the type in the wilderness

The type in the wilderness. Image here.

1 Nephi 17:41
41 And he did straiten them in the wilderness with his rod; for they hardened their hearts, even as ye have; and the Lord straitened them because of their iniquity. He sent fiery flying serpents among them; and after they were bitten he prepared a way that they might be healed; and the labor which they had to perform was to look; and because of the simpleness of the way, or the easiness of it, there were many who perished.

Alma 33:18-21
18 But behold, this is not all; these are not the only ones who have spoken concerning the Son of God.
19 Behold, he was spoken of by Moses; yea, and behold a type was raised up in the wilderness, that whosoever would look upon it might live. And many did look and live.
20 But few understood the meaning of those things, and this because of the hardness of their hearts. But there were many who were so hardened that they would not look, therefore they perished. Now the reason they would not look is because they did not believe that it would heal them.
21 O my brethren, if ye could be healed by merely casting about your eyes that ye might be healed, would ye not behold quickly, or would ye rather harden your hearts in unbelief, and be slothful, that ye would not cast about your eyes, that ye might perish?

Sometimes one of the trials we face is having to be open-minded. Sometimes the things God puts in our paths seem too easy to be true. Or too "crazy," too off-the-wall.

If the prophet showed up at your house and said your family would be healed of all illnesses and never get sick again if they just looked at a special stick, would you believe him? Would you look?

Yes! you might say. It's the prophet! Of course I would look if the prophet showed up on my doorstep!

But of course God knows that. And the prophet is busy. Sometimes God sends us quieter answers to see if we're listening.

Like the person with mental illness who just so happens to discover that someone she knows practices RET.

Or the person with chronic infections whose friend tells her about essential oils.

Or the person struggling with addiction who is put in the path of a Kundalini Yoga and Meditation teacher.

Sometimes God orchestrates it so our paths converge with people who have very specific skill sets--skill sets that for all we know were pre-designed to help us specifically. When that happens, it's up to us to recognize them and be open to them.

Moses and the rod. Image from an
article on the bronze snake
and the caduceus.

In a lot of ways I feel like my life has been abnormally blessed. I have an incredible family. We had a hard life because we did not have a lot of money and we did have a super disabled brother, but we had the Gospel. My college years were a dream. I found my husband at 19 and married him at 20. I have beautiful and obedient children. I am happy and my health is good--even though ten years ago I was not as happy and my health was not very good. On occasion things show up that put a wrench in things, but they never last for long. A lot of times I've looked at my life and wondered: why is it that my life can be awesome, and so many people I know have lives that just aren't? Why is that fair?

I used to feel guilty about it, but now I don't. I feel that the secret lies in those scriptures I quoted at the beginning of this post. Having an awesome life comes down to being open to things that are uncomfortable, or even that contradict your current paradigm--and following the Spirit to determine which things are true and which things are false. It comes from a willingness to rigorously examine ideas, even ideas that seem counterintuitive or flat-out wrong at first, and trust the Spirit to lead even if it leads you to something you wouldn't have picked for yourself.

In the case of the Hebrews following Moses, God afflicted them with afflictions and gave them the promise that if they would just look up they would heal and be fine.

Many of them chose to die rather than just look up.

It's easy to judge them for that, but I feel I see that same attitude replicated today, over and over again.

It's the attitude of the person willing to try "anything" to lose weight... as long as "anything" is just pills and never involves any meaningful dietary change or shift in exercise regimen.

It's the attitude of the addict who will do "anything" to recover... except go to 12-step meetings or take up Kundalini Meditation for Addiction Recovery.

It's the attitude of the girl who will do "anything" to get married... except take care of her body, put on some makeup, or go meet people.

It's the attitude of the depressed person who will try "anything" to be happy... except meet with the missionaries, try an essential oil, or go to an energy worker.

People are willing to try "anything," as long as it fits in with their pre-conceived notions of what "anything" entails.

Have you met anyone with these attitudes? Are you a person with these attitudes?

I feel like the great secret to success in my life has been a willingness to do things that didn't make sense, a willingness to entertain ideas that I didn't like, and an openness to being led by the Spirit even when it didn't make sense.

Let's face it: a lot of answers don't make sense. If you're reading this blog it's probably because you were led here by things that maybe a few years or months or weeks or days ago, you would have assumed were crazy. Sometimes the answers God puts in our laps are crazy.

Jesus heals the man born blind. Image here.

And yet, sometimes out of crazy, miracles happen.

Like when Jesus spat on some clay and used it to heal the blind.

Or told a man to bathe in a river and be healed.

Has God been giving you an answer that seems crazy? Has He been telling you to look at the "type in the wilderness," that you might "look and live?" What does that mean for you?

How many weird things are you willing to look at with the Holy Ghost in order to find an answer?

How hard are you willing to work for a solution?

How far are you willing to go to get the blessing that you want?

will you be a healer?

A student of mine was studying the scriptures and came across 2 Nephi 13 (compare Isaiah 3). I'm going to quote a few verses of it. But first, some backstory: Isaiah is talking about the punishments the people will face for their disobedience to the Lord.

Examine:

5 And the people shall be oppressed, every one by another, and every one by his neighbour: the child shall behave himself proudly against the ancient, and the base against the honourable. 

6 When a man shall take hold of his brother of the house of his father, saying, Thou hast clothing, be thou our ruler, and let this ruin be under thy hand: 

7 In that day shall he swear, saying, I will not be an healer; for in my house is neither bread nor clothing: make me not a ruler of the people.

We're already living in the world of verse 5. The riots in Ferguson are just one example of the sweeping civil unrest that is prophesied to come upon our nation.

Christ is the true healer. Image here. 

But the next two verses were what stood out to my student, and then to me as I studied this after she pointed it out. When a man goes to his brother and begs him to be their ruler, to "let this ruin be under thy hand," the brother declines with the words: "I will not be a healer."

It is an interesting connection. When everything falls apart, the people who have resources, both material and mental/emotional, will be turned to in the hopes that they will be able to heal the situation. Healing and ruling go hand in hand in that time--but many people who would otherwise be capable of healing situations will decline the responsibility.

Being a healer is a responsibility. If you feel called to the work then you have a job to do. But with responsibilities come blessings. God doesn't call the qualified: He qualifies the called.

Reorganize. Consolidate. Purify.

I've been super sick for a week now, and when I got around to asking why, I got a good answer.

Image here.

Reorganize. Consolidate. Purify.

My illness has been something of a surprise, because ever since I turned my will more fully over to God, I really haven't been ill. This is amazing for me because I have seen literal years where I was well for fewer than ten days. The first year of my marriage, I was literally well for one week out of fifty-two. It was just one thing after another. But I feel like in a lot of ways my whole life has been like that.

Since I had my change of heart, I experienced much better health, but the past week has been crazy. But it makes sense in the context of the words I heard while I was spiritually asking why.

Reorganize. Consolidate. Purify.

I feel as though this illness is coming at the perfect time for that sort of thing--we just passed the one year anniversary of my brother's death, and completed his temple work just last week. Astrologically, we passed through some interesting sky times in the past month, between the Three Negative Weeks, Tisha b'Av (the date of my brother's temple work!), and now the supermoon in the month ruled by the sun.

Image here.

It is especially notable to me that the bulk of my illness began on the supermoon, because my particular quest this year, since my brother's death, has been to bring my sun and moon, or masculine and feminine energies, into balance. With that in mind, this type of illness is coming at the perfect time and in the perfect way to help me reorganize, consolidate, and purify. We're purging the remaining physical and energetic gunk that's been shifted around in this past year, so that the soul can be reorganized, new things can be consolidated, and old things can be purified.

Anyway. This is kind of a personal thing but I wonder how many of the physical illnesses and ailments we suffer are for the same reasons. Reorganize. Consolidate. Purify. I wonder how much more we would get out of our illnesses if we had eyes to see them for what they really are. Perhaps not all sicknesses are purification processes, our bodies processing the past and preparing for the future, but perhaps more of them are than we realize.

Something to think about.

growing faith to heal

Emotional healing is both simple and difficult. Simple because it's easy to understand. Forgiveness. Repentance. Turning your burdens over to a higher power. These are things that are easy to conceptualize... but are often difficult to implement. Why is this?

Why is it so difficult to forgive? To repent? To let go of the burdens we grip with whitened knuckles? Why do we hold onto our grudges, our gripes, our pains, our complaints?

I believe it comes down to faith. "Letting go and letting God" takes an enormous amount of faith.

How do we develop enough faith to let go of the darkness in our hearts? How do we develop the faith necessary to trust that when we let go, something better will come into its place?

A Just God and 2,000 Stripling Warriors

A famous Book of Mormon story involves 2,000 "stripling warriors." These stripling warriors were young men whose parents had covenanted with God never to shed blood--so when their land was attacked, the parents could not defend themselves. These boys agreed to fight instead. The story is well-known because of its tribute to mothers: every single one of the 2,000 stripling warriors survived their major battle, even as their counterparts from neighboring towns--other believers in Christ--died around them, and these boys attributed their miraculous unanimous survival to the teachings of their mothers.

But what did their mothers teach them that the mothers of the other believers didn't?

The answer is in Alma 57:26:

26 And now, their preservation was astonishing to our whole army, yea, that they should be spared while there was a thousand of our brethren who were slain. And we do justly ascribe it to the miraculous power of God, because of their exceeding faith in that which they had been taught to believe—that there was a just God, and whosoever did not doubt, that they should be preserved by his marvelous power. 

There is a just God. Whosoever does not doubt, will be preserved by his marvelous power.

This doubtless faith saved the life of every single one of those 2,000 boys.

What a Having a Just God Means Today

Why is it important to have faith in a just God? Why does that matter?

Knowing there is a just God makes forgiveness easy.

It is easy to forgive when we have a knowledge of the justness of God, because we know that by forgiving a person of their sins against us, they are not off the hook. We can take comfort in knowing that even the most abhorrent of wrongs will be avenged in complete perfection by a perfectly just God; we do not have to worry about taking revenge ourselves.

We can let it go, because God does not let it go. That's why the Atonement has to come in.

At the same time, knowing that there is a just God helps us to understand that our unforgiveness counts as a sin against us, and that a just God will hold us accountable for the trespasses against us that we did not forgive. Faith in a just God is both a carrot and a stick when it comes to repentance and forgiveness. We can rejoice in the knowledge that those who have wronged us will eventually pay in the way God deems fit, and we can take a lot of motivation from the fact that we, too, will pay for the things we don't repent of and/or forgive.

When you know there is a just God, it is easy to turn burdens over to Him, because you can trust with 100% certainty that He will take care of it in the most ultimately fair way possible.


How do we build faith in a just God?

Where does faith come from? How can we develop the faith in God's justice that we need in order to fully heal?

Faith is a gift of the Spirit. The first thing to do in the search for faith is ask for it in prayer. Even if you're not sure God exists, the act of praying to Him in the name of Jesus Christ is an act of faith that will be rewarded.

Faith is a principle of action. This means that faith IS action, that action grows faith, that action and faith go hand in hand. If you want more faith, you have to ACT!

What kind of actions build faith in a just God?

- daily scripture reading exercises faith in the promise that searching God's word will bless our lives
- daily prayer exercises faith in the reality of God and His ability to answer prayer
- paying tithing exercises faith in God's ability to provide for us financially and temporally

Basically, what we used to call "the seminary answers" in my seminary class. Pray. Read your scriptures. Keep the commandments. These things build our faith in God. If we don't have enough faith to do the little things, we're not going to have enough faith to do the big things.

Forgiving someone who has truly, deeply hurt you is a big thing.

It takes a lot of faith.

 Do you know there is a just God? 

Did you grow your faith in Him today?

Growing Faith Every Day

I have been coming to the conclusion that one of the most important things we can do in life is commit to build our faith in a just God every day. Theoretically we make that commitment at baptism. It's part of enduring to the end. In order to endure the end, one's faith has to grow every day. Stagnant faith simply cannot survive. If faith doesn't grow, it dies instead.

So, here is a challenge.

You may have already committed to grow your faith every day; maybe you've committed and forgotten. Maybe you've never committed.

Maybe you don't even believe in faith.

I challenge you to grow your faith. And not just to grow it, but to work to grow it every day.

Take a "leap of faith." Do something that requires some courage and trust in God's work. Trust your intuitions today. Do something illogical that just feels right and see what happens.

Pay your tithing.

Read your scriptures.

Pray.

Grow your faith today. Make it a part of your life. Commit to grow that faith every single day.

If your faith isn't growing, it's dying.

healing ethics, and healing those without faith to be healed

A good, good question from the amazing guy behind DouglasErnstBlog! :o)

I know this is a weird question, but say you had a friend who did not have faith, but you wanted to help them with "problem x." Say they had back pain and you found they had all sorts of trapped emotions that were causing it. Would it be unethical to "release" those emotions, and would it even do any good (i.e., they would just build up again because the person wasn't confronting the issues that manifested the emotions to begin with).

Sometimes people with zero faith come into my life, and I wonder if my purpose it to try and reach them somehow. However, it just seems like we're on two completely different planes of existence. Nothing I say or do seems to make a dent in their "religion of non-faith" (or whatever you want to call it).

I've actually started blogging about this multiple times and just haven't finished that particular essay. 

Choose the right! Agency, yeah! From lds.org.

Here is my experience with it, greatly abridged.

Agency

It all comes down to agency. The power to choose. As children of God, we all have the power to choose. A healing can only work if a person chooses it to apply to them. If you do a healing that a person isn't aware of, in my experience, it doesn't go through. I did this a few times in the beginning of my healing journey--doing well-meant remote work for people who were having a hard time who I felt could benefit from some extra help.

It didn't help.

I learned that a lot of it is because of agency, and the rest of it is like the question pointed out--it's our choices, so many times, that lead to our current circumstances.

For example, in recent weeks I saw a friend fall under the influence of drugs. When you use drugs, in my personal observation, you open yourself up to unclean spirits. I saw two of them enter this friend's space. I meant well, but ignorantly commanded the bad guys to go, not understanding the reality of the situation.

The reality was this: My friend still had agency, and she wasn't asking them to go. She was actively inviting them in. I could make them leave for a moment, but they were welcome to come right on back and help ruin her life from the inside out.

It's the same thing with other healing work. You can do this or that for a person, and maybe it might stick, or maybe not, but in the end it all comes down to their agency and if they are spiritually prepared to accept such a healing. This preparedness can be conscious or subconscious, but it has to be there.

In my research I came across a scripture, D&C 24:14, which includes the admonition: "And these things ye shall not do, except it be required of you by them who desire it." It is in reference to the use of spiritual gifts of healing (among other gifts). To me, this means that I can offer to help someone, but if they don't want something done, then there we go. I'm not supposed to help them. It is the most important thing to never violate agency. 

Parallels with the Atonement

The whole thing has made me understand the Atonement much more deeply. We've probably all seen the pictures of Jesus knocking on the door with no doorknob. It has no doorknob because He can't let himself in. Only you can let Him in. Jesus already did all the remote healing we will ever need. ALL of it. So why do we still suffer?

Why do we still ache?

Why do we still hurt so much? Spiritually, physically, mentally, emotionally?

Jesus did all the suffering for us, but we still need to accept it. His healing energy is in us--I believe it is literally in every atom--fodder for another post--but clearly we are not all 100% whole and healed. This healing energy is in our queues, waiting for us to access it.

It's the same thing with healing work. You can certainly do well-meant healing work for someone who isn't ready for it. I've done it plenty (before I knew what I know now)! But don't be surprised if you see no effects. C. S. Lewis has a great quote out there about how it is the goal of Christianity for us all to become "little Christs." I love the hymn Lord, I Would Follow Thee for its line: "I would learn the healer's art." As Christians we are called upon to wreak miracles of healing in all its forms: physical, mental, emotional, spiritual--we are called upon to share the healing miracle of the Atonement with our brothers and sisters in Christ.

But just because we do the work doesn't mean they will accept it. When we preach, plenty of people don't listen. When we do thoughtful things, sometimes our efforts go unnoticed or even reviled. But we are willing to do the work!

Ethics

The book The Emotion Code has a great section on ethics. Basically, it comes own to: it's an invasion and violation of privacy for a person to assume another person's energy system without their knowledge and permission (as would be the case in remote theta work, or Emotion Code work). So if your work is going to involve you muscle testing on another person's behalf, you should not do that without their permission! That would be an abuse of the ability. This is because when you assume a person's energy as a proxy, you can learn things about them that they may not want you to know.

Of course, when you start using your spiritual eyes, you start seeing all sorts of things about people they may prefer you not to know! But that's not intentional--intentionally assuming a person's energy without permission is a whole other thing. It's the difference between overhearing a person talking about their life story while you happen to be in the area, and sneaking into their room to read their diary.

As long as you're not assuming their energy, I believe remote work is fair game. I send "good vibes" to people without their permission. It's fancy prayer and doesn't violate their agency. But I don't do theta or belief work without permission.

Basically, if you would say it in a "normal" prayer, I believe it's something that you can do without permission. For example, since I was a kid I have always prayed for people to have good days. It's not unethical to pray for someone to have a nice day. Similarly, it's not unethical to consciously send people you pray for beams of unconditional love, or whatever kind of healing you do. But it would be unethical to go into a theta state and alter their perceptions of the world without their permission. Also, I don't think it would work (although I haven't tried, and won't, so I can't say for sure).

So: would it be unethical to release a person's emotions behind their back and would it even work? Yes,
it would be unethical, and I don't know if it would even work. But let's not find out.

Reaching out to those without faith

Sometimes people with zero faith come into my life, and I wonder if my purpose it to try and reach them somehow. However, it just seems like we're on two completely different planes of existence. Nothing I say or do seems to make a dent in their "religion of non-faith" (or whatever you want to call it).

Just the other day I had this trial where I was dealing with some serious stuff, and no one would take it seriously. We were on "two completely different planes of existence," even though the people I asked to help me technically shared all the same beliefs as me!

I called my aunt for advice and she stated that as those who can see clearly, we have a job to bring matters of the spirit to the attention of those who do not see.

That does not make it easy!

I believe this falls under the category of--follow the Spirit. Follow your intuitions. You won't go wrong if you follow the promptings of the Holy Spirit. Even if things look bad in the short term. You can always trust God. So if you know how to discern His voice from all the other voices, just do that and follow it 100%.

The other day, when no one would listen, I was at first discouraged and worried. But I decided to just turn to God 100%, and He heard my prayers. And the way He took care of the problem answered not just my prayer, but the prayer of the person who had asked me to help. And that person's prayer had been prayed years before.

From here. Leap of faith!

It turned out that it was a beautiful thing that no one around me was a believer, because in the end, I and the person I helped witnessed an incredible miracle that would not have been possible if we had not had to exercise such faith in God. But because no one else would help, out of necessity we turned to Him completely, and it was beautiful.

The difference between believers and non-believers is vast. There is a gulf between the faithful and the faithless, in every religion and belief system. I believe we just have to trust that at the right time, those who need us will find us! And that we will find the people who are ready for our help! And that as we are good examples of Christlike love and healing, those who doubt will eventually come around. And even if they don't, like I learned the other day--God has miracles in store for those who believe and call on His name. It doesn't matter if your neighbors believe. Your faith is the important thing.

Thanks to Doug for the good question! I need to finish all my other posts on this topic... because I've started a bunch! Haha!

the only limit is our faith!

I moderate my ward's blog, and this morning I had the opportunity to post this blog entry about faith. This post struck me so deeply. Go read it now.

The point of that post was: God still speaks to us. He speaks to us like He spoke to the people in the holy scriptures.

And the only limit of His power is the limit we place on it.

In other words, the only limit of God's power in our lives is the limit of our faith.

***

Buy it here.

I was recently introduced to the book The Emotion Code, which is amazing. The theory is that--okay. So every time you feel an emotion, it's because of a chemical reaction in your brain. Well, if your brain is overloaded on those emotion chemicals, it can stop them from processing. But then they just get lodged in your body instead. And they become your default emotions--for example, if you had a lot of sadness emotions stored up in you that your brain decided against processing, any time something sad came up in your life, it would make you REALLY SAD.

Or if you had a lot of anger molecules that weren't getting processed, whenever something that could possibly make someone angry happened to you, you would get REALLY ANGRY. It's the body's way of trying to metabolize these leftover molecules of emotion, if you will.

That's the theory. The book also explains a lot more about it and how to release these trapped emotions. Go read it and try it. Or come to me and have me test it out on you. It's pretty fun.

The Emotion Code protocol calls for the use of a magnet--to magnify the intention of the practitioner. That seemed kind of silly to me, although I used it at first. But a few days after I started practicing the modality, I was stuck in the car for 6+ hours, and I decided I wanted to try releasing some trapped emotions from myself. And I had no magnet.

I prayed, and learned that the magnet was nothing more than a tool to magnify faith. I didn't need a magnet as long as I had the faith. So at first I used a pen instead, since that's what I had.

And then I just used nothing--just imagined using a magnet in my mind.

And then I just prayed. And it all worked the same.

Using The Emotion Code, you're supposed to identify all the trapped emotions causing your physical problems. Well, one friend I was working on for weight loss issues turned out to have a few trapped emotions causing her excess weight... 750 trapped emotions, to be precise! I knew I'd have a lot of work ahead of me to release them all, one at a time, after identification.

So I started a spreadsheet and started with #1, working my way down the list. After identifying like 40 emotions I was pretty burnt out from that.

It occurred to me to ask--can I just release all the emotions that are ready to be released at this time?

And the answer was yes.

So I did.

And I didn't need a magnet, or even a pen. All I needed was faith that if I commanded them to release now, they would. And just like that, those trapped emotions were processing.

But it gets better than that.

I realized that I--and she--were both processing all sorts of other trapped emotions. I asked if I could just release them all en masse. And I got the answer of yes.

So I just did.

Because in the end, all it is is FAITH.

 ***

A few weeks ago, I was reading up on things, and I found this article there about the nature of our common Enemy. And I quote:

 These spirits also have other tools they use on us and in us… fiery darts, chains, flaxen cords, spiritual shunts, curses, etc. They aren’t metaphors; they are energetic weapons that get lodged in your energy field. Energy healers see/deal with these all the time. I was shocked the first time I found one. It was an energetic knife in my uterus, and it caused a miscarriage, as well as other pain. It is good to learn how to discern these too and learn how to cast them out so they don’t drain your energy either.

I read that, and I instantly knew in my heart: I had a friend with a weapon of this variety lodged in his side. I could discern it so clearly.

Fiery darts of the wicked. From here.

And I despaired. Because I thought--what does it take to dislodge an energetic weapon? Once it's gone, then what? Do you have to like, sew up the rift in the energetic field? What is this?

I emailed the blogger and she kindly responded: it is so easy. All you need to do is ask God in the name of Jesus Christ, nothing doubting, and it'll be gone.

And you know what? It was that easy. I just decided to believe 100% that when I asked these weapons to be gone, they would be.

And they were.

***
Tonight I had an experience where I faced a serious, serious problem and didn't know how to handle it. I sought advice, but it all came down to I needed extra help, and no mortal person would help me. I reached out to everyone I could think of to help me solve this problem, and no one would.

But then I remembered: FAITH!

I knew God had another answer, one that didn't rely on the people around me. And He did. And He showed me how to access that answer, and I did, and it was beautiful.

Someone's soul was healed tonight.

Thanks to faith.

 10 Behold it was by faith that they of old were ^acalled after the holy order of God.

 11 Wherefore, by faith was the law of Moses given. But in the ^agift of his Son hath God prepared a more ^bexcellent way; and it is by faith that it hath been fulfilled.

 12 For if there be no ^afaith among the children of men God can do no ^bmiracle among them; wherefore, he showed not himself until after their faith.

 13 Behold, it was the faith of Alma and Amulek that caused the ^aprison to tumble to the earth.

 14 Behold, it was the faith of Nephi and Lehi that wrought the ^achange upon the Lamanites, that they were baptized with fire and with the ^bHoly Ghost.

 15 Behold, it was the faith of ^aAmmon and his brethren which ^bwrought so great a miracle among the Lamanites.

16 Yea, and even all they who wrought ^amiracles wrought them by ^bfaith, even those who were before Christ and also those who were after.

 17 And it was by faith that the three disciples obtained a promise that they should ^anot taste of death; and they obtained not the promise until after their faith.

 18 And neither at any time hath any wrought miracles until after their faith; wherefore they first believed in the Son of God.

 19 And there were many whose faith was so exceedingly strong, even ^abefore Christ came, who could not be kept from within the ^bveil, but truly saw with their eyes the things which they had beheld with an eye of faith, and they were glad.

- Ether 12:10-19 

I am so glad. 

Believe.

Witness miracles.

clairvoyance, spiritual gifts, and the perils of analytic overlay

A pic that came up when I Googled "clairvoyance."

The word "clairvoyance" means "clear-seeing." To me, it means seeing things as they really are, enjoying the gift of prophecy and discernment. Seeing, or rather, almost visually discerning, spiritual things more literally than metaphorically.

Surprisingly, it took me a long time of experiencing clairvoyance, clear-seeing, discernment, before I bothered to Google about it. I have no idea why. Usually if anything comes up in my life at all, the first thing that happens is I Google it. Anyway.

From here.

When I finally did start poking around on the Internet for answers, I was troubled because there didn't seem to be a lot that came up from an LDS perspective. At the time I did not fully understand that my experiences were actually gifts of the spirit (see 1 Cor. 12:9-10, Moroni 10:8-18), signs that follow faith in Jesus Christ (see Mark 16:17-18, Mormon 9:24, D&C 84:65-70). Even though they are literally listed in my personal scriptures. By which I mean patriarchal blessing. Well, let's just say I am not always as smart as I think I am! Ha!

And let's just say, we tend not to talk very much about experiencing the full range of the gift of discernment at church. We tend to focus on... I'm not sure what, really. I always thought the gift of discernment was about being able to know if a person was bad or good. But it actually can be so much more than that--so much more than that--if a person is open to it and ready for it.

And when we talk about gifts of healing in church, it seems fairly limited to the laying on of hands in a priesthood sense, rather than in the sense of--someone with the gift of healing can actually lay their hands you. And watch you get better right away. Even if they have not been ordained to the priesthood. Even if they're a girl. (Don't tell Ordain Women!)

(I kid.)

(Okay, only kind of. Maybe someone should tell them, actually.)

(I am totally blogging about this spiritual gifts/Ordain Women thing later.)

When I began searching online though, for more information about what was happening to me, up came a website about Mormon remote viewing. It blew my mind and was awesome. I ordered the author's book on the government's remote viewing program. It was a fascinating read and very helpful to me personally in understanding what was happening with my brain from a technical and spiritual perspective. Note: it is a history of the military psychic espionage program, not a spiritual text or something like that. All people with an interest in any type of parapsychology (or "psi"), regardless of spiritual background, would find it interesting and very possibly enlightening. For me, it just happened to resound spiritually at times.

One thing that really stood out to me from the book was Smith's discussion of "AOL," or "analytic overlay." This is what happens when the left brain, the logical side, tries to analyze what the right brain is perceiving.

apple.

In remote viewing, it presents like this: you focus your mind on your coordinates, and you see
something red... round... shiny. "An apple!" you assume, thanks to analytic overlay, AOL.

Now perhaps your assumption that what you've seen is an apple will affect your interpretation of the rest of the scene. You see a bunch of green things... leaves. Must be leaves. Tree leaves. Apple leaves, even. It's harder to stick to the facts, the raw data, because you've already decided on the context.

Even if the context is wrong.

tomato.

This can result in embarrassing mistakes. Yes, using every adjective in the book to describe the apple-like object besides the word "apple" might be a pain, but the fact remains: when it comes to things seen with second sight, with the gift of discernment, an apple is not always an apple. Sometimes it's just something red and round and shiny and about the size of a fist and found in a kitchen. Sometimes it's actually a tomato. And sometimes the green leaves are lettuce.

Sometimes when you think you're seeing an apple on a tree, it's really just a salad. Same data: bad logic.

I've have had a number of experiences already with analytic overlay and I don't love them. But they've been teaching me a lot.

Recently, I had an experience in theta where a person's Higher Self gave me a holy book and requested me to integrate it into the Lower Self's heart chakra. I did at first, then undid it because Lower Self didn't know that I'd done it and it felt wrong to do that. Then I had occasion to go back into theta and have a conversation with God about it all, and since the answers He gave me were basically in scriptural format, I left the conversation assuming I knew which holy book it was. Turns out I was incorrect. But that was the information I passed on, thanks to my unintentional analytic overlay. Thankfully the other party involved was in tune enough with her two selves, Lower and Higher, to figure out what holy book was actually in play here. But my AOL threw an accidental wrench into the works, without me even realizing that was the case at the time.

As another example, I was working on another person for a random problem, and while I was attempting to fix the physical problem, I had a vision of the person's cerebrospinal chakra system and the translation of what each chakra's formation meant--well, or a partial translation. I saw the basics. I saw the people involved, the events that had transpired, and the spiritual effects of an accidental choice that had gotten way out of control--an event that had eventually played a part in the physical injury I was working to heal.

Later, I passed on the information I had seen to the client's parents, who I thought deserved to know. It was only afterwards that I realized that perhaps I had couched some of the things I had seen in terms that were not entirely accurate to the images I had viewed. Looking back, I was mostly accurate. I would have changed a single word in my explanation. But a single word can make all the difference. Apple, tomato. At the time, I thought I was being accurate.

Optic nerve.

And there is the problem! That pesky thinking!

A final example--there's a guy I interact with a lot whose eye area, behind the eye, looked very, very intensely dark to me. To the point I was privately concerned it was a cancer of the optic nerve. I would pester this guy to go see an eye doctor already. This was over the course of weeks, that I pestered him... and then one day, he came to me and announced, "I scheduled an appointment with the eye doctor!"

And I looked at him, and realized: I didn't see the darkness anymore. Weird. It had been so bad I had seriously thought it was cancerous. It had gotten to the point where looking at this guy's face was almost unbearable for me because the darkness was so distracting. And yet now there was nothing. And I thought: Well, maybe my second sight is taking the day off. Surely the darkness is still there. And I said nothing.

Well, lo and behold, he went to the eye doctor, and nothing was wrong. And then I just was kicking myself over it all, for not saying the 100% truth as I saw it, instead of as I thought it.

Everybody have a logical time.

What I have been discovering is that the left brain can be quite insidious. The tendency to logically analyze is innate, and in our culture, it is more than just innate, it is encouraged--while we are taught to distrust emotional things that comes up in our lives. If it's not logical, it can't be trusted. And the non-logical is practically reviled. It is so bad that this year, when I decided to make this my Year of Yin and embrace the right brain 100%, I couldn't even bring myself to state that I planned to embrace the illogical thoughts that would come up in my brain. To me, the word "illogical" seems almost morally wrong in connotation. Thus I have so far used the word "non-logical" instead. Somehow, it seems less wrong to be non-logical than illogical.

The hardest part, and the kindest part, to realize is that AOL happens to the best of us. It's the kind of problem that takes professional, government-employed remote viewers many, many hours of practice to eliminate. And further, it's a problem that can happen to someone even with good intentions. I would never intentionally lead a person astray with my interpretations of my discernment; but somehow, that left brain just creeps in and overlays things.

I love that term, by the way. Analytic overlay. It just has this wonderful implication of undue logical analysis just lying on top of what you're actually seeing. It takes away that horrible sense of choosing--that horrible sense that you've sinned in accidentally analyzing when in reality, your choices had almost nothing to do with the overlay. It was just something that happened.

Of course, that is only true if your overlay is actually accidental. So far, mine invariably have been. There are, however, cases Paul H. Smith outlined in his book of remote viewers choosing to use the left brain to evaluate the right brain. (It always ends badly.)

Still, it's not always a conscious choice to misunderstand what is seen. It's actually the natural state of things. The natural man, if you will (link to 1 Cor. 2:14). The natural man is too busy forcing everything he senses to fit into his limited understanding of the world to realize-- 

Ah, so you already understand the whole universe? OK!!

the world is far vaster than he can possibly imagine. 

And what do you do when you see something that you don't know the word for?

What do you do when your sight, your discernment, exceeds your vocabulary?

It is the natural thing to do to make it make sense. To use words you know to describe something you cannot know. It is something our minds do without our permission and without our direction.

It is understandable, it is natural, it is normal. But I'm still tired of it.

Here's to me renewing my commitment to avoiding AOL. Man cannot always make sense of the things of God. We just need to trust that He knows more than we do and resist forcing our visions into frames that just don't fit.

Our frames are not God's frame. The end.