Powers: Connecting with the Soul World
If the body is the airplane, then the conscious mind is the pilot, the soul is ground control, and spirit guides are the emergency rescue team. The analogy is a little simplistic, but should give some idea of the relationship between each.
—THE AUTHOR’S CAUSAL GUIDES
The following two doors will take you to a level where you can become a being that is equal parts physical and spiritual.
The first will lead you to a place where you can make a permanent connection with the Soul World.
The second will open up to reveal the spiritual importance of reciprocity, to see others as you see yourself.
The goal is to complete the process of enlightenment.
• • •
The first step is to develop genuine spirituality.
Picture, if you will, a 1950s science fiction movie. Astronauts from planet Earth find themselves in outer space, where they meet two different alien races, living on two very different planets.
The first, the Zrogs, are surrounded by chaos and noise. Every home has at least a dozen TV sets blasting out mindless game shows. Working long hours in their jobs, the Zrogs have little time for any other recreation.
They live in isolation from each other, believing that life consists of nothing more than waking up, going to work, watching TV, and going to sleep.
The Zrogs have no interest in protecting the world they live in. They never recycle. In fact, they simply throw their trash onto the street. Their hope is that someone else will clean up the mess. Unfortunately, no one ever does.
The second, the Lanusians, are quite the opposite. They value tranquility and relaxation. To this end, they set aside plenty of time every day to meditate.
Lanusians take pride in their belief that they work to live, not the other way around.
Each Lanusian feels connected to the natural world. They recycle and avoid depleting their resources or polluting the environment. They do all they can to ensure a healthy planet for themselves and their children.
Knowing that life is not a one-off experience, they want to make certain that their next incarnation will be as pleasant as the current one.
Now, let me ask you a question:
Which of these two races is living the more spiritual existence?
A: Zrogs 
B: Lanusian
I hope your answer is “B.” (If you answered “A,” I suggest you go back to page one and start this book over.) We all know instinctively that a peaceful, environmentally conscious race of aliens has to be more spiritually advanced than one that’s loud and self-centered.
The reason is that, on a soul level, we all know what it means to be spiritual.
But how can spirituality be achieved? What can you do to live a spiritual life?
Spirituality happens naturally when you connect to the Soul World through your spirit guides. The good news is that connecting is not that hard to do.
It’s not restricted to certain individuals. You don’t have to be smarter, holier, eat a particular diet, worship a specific deity, climb a mountain, or become a hermit.
You simply have to develop superpowers.
Superpowers?
That’s right. Not the kind that allow you to jump tall buildings, but ones that will connect you to the unlimited support of your spirit guides by helping you smash through the Illusion.
These powers will give you clarity and insight. They’ll help you create clear destinations to aim for. And they’ll allow you to call upon your spirit guides whenever you need them.
Until now, you’ve probably spent more time planning your Thanksgiving dinner than the course of your life. But you’re about to change all that.
The more work you put into planning and preparation now, the greater your chances of ending up with the future you want—one that’s in harmony with your soul’s desires and your life plan.
Are you ready for this? It could change your life.
Connecting with the Universe
Your powers, once developed, will be with you for the rest of your life. As long as your motives are pure, your ability to draw on the support of your spirit guides will grow increasingly stronger with time.
In this section, we’ll examine each of the ten powers and discover how to create the future you want. The advantage associated with each is what you need to achieve a spiritual connection with the Soul World. The risk is what you’ll encounter by clinging to the Illusion.
The Ten Powers
• The power of Tranquility
• The power of Clarity
• The power of Relaxation
• The power of Integrity
• The power of Protection
• The power of Visualization
• The power of Intention
• The power of Communication
• The power of Guidance
• The power of Action
The Power of Tranquility
Advantage: Serenity
Risk: Distraction
In a world full of chaos, noise, and constant stimulus, it can be virtually impossible to get the tranquility your soul needs. And accessing the power of the universe requires a still mind.
The Zrogs are too distracted by the constant din that surrounds them to take even this small first step. Even here on Earth, finding a little peace and quiet can take considerable effort.
That’s why the first stage in the process of manifesting the future you want is to find peace. Or, more specifically, a safe, quiet place where you won’t be disturbed.
You might create a cozy corner in your living room or bedroom. One of my clients made a “nest” in a corner of her room. She bought a comfy old armchair, a small oak desk, and a green glass banker’s lamp.
Twice a day, at least, she’d use this spot as a place to meditate, journal, read, or simply think. The rest of the family learned that this was her special area, and didn’t interrupt her when she was there.
The Soul World has its reasons for having you find your own space. It wants to detach you from the constant noise and drama that surrounds you. By having a particular place, and even certain times that you use it, you’ll create an agreement with your spirit guides that this is your special time together. And by avoiding the risk, distraction, you’ll find it possible to slip into the advantage of serenity with relative ease.
The Power of Clarity
Advantage: Lucidity
Risk: Indecision
The clearer you are about what you want your future to look like, the easier it is for your guides to help. But how do you get clarity?
I know this might seem a little mundane, but the secret is to keep a journal. It’s an incredibly important step toward fulfilling your life’s purpose. Let me give you a computer analogy:
Your brain is the hard drive; your journal is a recordable CD. If your hard drive is full, there is no room for new information to come in. But if you dump everything you don’t need onto the CD, you can free up lots of space where you need it most.
If your brain is full of shopping lists, worries, unwritten notes to yourself, and a host of other things you don’t need to keep in there, transfer all that stuff to your journal. (This is an essential step toward avoiding the risk of indecision.)
Do this regularly and, though you may never run out of trivia, you’ll allow more important thoughts to come through, thanks to the advantage: lucidity.
The Power of Relaxation
Advantage: Receptivity
Risk: Impregnability
Once you’ve created a tranquil space both within and without, it’s time to begin the process of connecting to the universe.
The first step is to calm your mind. If the inside of your head looks like a Jackson Pollock painting, with random thoughts swirling around chaotically, then any direction you get from your spirit guides will get lost in the confusion.
The way to create a mind that’s receptive to guidance is to meditate. (Refer, if you like, to the method described in the introduction.)
The advantage is receptivity, where you make it possible for your spirit guides to get through to you. Without opening up in this way, it’s hard to avoid the risk: impregnability, where your conscious mind creates a barrier between this world and the next.
Advantage: Support
Risk: Restriction
I had a session with a concerned grandmother. She was worried that her two grandchildren weren’t being raised properly. I couldn’t do a thing for her. Not only was she not the primary caregiver, but her motives were dubious. She was more concerned with showing up her daughter’s failings than supporting the family. My guides cut off the conversation the moment it wandered from genuine concern to nosiness and malice.
Integrity is essential when it comes to dealing with spirit guides. Don’t forget, they know everything. If you have an ulterior motive—a desire to find out how much Aunt Agatha has in her bank account, or the intention of putting a curse on your ex-boyfriend—forget it.
But if you want your guides’ support in living a more purposeful life, or help raising your family, they’ll be with you every inch of the way.
The secret is to question your motives at all times. If you act with integrity, you’ll be rewarded with the advantage: the support of the Soul World. If you don’t, you’ll discover the risk: restriction, where a wall will come down between you and your spirit guides.
The Power of Protection
Advantage: Safety
Risk: Vulnerability
Before you start talking to the Soul World, there is a word or two of warning I need to impart.
Would you ever think of dialing a number at random and asking a complete stranger for advice?
Of course not.
Yet, that’s what many of us do when we talk to those invisible entities on the other side.
We tend to believe that everyone on the Astral Plane is somehow kindly and benevolent. They may be “in spirit,” but they’re not necessarily “spiritual.” Remember your drunk Uncle Harry? The one who used to put the lampshade on his head at parties and lead everyone in a conga line, singing “Hot, Hot, Hot?” He’s there.
“You Are the Chosen One”
If a spirit guide presents itself as exceptionally enlightened, or full of ancient wisdom, watch out.
And if it flatters you, or tells you you’re somehow special, tell it to take a hike. Genuine spirit guides never, and I repeat never, use flattery or brag about their qualifications.
Only lower Astral Plane entities behave like that, and they’re not, in any sense of the word, enlightened.
Spirit guides exist on two planes. Most guides on the Astral Plane have completed all their lives on the Physical Plane. (Though some souls who are between incarnations will assist those with whom they’ve had a close connection while incarnate.)
Those who have reunited with their soulmates while on the upper Astral Plane will advance to the Causal Plane to become elevated spirit guides. (Spirits beyond this level can only communicate with us through intermediaries on the Causal Plane.)
A simple way to be sure you’re getting your information from genuine spirit guides is to ask yourself two questions: “Does the information make sense?” and “Does it empower me?”
Communication with other planes can be dangerous. Some methods leave you wide open to being taken advantage of by malevolent spirits. I’ve known several people who have used a ouija board without protection, and then got upset when they were told they were going to die horribly.
All that was happening was that they were hooking up to mischievous lower Astral Plane entities.
That’s what happened to Hazel. She came to see me about something that was causing her a great deal of stress. She was in her mid-fifties, but worried that she’d never see sixty. She told me how she’d begun using a ouija board several years before. One of the first questions she’d asked the spirit world was when she was going to die. They told her she’d die at exactly the age of fifty-nine. And no matter how often she asked the question, she got the same answer. She wanted to know if time was really running out.
I began by calling in my spirit guides and ensuring I was protected while I channeled.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“I’m asking for protection and making sure I’m connected to my spirit guides,” I told her.
Hazel squirmed. I smiled at her and she smiled back uncomfortably. What I said next hardly required saying.
“You just launch straight in, I suppose.”
Not surprisingly, that was where the problem lay.
My spirit guides assured her that she might well die at fifty-nine. Or seventy-three, or ninety-two, or just about any time. These things are not carved in stone, and, with a few exceptions, it isn’t in our interest to know when we’re going to die.
Which Spirit Guides?
In my sessions, I use Causal guides for all the “big picture” questions—the ones that have to do with life plans and past lives. But if I wanted an answer to a question like “Is Grandpa happy on the other side?” I’d ask my Astral guides.
With spirit guides on both the Astral and Causal Planes, which ones should you call in? The answer is to let them choose. By simply asking for “spirit guides, acting in my highest interest,” you’ll let them decide who’s best for you.
Protection is a way to make sure that you connect to benevolent guides, and keep drunk Uncle Harry and other troublemakers away from you while you’re in a vulnerable state. The advantage to Protection is safety. The risk of not engaging this power is vulnerability.
Power of Visualization
Advantage: Direction
Risk: Aimlessness
Visualization allows you to create impressions that will help you determine where you’re going and how to get there.
By visualizing your future, you and your guides are creating a destination: something to aim for. The advantage, direction, will give you a clear purpose and help you avoid the risk, aimlessness, which prevents so many people from achieving their goals.
By stilling your mind and calling in your spirit guides before you begin, you’ll give them the opportunity to channel images to you. Visualization is a collaborative effort.
The technique for doing this will be given later in this chapter.
Power of Intention
Advantage: Conviction
Risk: Uncertainty
The more engaged you are in changing your life, the more your spirit guides will be too.
My guides often talk about bringing a certain desire to the front burner. If you want to be a successful artist, for example, you have a far greater chance of seeing your dreams come true if you paint every day, attend figure drawing classes in the evening, visit art galleries on the weekend, and read books on the subject at bedtime.
Similarly, if you want to meet your soulmate, there are ways to speed up the process of bringing that person into your life. And of course, it works with anything you choose.
The secret is to be clear about what you want, and to keep asking your spirit guides for their help. If you begin your meditation twice a day by saying, “I ask you to help bring my soulmate into my life. Please act upon my request,” you’ll both put finding a soulmate onto the front burner.
Voicing your intention repeatedly will help you develop conviction, the advantage, and help you to avoid the risk, which is uncertainty.
Advantage: Consensus
Risk: Ambiguity
When I began contacting my spirit guides, one thing that surprised me was just how much they want to talk to us. I’d always assumed we were the ones who wanted to communicate, not them. I ended one of my first ever sessions with a thank you to them. They said, “Thank you, too. You give us a purpose.”
“Would You Mind Awfully Much . . .”
Talking to invisible entities on other planes takes skill and effort. My earliest attempts at asking questions taught me the importance of phrasing every question to avoid ambiguity.
My first mistake was to ask (in my polite Scottish way) questions that began with “May I ask you . . .” I wondered why I kept getting the answer “Yes,” until I realized they were saying, “Yes, you may ask us . . .”
Spirit guides have to be pedantic. If they were not, communication with them would be full of inaccuracies.
And they’ve taught me to be pedantic too. Being specific has come in useful when I do work, like medical research, where accuracy is essential.
Way back, when I’d just started doing sessions, a client asked me to ask my guides what was causing her asthma. I couldn’t get an answer. I struggled for five minutes to get a response, until I tried asking, “What’s triggering Laura’s breathing problem?” Suddenly they were talkative again. They came up with a list of half a dozen allergens that were causing her to wheeze, but stressed that she didn’t have asthma.
It’s vitally important to be specific. “Guides, I’d like you to help me become happy,” is a request that causes your spirit guides to shrug their shoulders and look blankly at each other. (Not literally, of course.)
On the other hand, “Guides, I want your help in getting that job I’ve just interviewed for” gives them something to get their teeth into.
Ask your questions without vagueness, and you’ll achieve the advantage: consensus, where you and your spirit guides agree on what it is you’re trying to achieve. On the other hand, ask two questions in one, or approach your guides obtusely, and what you’ll end up with will be the risk, which is ambiguity.
The Power of Guidance
Advantage: Synergy
Risk: Unilateralism
Many people expect answers from their spirit guides to come to them like a voice in their heads, but that’s not generally how it works. Most often, you’ll get their response in a way that’s subtle, but strong.
Imagine you have two options ahead of you. Let’s say you’ve been offered two different jobs. Job A pays better than job B, but it’s in another city, meaning you’d have to relocate. Job B comes with a car and all sorts of benefits, but it means you’d have to work shifts, which is something that doesn’t appeal to you. What are you going to do?
The first thing is to describe the options to your spirit guides. The second is to ask them to give you guidance. The third is to wait for an answer.
The way the answer comes is often in the form of clarity. You might be driving in your car ten minutes later, or sitting around at home the next day, when you think to yourself, “Why did I ever think job B was an option?” Suddenly the choice is clear.
The advantage associated with the power of Guidance is synergy; together, you and your guides achieve far more than either of you could have done separately. Without guidance, your risk is unilateralism, where you separate yourself from your spirit guides and have to go it alone.
The Power of Action
Advantage: Actualization
Risk: Unfulfillment
You’ve learned how to ask the universe to support you in achieving your goals. Now it’s time to do your part.
It’s up to you to recognize and seize opportunities as they come along. Your spirit guides can only do so much. They can help put a door in front of you, but only you can choose whether or not to walk through it.
So, when opportunities come along, ask yourself if they fit into your plan for the future.
Seizing Opportunities
If you visualize yourself sailing around the world in ten years’ time, and someone offers you the chance to crew a yacht that is heading off to the Bahamas next week, you might recognize it as an opportunity to get closer to your goal.
Even if you’re not ready for the big trip just yet, perhaps the training will come in useful, or you’ll meet people who will help you in the future.
The important thing is to ask yourself whether or not it supports your vision for the future.
The advantage associated with the power of Action is actualization, where you engage fully with your life plan. The alternative, the risk, is unfulfillment, and that’s something your soul wants you to avoid.
Don’t forget, when you’re sitting in the senior center reflecting on the life you had, it’s the opportunities you didn’t take, rather than the ones you did, that will be a cause for regret.
Using Your Powers
The Power of Tranquility
Sit comfortably in a quiet space where you know you won’t be disturbed for at least an hour. Switch off your cell phone or other potential distractions.
The Power of Clarity
If you have particular worries or thoughts that are distracting you, write them all down in your journal before moving on to the next step.
The Power of Relaxation
Close your eyes and enter into a meditative state for at least twenty minutes, or until you feel completely calm.
Bring in your spirit guides in the following way:
“I call upon my spirit guides, acting in my highest interest, and ask that all information I’m given is for the highest good of all concerned.”
The Power of Protection
Ask for protection from mischievous Astral Plane entities:
“I ask my spirit guides to protect me from negative energy in all my communications with the Soul World.”
The Power of Visualization
The next step is to visualize yourself at a point in the future.
Use the list below to make sure you explore all the different facets of your life.
• Location
• Home
• Relationships
• Career
• Recreation
• Rest
• Friendships
• Travel
• Health
• Spirituality
Begin by picturing your life ten years from now. What does it look like? Who’s in it? Where are you?
Do this until images stop forming. Now visualize your life five years ahead. When you feel images are no longer forming, do the same for one year from now.
The Power of Intention
In your journal, write down ten things you saw in your visualization that you want to have in your future. These are your goals.
The Power of Communication
Engage the support of your guides in achieving your ten goals, using the following request:
“I ask for your help in bringing [list the ten goals] into my life to allow me to live the life my soul intended. Please act upon my request.”
The Power of Guidance
At least once a day, make a point of asking your spirit guides for direction. Take a few minutes to listen to your guides’ response. Review each of the requests you’ve made, and ask yourself if you’re closer to achieving your goals.
The Power of Action
Begin taking steps toward living the life your soul intended. The first is to make a list of ten things you can start doing immediately to achieve the goals you created.
• • •
Your spirit guides are available to you at all times. By engaging their support, you’ll develop a deep sense of inner peace. (That’s one of the reasons we associate spirituality with tranquility.)
If you can get into the habit of talking to your guides at least once a day, you’ll soon find that you can sense their presence around you. And if you ask for their support, it won’t be long before you learn to recognize their direction.
Creating a permanent connection with your spirit guides allows you to step from this world into the next. Once you do that, something transformational will happen. You’ll feel a sense of unity, not only with them, but with all the other souls on the planet.
As this feeling of connection grows, you’ll discover that you’ve become a Lanusian! Perhaps not literally, but your heightened awareness that we are all on this journey together will help you to act like one.
It’s a mark of someone who is truly spiritual to accept others. If you can remember that, you’ll make a subtle but strong impact on those who are less spiritually advanced than yourself.
A Word about Acceptance
A client once asked me if accepting others meant letting someone rob you if they wanted to.
The response from my guides was emphatic: “Condoning bad behavior is not a spiritual act—it does not help anyone. Being spiritual does not mean giving others permission to act in a harmful or destructive way.
“Being spiritual means accepting that not everyone sees the world the way you do. It also means helping others to become more spiritual themselves. The way to do that is by example.”
If you try to help the next Zrog you meet by pointing out your innate superiority and offering to show him the way, will he thank you? No, he’ll probably zap you with a matter discombobulator.
What you can do instead is to lead by example. Rather than looking down on the Zrog, you might bear in mind that you weren’t always the spiritually superior being you are now. You were once (in another lifetime, if not this) up to your eyes in the Illusion, and unable or unwilling to see the world in any other way.
By simply living your life in a more spiritual manner, you’ll show those who are wrapped up in the Illusion that there are other, more productive ways to live.
Now, as we move on to the final part of the Instruction, you’ll discover how to take the last few steps to completely break through the Illusion. The results will be illuminating.