All posts by Jan

#748 The Undeniable Energy of Now

Written by Jan Ketchel and including a channeled message from Jeanne Ketchel.

Once again I humbly accept this role as channel as I sit down with my open notebook. My intent today is to pass on the message I receive from Jeanne as clearly and straightforwardly as possible.

I have been feeling the intensity of the energy that has been sweeping the world, aware that it is a time of great and volatile change and that we humans cannot stop it. Our choice, it seems, becomes one of whether or not we flow and change with it or whether we choose to continue denying its existence and refuse the evermore pervasive and apparent call. The call is no longer in the distance, a mere whisper on the shore, but a loud shout blasting in the ear. Though, I admit, even in the presence of this undeniable shout, it is possible to hunker down and resist, living as if nothing is happening, yet, as we do, the old structures just keep crumbling. We feel this both inside and outside. Can we allow ourselves to resist the old and ride this new wave of change? The tide has already come in; this is the undeniable energy of now.

Even as I have personally struggled with my attempts to stay in the moment, the world outside has constantly called me to notice. “Notice this moment,” it says. “Note this, it’s important.” And I cannot deny that those moments of note have indeed proven to be more than simply moments of heightened awareness or scribbled notes on a page, they have been cataclysmic.

It is indeed a time of forceful energy, a time of change that I feel will not let up. And we are being asked, simply because we live now during this time on earth, to not only take note and warn of this energy, but to actually enact change, to ride its power, beginning with our own lives. I, personally, cannot accept the status quo nor pretend that life will go on as it has in the past, or uphold old lies, for whatever reason. It is no longer possible for me to do so.

Are you moving forward with the energy too? Or are you going to be buried under the sands of the old times? These are the questions to ask. I truly believe that this is what we have to face now. Personally, I am being forced to accept the truths that are daily revealed to me, and to keep moving at a sensible pace, in step with the times. I feel it is the only thing to do. I must gather my fears and move forward. I have experienced cataclysmic changes in the past and I now go forward with the lessons I have learned; number one being that, in the end, I will be forced to go anyway. I would rather go forward with awareness, alert, actively participating in the unfolding of a new world than wake up one morning not knowing where I am. I like awareness better than oblivion.

I ask that Jeanne speak of this inevitable and incredible change that is being forced upon us all. How do we deal with this energy? How do we accept our vulnerabilities while also allowing ourselves to fully embrace our talents, strengths, and the life lessons we have learned, so we can make good choices for our personal lives, in alignment with the changes sweeping the entire world?

Jeanne responds:

Each one of you must look inwardly and decide what you can handle at this moment in your life. Your immediate reactions may be to either be too soft or too hard on the self and this may not aid you in your search for guidance. I suggest a modest and honest assessment of the self be given some attention.

The task then becomes to pull out both your strengths and your weaknesses and lay them side by side. Pick up what strengths you are most comfortable utilizing, in both innerly and outerly activities, and walk on with them in hand, and put the others in your pockets for future moments when their time of utilization will become apparent. Having noted your weaknesses, do not attach to them, for they will no longer guide you forward. But, be fully aware that they will follow after you, seeking to pull you back.

This is a grand time of transition. As Jan notes, the energy is not going to baby you but push you all to honesty, to self-exploration, and toward growth that is unprecedented. It is a time that will catapult, if allowed to become the fuel of forward movement rather than the fuel of grinding halt. Do you wish to fly now? Or do you wish to be buried deeply in the old world of stagnancy?

A new wind is blowing and it may be almost too much to bear. It may be difficult to breathe in the face of its tremendous force, but when all is said and done, it will have changed everything, and this is what you must all keep in mind. The truth is: the world itself is changing and there is no stopping it.

It takes great courage to pick up your weapons of strength and move on. You may not be well acquainted with these weapons. They may have been kept modestly hidden and little used. But it is time now to learn their worth. I do not speak of weapons of strength that have thus far proven useful in the world. I do not speak of ego-related or personality strengths, but only of inner spiritual strengths. So that is your first priority: to figure out your spiritual strengths and bring them to your hands and tongue and utilize them. Speak from your inner voice of truth, keeping your actions in alignment with this new voice.

Here are some questions to ask that may help in this process:

What is truly necessary in your life now?
What change are you personally being confronted with?
Where is your current direction taking you? Is it right, in alignment with the inner spirit that seeks to utilize and act on its true strengths?
Where are your weaknesses, and how can you fight against them when they intrude on your progress?
How can you get your mature inner spirit self in the place of guide now?
Can you dare yourself to live from a new and deeper inner self?

These are questions to ponder personally, even as you ask these of the world around you. As you see the toppling of old dominant attitudes and conventions—whether they have worked or not—note, truthfully, that they are coming down. So what comes next? More of the same? I don’t think so. The energy of now is not conducive to more of the same. It will simply knock down the flimsy attempts at reconstruction; for the old structural dynamics hold no inner strength against the forces of such change.

I do not mean to alarm with my use of such stark metaphor, though in actuality the truth is there: change is tumbling the old status quo, and is more in favor of continued toppling than reconstruction of the same.

Place yourself in the middle of that change. Accept that it is change at all costs, unstoppable, inevitable, necessary. And then decide how you want your future to unfold. You have the power of choice and there are really only two from which to choose.

First choice: Keep trying to rebuild, uphold, reconstruct an old life after each storm.

Second choice: Follow your heart and go for the true personal and spiritual life, unendingly unfolding before you.

For, in truth, life will go on no matter what happens. You must decide what you want that life to look like. What is most important, and how do you see the world around you unfolding over the next few years? Can you keep up with it? That is the challenge: Can you keep flowing, remaining modestly and humbly in alignment with your inner truths and strengths?

Do not be too soft or too harsh, as I said. Do not either be too lenient or too critical, too naive or too rational. There is a way to be pragmatic and yet in balance with the deeper truths of the self and the times you live in. It takes awareness and a heightened sense of alertness to the energy. It involves remaining aware of trends that are not conducive to true growth, getting to the moment when you make the ultimate decision of whether you want to be further enslaved or be free. Either way, change is coming. And I can guarantee, it will not be as you want, but it will be as you need: transformative.

Thank you Jeanne and all our guides in the universe! She is letting us know that challenging times are inevitable and no matter what we choose to do we will be confronting some scary stuff. The outcome will be pretty much the same however, so how we opt to ride the changing tides is the only choice we really have. Do we flow or do we flounder?

Please feel free to post comments or respond to this message in the post/read comments section below. And thank you for passing the messages on!

Most fondly and humbly offered.

A Day in a Life: The Observer

Take note: The Observer is always present. It’s clear that we all have one. But how do we access this most pragmatic and sage voice of wisdom? I like to call this aspect of the psyche the Ancient Spirit Self, but for today I will stick with the term Observer.

Lately, in dream work, I have noticed this Observer most clearly. Having set my intent to access this aspect of self over the past few weeks—writing about it on the website and meditating into quiet specifically to access it—its voice has grown more pronounced. That is how intent works. I bow to intent today in writing about my experiences of the Observer.

Last week, I wrote about two dreams I had in Dreaming Intent. I noted during those dreams that I was both Participant and Observer and since then I have been aware that I am always both Participant and Observe while I dream. Even in waking life we are Participant and Observer, though perhaps it is easier to experience these two sides of the self in dreaming. With our busy minds and the difficulty we have in shutting down our thoughts, the dreaming world might be a good place to begin experiencing the Observer and note the difference between this voice and other voices, such as those related to the ego, the voice that speaks most loudly as we navigate the everyday world.

We all dream and I suggest that in dreaming we all clearly experience ourselves as Participant and Observer. Think about it. Recall a recent or old dream and note from what perspective the dream was viewed. Most likely, even though while deeply immersed in the dream there was another aspect of awareness that was present, as if directing the action or watching from afar. This is the Observer.

For instance, while dreaming recently, I clearly heard my Observer self telling me to wake up and write the dream down. “You know you’ll forget it, or you just won’t get it right if you don’t wake up now and write this down,” it said to me, rather sternly. I rather reluctantly got myself up to a sitting position, reached for my notebook and pen, which I keep open and ready beside the bed, and, in a half-awake state, in the dark, I wrote out the experience of the dream.

In the morning, my first thought was that I would most likely have to elaborate on what I had written, sure that I had not captured the essence of the dream during my bumbling state in the night. But, when I took a look at what I had written in the dark of the night, I saw that I had most clearly captured the dream, that I did not have to elaborate or alter a single word that my Observer had instructed me to write down.

This fascinated me on two levels. First, I noted how my ego jumped right in with its judgments, sure that I could not have captured the full essence of the dream. But when I read what I had written, I pointedly asked my ego to step down and be humble, to not be so quick to jump to conclusions. Second, I was fascinated by the language that flowed out of me in that dream state. I decided that I must learn to trust the Observer more often. I liked the tone of this Observer. It had simply and truthfully captured the dream. I note that the Observer, present in both my dream state and in my half-awake state, was the voice of truth, of reason—the one who knows all—and when I listen to it, I see that it does, in fact, get things right.

It is humbling and almost frightening to note that we all have this voice of reason within us. We all have the potential to get our lives in order, to live as ancient spiritual beings, and yet we relinquish this most central aspect of ourselves as we navigate the world from our participant selves, our egos, thinking that they have all the answers. I find this pretty scary while at the same time I note that it is how we must live in this world. We must build our egos to the point where they can topple without our attaching to them, without our needing them anymore. They will always rise up again and again to test us, to challenge our Observer-Who-Knows-All, seeking to thwart our true need for this aspect of self to live more fully. The ego is there to both draw us from this inner aspect of self, and challenge us to more fully embrace it.

In our dream world we have the opportunity to more fully connect with this Observer self, to understand how it directs us to not only observe and take note of the truth, but how it pushes us to act, as it did in my dream, asking me to: “wake up you sleepyhead and write this down!” In gently nudging us awake, night after night, it asks us to remember its voice, its sober and truthful tone, its pragmatic and knowing insinuation that we are fully capable of hearing and acting on its directives. We just have to train ourselves to do so.

As I mentioned above, we are both Participant and Observer in dreaming and in waking life. Personally, I intend to keep studying this inner and outer phenomenon. I intend to be more alert to myself in both roles. When am I Participant and when am I Observer? Am I indeed both at the same time, all the time? Can I switch over to Observer, ancient spirit self, volitionally in waking life, even when I am not meditating? Yes, I believe it is possible. And to do that, I must remind myself constantly to stay present in the moment.

I know—and perhaps it is my Observer telling me this—that if I constantly remind myself to stay in the moment that I will more fully access this aspect of self. So, I elect to challenge myself this week to more fully stay in the moment. That is the intent I set, with the added intent of being able to hear the clear voice of the Observer, as clearly as I heard it in my dream.

I ask that my Observer wake me up throughout my day and tell me what I need to know. This is my intent. Why not try it too, and then let’s see what happens!

If you wish, feel free to share or comment in the Post Comment section below.

Thanks for reading and passing these blogs on to others! Sending you all love and good wishes,
Jan

#747 I Set My Intent

Written by Jan Ketchel and including a channeled message from Jeanne Ketchel.

I set my intent to channel a message from Jeanne for all of her readers. Let this message be personally and universally significant for our times. I ask that those who read it receive a deeply personal experience from the words and the meaning they imply. Let this message convey a profound and enlightening insight for each reader and let them see its personal significance reflected and synchronistically repeated throughout the day and the coming week. I ask that this message from Jeanne be imbued with the intent of the seers of ancient Mexico, that it catapult those who read it into deeper awareness of themselves as beings comprised of energy and that they see this and know this more deeply than normal. I ask that this message also be imbued with the reminder to all of us to stay in the moment, to retain what we learn, and to give ourselves permission to act differently from this day forth. I ask all these things of Jeanne, of the universe, and of the seers of ancient Mexico and any other enlightened energy that wishes to partake in the greater effort to move us, the human race, on our journeys to awareness and change. Thank you.

Jeanne once told me that we channel through our heart chakra. I do heart-centered breathing to open my heart chakra. I feel it slowly cracking open, widening like an aperture, as I set this intent and wait for the words that I am sure will come to guide us today. I wait.

These are the words I perceive:

There are many beings capable of guiding you, My Dearest Ones, but the most important one is you. Each one of you is set with all you need. Your main job as a human being is to find your river of energy, the wellspring from which your energy flows. It is within and without.

You will tap into its source deep within the self through your greatest organ that pumps your life blood, that sends all your energy pulsing through your body: your heart. As Jan says, this is where we channel. From beyond place and time, I access this scribe who so faultlessly passes on my missives, through her heart.

I encourage on this day that a concerted effort be made, in the name of all true human potential, to access this vital organ of significance. Do not ask for more than awareness of its potential at this point; it is all you need to begin. Find its personal meaning.

Is your heart indeed your wellspring? Is it your pump, your river, your flowing energy button? Can you push this, prod this, or nudge open this central place of life and awareness, asking it to awaken?

Yes, you can. Try it. Ask the self to simply place a hand of intent upon your heart and feel its beating, its efforts to alert you to the truth of its energy source. Your heart is your source center, your beat of life, your grand cheerleader that nudges you along and allows you to exist in that form, but in all forms as well.

This is your center of energy. You can accept this idea or not, but if you wish to be part of the intent of this message I ask that you become acquainted with this truth. Your heart beats your greater truth, your awareness of connection to all things.

Find this center of self. Notice how it personally communicates with you and begin to ask it to remind you of its importance in your life, not only as the place of flow of life blood, but as the place of flow of all life energy.

Listen to your heart. Place your attention upon it today and in the coming days. Make this your personal intent. Ask your heart to speak to you, to guide you to awareness of the intent of both this query and this response. Ask it to tell you what you must truly know about the self, at this moment, in order to advance another big step upon your journey.

Ask it to remind you to stay connected to it and your personal intent. Find that it answers you in many languages: in spoken language, the language of visions and insight, of seeing and knowing, of interplay with mind, body and spirit reflected all around you. Ask it to keep you on the path that is right; on the path that may not be clear but that is clearly your path to change.

I ask, as Jan does, that this message carry forth its purity of intent to purify your heart of all negativity, judgments and condemnations alike, forced upon you by others or personally accepted though no longer right or necessary to bear. I ask that your heart grow soft and open to new awareness, insight, and experiences that only you may understand.

Do not fear your heart’s own intent, which is that your personal journey be transformative without restrictions; energetically enlightening, so that you may all suffer through your issues of contentment and disturbance, brought on by your restless spirits so that you may no longer suffer ignorance or fear of the true journey you have before you.

Open your hearts to yourselves first, My Dears. Accept your path. Listen to your truth-speaking heart. Be guided by the significance of your present life. And do not fear your journey.

This is how you will learn what awareness is, what intent is, and how it is present at all times to guide you. Ask it to come forth from the self, to meet the greater intent outside of you, greeting you on your path.

Look with optimism and joy for your true awareness of self as an energy being, and take your next step forward from that place. And don’t forget to look at the world around you as you go into each moment of your day. You may indeed experience a new kind of self in a new kind of world. Welcome to the magic!

Thank you Jeanne and all our guides in the universe—ancient and wise—as well as our own heart-centered personal energy, ancient and wise as well!

Please feel free to post comments or respond to this message in the post/read comments section below. And thank you for passing the messages on!

Most fondly and humbly offered.

A Day in a Life: Dreaming Intent

To follow up on Jeanne’s message of the other day, Navigating the Mystical, I decided to practice intent last night. Right before falling asleep, when I was already drowsy, I set this intent: I intend to know the moment I am falling asleep and remain aware of dropping into a dream. I want to know the moment this is happening and retain the experience. Immediately, I closed my eyes and was aware of literally feeling like I was dropping into a dream.

This is what I experienced: I felt as if I were more than one being or awareness. I was the dreamer in the dream and a dreaming observer as well. I saw my own hand reach out from the left, palm open and facing upward. “Oh look, there’s my hand,” my dreaming self thought. Then almost immediately another hand appeared on the right holding a red flower in its palm, as if showing it to me or offering it to me. I felt I should look at it closely. My dream observer, aware of also being the owner of the hand said, “Oh, look at that, two hands, and look at that beautiful flower.” At the same time, my awareness as the dreamer in the dream concentrated on looking closely at the flower. It was as if I were looking through a microscope at this close up scene of the two hands, and I was both inside the scene with awareness and I was also the outer observer looking through the microscope. I woke up immediately and thought: “It worked! My intent worked!”

Enthused by this experience I decided to try again. This time, I set a new intent, which was: I intend to see everything in my dream with crystal clarity. Again I felt myself dropping into dreamland. This time I landed in a small rowboat. I appeared to be on an arctic lake formed by a melting glacier. It reminded me of hiking up Svart Isen, a huge glacier in Norway that I once tramped up and had a most amazing experience on, as I watched and heard the rumblings and shiftings of this massive ice flow, its colors almost Caribbean blues, a contrast that, at the time, I found remarkable. There on top of the northern world were the same intense blues of the waters of the Caribbean Sea; fascinating.

Anyway, in my dream, I am in this tiny boat floating without oars into the center of this huge glacier. Everything is crystal clear! The word “Crystalline” was repeating throughout the dream experience, in a sort of voiceover, though I knew it was my own voice. I floated further into the glacier and was soon surrounded on all sides by this crystalline world of ice. It was not blue as in my experience in real life, but absolutely “crystal clear,” just as I had set in my intent.

Again, I woke up out of this experience quite fascinated by the literal quality of my dreaming self and the response of the universe, as it so nicely allowed me to have these experiences. This reminded me of what Jeanne had said in the message on Monday, that you must remain aware of how your intentions or requests are answered, that they may not be as clear or straightforward as you desire. However, I thought my dream experience was humorously playing right into my intent to have an experience of crystal clarity. It literally gave me an experience of just that!

I find this process fascinating, the way the psyche and the universe, the dreaming body and awareness, do work hand in hand. I got what I asked for! In this case, I received several gifts: proof that intent does indeed work because I fell into a dream, I retained the dream experience, and I got crystal clarity, all the things I desired. And, in addition, my intent from the first experience “to remember” carried over into the second experience, thus showing that intent, once set, is planted for future use.

Perhaps my recitations on these experiences may add to your own personal incentive to try dreaming intent or any other intent. As subtle as these experiences may seem, they were in fact just what I asked for and I felt quite satisfied with the night’s work. The rest of the dream night proceeded from there. As I fell back to sleep the third time, I simply set my intent to keep going along the same lines. As I went deeper into sleep and dreaming, the word “crystalline” kept popping up, my awareness reminding me to look closely, very clearly at my dream world, which I was aware of doing.

See if this conversation that Carlos Castaneda had with don Juan, from pages 22 and 23 in The Art of Dreaming makes any sense in how dreaming intent works:

Don Juan explained that there are entrances and exits in the energy flow of the universe and that, in the specific case of dreaming, there are seven entrances, experienced as obstacles, which sorcerers call the seven gates of dreaming.

“The first gate is a threshold we must cross by becoming aware of a particular sensation before deep sleep,” he said. “A sensation which is like a pleasant heaviness that doesn’t let us open our eyes. We reach that gate the instant we become aware that we’re falling asleep, suspended in darkness and heaviness.”

“How do I become aware that I am falling asleep? Are there any steps to follow?”

“No. There are no steps to follow. One just intends to become aware of falling asleep.”

“But how does one intend to become aware of it?”

“Intent or intending is something very difficult to talk about. I or anyone else would sound idiotic trying to explain it. Bear that in mind when you hear what I have to say next: sorcerers intend anything they set themselves to intend, simply by intending it.”

“That doesn’t mean anything, don Juan.”

“Pay close attention. Someday it’ll be your turn to explain. The statement seems nonsensical because you are not putting it in the proper context. Like any rational man, you think that understanding is exclusively the realm of our reason, of our mind.”

“For sorcerers, because the statement I made pertains to intent and intending, understanding it pertains to the realm of energy. Sorcerers believe that if one would intend that statement for the energy body, the energy body would understand it in terms entirely different from those of the mind. The trick is to reach the energy body. For that you need energy.”

Intend by intending? Find the energy body? Does it all sound too idiotic, as don Juan suggests? So what, just try it, set your dreaming intent and see what happens. These are the means to beginning a process of navigating the mystical, as Jeanne suggested. It works. Good luck and good dreaming!

If you wish, feel free to share or comment in the Post Comment section below.

Thanks for reading! Sending you all love and good wishes,
Jan

#746 Navigating the Mystical

Sorry this is so late in getting out today!

Written by Jan Ketchel and including a channeled message from Jeanne Ketchel.

Over the past few weeks we have been exploring, with Jeanne, practical techniques for navigating through life while confronting our issues and embracing our journeys. As many of you know, back in 2001, I began a very intense three-year personal journey, a recapitulation, as the seers of ancient Mexico call it, reliving the most important and transformative moments of my life. However, it was not until I actually began that recapitulation process that I was able to clearly perceive those moments as the most important and transformational, before that they were either merely disturbing experiences or totally unknown memories. I also learned that if one has a knowledgeable, aware, seasoned guide as one takes the recapitulation journey, one is indeed fortunate, even though the bulk of the work to be done lies within the self, both the questions and the answers.

During my odyssey into my self, as I took that recapitulation journey, I was offered daily opportunities to break through perceptions, judgments, definitions, and just about everything I had previously been taught to emerge on the other side of myself in a new world. In more modern terms, I took a transpersonal journey, working from where I was in my life at the time and going far back through myself to emerge in the prebirth world of the so called collective unconscious, as termed by Jung. This transpersonal world is what I would describe as access to all knowledge, all worlds, through all time. It is where ancient wisdom resides, and where all things are possible.

Lately, Chuck and I have been studying the work of Stanislav Grof, who over the past half century or so, has explored the mystical experience in great depth, and who coined the modern term transpersonal to describe the realm of the collective unconscious. He was disturbed by the fact that within Western modern science and psychology there was nothing to define the mystical experience, no categories existed and no credence was given to this most ancient of experiences. Experiences of the sublime, such as out-of-body and near-death experiences, as well as transcendent meditation experiences were given little or no value. In essence, experiences in the ancient pre-scientific world were pooh-poohed, dismissed as meaningless and crazy in the face of real hard-proven scientific fact. Grof seriously began to explore and document mystical experiences and attempted to bring this ancient wisdom into mainstream psychology. It still sits somewhat on the edge, though many, many people in the West have been offered validation and acceptance of their experiences of the unexplainable through his work and that of many others.

Anyone who has had experiences of the mystical knows how impossible it is to dismiss the experience, especially in cases when it has been transformational. Of course, it can be pushed aside as meaningless or disturbing, which is what I once did in an attempt to stay in tiptop control over everything in my life, but as time went on it became increasingly more difficult to do so as the experiences began to intrude on real life. It was not until I was ready to receive the messages that these mystical experiences were attempting to deliver that I could finally turn and look them straight in the face. I believe everyone has had experiences of the mystical and sublime and, when ready, these encounters will be accepted into conscious awareness.

In undertaking a recapitulation journey, if properly guided, we learn not only how to use these experiences to continue our life’s journey, but we may also be afforded the opportunity to use them to transport us to the transpersonal realm, where all knowledge exists, the personal, the pre-personal, and awareness of the interconnectedness of all energy, including us.

I have, and I say this with great humility and thanks, learned to transport back to the transpersonal quite easily. Through my recapitulation process I eventually learned to trust the mystical experiences I had, to allow myself to go where they took me, documenting my journeys, gathering from them the truth of the real possibility that all of us can access this transpersonal world volitionally. Although Grof led many experiments into the transpersonal using LSD, I have never used drugs. I didn’t need them. Life itself was enough of a catalyst to get me where I needed to go, as it rocketed me into the surreal over and over again, both before I ever heard about recapitulation and then certainly once I began that journey.

Once I learned to cultivate those experiences, understanding them as meaningful experiences of awareness, I gained a personal understanding of the mystical and how we can use it to guide us, through understanding not only life, but death and the greater universe as well. Now, after ten years of journeying by choice, I know I can never stop. It is my path, my intent, and my most personal challenge as well. Unfortunately, I can’t live there all the time, much as I would like to. In the meantime, I am happy to write about it, and help others achieve the peace it offers.

What I am getting at today in this blog is the true fact that we can all do this. I am nothing, no one special. I call myself by no name except the one I have in the real world, and even that I am not that attached to. In all the work I do, I seek only to offer guidance based on what I have learned through my experiences in the transpersonal world, the shamanic world, a world where everything goes, where one is able to access the darkness as well as the light, where one can experience the mystical without fear. It is my greatest wish that all of you be able to do so too, to allow for the mystical be a fuller part of your personal journey, without fear.

Once again, I turn to Jeanne, my personal guide and yours, and ask her to offer some insight into how we can access her world. How can people access your world, especially those who do not have access to means beyond their control, as I did, or just perhaps do not realize they do? Jeanne, what guidance do you offer us today along these lines?

Access to the mystical, as Jan terms it, is really only available through the self. One cannot have such experiences through others, but only through personally challenging the self, for otherwise there is no meaning to be had. In reading of such experiences one gains great benefits; by that I mean: the benefit of suggestion. Use of suggestion and awareness of possibility lead to intent, and that is the key to becoming open to all experiences, no matter what world one wants to enter.

Say you wish to get a new job. A new job may or may not magically appear, but I guarantee that if you set your intent for a new job, visualize yourself in it and set your specific requirements, that job will materialize. Intent works very specifically.

Intent can be used in all cases of desire. It can result in negative as well as positive challenges. You can intend illness, death even. You can intend a fuller life, drastic change in your personal experiences upon that earth. Your intent affects you, but others as well. If you keep your intent focused on the self, on doing inner work, on challenging the self to learn how to become nonjudgmental and pure, you are doing not only the self, but the entire world a favor. So, all of that being said, if you begin to set your intent in a certain direction, you will have experiences.

If you wish for experiences of the mystical, I suggest you begin a process of intending such experiences, but you must then be ready for what comes. I do not mean to alarm you, but you had better also set your intent to be able to withstand the process that will undoubtedly unfold. You must also set your intent to become aware, so that you do not dismiss what comes to you. You must be able to comprehend that it is truly happening.

Yes, I agree with Jeanne wholeheartedly here. This aspect is perhaps the most important. If you aren’t able to recognize the mystical experiences as such you will miss a lot. I still have to train my awareness, to find ways to allow myself to accept the truth of my personal experiences without the rational mind interfering, whether psychic knowing or experiences of the sublime. Noticing them and fully accepting them can be a challenge, as the rational will always step in to correct, that’s its job; and then there is the ego to deal with too, but that is another blog. What else should we set our intent to do, Jeanne?

Intent must be embraced wholeheartedly and used wisely, in an all-encompassing, thorough manner. Do not shirk yourself from having a full experience by laziness or over-eagerness. It is a serious matter and a serious process to engage in, this desiring entry into other worlds. One must be ready. You may already be at the point of readiness, but use practical and intelligent steps in setting your intent, otherwise you may not notice or be able to fully comprehend your experiences. But that being said, I do not wish to thwart any effort or desire for action. Take action on your personal behalf with innocence at your core. You can even set your intent for accessing innocence, for an experience of pure innocent energy, for instance, and you will surely have it.

As I mentioned, your awareness is key, as well as your attention to how your mind works, for it will pop up immediately to tell you that, “Oh, that didn’t just happen.” If you listen to that you will of course not be able to fully access the experiences that you so desire.

For what reasons can you suggest that people might want to access the mystical, Jeanne?

There are, of course, a multitude of reasons, personal and otherwise, but I would suggest that, to begin with, you stick to the simplest reason: to have an experience of energy, because that is really what this is all about, experiencing the self as energy. You can do this while awake, asleep, in meditation, volitionally. Or you can call upon the universe to give you the experience and then be ready for what comes; be alert, and wait for its arrival. If you ask for something you will receive it, but in what form you do not know; so you must be alert and understand how the universe sees fit to address you at this time in your life.

Beyond that simple reason—to simply have an experience of the energetic interconnectedness of all things—a far greater purpose of such experience is to gain personal awareness and insight, so you can understand why you are you, what you are alive for, where you came from and why, and where you are going. The greatest purpose in life is to gain awareness and that involves awareness of energy, how it works—not intellectually as so many do—but by personal experience. And, as Jan suggests, accessing the mystical, simply because you want to, is a good way to start.

I also warn that if you are not ready, that is okay too. But I ask that you begin to open to the truth of the mystical anyway, that you begin training yourself to trust that it is possible, that you will one day be ready, and that you will be better prepared when that day comes by your openness to and your awareness of the possibility that everything is available to you, the mystical as well as the rational.

Good luck, My Dears, as you challenge yourselves into having new experiences. You can do no great harm to yourselves, if you stick to practical and sober means. And please be patient.

Thank you, Jeanne!

Please feel free to post comments or respond to this message in the post/read comments section below. And thank you for passing the messages on!

Most fondly and humbly offered.