In 1972, at the age of nineteen, I had an experience of spiritual awakening on LSD that cracked open my psychic perception irrevocably. I experienced my eternal nature and everyone else’s on seven different planes of consciousness—first sequentially and then simultaneously. It was my very first “trip” and I can say that I’ve never truly come back from it! It only takes one really good trip—and I ‘ve been clean and sober for over 30 years since 1982.

Since that awakening, I could look at others and see their past lives in this dimension as well as their sojourns in other dimensions and began to spontaneously channel soul readings for myself and others from the Akashic Records. I would define these Records as a storehouse located at the frequency of the causal plane or sixth dimension of consciousness that contains the continuously evolving histories of all souls.

The previous five planes or bodies of consciousness are: the physical, etheric, emotional, mental and psychic or soul-level. In modern Western terms, the closest equivalent that would describe the causal plane of consciousness would be as Jung’s collective unconscious—which is in actuality a level that we all potentially have equal conscious access to.

By 1982, after a decade of offering soul readings to help people clarify their options in making major life decisions based on what would be optimal for their karmic healing and soul growth, I was starting to get quite discouraged by my function.

Too many of my repeat clients were becoming dependent on me for guidance in a way that felt ultimately disempowering to them. I started to think that there must be some way for them to access this level of information and do readings for themselves that would eliminate the need for someone like me to act as a middleman between themselves and the Higher Forces. And thus, was the seed thought and desire out of which Psychic Therapy was born.

Over the course of the year, 1982, I gathered together a small group of clients and friends that I called my “psychic guinea pigs” and began to develop the ten sessions of intense altered state work that I would come to call “Psychic Therapy”—the root of the word “psychic” coming originally from the Greek meaning “of the soul.”

I prefer to use the term “altered state” or “trance” to describe the state of consciousness that I induct clients into in their sessions, as I feel the word hypnosis has too many mixed connotations in our culture. This is also certainly true of the word “psychic”—which is why I prefer to call myself a trance channel. However, for the soul-level therapy I was creating, in choosing to use the word” psychic” I was attempting to reclaim its original meaning, even if it has meant going against the tide of commercialism and more.

My personal readings had told me that—while my psychic gift emerged fully intact in this life and was well earned through my reincarnational development through dozens of incarnations—it was also simultaneously a gift from the Divine to be shared with those in need. And that I had made a commitment to be of service in this way before entry into this incarnation.

I use the soul readings as a prerequisite for anyone interested in embarking on an ongoing commitment to work with me in therapy, as I knew that Psychic Therapy is only going to be the perfect vehicle to open up the vertical channel in about 10% of the people that come to me. So, for anyone interested, I created a three-part question to ask at the end of their soul reading: “1. Is psychic therapy appropriate for me at this time? 2. If not, what is? 3. If yes, please give a specific outline of what my therapy would entail.”

This way, if the soul reading gave a red or yellow light instead of a green light for doing therapy with me, I can refer them to a spiritually-oriented psychotherapist instead. In short order, I had a list of therapists who had already completed psychic therapy with me to refer clients to as, many times, soul readings indicated that there was a need for more healing connected to this incarnation first to develop a healthier ego structure, which I call horizontal development, before it would be optimal to accelerate in the vertical channel.

The best way I can describe this is: just like a rocket ship taking off into orbit needs many component parts for lift-off, a healthy functioning ego structure is necessary for take-off to accelerate in the vertical channel—and THEN, as one evolves, those parts of the ego-structure that no longer serve can fall away. But it’s important not to skip this step—as developing at higher psychic frequencies without the grounding of a healthy functioning ego can be very destabilizing—not to mention the necessity of having daily mind/body/spirit grounding practices so that the nervous system and psychic circuitry don’t become fried.

Ideally, the process of the psychic therapy allows one to evolve to a level of consciousness in the vertical channel where the ego is used solely as a translucent tool through which the soul shines through for functioning in the third dimension.

In the first few sessions of the therapy process, I move clients through clearing any remaining blocks in their energy or emotional bodies from this life and teach them practices to maintain these openings on a daily basis. In addition, I teach them energy and mind/ body/spirit practices for clearing, energizing and grounding the lower bodies as well as psychic techniques for dreamwork and cracking open the psychic perceptions through mirror work.

Once we’ve cleared any major blocks in the emotional and etheric bodies from this life that could color any information we get as we go further out, we begin the core of the therapy: the past life regression sessions. These entails going into more than a dozen lives in which there are karmic habitual limiting beliefs or fears that are keeping their entity (that part of the soul focuses on the reincarnational process) from operating fully from the soul-level perspective. After releasing these karmic blocks between self and Self, and self and Life, we work on karmic relationships with others that are ripe for healing.

In the last few sessions, we go beyond the individual soul-level to the next plane of consciousness—the causal plane—which I also call the Flow State or the Cosmic Ocean of Consciousness. This dimension or frequency contains the Divine Blueprint for all souls, as this is the plane out of which all souls are birthed. Once the Being is stabilized there, I teach them techniques to access the Akashic Records and practice doing readings for themselves. Finally, we do experiential energetic work for opening their channels to being upwards of 100% in the Flow as their normal operating mode of being.

A small percentage of therapy clients give themselves a green light from the causal plane for going even further out to explore their soul functions in other dimensions, so that we can open up the vertical channel to these higher frequencies as well, to allow them to operate there and here simultaneously. (I will be writing a more detailed article on this type of development soon, entitled: “Aliens Are Us”)

By the time we’re finished with this first cycle of therapy—usually between 8-12 sessions—10 sessions being the average—my guarantee and promise is that each and every client will be able to do readings for themselves. And in fact, this has been the case—primarily because the weaning process in the soul reading only gives the green light to proceed to those who will benefit the most at the present time in their conscious evolution.

*In 1985, I did a soul reading for John Perriakos, the founder of Core Energetics, whose wife, Eva, was the trance channel for the Pathwork teachings and had passed in 1979. At that time, I was completely unfamiliar with her work. After John’s soul reading, he informed me—as well as his colleagues—that my channel was as close in tone and language to Eva’s as he had ever experienced.

I began to be deluged with healers, therapists and creative types who wanted to work with me from the Brennan, IM and Society of Souls schools of healing, among others. First, many of the senior teachers came to me and then all of the students were referred.

I became inundated with prospective clients and my waiting lists became so long that it was creating an internal pressure within me, as I could only do at most five therapy clients ongoing at any given time, to allow space and energy in my schedule for soul readings and karmic astrology consults.

The question I was most asked by prospective clients was: “Where did you study?” And to say I created the psychic therapy from within my own Being didn’t always seem to satisfy them—nor did saying, tongue-in-cheek, that I got my diplomas from Lemuria, Atlantis, Egypt, Delphi etc. And, then, the second most common annoying question I was asked was, (and while it may seem absurd now, at the time it was very upsetting to me): “Are you insurance reimbursable?” To which I would usually reply: “Are you kidding?”

Triggered by this upsurge of interest in my psychic work, I decided to begin working with a psychoanalyst, Dr. Avery Manchester in 1985 for both personal and professional reasons. I knew that I had to take conscious responsibility for whom I went to for advice—as I intuitively know—even before I ask a someone a question—what their response is most likely to be based on my read of their tendencies and predisposition. Therefore, I thought, since Avery was psychoanalytically trained, his orientation would be to let me off the hook in terms of coming into my psychic power.

In our first session, I asked him whether I should shelve psychic therapy and psychic work in general and go back to school and become a Jungian psychoanalyst—since I was very good at the school stuff (Dean’s List at Barnard, etc.) and loved working with dreams.

Surprisingly, Avery responded with unconditional complete support of my continuing with the therapy I had created and developed and said, to paraphrase: “In thirty years your therapy will be cutting edge, and Jungian will be considered a bit out of date.” Well, you could have blown me over!

Now, almost thirty years after my dear friend and wisest counsel Avery gave me the encouragement I needed to continue on my path, a series of past life regression sessions that I did with a client was filmed and will appear as an episode on the Biography Channel’s new documentary series, The UneXplained. How cool is that! Thank you, Avery!

After a year of filming hundreds of hours that have been edited down to a 22-minute episode for a half-hour show, I have absolutely no idea what the final result will look like and have had to sign away any control of how my work is going to be presented. I can only hold the faith that those who are meant to find me through the medium (haha) of TV will have an easier time of it once this show airs.

The journey of coming into my psychic power has been a bumpy ride—karmically speaking—to say the least. I have had to do a lot of work on myself—on all levels—over these last 30 years, to be able to handle the level of responsibility that comes with these abilities and function.

Because my karmic blocks towards coming into power were inhibiting me at each stage of putting my work out there with deep immobilizing fears, I had to avail myself of past life regression therapy in my thirties—to keep me from shutting down the full flowering of the gift and sabotaging my soul assignment for this incarnation.

Using my own regression techniques—and with my partner, Jim Rush, a healer, as conductor—we confirmed in a series of sessions that I had indeed been whacked, tortured or had my eyes put out by fire in multiple past lives of psychic power—to name a few of the karmic cellular fears I’ve dealt with. No wonder each stage of coming into my psychic power has brought up new layers of irrational (from this life’s perspective) feelings that my safety was being threatened.

Now, because of the TV show, even more intense levels of dread have arisen and need to be consciously worked with and dissolved. But, thanks to the past life regression and releasing and dissolving of karmic fears that I continuously do for myself—this has been more manageable and much less irrationally terrifying and immobilizing than in the 1980’s.

Looking back, it still amazes me how, at each stage, I kicked and screamed with so much resistance to my own psychic coming-out party! Even with all that I consciously know about the previous chapters in my soul’s story that have created these once-legitimate fears, I still need to repeat daily one of the mantras that I teach clients: “That was then . . . and this is NOW.”

For example, until 1995, I’d never created a brochure explaining or offering Psychic Therapy, (thank you, Jerrold Mundis). Up until then, for over a dozen years—not only did I only see people by personal referral— but no one even knew I did this type of therapy unless they knew someone that had done it with me. The brochure started with the question: “Have you gone as far as you can go with psychotherapy?” and then said, “Then Psychic Therapy may be your next step.” to warn people off. And, of course, there was no photo of me and no fees listed. It felt scary enough just to have my work detailed in writing for public consumption at all.

Then, in 2000, I finally got pushed (thank you, Dallas Piana) into updating my brochure, listing all my services and fees and even including a photo of me. I felt like I was being tortured and was going to die. Dallas also encouraged me to get the proper recording equipment for my phone consults, as over the years, when clients moved out of NYC, they would call me for psychic reading updates.

Consequently, they started referring their loved ones who needed long-distance phone consults. Finally, after many years of this, I decided that the phone work was valid enough—although obviously not as impactful as in-person—to record and send to clients—first as mailed cassette tapes—and now as mp3 audio files attached to emails (since 2008—thank you, Lisa Zimmerman).

Some of the occupational hazards of my being a trance channel are that I’m technological challenged, mechanically dyslexic (operating heavy machinery including driving appears to be contra-indicated for the safety of all concerned) and literally had a computer phobia bordering on panic attacks until 1995 when I bought my first computer, Calibur. (I’m now in a relationship with Calibur IV—anthropomorphizing my machines helps keep me and them calmer.)

In 2009, I launched my website after being pushed into it by my client and friend Jay, who, by buying my domain name and webhosting for a year as a birthday gift in 2008, made me realize that the jig was up—as I hate to waste anything.

After a nine-month gestation—because I wanted the site to be a true expression of my Being and so had to create all the templates and designs from scratch and then have others implement my vision, (thank you, Vasken Kalayjian and Arben Mehmetaj)—my website went live. I had known since 2000 that I needed to have a presence on the World Wide Web, but I procrastinated out of fear for almost a decade.

Now, what brings me the most co-creative and soul-level fulfillment is writing the free offerings of newsletters sent out monthly and articles posted on my site—and the feedback and clients that come to me from these. Who knew this would make me so incredibly happy? Even psychics have blind spots—karmically and literally!

In July 2011, I got a call from a TV producer (referred by an old therapy client) asking me if I’d be interested in being filmed for a TV documentary series. I thought I said, “No, thank you” and hung up. But the producer, Johanna Baldwin, informed me later, with much laughter, that I just hung up on her! (I guess my reflexes were a bit off—and had mumbled, “No, thank you,” after I’d walked away from the phone.)

But, with the encouragement of Carol Irving and Jay Sikora, both clients who volunteered to be regressed on camera, I called the producers back and we had a sit down to discuss filming me doing past-life regression for their documentary series. The vibration felt right and in the Flow. And, most importantly, aligned with my soul assignment of coming out of my psychic shell. So, I green-lighted myself!

I had never envisioned as part of my journey of karmic healing and soul growth that I would need to appear on TV next. It has been and I’m sure will continue to be terrifying and exhilarating simultaneously. There’s nothing like confronting your absolute worst karmic fears of all time to make you feel more alive and in the Flow than ever before. And so it is.

Afterword

It has only been in the last few months, after 40 years of offering soul readings, that my channels informed me that my pre-entry karmic commitment would be fulfilled after another 1500 readings. This being my second Saturn-return year, (I’ll be 59 in September), it feels like I am entering my third thirty-year karmic cycle at a level of coming into full psychic power. The first 20 years being the beginning period of development and the last 20 being the intermediate.

Now that I’ve been informed that the end is in sight in terms of being of service as a channel through my readings, I have a feeling that I will need to become even more discriminating of who I have the time, energy and inclination to do the deep work of Psychic Therapy with. For more information: Psychic Therapy

ATTENTION, FORMER PSYCHIC THERAPY CLIENTS:

Dear Friends: I’ve lost touch with so many of you that I did psychic therapy with in the early years. I would love to hear how you’re doing now and how our work together has impacted your journey. Please let me know!

For a more detailed backstory of my psychic and karmic development, please check out my two books:

Openings: A Guide to Psychic Living in the Real World
Cosmic Sugar: The Amorous Adventure of a Modern Mystic, written under the pen name, Leela Jones

I hope you’ll enjoy reading the great reviews on Amazon, but also know that signed copies of both books are available directly from me: BOOKS