The love of learning rules the world.
—Phi Kappa Phi motto
Can people learn to connect with Spirit?
Can people learn to use this information in ways that provide practical guidance in their lives?
Can people learn to apply the scientific method for improving their ability to discern the difference between what is real, what is possible, and what is imaginary?
And if so, how will we conduct formal research on this question?
What you are about to read is the inspiring journey of a person who decided to develop her intuitive skills for connecting with Spirit. This person has a deep questioning mind and appreciates the value of science. And it was fortuitous—if not synchronistic—that she was hired to work in a laboratory that was actively doing such research. Both she and I happened to be in the right place at the right time, doing the right thing with the right people.
It is an honor for me to provide a brief account of her journey, because I can appreciate her courage in having chosen to share her journey at all, let alone in doing it so publicly because she knows how much it could benefit others.
Her name is Clarissa Siebern, and at the time I wrote this chapter she was in her late thirties and working as the program coordinator of the Laboratory for Advances in Consciousness and Health at the University of Arizona. She had also assisted in certain research projects in the laboratory and is the mother of a boy with physical disabilities who appears to have some natural healing abilities.
It is curious how Clarissa came to my laboratory.
Clarissa was hired by the previous program coordinator, whose responsibilities included administering my Center for Frontier Medicine in Biofield Science, which was funded by the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, part of the National Institutes of Health. Clarissa served as her assistant. I rarely saw her.
When the center’s funding ended and my former program coordinator moved to another department in the university, Clarissa became my assistant and was subsequently promoted to the position of program coordinator when I obtained some private funding to continue the work.
In other words, Clarissa was not hired because she had intuitive leanings. Moreover, I had no idea that she would later decide to obtain personal training as an intuitive and end up becoming an intuitive investigator in the laboratory. Clarissa began her formal intuitive mentoring experiences in 2005, and it has been a surprising and remarkable journey.
You might wonder what it is like to be Clarissa and take such a journey yourself. What is it like to feel an increasing presence of a group of loving and caring guides in your life? Just as yours would be, Clarissa’s journey was a matter of building trust while building bridges.
What is it like to experience your guides seemingly showing up in your car, in a research meeting, or in the bathtub, and having them give you guidance, sometimes quite firmly? Clarissa says it’s rarely intrusive and often in response to a silent prayer or request.
What is it like to sometimes do tasks triggered by your guides, seemingly out of the blue? This would include purchasing two books about the Imagineers at Disney for your boss and then an hour later learning that he had just spoken with a colleague who had recently met the Imagineers’ president.
How do you feel if you are learning how to communicate with Spirit, and someone in the physical you care about—in this case, your boss as well as your friend—is constantly questioning whether you are getting accurate information from your alleged guides?
This situation is pretty unique to Clarissa; she describes it as being under a magnifying glass. I’m not sure that I would be as courageous, patient, and understanding as Clarissa has been under these circumstances.
I will first share four examples that I witnessed that clearly and verifiably illustrate how Clarissa’s apparent partnership with her guides led her to make specific (and often surprising) intuitive leaps. Since Clarissa has been engaged in evidence-based intuition training, I have had the privilege to serve as one of the people who helped her verify which of her intuitions are valid. The examples also demonstrate how guides seem to play a role in contributing to and validating synchronistic events.
I will then review two examples of exploratory proof-of-concept investigations, which are part of the Voyager Program and in which she participated as a co-investigator. These investigations illustrate the potential effects of her intuitive training as well as the promise of this work.
How Clarissa Receives Guidance from Her Guides
Over time I came to discover, and then expect, that I would have regular (at least monthly), memorable, guide-related validating experiences with Clarissa. She seemed to have become so adept at communicating with her guides that she would do things that were uncannily timely and surprising, if not jaw-dropping in their accuracy and significance.
We have probably experienced more than a hundred specific, meaningful, and verified events over a four-year period purportedly initiated by her guides. Moreover, the frequency and complexity of these events have increased significantly over this time period as well.
The increase might be explained as Clarissa feeling more comfortable about expressing the information and/or me being more open about receiving it. However, some of it may be because Clarissa is becoming better at listening to, questioning, and communicating with her guides.
I include four noteworthy examples below, one per year, to give you a flavor for the nature of her gifts and the apparent communications that she experiences.
On a Sunday afternoon in 2006, I decided to purchase a new watch. I had not bought a new one in more than twenty years. The purchase was spontaneous. I felt moved to purchase a silver-and-gold Bulova watch with a dark blue dial. I could not understand why its striking blue face appealed to me, since I had previously worn a conservative stainless steel Rolex with a plain white face.
Then on Monday morning, Clarissa called to tell me that she had been moved by her guides to purchase a gift for me on Sunday—around the same time that I had bought the watch. She insisted upon coming to my house to present me with it. She had never felt the urge before (or since) to spontaneously give me a gift that she had to bring to my house.
The present was a print of the painting Meditative Rose, by Salvador Dali. It depicts a large red rose appearing like the sun against a vibrant blue sky and seemingly floating above golden-colored mountains. I was shocked. The dark blue portion of sky of the painting was the same color as the face of the new watch I had been moved to buy (I had not at that time noticed the possible golden mountains/gold water connection as well).
Clarissa had purchased the print not only at her guides prompting but also because it jogged her memory of some synchronicities I had had in 2005 and earlier in 2006 involving single red roses. In other words, though her memory of past synchronicities made her open to purchasing the painting, it was the urging of her alleged guides that provided the motivation to actually make the purchase.
Though I knew nothing about Salvador Dali’s paintings then, I deeply appreciated receiving her gift, especially given the apparent connection of its striking blue background with the blue of my new watch’s face. This gift really caught my attention, and I hung the print in the hall outside the master bedroom.
Five days later at a conference held at Duke University where I gave the keynote address, Dr. Larry Dossey, a distinguished author and speaker, prominently displayed the same Meditative Rose by Salvador Dali on one of his PowerPoint slides.
In more than thirty years of attending scientific meetings, I had never seen such a painting in anybody’s research presentation, and I pondered on the odds of it being the same as a gift I had just received.
I later asked Dr. Dossey why he used the image. He said that he happened upon it on the web a few weeks earlier but just that morning felt the urge to include it in his presentation. He said it had no specific meaning to him or the content of his scientific presentation, other than it was beautiful and made him smile.
The true import of this synchronicity became apparent approximately two hours later. I learned that a woman I had just met—who subsequently became my wife—had been drawing rose-colored suns and that her first name, Rhonda, means “rose” in Greek and her middle name, Rae, means “sun”!
It was one thing for Clarissa to seemingly chance upon the poster at the mall on that Sunday morning. It was another thing for her to feel the urge to purchase it for me. And then she felt the need the next morning to drive from the laboratory to my home to present me with it because she could not wait for me to arrive at the laboratory. All of this emphasized its potential importance to me. (It is possible that Clarissa’s alleged guides really wanted me to take notice of Rhonda when she showed up in my life, and if so, I bless them for it.)
Clarissa claims that she increasingly feels encouraged by Spirit to do certain things that turn out to be evidential and meaningful.
The second example happened in the fall of 2007, when Clarissa felt the urge to share with me some words of wisdom that presumably came from her guides. According to Clarissa, they said that one way to think about them was as providing nurturing similar to how a parent assists a child learning to walk. Clarissa said, “A child will fall and get bumps and bruises, but the parent is there for support to make the journey less painful. You are the child and they—the guides—are there to assist.”
I found the timing of this spontaneous wisdom from Clarissa’s alleged guides quite odd because just that morning, when I awoke, I happened to find a large bruise on my leg and I could not figure out where it might have come from. I had discovered a bruise on my legs upon waking maybe three or four times in my entire life.
Are guides like caring parents? Can they assist us metaphorically in learning how to walk?
I realized that the Universe was potentially trying to get my attention with Clarissa and her guides’ help. I was being reminded to sustain a childlike openness and wonder concerning future evidential guidance and to preserve and protect my youthful caring heart.
The third example also involves children.
In the summer of 2008, Rhonda and I went to Hawaii to attend a one-year memorial service for a distinguished Hawaiian psychologist and dear friend, the late Dr. Paul Pearsall. At his memorial service, I met a Hawaiian spiritual leader whom Paul had loved and admired, Frank Kawaikapuokalani “Kuma” Hewett. Paul had written the foreword for this book, which introduced me to Kuma’s apt quote: “If you are going to create more light for our world, you must be willing to endure a little heat.”
Kuma introduced me to his daughter, who happened to have a teddy bear with a rainbow T-shirt sitting on her lap. I took some pictures because I had been having synchronicities around bears and rainbows on this trip. Only Rhonda, Paul’s wife, Celeste, and I knew that this combination of events was occurring.
When we returned to Tucson, Clarissa came to our weekly meeting with a gift that her guides supposedly had instructed her to purchase for me. I could not believe what I was receiving.
Clarissa gave me two Care Bears, one with a heart and one with a rainbow! I subsequently gave the teddy bears to a child as a gift.
How often do you think she (or anyone) has given me a teddy bear as a gift, especially with a rainbow on it? And how often do you think I see a child holding a teddy bear with a rainbow and take a picture of it? The probability is minuscule.
According to Native American mythology, the bear is the symbol of the power of introspection. According to the book that accompanies the Medicine Cards, the bear resides in the west, which represents the intuition. On occasions when I have become imbalanced—either valuing the cold reliability of technology more than the warmth and caring of spirituality, or embracing the comfort of logic and reasoning over the spontaneity and novelty of intuition—I have been gently yet firmly realigned by unanticipated synchronicities, including direction from Clarissa’s alleged guides.
The final example I have selected also happens to involve Hawaii. I include it because it also relates to John Nelson, the gifted developmental editor of this book.
In the early fall of 2009, my publisher selected John to work on this book, and we had our first conference call one morning. It was at that time that I learned that John happened to live in Hawaii. Save for the publisher and team at Beyond Words, my agent, and Rhonda, no one else whom I was aware of had been told that John was the book’s developmental editor and that he lived in Hawaii.
That evening Clarissa, Rhonda, and I attended a meeting. Here is how Clarissa later recorded the event in her unedited notes:
I was told [by her guides] to bring Hawaiian sweet bread and decorate our Monday night meeting in a Hawaiian theme. There were palm trees and hula music and pineapple. I had no idea why. I learned that, as so many times before, usually Gary would be sharing something or that it related to something. He was unaware of the theme as he shared that he had just discovered that an individual related to the publication of his book either lives or happens to be in Hawaii.
Interestingly enough, while I was ready to charge off and just duplicate the first draft for him to edit, John insisted that he do an overview before we proceeded. I initially resisted this despite our Hawaiian synchronicity (what John coined for us as “Spirit’s calling card”). However, I quickly came to appreciate the direction he was suggesting.
After four years of witnessing such events, only a die-hard disbeliever would dismiss the possibility that something real was going on.
The nagging question remains, what is the source of this information? Is Clarissa correct that at least some of it is coming from her guides?
Clarissa’s Participation in Self-Science Research
Because of confidentiality issues, I cannot share information about Clarissa’s intuitive mentors or their mentoring styles. What I can say is that they are professionals who happen to be trained in the mental health field and that they are responsible and successful people. And yes, to various degrees, they hold some strange beliefs. For example, one of them is convinced that she has guides that have existed since the beginning of time, i.e., they are eternal beings of light and information, and they assist numerous people on this planet.
Since Clarissa works in a research laboratory and because she has a strong inquiring mind, she has actively assisted in the design of exploratory proof-of-concept investigations as well as helped us pretest the viability of conducting future systematic research in the area. She feels that this opportunity to voluntarily test herself has been invaluable to her because it balances her personal side with her professional side. Most intuitives-in-training are not exposed to the active combination of both approaches.
What follows are two investigations that illustrate not only Clarissa’s gifts and emerging skills but also the promise of scientists conducting future research in this area.
The first involves the possibility of testing whether spirits can assist humans in influencing the physical world and/or can influence the physical world themselves. In brief, we (Clarissa, other colleagues in the laboratory, and me) conducted an exploratory investigation on ourselves to determine the possible effects of intention on the growth of seeds. Previous systematic collaborative research between Lynne McTaggart, author of The Intention Experiment, and my laboratory has explored the possible effects of a group’s distant intentionality on the growth of barley seeds. The six experiments were conducted with a double-blind protocol.
In the spirit-assisted exploratory seed growth investigation with Clarissa, we compared (1) Clarissa attempting with her intention alone to influence the growth of seeds, without the assistance of her guides, which we called “the me condition”; (2) her guides attempting to influence the growth of seeds, without the assistance of Clarissa, which we called “the them condition” and (3) the combination of Clarissa and her guides attempting to influence the growth of seeds, which we called “the us condition”.
In this investigation, the seeds being tested were mung beans. We purposely asked the alleged guides what kind of seeds they would prefer to influence, and they supposedly selected mung beans. I later learned that the sprouting of mung beans has been studied extensively by plant scientists and that mung beans are relatively easy to grow and measure. None of us knew this at the time.
Each intention period was twelve minutes in duration, performed three times a day for four consecutive days. The tests were typically performed at Clarissa’s home or on lunch breaks. The seeds—forty per condition—were grown under carefully controlled conditions in a separate location. There were numerous nonintention control sets of forty seeds as well. The seed growth and scoring (length of sprouting in millimeters) were performed by Dr. Robert Stek at his home. This was all personal exploratory research as a prelude to possibly bringing it into the university.
The investigation was performed two times. The combined results of the two investigations were encouraging and point to the possibility of conducting future systemic research in this area. The summary graph for Clarissa serving as the experimenter (the seeds were technically the subjects) is shown below. Each bar reflects the average length of the intention-targeted seeds (the me, them, and us conditions) minus their matched, nontarget control seeds.
You can see that by herself (the me condition, left bar), Clarissa’s intentions were not associated with an increase in mung bean growth compared to matched control seeds. If anything, her mung beans were slightly smaller in size than the matched controls. It is important to note that Clarissa did not believe that she could affect seed growth, especially from a distance, by herself.
You can also see that the results for the alleged guides (the them condition, the middle bar) were associated with a slight increase in seed growth compared to matched control seeds. Clarissa believed that they might be able to have some effect.
However, you can see that it was the combination of Clarissa and her alleged guides (the us condition, the right bar) that was associated with the largest increase in seed growth compared to matched control seeds. This finding made Clarissa happy because it supported her personal predictions. It also suggests a reason why Spirit may be showing up in our lives, that its effect on the world must be mediated through human contact or come through the conduit of conscious human beings.
Do these findings establish that Clarissa’s guides, especially with her assistance, can have a measurable effect on the growth of seeds? Even though the findings are statistically significant, there are possible alternative interpretations of the findings.
For example, the question could be raised as to whether the findings simply reflect a belief effect. In other words, is it possible that the observed effects were caused by Clarissa and her beliefs, and that the purported guides, even if they do exist, were not causally involved in the effects observed?
Clarissa is mindful of the fact that these positive findings, which clearly support her beliefs, do not necessarily establish that her beliefs are true. Moreover, she understands that findings obtained in a single, clearly motivated person—i.e., herself—do not establish general application. Without doing future research, we cannot know if such findings will generalize to other people (with their specific beliefs and guides).
However, these observations illustrate the promise of conducting such future research. And for Clarissa personally, they provide her with exciting reinforcement that what she appears to be experiencing can be demonstrated in the real world.
A second illustration involves quantifying what is happening inside a person’s brain when he or she communicates with alleged guides, and even while attempting to make mung beans grow.
In the spring of 2009, we had the opportunity to pretest state-of-the-art computerized brain-wave monitoring equipment to track moment-to-moment changes in EEG patterns (1) during Spirit communication versus resting periods and while (2) sending intentions for distant seeds to grow. The equipment was operated by a registered nurse and certified practitioner using Brain State Technology equipment. The EEG equipment is safe, noninvasive, and provides immediate analyses of EEG frequencies in real time. Again, the setting was a private home, but the opportunity afforded by these self-science investigations could potentially set the stage for formal experiments at the university level.
Clarissa was eager to have her brain scanned. The operator placed surface electrodes on the left and right occipital regions of her head (the back of her head). We discovered that during eyes-closed resting periods, her brain showed a prototypic pattern for someone who has developed intuitive abilities: increases in very low-frequency delta (one to four cycles per second) and sub-delta (below one cycle per second) frequencies. In fact, her brain looked surprisingly similar to Dr. Howard Hall’s brain, as discussed in chapter 7.
During eyes-closed periods when she was silently connected with her guides—speaking out loud was not feasible because it creates scalp-muscle artifacts in the recordings—her brain showed an increase in very low delta frequencies as well as increases in bursts of high-frequency beta activity (forty to sixty cycles per second), which are typically associated with increases in conscious awareness.
It was also interesting that she showed a greater increase on the right side of her brain when compared to the left. The reason this is surprising is because the left hemisphere is typically associated with verbal, linguistic, and logical processing, whereas the right hemisphere is associated with intuitive, creative, and more visual processes. The EEG patterns were not consistent with the hypothesis that communicating with Spirit is simply a verbal and logical process; it appears to be more intuitive and creative.
Also interesting was what happened when we asked Clarissa to send intentions to distant mung beans by herself versus involving her guides. When attempting to send intentions by herself, her brain showed decreased delta and sub-delta brainwaves as well as decreased high-frequency beta, compared with a resting baseline.
When she invited her guides to help make the beans grow, the EEG pattern showed a relative increase in delta and sub-delta brainwaves as well as a relative increase in high-frequency beta.
In other words, the state of her brain during the joint sending of energy to the beans looked similar to the state of her brain when she was intentionally, silently communicating with her guides.
As a control test, Dr. Stek wanted to see what his brain readings looked like and how they compared with Clarissa’s. We observed that his brain looked more normal in the sense that his predominant EEG eyes-closed resting EEG pattern was in the alpha range (eight to twelve cycles per second). When he tried to imagine communicating with his guides—he claims no conscious awareness of such guides, nor has he been instructed on how to be connected with Spirit—his brain showed a slight increase in low-frequency beta activity (thirteen to twenty cycles per second) but very little of anything else.
It would have been valuable if we had comparable EEG brainwave recordings of Clarissa before she began her intuitive mentoring. We can only wonder if we would have discovered that with training and experience, her brain showed an increase in the very low delta frequency and the very high beta frequency patterns over time.
Can the future study of intuitives’ brains help us better understand the nature and mechanisms of connecting with Spirit?
Right now this is only a promise; such future science is waiting to be manifested.
Living with Intuition and Awareness
Clarissa feels that her personal intuitive experiences—complemented by her professional laboratory work—have been inspirational and meaningful. Here is how Clarissa summarizes her experiences, followed by her current understanding of them.
I have had a unique opportunity to not only work around this research but to meet and work alongside many of the respected intuitives that Dr. Schwartz has researched and collaborated with. I can recall that from a very young age I was intuitive at certain levels. However, it became apparent that over time my abilities for precognition, intuition, and other faculties were amplified by this environment. I have had at my disposal the ability to test and verify information received, dreams, and various other forms of intuition within designed investigations, and have even been able to apply intuition in assisting with missing persons.
To some this may appear to be a Candy Land of exposure; however, it is not without disadvantages. The explorations involve challenging and continuously questioning theories and even beliefs. It can be taxing and has tested my limitations. Having had Catholicism as my religious foundation, this has not only challenged my religious beliefs but has also pushed me to take inventory of my moral and spiritual values. This takes a lot of personal work and strength to peel away the layers of myself, and to put aside preconceived ideas and notions, only to rebuild by throwing out or including new beliefs and information. This becomes the power and meaning of integration.
I acknowledge that I have a number of individuals that I can request feedback and counsel from. All are in psychology fields. I have a friend who is a neuropsychologist, my mentor who is an intuitive and counselor, colleagues who are either clinical psychologists or research psychologists. They are a stabilizing force that allows me to experience this work that has been beneficial to me, while maintaining an understanding regarding the unknown.
Intuition is like baseball. There are good games, and there are days that I want to throw the bat away. There are times when you have a home run or may even hit the ball out of the ballpark. My experience is that information can be received from a deceased individual that comforts a family member, a precognitive dream that is later validated, or even just a simple message.
As in the game, where you have to still run the bases, it is imperative that you are able to deal with the nature of the experiences, whether it is grief, fear, or even joy. I relate to these experiences by utilizing my personal history and how it correlates to my life. As an intuitive and sensitive, I handle the experiences additionally on an energetic level. As I have previously described, the work around challenging your beliefs and integrating them is the most difficult aspect of this development.
Frequently there is no clear understanding of the source of the information. It is like trying to catch a fly ball in a night game with the lights blaring. Some people call it a gut feeling, some call it intuition, some the knowing field, some the Akashic records, and some even feel it is just a coincidence. I feel this is often the best way to receive information. I am able to focus on the content of the information or message and not get hung up on the method of delivery. Knowing who the source is can often be just a distraction to the intent of the message.
Who is the umpire? Is it your conscience, your religion, God, the Universe, the Source, a scientist, or yourself? Are you a pitcher, a catcher, or a coach?
In my experience I have come to discover my own strengths in various areas of intuition. There are some areas that are weaknesses for me as well. Not every player can support the entire team on his or her own.
At the time I wrote this chapter, Clarissa was continuing her intuitive education, along with being a university laboratory program coordinator, mother, and wife. Her understandably skeptical husband was slowly beginning to appreciate that his wife was not strange but that she had a genuine intuitive ability that may have real value in the world.
I hope, and anticipate, that Clarissa will write a book someday that recounts her personal journey of discovery and awakening. Clarissa is a true self-scientist, both in her personal as well as her professional life. If Spirit is real, it appears that Clarissa is getting a lot of assistance, big time. And so might everybody else who sincerely takes that first step by opening to Spirit, charting the synchronicities that appear, and interpreting them in a clearheaded manner. As with Clarissa, more will be given to you as your personal journey to Spirit begins.