In 1948, G. Warren Kleinmaier had an epiphany that would change the course of his life.
About to begin his residency in pediatrics, Kleinmaier was visiting Chicago. There, near the shore of Lake Michigan, he had what he calls the first of many “peak experiences,” in which a sense of profound peace washed over him.
“I knew with a sense of destiny, that I would one day devote the rest of my life to a bridge between science and spirit,” Kleinmaier said.
Now 78 and a resident of the Jewish Home in San Francisco, the father of four and grandfather of seven has been leading workshops on his explorations into that topic — and how that links to his interest in the Dead Sea Scrolls — for fellow residents of the elder-care facility.
Born in Michigan and raised in Marion, Ohio, Kleinmaier received his early Jewish education from his mother, who taught several Jewish children herself.
Kleinmaier entered medical school wanting to study psychiatry, but his love of children led him into pediatrics. He ended up studying both.
In 1950, Kleinmaier had another experience that charted his path. While driving on a curvy mountain road in an old car with faulty brakes, it began to rain. A steep drop and sharp turn in the road appeared simultaneously. Kleinmaier couldn’t brake fast enough, and expected to go careening over the cliff. But it didn’t happen: His car just stopped.
Kleinmaier got out, thinking there may have been guardrail, but instead found the two piles of freshly dug dirt that had prevented his wheels from continuing on.
There were no signs of other dirt or any digging. Or of tools, for that matter.
“The person who drove away from that scene was not the same young man who had catapulted into it minutes before,” he said. “My sense of the immediate presence of the mystical, of connection with the universe, was [etched on my consciousness] forever.”
Those experiences and several others led Kleinmaier on a path to study synchronicity, which Carl Jung defined as coincidence that seems to have meaning.
But it wasn’t really an academic study, because such events continued to happen to him.
“Synchronicity happens to people who are really following a path,” said Kleinmaier. “It’s a strange thing, and when you’re open to it, things happen.” Calling such coincidences “minor miracles” and “remarkable,” he said, “When they happen to you, they hit you like a ton of bricks. All of a sudden you feel one with the universe.”
Kleinmaier continued to practice medicine, but he did not go into private practice because it was too time-consuming to continue on his spiritual explorations. He married and divorced several times, and also met the woman he refers to as his soulmate and inspiration, who died in a car accident.
What guided him, he said, was that “I began to realize I was onto something, and it was something that relates not to the individual but the world.”
Kleinmaier had an interest in the synchronicity surrounding the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, which were found in a cave in Jordan in 1947. A battle ensued among scholars around the world to obtain the scrolls, at the same time another battle was being fought to establish the state of Israel.
Kleinmaier pointed out that in 1948, the scrolls were carried into Jerusalem at the very moment that the last vote declaring Israel’s statehood was cast at the United Nations.
Which led the white-bearded Kleinmaier to believe what he calls the prophecy found in the scrolls.
When he saw the scrolls in 1965, “I knew it was a prophecy and nobody would confirm that,” he said. Although throughout the years he has met many scholars of the scrolls, Kleinmaier believes that they “don’t have the kind of mind that is insightful and aware of that kind of writing. I think that’s true of the vast majority of people today. This is not a spiritual enough civilization.”
Kleinmaier believes that a portion of the scrolls called “The War of the Sons of Light and the Sons of Darkness” alludes to a war between the forces of good and evil that will eventually involve the entire world — themes that can now be seen in America’s battle against terrorism and Osama bin Laden.
At the conclusion of this war, Kleinmaier thinks a Third Temple must be built on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, but it will be a universal temple, including surrounding houses of worship of all the major religions.
Kleinmaier believes that the building of such a temple will be the most positive news story since the Exodus.
“The universal temple on the Temple Mount, by its process of birth and by its very existence in the world, will serve as a reminder, and elevate world consciousness of the constant real and living presence in our lives of the creator of heaven and earth, will save civilization from the destruction it is otherwise heading for, and bring upon mankind transformation and multiple blessings beyond imagination.”