK.”

“Well, you’re created when you are born, right?”

“OK.”

“And when you die, you either go to Heaven or the other place down there, right.”

“OK.”

“Well, if that’s true, then how come I know what it feels like to be a grownup?  I mean, I feel like I know that I have been a grownup before.”

“What you’re talking about called reincarnation.”

I repeated the word and he explained to me what it meant and that some other religions believe we live over and over again.  He gave me a little paperback book titled We Have Lived Before:  The Enigma of Reincarnation, by Brad Steiger.  I was fascinated and frightened all at the same time—I read stories of memories of terrible deaths from Civil War soldiers, and the story of Bridey Murphy.  I didn’t remember dying, specifically, what I remembered was the sense of being alive and being someone/someplace else.  But I was afraid that if I explored further, I might uncover unpleasant memories. 

Still, it was the beginning of my work, my study and hundreds of books and a half century later, I am still learning and studying things of the spirit.