Part Two
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Why Jesus talked to dead people
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Opening to your Spiritual Guides Part 2
The experience of devotion to Jesus in the mystical visionary realm is the doorway to accessing your own spiritual messengers. Others, such as Cynthia Bourgeault call the mystical visionary realm “the imaginal realm.” Ken Wilber calls it “subtle consciousness.” I prefer “visionary realm” because that is the language the New Testament uses, and the word “vision” is commonly understood today in the mystical sense of seeing things that are not in the physical realm.
Visions include the sensed presence of another spiritual being, a picture, thought, feeling, bodily sensation, or an intuition that arises from your luminous interior. These can range from a fleeting moment to a dramatic journey in a deep trance state.
We find visions throughout the Bible and some specifically occurring in in what the New Testament refers three times to as a “trance” state. Christianity’s most vital originating moments occurred in a series of mystical visions by . . . .
Read MoreI have to admit, when I first read Paul Smith talking about spiritual guides, I was a little put off. My spirituality had become a little too sophisticated for something so New Age-y as that. Ok maybe Jesus. I mean, sure I had a relationship with him early on in my faith, and if I was honest with myself, I still often felt his presence—when I happened to think about him being with me. Or was that just my imagination? And that “personal relationship” buddy Jesus stuff, wasn’t that all a little, immature?
In the course of evolving forward, we all need to go through processes of differentiating and integrating, of transcending and including. As I disentangled myself from a limited, narrow evangelicalism, I was left with many triggers and scars. Many of them still remain, but I was fortunate enough to also have had some pretty powerful experiences of God that always stayed with me. Navigating through what was real and what wasn’t was a difficult task, especially without knowing where to find guidance. Many people end up throwing everything out, and for many of them that may be the best thing to do, at least for awhile.
Fortunately for me, I didn’t get . . . .
Read MoreTen of us were having a lovely conversation after dinner with well-known, brilliant Christian teacher and author. We were sharing childhood stories and she said she had a make-believe friend that was her closest companion in her early years. His name was Luke and she pretended he was Luke, the Gospel writer. I asked her why and she said because he said that was who he was. My ears and heart perked up. I said, “What if you dropped the “make-believe” and “pretended” and considered that he really was that Luke. What if he was one of your spiritual guides? You certainly followed in his footsteps as a teacher and author!” There was silence around the table as everyone waited for her response—and probably a little shocked at my audacity to suggest such a far-out thing to this famous person. She smiled, and I don’t know if she ever pursued it. It is certainly not the norm in her academic setting that anyone would consider such a thing.
Would you consider such a thing?
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