Ask Me Anything: Do Spirit Guides Really Exist?

QUESTION: I have an acquaintance who says she has a “spirit guide” whom she asks for help in everyday life. This spirit guide also tells her whether a person is “good”, “bad”, untrustworthy, etc.

Meanwhile, my acquaintance is one of the most hypocritical people I’ve known; she is very judgmental, toxic and manipulative.

I don’t believe she has what she calls a “spirit guide”; I think it’s all in her mind. But even if she did have an actual spirit guide or angel communicating with her, I find it ironic how judgmental it is about everyone EXCEPT her. In fact, this “spirit guide” only has great things to say about my acquaintance. If it was real, wouldn’t it point out to her how awful a person she is? I also have an evangelical Christian relative who says she has daily conversations with God, and He tells her whether someone is “godly” or not.

I’ve known quite a few people who have decided they have this “hotline to the heavens”. To me, it just seems like they’ve found a perfect excuse and justification for their bad behavior. I’ve read your blogs, and I know you’ve had some experiences with visions and such, so I’m interested in your viewpoint.

ANSWER: You are correct. The blindness to one's own hypocrisy is expanding.

The reality is this: people have not yet learned to separate the many facets of self within their own minds; instead, they put different tags onto different aspects of their personalities and delegate any communication to those beings.

They become separate voices in the mind, and the more a person uses the voices to justify inaction or judgment, it blinds them further. In the process, it also makes these people more absolute in their piety, and is used as an excuse for everything.

The truth is, if we meditate or even just observe ourselves sincerely, once we reach a certain point we are then able to see the noise in our brain; and if we allow it, we will see the many faces we struggle with within ourselves.

Why do people tag the different aspects of their personality as spirit guides or angels? To be honest, it’s really nothing new. There have always been small segments of most religions whose members proclaim they daily receive guidance and direct answers from God and his angels; and adherents of the New-Age movement have always been convinced they have special relationships and direct communication with many kinds of higher beings.

You speak of your acquaintance contacting spirit guides; if she eliminated New Age beliefs from her life, I assure you she would use one of the religions or other spiritual belief systems as an excuse for being judgmental toward others, all in the name of elevating herself into having a higher spiritual score (atheists and agnostics do the same, although they don't use spirituality to judge).

About 30 years ago, there was a great increase in the popularity of angels, spirit guides, animal guides and hidden messages in books, movies, and television shows. The historical fear of “end times” also added to their popularity, taking shape in the form of the new millennium and the end of the Mayan calendar.

If you walked into any bookstore in the 1990’s, you could find angel cards, angel calendars, and angel coffee mugs; you could sign up for a workshop on how to contact your spirit guide; and of course, you could watch television shows such as “Touched By an Angel” or check out Oprah’s latest guest instructing you on how to call on your guardian angel at any moment for help (such as finding the perfect parking spot).

Today, zealousness is expanding in every aspect of our society, due mainly to the tremendous increase of our electronic communications. Fantasy television shows, movies and books are incredibly popular right now, and even ancient writings.

The more popular the story is, the more fantasy is expressed.

I remember when the Harry Potter books came out, and the New-Agers were telling me how spiritual it was. What do you mean it’s spiritual? It was a fantasy about a kid that goes to the “Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry”. It would be like watching the T.V. show “Bewitched” in the 1960’s and building a spiritual movement around Samantha, Esmerelda and Uncle Arthur – it was a comedy! It was entertainment!

We reach for childhood fantasies because they give us comfort; we’re manifesting them into the now because they help us find community with others of like mind who say these fantasies are acceptable. We can then perceive ourselves as “enlightened”, which means that in reality we say, “I am more spiritual than you, and therefore, superior”. We might as well say we are anointed, as we believe differently than the others (and our spirit and animal guides can’t wait to communicate with us).

I personally do not believe we have spirit guides or animal guides. I believe it is all ancient software existing in the human being, including indoctrination from childhood. We all have many facets, and the key is learning to integrate them over time while deprogramming ourselves from ancient belief systems.

We need to work toward existing in the present (the Now), in addition to exercising the intellect, as well as the consciousness.

I do believe I feel many beings such as angels out there, but there is no one angel that is your guide; instead, they are observing. Now, angels can guide you by creating which may be best described as a force, which gently nudges you; but you are still following your own thoughts and intuition - they will never override your thoughts. I'll write more about that in another blog.

These beings we call angels have myriad species, just as we have myriad species of animals on this planet. In our evolution, we are now studying the many life forms on Earth in a deeper way than ever before; likewise, these beings we call angels are studying us, and have been for some time.

But this is not relevant to our existence.

On extremely rare occasions, I do believe angels may attempt some form of communication, but are rarely successful. This is because angels need to reduce themselves to our linear perspective, which is very difficult for a being that is not made of the linear. It’s kind of like a human trying to talk to a mushroom; the mushroom can feel us, but it won’t understand what we are saying.

We humans have been given large and capable brains which allow our consciousness to evolve, but not through finding crutches in animal guides, spirit guides, or angels. We have our own minds, but we can never touch our own minds if we fill it with the clutter of ancient beliefs.

I personally have found that after 50 years of meditating, I am just now touching on a consistent level of what we would call the consciousness, where there is pure thought without words. It is a place without judgment of any kind, just the awe of Creation.

On very rare occasions, I have had visions and omni-experiences (where the mind opens into the infinite). I’ve written about some of these experiences in earlier blogs where I explain that a few people are born with naturally higher levels of the chemical DMT in their bodies, which facilitate these experiences – but it does not make us special or more spiritual than others.

I had a series of 19 of these visions and omni-experiences since the age of 3-1/2 years old. The first one lasted no more than a microsecond, but it was so powerful that it felt like my body was in an earthquake. In that microsecond, my mind opened into infinite knowledge. Each subsequent experience was greater and lasted a bit longer, but none exceeded 30 seconds in total. That is, until a period where I was doing healing work for 96 days in a row, 12-16 hours a day, 7 days a week. In doing so, I brought myself up to a very high vibration; it wasn’t something I planned, it just happened because of all the healing work I was doing.

(Side note: the human being has to bring oneself to a higher vibration for the sake of moving into a higher consciousness, not for the purpose of communicating with anything or for manifesting – for more information on this, see my blog from last week.)

On the 96th day, my mind opened into a full-blown omni-experience lasting 45-60 minutes. This is when I sat in counsel with these great beings we call angels. I am not going to describe in detail what happened, as I took the advice of these beings and drew no conclusions. I did not write a book or create doctrine out of the experience. I believe there are a few other people over the years who have had an experience like this, but they immediately write a book, never being able to move beyond the doctrine they’ve created; others will interpret the experience within their existing religion or spiritual belief system.

I’ll perhaps write a bit more about these experiences in future blogs, just for the sake of describing them.

Even though I’ve had these experiences where my mind opened into the infinite, I did not make a religion of them; in fact, I am still seeking to understand every step that took me there. The major 60-minute omni-experience happened 30 years ago, and I'm still unfolding it. I have never communicated with the angels since then, and I haven't even tried.

When I left that last omni-experience, I heard a chorus of angels tell me I would never be allowed to "trip" in there by accident again; for the next time I entered, I had to be aware of each step and sequence, and comprehend each step. They also told me, "your journey begins today", and I have been working on it daily ever since. That is my goal: to become omni-present again.

Each of those visions and omni-experiences (including the ones lasting just a few seconds) were life-changing and are seared into my being. The ones where I had rare communications with angels were not discussions, but instead consisted of very, very short and direct sentences, and not even in what we call words. The power of the angel’s voice was immense, and intensely vibrated in every cell of my being like a megaphone; it came from every direction, inside and outside of my body.

These were incredibly powerful experiences.

I can assure you, if a being manages to communicate a message to you, it will change your life - or drive you mad. If an angel were to speak to you, it would have to be for a very serious reason. They’re not spending time helping you find the perfect parking space.

Likewise, people who are convinced they have casual conversations with God every day are NOT having casual conversations with God. If a rare communication with an angel is so powerful, can you imagine what would happen if God decided to speak to you? Talk about going mad.

One must embrace oneself and have respect for the infinite nature of our consciousness. We need to have internal discussions with ourselves. We need to stop searching for parts of ourselves to eliminate before we can understand them, even those which we perceive to be negative (such as the ego); as we start to understand, we will find it is not a hindrance.

You will begin to see it is your mind that came up with a solution, and not give credit to a being that has nothing to do with your mind.

People who claim they regularly are in contact with spirit guides, animal guides, or angels and use them as an excuse to pass judgment on others are simply using them as devices, allowing them to divert responsibility for the words that come from their mouths.

I take responsibility for every word I speak.

Yes, sit still and listen to that small, quiet voice in your head, but understand it’s your voice and no one else’s.

It takes courage and commitment to reject the beliefs of the ancients. We can't free ourselves into our consciousness if we only listen to a small shadow within our mind.