The Searcher Journal

I just came across a couple of articles–in Newsweek of all places–that seem to point toward an increased acceptance of psychics as legitimate business assets.

Now, I’m not going to get my hopes up too much just yet, but it does bode well for anyone hoping to earn a little extra money on the side by marketing their talents and abilities. That becomes much easier to do with a (slightly) decreased chance of immediately being laughed at. When you can cite the fact that Seagate Technology, Hollywood producers and other big-businesses tap into the metaphysical real and come out on top, people should be much more receptive to paying for your services.

At least that’s how I’m hoping it goes.

The first article talks about Patricia Day and others like her who offer their services to corporations and make a good living doing so.

It’s impossible to objectively judge psychic powers. Are psychics just good listeners who pick up enough clues from their clients to provide seemingly insightful answers? Are they making lucky guesses? “It’s kind of a dirty secret,” Day says of business people who use psychics like herself. She declines to identify most of her clients, and almost all who spoke to NEWSWEEK also requested anonymity out of concern for their reputations.

Day is one of a small but expanding cadre of corporate psychic consultants—the professionalized face of an occupation better known for hokey headscarves and crystal balls. Rebranded as “intuitionists” or “mentalists”—terms more palatable to mainstream America—psychic advisers in recent years have been crossing over into the world of legitimate business, where they are used by decision makers in law, finance and entertainment looking for an edge in a down economy. “I specialize in nonbelievers,” says Day, referring to her roster of “red-meat-eating, Barneys-shopping, Type A personalities.”

The second article is a little more snarky and less flattering, but equally interesting because it addresses the simple fact that no matter how much it doesn’t make sense, many people want to believe psychic abilities work.

Mayer’s quest took her into a world where the ordinary rules of time and space don’t apply—of dowsers like McCoy, who ordinarily searches for water underground but asserts he can find almost anything by tuning in to the “vibrations” that pervade the universe; of clairvoyants who claim to read minds over the telephone or to be able to see what someone else is looking at, hundreds of miles away; of laboratories where people stare at a pendulum, trying to slow it down with their minds. She compiled her research into a just-published book, “Extraordinary Knowing: Science, Skepticism and the Inexplicable Powers of the Human Mind,” that she finished just before her death in 2005, at the age of 57.

We do, indeed, live in interesting times. The world is, again, in flux with more possibilities being open and explored each day. Maybe soon we’ll be to a point where psychic phenomena can be better explained or quantified by actual science. (I’m not holding my breath for that, as it would require more serious scientific research into things many scientists just laugh at without thought.) More importantly, the people on the street and in the corner offices are starting to open up more to the possibilities around them. They do this out of necessity as their normal methods of coping and planning fail due to the chaos of the systems that surround us all.

Psychics thrive on the chaos. They are the ultimate pattern recognition systems, not being afraid to make those otherwise crazy jumps from point A to point B. They are the daredevils of cognitive process. And, even if what they do has no verifiable way of working, the simple fact is that it does work enough of the time for it to be useful.

We are all made up of a multitude of different parts.

I’m not talking physical parts here–I’m talking the ethereal parts that are just as, if not more, important than our physical base. We have different moods, different hopes, different fears and different attitudes. And we don’t always want or need to share all of them with everyone.

And so we segment. And hide. And choose what we will reveal to whom and when we will reveal it.

We put on masks, adopt airs and do whatever we deem appropriate to present what we want to who we want when we want.

There’s really nothing wrong with that. It’s human nature. In fact, it’s even pretty darn sensible and makes “polite society” possible. After all, everyone doesn’t need to know about the results of Aunt Mabel’s colonoscopy. I think we can all agree that most people wouldn’t even want to know.

There are also things we hide not because we want to, but because we are not aware of them ourselves. These are natural and ensure that we always have more to learn about ourselves. (Anyone who thinks they know everything about themselves is either lying, misguided or incredibly enlightened—and I don’t know anyone that incredibly enlightened.)

Then, and this is the most annoying part for most people, there are the things we don’t know about ourselves—but everyone else does. Or at least they think they do.

This is all basic communication theory. So basic, in fact, it has made it’s way into a bunch of management texts, workshops and pop psychology as the Johari Window. It is a simplistic, though eerily accurate, overview of how much we disclose to ourselves and others.

Dealing the the disparity between what we know about ourselves and what we show to others is a big part of spiritual development and, more generally, growth as a person. Delving into our own blind spots and taking in what others think they know about us—both very difficult things in their own right—require us to come to terms with unpleasant surprises about ourselves and how people see us.

And then we have to decide what to do with all that information.

This is where the idea of Reconciliation comes in. The particular type of Reconciliation I’m talking about isn’t the kind that occurs between oneself and others—it is an entirely internal thing. Until we can resolve, or at least quiet, the disparity inside ourselves, there isn’t much we’re good for when it comes to other people.

Three Big Questions

For those who have chosen to live to serve others and those walking a spiritual path, attaining a decent amount of Reconciliation is incredibly important.

We have to know three things:

1. Who were you?
2. Who do you want to become?
3. And most importantly, who are you now?

Who we were will always be important. Our past serves as either the foundation or the fertilizer for who we are and who will become. There is nothing about who we were that we should ever be ashamed of. After all, we are not that person any more. We learned from those situations (be they good or bad) and made choices to either continue on the same path or to change our direction.

Who we want to become is important only in that it give us a goal to reach for, a light to shine on the path we walk. Without an idea of who we want to become, we can very easily get distracted and end up walking in circles through the forest of confusion.

Who we are now is by far the most important thing to know. If we do not know who we are now, we can not put into perspective who we were and we do not know how far we have to go to become who we want to be. Who we are now is who we have to live our day to day lives as. It is who other people have to interact with.

If we are fractured and fragmented, bent, broken and twisted, we may not have a clear picture of who we are. It takes time to put the pieces together. It takes courage to ask the hard questions. And it takes balls of steel to own up to the stupid things we all do.

But if we want to find real, deep and enduring happiness, we have to do it.

Along that path, though, there is something waiting for you in the shadows. It will try to stop you, scare you, misdirect you or otherwise prevent you from reaching your goal. It is the most difficult enemy you will ever face. It knows everything you know about yourself—and more.

It is The Adversary and it is something that many people don’t know much about until they face it in their quest for reconciliation.

Fortune telling and prophecy are staples of any story that involves the supernatural.

The classic soothsayer predicting victory or death, the traveling Gypsy turning the cards and seeing the future, even the Biblical prophets passing on notes from the Divine to people who don’t always get quite what they mean at the time, these are all well known examples.

In the real world, things don’t always work out quite so nicely. True prophecy is a rare thing (which, really, is probably for the best). And fortune telling has gotten a bad rap due to both scientific scrutiny and a number of high-profile charlatans who more than happily take people’s money.

That negative frequently overshadows the positives that exist.

There is no denying that divination is far from an exact science, at least in the ways it is most commonly practiced and presented. In someone’s life, there is simply too much going on–too many variables–to account for them all. Humans, being the fickle creatures we are, can be swayed by the most nonsensical things, deflected from a planned course by some shiny object or random idea, completely breaking from any predictable pattern, oblivious to any destiny we may have.

What, then, are the positives of divination?

There is skill. A good practitioner of any form of divination, be it Tarot cards or casting the bones, spends years honing the skills and knowledge necessary to interpret the symbols of their particular method. That teaches focus and builds awareness. For the diviner, regardless of the accuracy of any given divination, there is the chance for deep personal growth. Without a doubt, that is a positive.

There is awareness. Interpreting the symbols of the tools is only one third (at best) of a good divination. Another large part is awareness. The practitioner must be aware–aware of their client, aware of their own state of mind, aware of how things are currently going in the world their client exists within. Without this awareness, there is no context. Without context, any information presented by the divinitory tools is virtually useless. There are few who would argue that increased awareness is a bad thing.

There is creativity. It is the sole responsibility of the practitioner to bring symbol and context together into a coherent whole that speaks to the concerns of the client. This requires creativity–an ability to connect disparate and sometimes contradictory bits of information into something more than the sum of its parts. A good practitioner tells a good story about the client and the forces he or she has at work in his or her life. Creativity works the mind in different ways than pure logic and opens the door for more creative thought. If that can be shared with someone seeking solutions–if they can become just a little more in tune with the idea of creativity–this is a good thing.

Notice there is no need for actual metaphysical intervention. There is no need for grand psychic powers or deep and dark magickal powers. There is only need for knowledge, awareness and creativity. Because of this, anyone can practice divination in it’s most basic–and generally useful–form.

At its root, divination is a way to gain perspective and a way to explore new solutions. With a moderate amount of training and solid ethics, anyone can begin helping themselves and others.

The real problems begin when a practitioner leaves those ethical concerns behind him. When they put their own well-being ahead of that of their clients, they can twist and manipulate the knowledge they have. They can use their awareness to cut deep and their creativity to warp and influence the decisions of their clients. They can, without a doubt, easily and completely take advantage of many, many people before being caught.

This is the double-edged sword of many skills.

This is why a key component of any metaphysical practice is deep thought on ethics and responsibilities.

When used properly and with good intent, divination can be a very good thing. The addition of an actual metaphysical component can add to awareness, but is not necessary to change people’s lives for the better.

Divination does not predict the future, it merely looks at that which is often ignored in the past and present and follows it to a possible outcome. The idea of that journey, when shared with a seeker, can be more powerful than any supposedly predestined event or preconceived notion.

That is where the true power of divination is: not in seeing the future, but in helping others to create the future they want.

It’s no secret I can come across as quite arrogant at times.

I won’t argue the fact, and, if you ask, I’ll be the first to tell you that yes, I actually am arrogant. But only in some circumstances.

There are a number of things I was apparently born good at or at least took to at an early age. Getting a quick feel for people, bouncing back from problems, thinking my way through problems, picking up new information, telling stories (both fact and fiction, for good or ill)… things like that I’ve been doing for most of my life.

Other things I’ve worked hard to become good at. Thinking (in general), really relating to people, finding things, digging to the root of problems, planning for the best results (mostly in business settings), organizing information, making things easier for other people to understand… some of it I went to school for, other bits I’ve picked up on my own.

Through finding out what I’m good at, though, I also discovered what I wasn’t good at.

Right there is the double-edged sword of self-knowledge. Read the rest of this entry »

It appears inevitable, looking at the story so far, that a spiritual path leads to much pain and suffering.

More often than not, that becomes the case.

The spiritual and the physical, while not actually opposing forces, are often seen as such. This creates conflict, especially in our modern world where extreme factions of both sides seek to eradicate the other extreme.

If this is so, why would anyone willingly choose to walk a spiritual path?

The answer is Salvation.

How that word is defined differs from generation to generation and culture to culture, but at its root is the quest to end (or reduce) suffering. For yourself. For others. For everyone.

The whole point of Jesus’ Service and Suffering was to forge a new bond between the Hebrew god and his people. A renewed–and more basic–covenant that what had been put forth in the Old Testament stories. A new covenant for a new era.

Obviously, things didn’t quite go completely as planned in the ensuing two millenniums.

But Jesus did what he did because he thought it would, eventually, make life better for those around him and for his people as a whole. If nothing else, he believed–as did many others–that his life and death fulfilled a number of prophecies. He wanted to make the world a better place and he wanted those who followed his example to do the same.

His one new major commandment was one of the most direct and simple statements ever handed down:

A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. (John 13:34)

Somewhere between then and now, it seems most of that sentiment has been lost, twisted or outright ignored by people who claim to follow the same fate.

That’s the thing about Salvation–it can work very well on a small scale. You, as an individual on a spiritual path, may be able to make a small number of people’s lives better. You, on your own, may be able to show people the wonder they can find on their own spiritual path. You may even discover, as you walk your path, that you can forgive yourself for the shortcomings you have simply because you are flesh and blood.

On a large scale, the idea of Salvation tends to fall apart. There are too many competing interests (which are rarely as in opposition to one another than the opponents believe) and too many people with different definitions of what Salvation actually is. Human nature and inconsistency muddle things and warp messages.

Unless you truly are chosen by the Divine (and, perhaps, even then), it is best to focus on your own ideas of Salvation and work them on the small scale. With enough people working locally with the same mindset–and with the same ideas of Service and Sacrifice–each of them can go forth into the world and educate others.

This is what Jesus did with his Apostles. He tried to groom them to be the foundation for the new covenant. In the end, he had some doubts about how successful he was, but after the resurrection–after shedding his mortal coil and transcending his limitation–he was able to more directly affect his followers. The greatest effect, though, came from them having suffered his death and rejoiced at his return, in fulfillment of the prophecies they all held dear.

Always remember that while Salvation is a noble goal, it is not something we, as men and women, can dole out as we please.

Salvation is a goal that must be work toward mostly on an individual basis. You can inspire, you can educate, you can proselytize and preach, but if someone isn’t ready to be saved, you can’t force it on him.

The best we can hope for is to attain the state of mind and grace that allows us to look back on our own path–our own trail of Service and Sacrifice–and be content with what we see along it.

The only person we can truly save, is ourself.

And that little bit of Salvation comes through forgiveness and acceptance.

We must Love ourselves and one another as we Love the power which we serve.