Take any step as a beginning. The resources available (especially in large cities) are more plentiful than ever before. Bookstores and libraries are magical places. Just reading about the psychic or spirituality can lead to a breakthrough, ignite a curiosity that inspires you to go on. I practically live in the metaphysical bookstore near my house, sitting on a stool for hours leafing through what's new. However, if you come from a rural community, treasure troves like these ate not always so easy to find. I was astounded to hear from one of the women I appeared on television with that she has to travel over sixty miles to find a shop that carries such reading material. The small bookstore in her town won't stock these titles because they're considered “strange” and of questionable value. I was sadly reminded of how stuck in the Dark Ages some places are, how far we still have to go. For this reason I've included in the back of this book a list of resources for you to contact, including a guide for further reading.
If you want to go on, to explore one step farther, the surest route I know to the psychic is through meditation. It lets you tone down the static in your mind, amplifying your intuitive voice. Stick to the basics: Ritual, prayer, and setting up an altar can move you in this direction, too. Your approach may be as simple as you like. Experiment. Keep your eyes open for lectures and workshops, anything that appeals to you. I can't count how many different events I've attended that have filled in yet another missing piece of the puzzle. It's good to investigate a variety of teachers and learn from those you respect. My own teacher has been the single most powerful influence on my spiritual and psychic growth. Build a circle of friends who wholeheartedly support your path. None of us can do this alone. We need each other.
Keep fertilizing the ground. Every concrete action you take prepares you to be psychic, not just at the moment, but as a way of life, setting the stage to know things in a different way. Each of us has our own special talents. The psychic comes through in many forms: visions, dreams, knowings, sounds. The more quiet time you spend with yourself, the better acquainted you'll become with each variation. You'll gravitate toward the one that feels most natural. For me, it's dreams. I look forward to them—I can depend on their lucidity. It's in my dream state where I'm completely at home. For you it may be doing psychic readings, sensing energy, healing with your hands. Try everything. Discover what your calling is.
I hope you will take this journey. It's studded with challenges, constantly transforming. There's no ceiling to what we can learn. Follow your inner voice, straight to the center of things—see with all the passion and power that lies bubbling within you, and let loose. My wish is that you identify with at least a thread of my story and take off from there.
Even now the world is changing. So many people I encounter are painfully aware of something missing in their lives. No amount of material gain can fill it. They yearn to be able to connect with a deeper meaning and wholeness. As a result of this need, many are seeking spiritual answers. The psychic can be one way in—and gradually it's becoming more accepted. Twenty or thirty years ago it would have been unheard of to have a daily talk show about the paranormal on network TV. Yet today not only is the media making more of an effort to take the subject seriously, but people from all over are growing brave enough to declare their psychic experiences.
Increasingly, it's accepted practice for police departments to use psychics to aid criminal investigations; high-profile business leaders are recognizing how indispensable their intuition is to their work; health professionals are turning to their own psychic abilities to diagnose and heal. Little by little, the change is happening. The psychic is a creative influence that enlivens every element of life, spurring you on not only to live more fully but to flourish. You can be a part of the change, starting most importantly in your own heart and home.
What better place to set this in motion than within your family? For example, you and your wife may be going through a rough time financially, but when you tune in you clearly see that within a matter of months the situation will work itself out. This spares you both a needless period of worry and anxiety, taking your relationship out of the pressure cooker. The psychic can enhance how your family interacts: By intuiting their feelings, looking beyond surface motivations, and foreseeing the larger picture, you can approach them more constructively with love.
As a mother, my friend Susan's psychic instincts came into play even before the moment of conception. One evening, as she was busy cooking for a dinner party at her home, her mind on a million other things, she was suddenly overwhelmed by an extraordinary psychic sensation. “A soul was pushing in on me, as if announcing itself,” she said. “There was an absolute urgency. I knew it was asking to be born.” Over the years Susan and her husband had learned to listen to her intuitions. Later that night, when their guests had left, she told him what happened. They had been married for several years and had talked about having children, but until now the moment never felt right. Though wavering before, on the strength of Susan's feeling and their genuine desire for a child, they decided to give it a try.
Once they did, everything fell into place. Not long after, Susan woke up one morning positive that this was the day she was going to become pregnant. “It was too much,” Susan said. “As we were making love, I was certain of the exact instant I conceived.” Sure enough, a few weeks later she found out she was pregnant, confirming what she'd already sensed to be true. Susan was delighted, but she really wasn't surprised.
During her pregnancy she set a precedent by establishing a psychic relationship with her child in the womb. Intuitively she picked up that she was carrying a boy, plus information about his looks and personality, which later proved to be accurate. Meditating each day to align herself psychically with her baby, she established a close rapport early on which continued after his birth.
When her son was very young, at times Susan would psychically check in on him at school. Her aim was not to be intrusive, scrutinizing every little detail (even if she could), but simply to get a general idea whether or not he was okay. Susan was no snoop; she respected her son's privacy. For her, the psychic served mainly as an alarm. In the same way, many mothers sense if their kids are in trouble but don't consider themselves psychic. I believe that such sensitivity is an organic extension of the maternal bond, as is the healing power of touch. Susan, for instance, would hold her son when he was ill, sending energy through her hands, to help heal his symptoms and calm his distress. This was totally natural to her, and, as he grew older, she communicated the same naturalness to him.
Imagine what the world would be like if children were praised and encouraged to voice their psychic abilities instead of being stigmatized, discounted, or judged. Imagine a whole generation growing up more balanced and happy, expressing their gift, not being pressured into pretending to be something they're not. I would have given anything for that freedom. You can offer this to your child. Allow them the room to improvise and play with the psychic without the fear of a restrictive muzzle being clamped down on them. I have seen the most beautiful light come over children's faces when their parents give them permission to explore psychically. It's wonderful to watch as a brand new universe unfolds right before their eyes. Even if you have never been psychic yourself and don't know what to do if your child is, there are places to turn, several of which you'll find listed at the back of this book. There are people you can contact—therapists, psychics, and healers—who can answer questions, allay your fears, show you how to nurture this quality in your child.
I recently became acquainted with a mother, Laura, who was at her wits' end. Her ten-year-old daughter had been seeing what she believed to be “auras” and “tiny balls of light traveling at high rates of speed.” Laura told me, “She sees them all the time—at home, at school, in the car, at the mall, everywhere she goes. She noticed them around a teacher at school, around our family dog, around a flag, and even around herself.” For two years, Kate had been having these visions and they frightened her. At night they were the most intense, so much so that she developed a terror of the dark. “Her father and I thought it was a childhood fear,” Laura said. “But after two years our patience was wearing thin.”
Laura had no experience with the psychic. Even so, though she wasn't sure, she sensed that Kate's ability was a gift—but was worried by the anxiety that accompanied it. Most of all she yearned to understand so that she could be supportive of her daughter no matter what. When I met Kate and Laura, I recognized right away that they sincerely wanted guidance. Their faces were as beautiful as cameos, although both seemed shell-shocked by the strain of the last few years. Laura had only one personal agenda, to find out how to help her daughter, the ideal attitude for doing some real good. It impressed me that she was willing to let go of her misconceptions, eager to hear what I had to say. Kate was a freckled, brown-eyed, darling girl, smart as could be, who more than anything wanted to know: Is what's happening to me bad?
I sat down with mother and daughter, reassuring them that Kate's abilities were much like having a highly developed sense of sight or sound. This was hard for Kate to absorb, given her fear, and she was still filled with questions, especially about the colors she saw. “What does red mean?” she asked. “How come some people have purple all around them and others have more green?” “No one knows for sure,” I told Kate, “but down through the ages mystics who can see colors as you do have agreed on certain things. For example, when someone gives off a lot of green, they tend to be loving and come from their hearts; yellow means that they're logical and intellectual; red is the color of anger, pain, or passion; purple tends to be the psychic color, often linked with creativity.” I emphasized that there was nothing strange or bizarre about her visions and that they could be a big asset to her as she grew up.
Kate and Laura had such a backlog of worry that I realized it would take more time than we could spend together that day to make a significant dent in it. Unfortunately, they were about to return to their home in Montana. But it was a solid beginning, their first direct exposure to another psychic, a frame of reference to make sense of what was happening. Laura felt particularly relieved to be pointed in a positive direction. Though doing her best under the circumstances, she had been essentially all alone, floundering. Once, Laura even confided, as a desperate measure when they moved to a new city, she had naively requested that Kate promise to leave her fears behind. Of course, the well-intentioned plan had backfired. Kate's fears only escalated by being kept in.
I wasn't surprised. From my experience as a psychic child, I knew that Kate's anxiety stemmed from being right on the edge of another dimension. What frightened her was the unknown. I was also certain that once she integrated and used the psychic in her life, her fear would fall away. There's no sense in trying to squash these abilities; suppressing them just creates a whole new series of problems. Fear doesn't disappear—it just shows up in other forms, like being afraid of the dark, of other people, of leaving the house. I urged Kate and her mother to contact a healing center in their area so that they would have the opportunity to work with people who had successfully dealt with this fear and could support Kate through it. Only then could Kate enjoy her gift and make it her own.
My friend Stephan Schwartz told a story I loved about the time he was invited to give a talk to kids on intuition and body energies at an innovative summer camp in Virginia. In his own matter-of-fact style, he spoke of the same kinds of colors Kate saw and how we are all made up of energy that can be psychically perceived by some people. When he finished, a group of nine- and ten-year-olds swarmed around him, each one excitedly exclaiming, “I can do that, too!” As he listened further, though, he learned that this ability also scared them. Right then and there, Stephan decided to work with the kids to show them that seeing colors was perfectly natural and nothing to be afraid of. Over the next few weeks, he designed games to dispel their fears and make the whole thing fun. Taking turns, they would look at each other's energy, determine what color it was that day, and then ask that person how they were feeling. With practice, they began to match up colors and emotions. Pretty soon, sensing energy became second nature to these kids, no longer scary at all.
You can play similar games with your own kids. For example, sit across from each other, eyes closed, and alternate roles, psychically sending and receiving. Keep it light, laugh as much as you can, create an atmosphere to explore. If you're the sender, pick a sharply defined image like an orange, a specific number, or the face of a person you both know well and passively concentrate on it. Ask your children, as the receivers, to relay the colors, textures, sensations, or pictures they pick up. Then give them feedback on where they are right or wrong, highlighting the positives. You can try another approach when you and your kids are in the car. While stopped at a traffic light, ask them to focus and predict the exact moment the light will change. Make sure they know that it doesn't matter if they're right or wrong. This is simply an exercise in tuning in that allows them to practice. Or try Stephan's game when you're out shopping. If your children can see colors around people, encourage them to tell you what they look like, not making too big a deal out of it, yet at the same time acknowledging that their perceptions are real. Kids raised this way are less likely to consider the psychic weird or special. They'll appreciate it for what it is: an innate ability many people have.
To be an enlightened parent demands more than merely being tolerant of the psychic. It means that you fully embrace it, as you would any other talent in your child's life. Even if the psychic world is new to you, or you've never had a single experience of this kind yourself, it's vital that you believe in and support these sensitivities in your children. When kids grow up with the security of being totally accepted for who they are, they naturally feel empowered and respond in turn with love. Nurturing the best in each other, your family can then become a microcosm of peace, contributing to a more harmonious society.