HONORING THE GIFT
Watching the moon
at dawn,
solitary, mid-sky,
I knew myself completely:
no part left out.
—IZUMI SHIKIBU
(974–1034)
The story I have told you about my life—how I struggled with my psychic abilities as a child, lost them during medical training, then found them again—has been of my awakening. Over time, I have learned to honor the great gift I was given. At first, however, it didn't feel like such a gift. I was often totally discombobulated by it, half the time worried that there was something terribly wrong with me. What saved me were the angels who appeared along the way—mentors and teachers who had traveled this path before and shared their wisdom with me. This made all the difference.
Once a source of real confusion and fear, the psychic has now become my greatest passion. My drive to make sense of it and put it to good use has made me the person I am now. Had such knowledge been handed to me on a silver platter, who knows how things might have been? Easier, in some sense, I'm sure. But circumstances were different when I was growing up: For many years I had no place to turn for counsel.
Today, you have more choices. My hope is that my experiences can guide you on your journey, so you won't feel as lost as I did. The times dictated there'd be little support for me as I fought to find my authentic voice, and because of this I have come to consider it all the more precious—my life's blood, my strength. I am never going to lose it again. Looking back, however, I wouldn't change a thing. Even the hardest parts. The psychic was a gift I had to grow into.
By no means am I alone. There are so many of us out there, no longer willing to be silent, ashamed, or secretive about our visions, at last gathering the courage to speak our own truth. I was once more struck by how loud this mass outcry has grown when I was recently invited to appear as an expert on a popular network TV morning show about the paranormal. To prepare for the taping, I was sent a huge pile of letters to read. The producers had been deluged by mail from viewers who sounded like clones of the earlier me. The questions asked, the concerns expressed, were so familiar I could have written these letters myself. I was overwhelmed, touched by the isolation these people were feeling, their heartfelt desire to be understood.
Vickie F. from Charlevoix, Michigan (population 3,100), wrote about being psychic: All through school I had friends who thought I was weird so I learned to suppress the feelings. Can anyone help me? From Big Springs, a west Texas oil town, Theresa said, I get the heebie-jeebies when I go to someone's home or feel the violence or the warmth there. Either I've lost my mind or I'm extremely intuitive. I'm writing this letter to you because I don't know where to turn. And from the tiny fishing community of Homer, Alaska, Vickie G. echoed the experience I had when I was nine: My grandfather came to me to say good-bye on the night he died. I will never forget it. I was so afraid people would think I was nuts.
These women, and three others, were chosen to be guests on the show and flown in from out-of-the-way places where they had no resources to call on. They were completely on their own. And I thought I had it bad! The idea of such sensitive people, so geographically remote, with no healthy psychic role models in sight was mind-boggling to me. I felt instant empathy for them. I was in an ideal position to help. What an incredible opportunity for me to recirculate all the knowledge I'd been given. This is just what the journey is about. To create a chain among us, each person sharing what we know with another and passing it on.
The afternoon of the taping we all arrived a few hours early, at the producers' request, and met backstage. Seven women, including myself, from backgrounds as diverse as you could imagine, sat together in a windowless studio waiting room with a lavish buffet to snack on. One by one, they began to recount their stories to me—some with reluctance, some unable to get the details out fast enough—as if gathered together around the warmth of a village fire. I was moved, amazed. Each seemed to be speaking the others' experience. We were all of one mind. None of them had ever publicly reached out before. Even some of their friends and closest family members didn't have a clue that they were psychic. I was barraged with questions: “Why do I make predictions in the first place?” “Should I tell people about them?” “How did I know that my cousin was going to die? Could I have prevented it?” “Do you ever get used to this?” “Are you scared?”
As I shared my story, I watched them slowly relax. A strength of mine is that my fear of the psychic is behind me and I can communicate this with confidence. Also, the fact that I'm a psychiatrist lends me a credibility I wouldn't have without the degree. In Western culture, particularly, an M.D. is a symbol of authority that can really work for me in such a still-unaccepted area. Clearly the members of the group, although befuddled by their abilities, were quite sane.
By far what troubled them the most was that they kept psychically picking up tragedies before they occurred: deaths, accidents, illness, particularly in those closest to them. But so many times their attempts to warn loved ones or avert disaster were thwarted. “Some people won't believe a word I say,” declared Theresa. “They just don't want to hear it.” Even for those who did believe, warnings often weren't enough to prevent the disaster.
The main message I wanted to communicate was twofold: Beginning psychics are notorious for getting only negative images simply because on an intuitive level these images are the loudest, so emotionally charged. But with training it's common to open up to a constellation of impressions and receive positive information, too. In addition, just because you see a vision doesn't necessarily mean that you have the power or responsibility to do something about it. Intervening may or may not be possible. Understandably, I knew this point would be difficult for them to accept—the impulse to want to spare people unhappiness or trauma is always there—yet by acknowledging our limitations my aim was to ease their guilt. I felt privileged to be in a position to interject hope where there was none before.
The experiences of these women remind us that visions, intuitive knowings, and dreams are not alien to our nature. Mistakenly, we identify them as something other than ourselves, but in a profound sense they are as life-sustaining as every breath we take.
On the most practical level, the psychic allows me to communicate with the important people in my life, including my patients, in such an elegant, multilayered way that I can understand them better—deepening all my relationships. Further, by sensing their energy I feel who they are more completely and in turn may sensitively respond to their needs. My father, for example, is not one to talk a lot about feelings. But whether I'm in his presence or not, because of our psychic link, I know in my bones when he's upset and can register waves of joy when he's happy. The same is true of my closest friends. They are a part of me, intimately connected, our souls actively intertwined. It's much tougher to feel lonely because as a psychic I'm never really all alone.
So many riches would be stripped from my life if these abilities faded—like first being able to take in dazzling colors and then suddenly being left with only black and white. The psychic messages I receive daily are gratifying down to the cellular level. The guidance itself is a blessing, but beyond the actual information I pick up, by tuning in I fuel the connection with my spiritual source, continually adding fresh kindling to the fire and tapping directly into primal energy. Every nuance of my being is touched by it. It feeds me.
When you first become introduced to the heightened awareness of spirit that often comes with psychic experiences, it can take your breath away. The freedom you feel, the love flowing out of your heart—its absolute gorgeousness—sends shivers up and down your spine. Though such intensity is usually short-lived, the true bonus of being this open is bringing the wisdom you've glimpsed to bear in everyday life. You might not have ever known you had so much love inside. And now you do. It's waiting, ready to be called forth at any moment—even in the most mundane situations.
Reach beyond the current world in which you live. Use this book as a map to a world inaccessible to most people. You can access it. At any moment you can connect with a life of love and understanding. On the outside you need to change very little; what counts most is the shift you make in your own thinking. First you must want to travel this path. There is no rush. Open your heart, allow yourself to dream, let your spirit soar. Envision a grander sense of what is possible.
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.
The peace and goodness within people are of inestimable value. Nowhere is this more dramatically shown than in the tale of Sodom and Gomorrah, told in the book of Genesis. The story goes that God agreed to Abraham's request that these crime-riddled cities be saved if just ten good men could be found residing there. Although not even ten could be found and Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed, what is striking to me is the precept that the goodness of a few people could have saved the cities; the positive consciousness of ten would have been sufficient not only to overcome the corruption of many but, in some cases, to change the world.
We must begin with the love in our own hearts. In ever-expanding circles, we may then extend it to our family and friends, out into the workplace, and finally the world. Once we realize how interconnected we all are, we see that the integrity of our actions in every aspect of life makes a difference to the whole. Consider this: Beyond the personal sphere, an area where each one of us can exert a positive influence on a broader number of people is in our careers, no matter if we wait tables in a diner or head a multinational corporation. Well-motivated, pure intentions combined with the increased sensitivity to others that the psychic brings can infuse any kind of work with a higher level of meaning.
I am delighted to see a growing number of businesses recognizing the value of the psychic and regularly putting it into practice. Not surprisingly, however, reputable businesspeople tend to shy away from the term psychic (the loaded stereotype of the Gypsy fortune teller still hovers so near), sticking instead to the safely neutral intuition, whose connotations are more down to earth. I know of attorneys who admit to using intuition in their negotiations; scores of high-level executives turn to it for help in management and decision-making, financial forecasting, and detecting problematic situations before they occur. There are over 1,000 consultants in the United States alone who are hired by top-notch companies to conduct intuitive training programs for their employees. Even the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University offers a course in which intuition is taught as a strategic skill. Trammel Crow, one of the country's most influential real estate developers, gets right to the heart of the matter: “I believe that business leaders take some positions and make some decisions transcendentally. Not magically. Intuitively.”
A few months ago, I came into contact with the Intuition Network, based in Sausalito, California, an organization comprised of thousands of people in business, government, science, and health, who are committed to integrating intuition into their work, their personal lives, and the world. Relying on inner resources is their main priority. What excites me most about this group is that they are not just theorizing anymore: They are emissaries, putting their convictions into action, carrying intuitive wisdom out onto the front lines, teaching conferences and seminars, conducting training programs for businesses both large and small. They would have been laughed out of existence a mere thirty years ago, or at least ignored. Today, individuals in the group apply intuition to every kind of work imaginable.
I was especially intrigued by the work of one woman who was employed by the National Forest Service in the Northwest. Traveling into the lush national forest areas of Washington, Oregon, and Idaho, her job, as an intuitive consultant, was to promote better understanding between government managers and Native American tribal members regarding land-use policies. Before her work began, both sides were diametrically opposed; there was a huge communication breakdown. At a four-day retreat aimed at resolving this deadlock—which included sweat lodges, powwows, and many hours of charged group interchanges—she helped park managers penetrate their rigidity and not only hear the words of the tribal presenters, but also sense their deeper thoughts and feelings to find better solutions. When the retreat was over, Native Americans and Forest Service officials alike felt as if they had truly been heard and reached a mutual compromise. To me, this is the epitome of how the psychic and the rational mind can complement each other, creating harmony in a previously irreconcilable situation.
The intuitive techniques available to you in your work are exactly the same as those you may use in your personal life. The arena is different, that's all, underlining just how adaptable and multifaceted these tools are: psychic readings, dreams, looking for synchronicities, meditation, listening closely to your body, visualizations, and sensing energy. Each one is powerful, mysterious, but within your reach. When you bring them to bear in your work they can provide a bridge between the practical and the sacred, reinforcing your inner resolve about what is appropriate and right.
Peter, a talent agent in his midthirties, had been a patient of mine for over a year. Early on, he had expressed an interest in using the psychic in his work and now he'd become pretty good at it: Seeking out answers in dreams was his specialty. At one session, he told me about a roadblock he'd just run up against in a heated film negotiation he was immersed in, one of the biggest in his career. Nothing about the contract had been simple, but up until this point he felt on top of it. Right before our session, though, the studio had taken an outlandish stand on terms. Peter, enraged, was tempted to walk away from the whole deal. Knowing how much was at stake, I urged him not to respond rashly, but instead to ask a dream for guidance. Still fuming, he hesitantly agreed.
That night, after requesting to be shown what to do, Peter dreamed that he saw the studio executive floating blithely by in a hot air balloon. Without a care in the world, this man launched a puny papier-mâché helicopter into the sky. On the ground, dressed in military regalia and flanked by an armed regiment, Peter retaliated with heavy artillery; not realizing that the chopper was merely paper, he attempted to blow it to bits. He missed each time. Worse, the shots boomeranged back at him, inflicting near-fatal damage to his troops.
Peter awoke, certain that he had received a message: The dream was telling him that the executive's ploy had no substance, inventively getting this across with a humorous pictorial pun that made us both smile. No doubt about it, as far as the dream was concerned, the man was full of hot air. Not only that, his helicopter was totally harmless. To top it off, Peter was issued a warning: If he was bent on playing hardball by striking back with an equally preposterous proposal or out of spite, even letting the deal go, he would just end up hurting himself and his client. Moderation, not overkill, was called for here. Peter got the point. With this guidance, he continued on, tactfully not overreacting to the studio's antics, and made an enormously successful deal for his client. I was pleased that Peter didn't act on impulse but had learned enough to set aside his outrage and seek a truer solution in his dreams.
Psychic insights can be instrumental not just in negotiations but also in sparking technical breakthroughs or inspiring the birth of new products. I recently read an elegant account of a semiconductor research engineer's discovery, a classic example of how a waking image can spur creative thought. Newly arrived from Taiwan, he was entranced by seeing his first snowfall. The way the snow landed on the tops of cars but failed to cling to their sides immediately gave him an idea for improving the silicon microchips he was developing. Using the snowfall as a model, he ingeniously reconfigured the inner structure of the silicon wafers, thus radically increasing the chip's performance speed. Though I know practically nothing about engineering, I was dazzled that nature could provide such a potent intuitive catalyst for an important technical advance, not to mention how utterly receptive this man was to it.
When you're intuitively attuned to your environment, ready at any moment to attend to cues, your work can be transformed into an amazingly rich tapestry of input and output, action and response. It's dynamic. At an inner level, so much movement is constantly going on, a panoply of discovery. Dr. Jonas Salk captures the essence of this magic: “It is always with excitement that I wake up in the morning wondering what my intuition will toss me like gifts from the sea.”
These gifts, these messages, can shed light on all work matters, including choosing the right career. Or sensing on a gut level when one is a poor fit—even though it may look perfect on paper. Or helping you to decide when the time is right to move on. You don't have to waste years in unfulfilling jobs that take you nowhere. You deserve to go full throttle into a career that brings you the most joy. But how do you find it? Let's say you just know you're in the wrong position, but you don't have a clue what to do. You wait and wait, lightning doesn't strike, nothing changes. Then what?
The simplest move is to start keeping a journal of dreams, inspiring images, thoughts, and brainstorms. Just continue posing the question, What direction should I follow? and wait for a response to guide you. I guarantee you that, with patience, the answer will come. But don't stop here. Take advantage of the entire array of psychic approaches I've discussed. Just making the decision to listen to the psychic shifts things. This is terrain that hotel magnate Conrad Hilton was wisely familiar with: “When I have a problem and have done all I can to figure it out, I keep listening in a sort of inside silence till something clicks and I feel a right answer.” Trust such a response in yourself, not as an oddity or fluke but as an essential facet of your working life.
The same psychic principles that operate so beautifully in your own career can translate into an overall global business atmosphere as well. Currently, of necessity, there's a mounting awareness that the systems of the earth are interconnected. If you hurt one, you hurt the other. The psychic never fails to remind us at the most primal level that our interrelatedness is undeniable. For that reason, the segment of the business community that values intuition is a hopeful sign of things to come. They've got a head start on a fundamental truth: Simply on the basis of survival, businesses must begin to work in partnership and choose projects that are life-affirming, taking into account our dealings in global terms.
We have come full circle. Our earliest ancestors passed on a rich psychic heritage: prophets, oracles, shamans, healers make up a vital portion of our history. Yet as the Age of Exploration took off and science became revered, what had been considered natural for so many thousands of years was then labeled superstitious nonsense or condemned as the work of the devil. Seers were deemed to be witches and burned at the stake for their so-called crimes. Later, industry and technology—focused always on rational explanation—drove more nails in the coffin of the psychic. But now, at the edge of the twenty-first century, there is an increasing movement of people who realize how much of our soul we've sacrificed. That split just isn't necessary. Envision a future where all of our analytical accomplishments and the psychic work hand in hand—realizing the best of both worlds. That's where I believe we're headed.
To me, nowhere does this fit seem more well suited than in medicine. When I received my medical degree I took the Hippocratic Oath, swearing by “Apollo the physician, and Aesculapius, and Hygeia, and Panacea, and all the gods and goddesses, that, according to my ability and judgment, I will keep this Oath…and with purity and holiness I will pass my life and practice my art.” Despite the staggering, life-saving technological advances of modern medicine, we must remember that it was born of a spiritual tradition from which the psychic organically stems. Many of us don't think of medicine as having spiritual roots. But the time-honored words of this oath remind us of how luminous a presence its sacred underpinnings really are. Over the centuries, however, we've lost our bearings.
For many of my years as a psychiatrist, hospitals were practically my second home. I have great respect for all that's good about them, yet I know, too, that many changes need to be made before we reach the enlightened, all-embracing future I hope for. We can learn so much from other cultures. In China, for instance, since ancient times traditional physicians have been trained that everyone contains spiritual energy; they acknowledge and work with it when treating the whole person. Today, throughout much of China, patients have choices—there's a blending of disciplines. In numerous well-known teaching hospitals, Western and Chinese medicine productively coexist—waiting rooms are typically packed, on one side dispensing modern pharmaceuticals, on the other herbs. It is a truly heartening sight.
The acupuncturist I go to, Dao, a doctor and teacher of traditional Chinese medicine in Los Angeles, encourages his students to develop spiritually, psychically, and physically to become well-balanced practitioners. Remarkably, Dao comes from thirty-eight generations of Chinese medical doctors. I listened, fascinated, as he told me the story of his father, so technically skilled and psychically astute that he was referred to as Shen Zeng, the Divine Needle. A sight Dao will never forget is the first time he watched his father diagnose a patient's condition before he even laid eyes on her by simply listening to the sound of the woman's walk: the signature of a true master.
China hasn't cornered the market, though, on intuitive diagnosis or psychic healing. In my travels in England, I was pleasantly surprised to see that healers are beginning to be given their proper due. Their work is spreading, slowly but surely commanding the respect it deserves. Some healers are right at the hub of the action: They staff coronary care units and cancer wards, using energetic healing with their hands to help treat disease and ease pain. Others are employed by physicians in their offices. Also impressive to me is that the National Health Service has even been known to pay for their services, a sign that finally healers are emerging as a force to be reckoned with. In fact, they've actually formed their own professional organizations, accrediting members only after they've served approved apprenticeships and demonstrate a level of intuitive excellence.
Even Prince Charles and other members of the Royal Family are well known for the support they give to alternative medicine. So widespread is their endorsement that when a friend of mine went to buy a homeopathic flu remedy in London, the bottle was stamped BY APPOINTMENT TO HER MAJESTY, QUEEN ELIZABETH II, indicating that the Queen had been a patron. There's an aura of sponsorship for nontraditional health care in England that makes me optimistic.
How wonderful it would be if healing and the psychic were approached in that same spirit in the United States. Not that we've been without progress. The newly established Office of Alternative Medicine at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), in its embryonic stages, is looking at everything from diet and nutrition to mind-body control to energetic therapies. Already a Mind-Body Intervention Panel is examining the effectiveness of spiritual healing and the medical uses of prayer. The fact that a government agency could be behind this is nothing less than a miracle to me.
Of all the projects funded at the NIH, those centering on therapeutic touch, an offshoot of laying on of hands, have especially caught my eye. Developed by a nurse, Dolores Krieger, therapeutic touch is the most widely practiced form of energetic healing in the United States, employed by over 30,000 nurses and other health-care givers. Picture the healer as a conduit—hands held a few inches from your body, directing energy like a radiant sun into every pore—the love, the warmth rushing into you, reviving your energy, making you come alive.
The similarities between this type of healing and what I have learned from my own teachers are undeniable to me. Yet I've always found it interesting that whenever the topic of therapeutic touch comes up, mention of psychic healing is noticeably absent. It's perfectly understandable, I suppose, since the word psychic is so controversial that mainstream medicine would surely blackball any techniques associated with it—after all, perception is critical. “Therapeutic touch” is an expression the entire medical community can better hear. In writing this book, I myself struggled to find a vocabulary free of stigma but could not. With reservations I've chosen to use “psychic” and “intuition” interchangeably, although I believe that “intuition” is much less specific. Some people would even insist on larger distinctions between the two. As far as therapeutic touch is concerned, most practitioners are careful to steer clear of any reference to the psychic, a choice I've not made.
In your own life, you can take actions that allow you to become psychically in harmony with your own body, keeping tabs on how you're feeling physically as well as energetically. Get to know your body, the subtle changes it goes through. Familiarize yourself with when it feels “on” or “off.” Listen to information about your health when it comes through in dreams or intuitions; even specifically request it. Then when you need medical advice, you can speak with authority about your inner workings, be in partnership with your physician, and assume an active role in your care. Whenever possible seek out primary M.D.s who are sensitive to many approaches. They don't need to be full-fledged believers in the psychic—it would be ideal if they were—but at the least they need to respect your input and take it seriously.
You may be fortunate enough to have in your area one of the handful of physicians who are breaking ground, dragging the psychic out of the closet, putting it to work. I know of a highly regarded gynecologist whose office staff includes a psychic healer. Her job is to make intuitive diagnoses as part of the initial exam to get an earlier read on a patient's condition. Just as I have done in my practice, she empathically merges with a patient's body, finely focusing on each organ, zeroing in on the source of illness—sometimes pinning down a diagnosis before any actual physical signs turn up. If needed, and often by request, she also does healing with her hands.
Psychic diagnosis is not an unfathomable mystery. It's an approach that medical schools could teach as part of the standard curriculum. In addition to listening to a patient's heart and lungs, or palpating the outline of a liver, students can be shown how to sense these organs intuitively as well. My own training as a physician primed me to be a psychic. One of the great miracles of medical school was being able to see and feel the anatomy of the human body. As a student “scrubbing in” on major surgeries, I had the wondrous experience of watching a heart connected to a labyrinth of blood vessels beating in a patient's chest; of touching a uterus, ovaries, kidneys, and lungs—a privilege each of us should have, if we desire it, simply as an initiation into what it means to be human. It's so odd to me that most people walk around without the foggiest notion of what we look like inside. Emblazoned in my memory is the energy of each organ, its smooth, moist texture, its even, overall warmth and glistening color. When I psychically tune in, these varied frequencies, with ongoing practice, have now become easier for me to sense.
My dream is that physicians can explore psychic diagnosis together—it's not infallible and still very new—so that combined with healing we can broaden our clinical expertise. When our education in the workings of the body and mind, a sacred teaching of its own, is wedded to a root intuition we all possess, our work is bound to benefit. People always say to me, “I can't believe that you're a psychiatrist and a psychic! What an unusual mix.” It doesn't have to be this unusual, however. Just think of it: What could be more natural than a doctor with psychic insight who can heal not only with medicine but with energy? We could be rallying all our forces, making the most out of what we have to give.
Just a few weeks ago I was presented with the challenge of a lifetime, to apply the psychic directly to finding a cure for a disease, in this case multiple sclerosis. A progressive neurological disorder, MS strikes individuals primarily in their thirties and can be terribly debilitating. When a major medical school approached us at the Mobius Group to see if remote viewing could speed their research along, we jumped at the opportunity. A team of eighteen psychics with diverse backgrounds—two physicians, a laser physicist, a parapsychologist, and some with no scientific training at all—will individually take part in a series of viewings, to pin down the hitherto elusive cause of MS. This is exactly the sort of project I've been waiting for, a way to combine medicine and the psychic that could have a positive impact on an enormous number of people.
Beyond technology, beyond the grandest achievements of the intellectual mind, our bodies and spirits are aching to be healed, physically as well as spiritually. This demands that medicine evolve, breathe with our spirits as they continually grow more vast. It's time to honor the knowledge of our bodies that we glean from being psychic, and to seek an inner stillness that can sustain us. Medicine must be able to keep pace with the needs of the human heart. However, it will always fall short until it embraces the fundamental essence of healing: that we long to love and be loved, to feel and know the nature of our divine source. When science and spirituality finally join forces, medicine will achieve its full power. And doctors, by reviving their own spirits, will become true healers once again.
As a civilization we can no longer afford to silence the psychic. Our success is indelibly linked to staying in close touch with our inner instincts, with what we psychically know to be true, not diminishing the value of our intellect, but enriching it. Otherwise, we run the risk of reenacting over and over again the tragic legend of Cassandra, the prophetess cursed by Apollo so that her visions would never be believed. Even when she foretold the destruction of Troy, her words fell on deaf ears. In our world, we must not allow this to happen. To be a seer is to be deserving of the highest esteem.
For me there's a strength that has come from being psychic. It's not fragile or tenuous, wilting when I need it most. The more my faith in my psychic instincts matured, the more they assumed a natural authority that far overshadows even the circles of fear I've been known to run around myself. Just recently I appreciated anew how this clarity is a saving grace, restoring my sense of perspective. For the past few years I had been putting together a psychic research project with a woman who was perfect for the job. In fact, Catherine and I had grown quite close. I couldn't have asked for anyone more skilled or devoted, and I had no reason to doubt that she would see the project through to the end. Even so, six months ago I dreamed that Catherine and I were intently discussing the project in a beautiful Manhattan hotel room overlooking Central Park. All of a sudden, another woman's voice enthusiastically called out from a back bedroom, “I really love the work you're doing.” I never once saw her face, and I was sure we hadn't met, but I knew that she was going to play a critical role in the project, perhaps even be Catherine's replacement—a notion way too overwhelming to deal with at the time. I put it on the back burner.
Months later, Catherine announced that she'd been offered a job she'd be crazy to turn down and was moving out of L.A. My heart sank. I was happy for her, but terrified that the project would fall apart, devastated by the loss of her support. In the past I would have been consumed with fear, feeling utterly defeated. But now I didn't fall into that trap; I remembered the dream and didn't panic. For weeks I was left on my own, but the peace of mind my dream offered kept me afloat until one day I received a call: A friend of Catherine's, newly relocated from New York, was on the line. She was bright, energetic, just as excited about the project as Catherine had been. Instantly we connected; our work together to finish the project has begun. Once again I seem to have been blessed with the right person at the right time.
Why this experience is valuable to me and what I hope to impart to you is that being psychic doesn't mean that we're free from doubts and fears. It's just that with faith our intuitive convictions take on more power. The balance changes; our knowings become so potent that they counter the negativity: that threatens to knock us off base. On the one hand I might be thinking, Oh my God, I'm going to be abandoned. Yet a stronger feeling, an exhilaration, ripples through me, signaling that something good, perhaps even better, is ahead. When this happens, I go with my intuition. There's no contest. No matter what messages we receive, they're guideposts intended for our growth, a thread between us.
The ties that bind. If there's one thing that never ceases to amaze me in my work and in talking to people nearly everywhere I go—from the woman at the dry cleaners to parking attendants to clinical psychologists—it's that practically everyone with the tiniest hint of permission, has a psychic story to tell. There's a longing I've witnessed in so many people to reconnect with their visionary side. This burst of psychic electricity, surging through us as a collective, is only one sign of openings upon openings yet to come. We all possess extraordinary capacities: The reality is that we can see forward into the future, back into the past, and can accurately intuit the present. Wondrous, yes—but only the tip of the iceberg. Being psychic allows us to move through time fluently, provides an ever-widening portal through which we can view the divine.
The highest purpose of our lives, as I see it, is to give and receive love. We're reminded of this regularly in churches and synagogues, and we try to do our best to be good people. But many of us have not yet had a direct, convincing experience of the divine. The psychic can make it real. It can remove the intangible barrier that keeps love from us, unveiling the mystery.
The divine is right before our eyes, but so often we can't recognize it—the great riddle of the universe. Ordinarily we walk around in the world unawakened, painfully divided from the holiness in our lives. To feel the divine firsthand, it helps for us to learn how to become sensitive to the subtle energies in our body—psychic and heart energies especially—and do everything we can to enliven them so they can grow. Then the range of what we're able to sense intuitively gets bumped up a few notches and the divine is magnified. Stilling yourself daily in meditation, for instance, with the specific intention of contacting the divine is like depositing pennies in a bank. Each time you meditate, your energy builds. At the start you may feel nothing, but gradually you pass over an invisible threshold; before you know it, you have the experience.
Any way you fine-tune your sensitivities—focusing on the beauty around you, getting your energy balanced by a healer or teacher, giving and receiving love at every possible turn—moves you closer to the divine. It could happen one night when you're gazing up at the stars as you have a thousand times before. Suddenly you'll really see: You become entranced by their pale, shimmering light; a shift occurs and now the night sky appears more beautiful than you ever could have imagined—perfect, inescapably holy. You're in awe, appreciating the divine perhaps for the very first time.
The point of our journey, the harvest of the psychic, is this direct knowing of the divine. With a tender hand, it carries us over the abyss that separates us from an enlightened future. Even in our troubled world today, there's hope, which is nurtured by our love, our acts of kindness, our longing to reach out to the light. By doing this, we're preparing the foundation for the transition yet to come. With the psychic at our side, sensing the reality of the divine that is always with us, we have a faithful reminder that a loving world is not just an elusive fantasy: it's within our power to achieve.
Love creates a circuit between people. Once we're able to offer ourselves love, it begins to overflow and we treat others with more care. Giving love inherently feels good—there's no food on earth so sustaining. By helping others we also help ourselves. This is our healing. Love flows through us as we reach out and become its messenger. We don't need to make any grand gestures. Often, in the simplest of actions, we find something to give. A word of encouragement, a smile, or a pointed question at exactly the right time is all that's required.
When the psychic and love are commingled, when we take the time to find our spiritual source, we are finally meeting ourselves and ministering to our hearts. What was latent within us comes alive. The depth of our spirit is limitless. We must trust where it leads us, to the center of our being, holding fast through darkness and light. As Rilke, in his wisdom, advises a young poet, “Go into yourself and see how deep the place is from which your life flows.” This is both the starting point of our journey and the ultimate epiphany. There is no end.
This path is far from solitary. We walk it together, sustaining each other, forging a new way. One by one, each of us is igniting a pure, steady inner light. We're becoming a luminous sea of candles flickering in what before was only shadow. Already change is here, bringing with it the promise of collective spiritual and psychic awakening, beginning to liberate us from old fears and misconceptions. The force welling up inside us cannot be stopped. It's as if all of humankind's previous actions have been priming us for the coming era.
The change is not a silent one. It has a distinct sound. Late at night, if I listen carefully, I can hear the stirrings of a gentle wind emanating from the earth's core. It is warm and soothing, penetrates every crevice of our world. I can feel it rising in my blood and bones, as exacting as a laser beam, as soft and round as the memory of my mother's womb. It is blowing through each of us. All of mankind will be touched; it is only a matter of time.