Dear Soul Arcanum:
I have a question about ESP. Sometimes when I’m meditating, I have conversations with people who are living whom I haven’t seen or heard from in years. For instance, I’ve had several conversations with a man I always considered my first spiritual teacher, and I haven’t heard from him in nine years.
When I let my mind go quiet and meditate, soon I find myself talking with this man or another long-lost friend. When the conversation ends, we either “hug” and say goodbye or I fall asleep. When I come out of my meditation or wake up, I have a vague memory of the conservation and feel at peace, but can’t recall what was said. Are these exchanges really happening? Thank you for your time.
– L.
Dear L.:
The common term for what you’re experiencing is telepathy. Telepathy is communication between one entity and another without the use of any physical means. Though most people don’t know it, we are constantly communicating with other beings in telepathic ways. Some are people and animals that are physically incarnate, like us, and some are beings that are not currently in physical form, like spirits.
Many researchers believe that humans used to communicate telepathically far more in the past, when physical survival was much more challenging. Further, as inventions like the telephone and internet have made communication around the globe quick and easy, it’s possible that technology is causing us to exercise both our physical AND psychic senses less. Many researchers believe that animals communicate telepathically all the time, so it’s natural to assume that primitive humans would have been able to do the same.
Telepathy is very much like spirit communication, for there is a level of consciousness/reality where there is no difference between those who are incarnate in the physical and those who are not, and it’s from this level that telepathy arises. When we cross over into the afterlife, our subconscious minds take the helm, and this also what happens when we dream at night.
Further, at the level of the subconscious, we are all connected and in constant communication with other people both living and dead. We naturally tend to communicate most with the people we’re closest to, like our spouses, parents and children.
For example, my son and I have the strongest psychic bond I’ve ever known. He began communicating with me telepathically when he was in the womb by showing me images of what he would look like years in the future. When he was a toddler, we often awoke at night at the same time, and when I went in to check on him, he said things that made it clear that he had either been having the exact same dream I had awakened from, or he was aware of what I’d been dreaming. He’s now a teenager, and we often answer each other’s questions before the questions are even verbalized. Sometimes, we don’t even realize we’re doing it.
We can maintain a strong psychic link with people we knew in the past but don’t see anymore, and when we do, we continue to have a profound relationship with them on a subconscious level. To determine who you have a strong psychic bond to, ask yourself who you dream about most often. These people will also frequently pop into your mind for no apparent reason.
I frequently dream about my departed grandmother, with whom I was very close, and though I have virtually no relationship with him and haven’t for years, I also dream about my older brother all the time. By contrast, there are other people I interact with in important ways daily that I never dream about. There are also people from my past that I haven’t seen for decades who frequently come to mind. These are people I have an ongoing relationship with, but not on a conscious, physical level. In the astral, they are still a big part of my world.
A meditative state of mind is powerful because it helps us to synthesize our conscious and subconscious awareness. When we learn how to quiet the mind while awake, we can become aware of experiences that normally remain subconscious, like telepathy. Since everyone receives “messages from Spirit” and communicates telepathically with others at an unconscious level, a psychic is not someone who learns how to do this, but rather someone who learns how to do this consciously and purposefully. The more you meditate and work with this, the more of these conversations you should be able to remember.
On the rare occasion that both people are highly conscious, interesting experiences tend to unfold. One of the powers of a true guru is the sort of telepathy you describe. For a classic book on this phenomenon, check outThe Boy Who Saw True, in which the author believed he was communicating with a spirit guide, only to learn that he was in fact psychically connecting with a spiritual teacher who was sleeping on the other side of the globe.
While meditating, gurus can “visit” and even “teach” their students, just like spirit guides come to us when we meditate for answers and insights. So it’s not surprising that you have had a number of conversations with your former spiritual teacher, who may even be conscious of these visits himself. As time is not linear, he could even experience what you did at a different time – or perhaps you are the one who is tuning in to significant subconscious exchanges when you meditate.
It’s rare for others to be this consciously aware, however, and the less conscious someone is, the more control their subconscious will wield over them. Gaining conscious “access” to someone’s subconscious mind is thus very powerful. This is why hypnotism and affirmations and such seem to work magic; the subconscious’ programming largely determines one’s thoughts, behavior, and personal reality.
A person’s subconscious mind is far more malleable than their conscious mind. So long as they would not perceive what we want to be harmful or immoral, they’ll be receptive to our suggestions at this level. (This is why you can hypnotize someone to perhaps cluck like a chicken, but not to kill someone). If we become conscious of telepathic exchanges via meditation, we can work with others at a subconscious level to create positive change.
I have had amazing results with simply meditating and then mentally talking with someone’s higher self. In these conversations, I simply send them love and blessings and hold a vision of what I’m hoping they will help me create. Usually, what I want is simple peace and harmony in our relationship. Invariably when I do this, that person will approach me soon after and be remarkably more friendly and cooperative than they were before.
As most people are not aware of why they feel the way they do and why they do the self-defeating and unreasonable things they do, I figure if they’re causing problems, they’re due for a little “positive influence!” Of course we can’t override another’s free will; using this technique is like talking to them when they’re in a great mood and feeling highly open and receptive to us. So the next time you find yourself in conflict with someone, use your telepathic powers and try talking things over with their subconscious/higher self. It works!
In summary, what you’re experiencing is a real and wonderful reflection of how neither time nor distance can diminish our spiritual connection to the most important people in our lives.
– Soul Arcanum