What is the difference between spirituality and psychism, psychic phenomena, metaphysics, the occult, mediumism and so on.

I want people to understand the difference in order to save them the kind of confusion I experienced and which took me almost fifteen years to clear up. As a teenager and in my early twenties, I came across many people with interesting powers. They could move objects with their thought energy. They could clairvoyantly see things. They could talk with angels and spirits. They could make things happen. And I was ready to give them respect and to sit at their feet and learn.

Unfortunately most of them were not very nice and not very wise. I can still vividly remember one man, sitting in a sofa, who looked at me with a glance that said watch this. He then directed his energy so that someone walking through the doorway suddenly fell backwards as if pushed by an invisible force. The man then glanced back at me with mischievous eyes, inviting me to become his student. I did not

But I was perplexed. How was it that this prankster had these powers? I assumed that these kinds of powers went hand in hand with spiritual development.

VISUALISATION AND IMAGE WORK

I was also confused by the whole business of visualisation and imagery, which was presented as such an important part of spiritual development. I was not very good at image work. I could not imagine vivid colours or detailed images. Other people seemed to do it easily and I assumed they were more spiritual than me. My confusion increased when these people talked about their visions in a boastful way and did little interpretation of what the visions actually meant. These people were also usually closed to exploring different interpretations of their imagery. The simple question how do you know this isn’t just your imagination? was not welcomed. But it is such a crucial question.

As I progressed, I began to realise that the ability to manipulate energy or work with imagery did not mean that I or someone else was spiritual. I began to understand that clairvoyance, psychism and energy manipulation were skills and tools like plumbing, embroidery, mechanics or banking. Being expert at them or having a natural talent for them was meaningless when related to spirituality. Spirituality, for me and I dare say for most people, is about a deepening connection with the wonder and spirit of life; is about wisdom, compassion and expanding consciousness; is about harmoniously serving the community.

Clever Trevor, the name we gave to the man who was so expert at moving energy and invisibly shoving people around, was not interested in spirituality.

HIGHER AND LOWER SIDDHIS

Years later, reading some of the Hindu scriptures and in particular a wonderful, short scripture called The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, I finally came across clear teachings that described these metaphysical skills and abilities, and said explicitly that they had nothing to do with spiritual attainment. In the Hindu scriptures these occult skills are called siddhis. There are higher siddhis and lower siddhis. The lower ones are to do with clairvoyance, psychism and the manipulation of energy. The higher ones are to do with expansions of consciousness, discernment and the ability, for example, to blend with new dimensions.

There is also an explanation of why people have these lower siddhis. They are a test. The souls lesson is to dismantle the illusion that siddhis give status and use them purely for service.

My partner of 20 years, Sabrina, is also clear about this. She comes from an ancestry of healers and psychics, and is clairvoyant. She suggests that clairvoyance is sometimes for remedial students. Getting the visual perception may be exciting or entertaining, but you then have to interpret it. The higher siddhi, she suggests, is direct knowing.

Here is a simple example. Psychically, Adolph Hitler could appear in your meditation disguised as a beautiful child. The entrancing image is, in fact, a trap. So you have to sense through the image to its vibration. You cannot assess the essence of something from its form and appearance. Direct knowing is quicker and more accurate. As God says at the very beginning of Conversations with God, spiritual communications happen through feelings. Go into a forest or beautiful place of worship and be still. You will feel beautiful things. You feel it; you know it. For most people, in my opinion, it is a distraction to want the lower siddhi of having visions. I would far rather feel and know directly.

BREATHING FIRE

Returning home from holiday once, there was a message on my answering machine from a scientist friend saying, William, Sabrina, you might want to come over. We have a Ceylonese miracle man staying with us who can breathe light and fire.

We did not even unpack, but zipped over to witness this man who could make light and fire manifest in his breath. More than that, if he breathed it into your forehead or chest, it felt warm and energising. I was mightily impressed and began to put some time into promoting him. I then discovered that he was unable to keep his hands off women, had an uncontrollable gambling habit and the emotions of a five year old. I disengaged.

The phenomenon of the fire in his breath was useful. It opened people up to the possibility of other realms and dimensions. But his spiritual development did not match his miracle-making.

Of course I am still intrigued by and enjoy psychic powers and phenomena. I really like them. But I don’t confuse them with spiritual development.

Some thoughts about the fall of Atlantis and the echoes that we may still feel from it today. (The image is of the Grianan of Aileach in NW Ireland.)

These thoughts were triggered a few weeks ago when I was in a London hotel room on a Saturday night, resting in the middle of teaching a weekend workshop. I find it easy to relax with television and I found two programmes that I wanted to watch. One was the X-Factor, which I watch week by week with my family. The other was a very moving documentary about a group of autistic children rehearsing to put on a musical. For ninety minutes I shifted between the two programmes and watched them both simultaneously. (For those of you who do not like television, what can I say?)

I did not, however, do this multi-viewing mindlessly, but was aware of strange similarities between the two programmes — in particular fragile egos doing their best before a public audience. I was also aware of the technology and thankful for it, which made me think of Atlantis.

***

There is a theory that the same souls who developed Atlantean crystal technology also, many thousands of years later, developed the similar technology, which today supports radios, television, telephones and computers. Atlantean technology and today’s information technology are also similar in having created a global web of communications. (Whimsical comment: why do so many computer geeks look like bearded mythological creatures and play strange fantasy games?)

Of course, some people don’t believe in Atlantis. The last time I mentioned Atlantis in an article one friend, who is into many spiritual approaches, said, ‘You’ve gone too far. Mad!’

I had various lines of argument that I could have employed with him:

In all myths and legends, there is a grain of reality

There all these strange buildings being found on the sea bed

The impossibility of humanity evolving to this stage in just a few thousand years

The repeated memories of Atlantis that arise in therapy and spontaneous regression

The psychic and clairvoyant perceptions of it

I did not mention any of those. I only said: If Atlantis was real for one of the founders of western civilisation, Plato, then it’s real enough for me.

***

Over the years I have been in several landscapes where I have been overwhelmed with psychic impressions of a previous civilisation. A couple of years ago I wrote about the vast landscape temple of the Venice lagoon and how that space may have been used in Atlantean times for huge theatrical ceremonies and rituals. The astral gods, goddesses and mythic beings that took part in those rites still seem to inhabit Venice, which partly explains the extraordinary atmosphere and magic that people experience when they visit the city.

In the British Isles you can, in my experience, find similar echoes in certain places. The Griannan of Aileach in Donegal stands out for me. This circular monument on the top of a hill stands at the centre of a landscape temple, like the best seat in a theatre, next to an expanse of water — and across the water, if you have the senses, you may discern the presence of great beings who carry a haunting and beautiful atmosphere. All along the coast of California, Oregon and Washington, I have also felt the vibration of these sirens. For two years I lived high up in the Atlas Mountains of southern Morocco alongside the Sahara Berbers who are said to be direct descendants of the last Atlanteans.

Whenever I encounter these echoes of Atlantis, I am touched and haunted by their strange beauty. For me, it is like the sound of the whales calling across hundreds of miles of water. I feel joy and a strange grief.

***

According to myth and legend, Atlantis was a wonderful era spread across many continents. Its arts and its religion are reputed to have been spectacularly beautiful, and many of its people knew how to work artistically with spirits and angels. This psychic work was so developed that a whole world of beautiful and extraordinary beings became engaged co-creatively with humanity.

At the same time, humanity’s baser instincts were not well managed in Atlantis. Ego and power trips became rampant. Many cults became interested only in glamour, power and illusion. The vibrations of this negative and deluded culture became so great and terrible that Earth herself could no longer tolerate them. In reaction, there were terrible earth changes and the landmasses that supported Atlantis sank into the sea, mythically remembered in memories of the great Flood.

Looking around today, it often seems to me that I can discern waves from that terrible fall, which still affect us. All those souls who were in Atlantis at the time will have memories, mainly unconscious, of that awful disaster. Especially if they enjoyed the fruits of its beautiful psychic culture, they will have a haunting sense of grief for a paradise lost. There was never an opportunity to grieve the loss of that beauty.

There are other souls who were in Atlantis, who never fully experienced its beauty, but only the negativity and the trauma of its fall. The memories of that trauma express themselves today, it often seems to me, in a subtle form of hysteria that may be triggered by any idea that the world is about to end. Innocently unaware of their emotions’ true source in the tragic fall of Atlantis, their unconscious memory and trauma are projected on to a future event. Their concern and anxiety about what will happen, has in fact already happened.

This old energy field and memory of a global disaster are reinforced too, in my opinion, by the vibrational horror of the two World Wars, the ensuing Cold War with its threat of nuclear holocaust and the many minor wars and awful genocides that have also taken place. It makes sense that people will connect with that whole disastrous and frightening atmosphere and assume it will happen again — like someone who has been bitten by a dog and then feels the same fear around all dogs. It will happen again, is the communication from their unconscious minds.

Only when we have recovered our true history and understand the way that people resonate with energy fields, will many things become more clear.

For the record, I want to assert that my general intuition is that all is well and that we will pass through the next decades without any kind of disaster that resembles either the fall of Atlantis or the World Wars. It will, I imagine, be an uncomfortable passage as we work through the profoundly negative effects of celebrity culture and mindless global capitalism  — but, in my opinion, in my heart and my gut, I feel that all will be well. I will carry on enjoying television and trust that my head is not buried in the sand but mindfully optimistic.

Thirty years ago, I watched a group of men in suits standing in a circle and chanting on top of Glastonbury Tor, one of Earths great sacred sites. Afterwards I asked what they were doing and one replied that they were chanting for business and financial success. I was shocked. I shouldn’t have been so nave.

The following year I decided to leave my career and take spiritual retreat. I lived for two years in southern Morocco, in the High Atlas Mountains thirty miles south of Marrakech. Towards the centre of this walled ancient city there is a square of shops and stalls dedicated purely to magical paraphernalia and sorcery – bats wings, toads eyes, spiders webs and stuff that would shock you if I named them. One day I was shopping for some incense and a stall-holder asked me the most basic of questions: Is it for God or for the Devil? For him the question was as straightforward as a wine merchant asking whether you wanted red or white wine. He was not asking a moral question. He simply needed to know what frequency the incense should vibrate. This is the most fundamental and practical of questions when working with energies or, in another language, magic.

Like attracts like

All magic and sorcery is based on the principle that similar vibrations are attracted to each other. This is the fundamental Law of Attraction or what was identified as sympathetic magic, a phrase used by the Victorian anthropologist J.G. Frazer in his famous book The Golden Bough.

So, for example, if you have a negative attitude and radiate negative energy, you will put yourself in resonance with other peoples negative energy and attract it to you. Equally if you vibrate with positive energy, you will be harmonically resonant with positive energy and it too will be magnetically connected and attracted to you.

Let me give two more examples. If someone wants an attractive and intelligent partner, then that person needs to be attractive and intelligent in the first place, so as to be magnetically similar. Someone vibrating with neediness will only attract someone else with the same vibe. The second example is from talismanic magic. If you want to make a talisman to help you be more courageous, then you attract courageous energy through appropriate objects that resonate with courage such as images of Mars and heroism, the metal iron, the colour red and so on. Using these objects as tuning sticks or receptors, you then attract in the frequency of courage.

All of this is sympathetic magic following the law of attraction. It has been taught, usually in secret, for thousands of years. There are also add-ons and techniques which cam amplify its power. When I first began to study this field of energy work in my early twenties, my teachers reminded me to make a clear decision. Was I engaged in white or black magic? The High Art or the Low Art? Selfish or generous? Love or Greed? God or the Devil?

Energy work and the law of attraction can be used to feather your personal nest of materialism or it can be used as a spiritual path.

As a spiritual strategy, the law of attraction is used for positive good, for example, in healing, in communing with the natural world and in opening up to the benevolent flow of the universe. This is true personal development.

Material wealth and financial success do not bring personal fulfilment. (Let me be clear though. I like money and I want everyone on this planet to be clothed, fed, educated, safe, comfortable and happy.) I have known many rich people, but I have never seen money reaching deep into their emotional healing. Many people who have lots of money behave like selfish, anxious criminals. I do not recall any great spiritual teachers suggesting material wealth as a path to enlightenment and love. Buddha renounced the material world and was explicit about desire being the source of human suffering. Christ suggested that the love of money is the source of all evil and that it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.

True Abundance

So what is real prosperity and abundance? It is surely the experience of being connected to the profound richness of cosmic existence infinite creativity and abundance. How does all the gold on earth compare to the fire of the Sun or the power that produced our galaxy? To fully experience spirit, the Tao, God whatever you call it is this wonderful sensation and awareness of being connected with and part of the oceanic flow of a never-ending creative cosmic event. Prosperity is not to do with material riches. It is a cosmic spiritual experience.

Unfortunately, some people who teach about the laws of attraction and cosmic order have either forgotten or ignore the cosmic dimension. Sometimes they even show off about their material success and have the cheek to claim they are being spiritual or are sharing a great secret.

Worse than that, to promise material success as a solution to life’s problems is morally wrong and psychologically stupid. It is a false promise. How does it support anyones true soul calling? It may confuse people who are already disorientated by the harmful glamour of social glitter. It is black magic. Money is not a substitute for love and healing.

Moreover this kind of materialist approach is ignorant about how sympathetic magic actually works with spiritual development. For example, financial success might be positively harmful for some peoples growth their personal lesson may be to find joy in poverty. In a case like this, the law of attraction when applied to money is bound to fail.

But, as we all know, the real failure here is falling for the spell of materialism. And the real success is in expanded consciousness and increased love.

A little while later of course, as is the nature of these things, I dipped and fell into a minor depression. Inside this slump I also began to feel some panic and found myself having desperate thoughts about old age, pensions and survival. It was a new experience. It was very uncomfortable. Even in my daily meditation practice I found it difficult to centre into a composed space.

Finally, however, I did achieve some composure and found myself sitting inside these tortuous feelings and thoughts. I just breathed and witnessed and wondered. What was this all about? Why, now that I was so practiced in witnessing with compassion, grounding and integration, was I having these experiences?

The logic, as ever, was that it was karma. These experiences were in my psyche and in my field. They belonged to me and they required recognition, acceptance and healing.

But why hadnt they surfaced before? I had given so much attention to these types of issue and was finally beginning to feel that all those years of spiritual practice were paying off. I was bemused that they had managed to lurk hidden in my psyche ready of course to surface just when I was feeling good

Sitting in the stillness, beneath what the sage Patanjali calls the rain cloud of knowable things, an insight landed. It is very logical and straightforward.

We all go through stages in our lives. There are seven stages in Shakespeares scheme of things. There are age sets in many tribal cultures. Infancy. Childhood. Adolescence. And so on.

At each of these stages we meet the karma of how we previously experienced and acted these stages.

A teenager, therefore, is reliving the experiences that he previously had at that age. Not only that. A teenager is also living out the general teenage experience of his family system all the patterns and collective karma of his family and ancestors. And more than that! A teenager is also acting out the collective experience of his whole culture. It is the same for all age sets and all roles studying, career, middle age, parenting, success, grand parenting. . .

The karmic package is a constellation of factors which minimally includes the personal, family and ancestors, and the general collective. Perhaps as we grow older, our cellular memory and physical aging process release karmic packages appropriate to their age.

Moving towards my sixties I was therefore experiencing how I had previously dealt with life as I came into my senior years. It did not matter how much stuff I had worked on and integrated, I still had to meet that whole package of seniority. And not just my package, but how my whole family system dealt with aging and how our society in general experiences maturity. Jeez. What a nightmare of hysteria, fear, unfulfilled dreams, crumpling vanity, jealousy, pomposity, graceful surrender, wise realism and all the rest of it!

So, sitting there, finally recognizing what was cooking, I opened myself to the full karma of how I had dealt with senior years in previous lives. I just let it in, let it surface and kept breathing with equanimity and compassion. And opened to my family system and ancestors. And opened to our culture in general, from all those disappearing to play endless golf in Spain, to those lost and suffering in pain and isolation, to those passing through it all with grace and composure.

This was a useful process for me. Sadly, however, the essence of this process cannot be bottled and used to rejuvenate tired skin.

However, in terms of consciousness, perhaps equanimity and compassion are ingredients in the magic potion of eternal youth.