Dear Soul Arcanum:
I read that you’re a Spiritualist minister, and also read your theory that to experience Spirit, we have to believe it is possible. How does that happen in the first place? Were you raised Spiritualist? If not, what made you a believer? Did something happen that convinced you? Have you always been psychic and able to communicate with spirits? Do you still have new and different experiences of Spirit that deepen your convictions?
– Robert
Dear Robert:
I was not raised Spiritualist, nor have I always had psychic experiences or been able to communicate with Spirits. While my family was officially Episcopalian, we did not attend church regularly. Like many people who grew up in the 60’s and 70’s, religion was not a big part of my upbringing. In a way, that probably helped me, because I had no limiting beliefs about the supernatural being evil or dangerous. My mind was pretty open.
The first experience to blow my mind about what is possible came when I was 17 and first my first love died suddenly. I don’t have space to relay the whole story here, but basically, though his death was totally unexpected, somehow the last time we saw each other, we both knew that we wouldn’t see each other again. Many strange messages and events surrounded his death. Somehow at some level, we both knew he was going to die. He even arranged for messages to be delivered to me AFTER his death. While “losing” him to the other side was deeply traumatic, these amazing spiritual experiences rocked my entire worldview. It was then that I started to become interested in the deeper nature of life and death.
At that time I was very busy with finishing high school and going on to college, so I didn’t really start reading spiritual material until a few years later. When I was 20 I became pregnant with my son, and that is when my psychic doors blew open. Nick is what many would call a very old soul, and is extraordinarily psychic himself. As soon as he was able to talk, he began saying the most amazing things. He “remembered” God and what he was doing before he was born, for example. I believe that his spiritual vibration was far higher than mine, and that when I conceived him, his energy blasted my own vibration upwards. This led to a very powerful, intense, accelerated journey of spiritual awakening.
At that time I began to see, hear and otherwise perceive things that others could not. Some of these things seemed innocuous enough: I would know that the phone was about to ring and who would be calling, for example. I would have intuitions about situations that would prove true. At the same time, however, I began to see auras and “balls of energy,” and also to perceive frightening entities in my peripheral vision. As soon as I would turn to look at them, they would disappear. (This is very common when one’s third eye is beginning to open.) Many of these encounters were terrifying. I write that here so that those who are having similar experiences will know that this is “normal.”
These scary things happened because I was living in a constant state of fear. I wasn’t sharing these experiences with anyone because I feared that I was crazy, and if anyone found out, they would take my baby from me. As my vibration was full of fear, I naturally attracted frightening energies/entities. Fearing that I was schizophrenic, I began to research what I was experiencing from a psychological angle. This reading referenced spiritual explanations, and as I began to read more about mystical experiences through history and around the world, I was relieved to learn that many people had experienced what I was experiencing, and that it was part of an early spiritual awakening process.
As my fear dissolved, my vibration rose, and I began to have more positive experiences. I also learned how to deal with dark forces: by shining the light of love on them. At this time, I began to spontaneously experience communication from spirits.
If someone I was with began to talk about someone who had crossed over with love, that spirit might appear behind them as a big ball of misty energy. (Usually it was a deep purple color, but it was sometimes golden and sometimes colorless, like heat waves coming off of pavement.) The spirit would communicate with me mentally and ask me to relay messages to the person I was talking to. They would give me “evidence” such as their name, occupation, or other identifying details. When I would find the courage to tell the person what I was experiencing, time and time again, the message from Spirit was not only accepted and validated, but it would have a profound healing effect on its recipient. That is when I began to believe that what I was experiencing was not only very real, but also very valuable.
When I saw the healing power of these messages, I decided to devote my life to this work. At that time, Spirit sort of took over. I was guided in incredible ways to the teachers, books and opportunities I needed to master spirit communication. I have been supported by Spirit every step of the way since then, and have had countless experiences validate my beliefs. These have included (but have not been limited to) amazing astral experiences, incredible manifestations of whatever I needed, thousands of readings that were validated as accurate and evidential, personal guidance from Spirit that proved accurate and evidential, countless instances of synchronicity sparked by me honoring an impulse or intuition, etc.
After all of this, I DO still have experiences that move me and deepen my faith. For example, recently I had a very profound astral encounter. My grandparents passed over some 15 years ago, and since then, my grandmother has remained close. In fact, she was one of the first spirits to ever appear to me, and it is very easy for me to connect with her mentally. My grandfather, however, has only touched in now and then, and I can never seem to reach him of my own volition. This has somewhat saddened me, but I had come to accept it.
A couple of weeks ago, I met with my grandfather in the astral. First I believed myself to be dreaming, but then suddenly I looked up and saw him there, and I became so excited. I basically said, “It’s YOU!” I flew to him and embraced him, and he felt so REAL. I was struck by how seeing him, feeling him, and smelling him refreshed my memory of him. It was the difference between remembering someone in your mind, and then actually SEEING them for real. We had a wonderful conversation about where he has been since he “died,” and he assured me that he has been close despite the fact that I’d had trouble connecting with him.
My alarm clock then went off, and I couldn’t “get back” into my body at first. When I was finally able to speak, I croaked to my husband that I needed “help, because I can’t get back.” He touched me, which helped me to move back into my body fully. I spent the whole morning weeping, not because I was sad, but because I was so moved by this experience, and so grateful.
So to answer the question behind all your questions, you don’t have to believe to begin to experience such things, but you do have to be open to believing. If you want to start experiencing things that will help you to believe, I recommend you begin meditating regularly and spending time with highly spiritual people. Pray for Spirit to give you “paranormal” experiences, act on your intuitions, and immerse yourself in spiritual study. Experience by experience, your belief will deepen, and as that happens, bigger and more amazing experiences will follow.
– Soul Arcanum