Except that my grandfather died in the late Sixties, when I was twelve years old. My father died in 2003, of lung damage, the results of a lifetime of smoking. This family meal would never take place. I was waking up from an early morning dream where, for a few minutes, I felt clearly the way it was to be with my father, to speak with him, and to see his face. Talking to him in this way seemed like a lifetime ago, rather than only the passing of a few short years.

We all have dreams like this one, a dream that feels so very real.  Despite decades of scientific research, the human mind remains a mystery, and we still don’t fully understand how the brain produces conscious thought. But we do know that, to keep us sane and rooted in the present moment, the brain continually creates dreams.

The interpretation of dreams has long been the bedrock of any spiritual or personal journey, as chronicled from Shakespeare to Carl Jung. Dreams suspend the assumptions of our conscious self and set us free from the restrictions of physical reality. In this dream from my unconscious I was still attempting to bridge the schism between the generations in my family; trying to heal a long-standing feud between my father and his father. This family split had its roots in my father’s teenage loyalty to his own mother when he took on the role of pseudo-father during my grandfather’s necessary absence from England during World War Two. My grandfather had served in the British military, and in 1945 returned from the African war front to discover his family role usurped. My family never truly recovered. In fact, the same heritage pattern remains embedded in my family history today. Only in this modern version I play my grandfather, and my father’s role has been assumed by my adult son. It is a pattern as solidly embedded in my family heritage as my genetic code. But now I know that family traumas repeat themselves not because of our conscious choices but because they are programed into the family heritage relational code, into our relational chakra cords. These patterns provide the script, and we become the unconscious actors in our dramas of our lives.

How to change these patterns? First we must become aware of them, to know our family history, and to actively seek where our lives are following in the footsteps of a parent, or a grandparent. But even without that information we can still intuit the existence of an old pattern by the deeply disturbing effect it has on our lives, and have them verified by a psychic. As in a vivid dream we may come to notice how we are playing a role in the unfolding drama of our family heritage, where nothing we say - or can do - changes the outcome.

The act of dreaming itself is the true meaning of the dream, of course, not simply the interpretation. Facing what is true discharges the repressed reality of our situation, allowing us to consider new options for ourselves. The dream may seem to point the way towards some salvation, a redemption through an act of some kind. But the far deeper healing available to us is the energetic release of any emotional charge long held in the heritage genetic pattern. We must come to live our own lives, and not duplicate the lives of ancestors long dead. Yes, I do miss my father, but I still cannot save him from his own life choices, even after all my years of study trying to understand personal growth. But I can release my own naïve effort to try and save him. Instead of trying to telephone my grandfather in order to rescue my father from his pain I can initiate a new choice. I can simply go ahead and “prepare the family meal”; those who choose to come will come; the rest will live their lives as they wish. I learn to accept the truth that I cannot save anyone from that which they cannot face in themselves. The greatest healing we can experience is always that of letting go of our unconscious patterns… and then to move on to make a new choice.

Dean offers distance heritage chakra cord energy healing sessions: to clear family patterns and thereby “reboot” your life. Live the life you were meant to live, and not that of another.

Japanese Graduate Performing Cord Healing

I’m grateful to Yui Wang for organizing the logistics of this program, as well as providing peerless English-to-Japanese translation over the last thirty months, and to all the graduates for their hard work, and sincere desire to embrace their healership. Thank you.

2009 Graduates

Sabahan Ethnic Dancer

He shook his head. “No, I not Malaysian. I am Dusun“, he said, referring to the local North Borneo tribe that makes up a third of the native population, the rest being ethnic Kadazan people.

There was something about the way he said it, and the way the astral world suddenly shimmered around his auric field as he spoke, that deepened my attention. I asked about his family, and where in the world he would like to visit if he left Sabah. “I like see native tribes in America, in England. You have native people in England?”

Malay is a direct language that, when transferred to English, strips much of the flourishes we expect from a conversation. I actually like the way it sounds, but I have to practice speaking in simple terms in order to be clear. It’s not talking down; it’s joining the locals in their utilitarian use of language.

“No, native people no longer there… no tribal people left in England”.

He looked momentarily surprised at this information. Transferring his fingers from my toes to the arch of my foot I silently breathed out in relief. But more importantly I was increasingly intrigued by our conversation, and this rare chance to find out about Dusun people and their lives. I pressed him further about his culture, his traditions. “Young people not interested in Dusun traditions”, he said, as he prepared to move on to my other foot. “Only want TV and mobile phone”. He sounded troubled.

How many Dusun in Sabah? About three million, he replied. I was impressed by his knowledge. What about dialects? “Have many”, he said. “But understand each other”.

He hunted with his father. “But not with…” he mimicked the action of using a blowgun. “With rifle. Not old way. My grandfather still hunt old way.”

The mystery of the astral forces around him suddenly became clear. This twenty-something year-old man, working in a mall reflexology clinic, was one of the gatekeepers of his culture. He cared deeply about his traditions. They were in - and around - his auric field. For crying out loud, his grandfather still hunted in the forests with a blowgun! I felt a momentary pang of regret at the lack of such a vital cultural connection in my own life. And sadness, at not being able to have spent time with my grandfather before he passed away.

The session came to an end, and the young man finished by drying my feet with a towel. I gingerly moved to standing, grateful that I had survived the treatment. There was an important Harvest Festival coming up in May, dancing and music, he told me, as I reached for my wallet to pay him. The festival took place over the entire month. Wow. That’s my kind of party.

“We have strong drink”, he smiled, watching me squeeze my feet into shoes that were now uncomfortably tight.  “Local alcohol drink, very sweet. You try it”.

Yes, I replied. I will.

The large room was almost silent except for a few whispered conversations between students. My teaching staff stood around the edges of the one hundred and fifty student body, waiting to assist or intervene in the healing if necessary. Over in one corner, a small booth of Japanese interpreters huddled, taking a break from the exhausting work translating lectures for their Japanese-speaking students. I smiled as I passed by them, and approached my AV staff member, motioning him to start the New Age music heralding the beginning of this practice healing segment.

“OK, everyone,” I said, quietly into my lapel microphone, “It’s time to take your place at the foot of your client: we’re about to begin.”

Read the rest of this post here:

Chakra cord with self-cords

I began working with chakra cords over fifteen years ago, in conjunction with my astral removal work. In relational energy healing the structured cord connections between us are one aspect of human energetic relationship, and the etheric astral world is the other. We use both wired and wireless mediums to energetically relate to other people, to form and maintain contact, and to share important ideas and vital resources with each other.  Shortly after I left The Barbara Brennan School of Healing (BBSH) in 2003, my spirit guidance team taught me about a third energetic system that ultimately has become vital to my Relational Energy model: chakra self-cords.

These tiny filaments represent the energetic “wiring” of the way in which we internalize the outer world - and their relationships - into our personal, inner world. We become truly individuated through these personalized connections, rather than just another predictable personality springing out of our family heritage.  While relational chakra cords extend out to others, and astral energies surround, or are embedded within our physical body, self cords emerge out of our cord connections with others and then loop back, sometimes embedding themselves into the chakra head. Normally these cords grow through our early and healthy interactions with others. They are automatically repaired and enhanced in any adult-to-adult relationship, such as that of a caring family member, a close friend or mentor, or even with your psychotherapist. If the cleaning and strengthening of these chakra self cords were simply a nice idea it would be one thing. But experience shows that that by receiving self cord work my clients (and my students) make substantial leaps of progress in the areas of:

• self-esteem, or self-value
• healing from co-dependence
• releasing abusive, toxic, or addictive relationships
• healing of early childhood worlds and developmental deficits
• awakening to our true spiritual identity as an embodied soul

The value of chakra cord work is that the healer deliberately enters the auric system with the intention to clear, or untangle, any problematic energetic wiring of the self, as well as to reinforce important connections  where necessary. Self-cord work is especially helpful to those individuals who have already accomplished much in their lives, and are looking for a new level to healing their past. As these early chakra cord connections are often pre-verbal, held in place by years of habits, a supportive re-wiring of the chakra cord system helps create the circumstances for a leap to another level of awareness.

Dean working with chakra cords

This is not to imply that chakra cord work is dramatic or cathartic; cord healing is almost always gradual and gentle. One day you realize a glimpse into a new inner world, one where you are connected to a deepened sense of self. The old way is somehow behind you; you have found yourself. And the past is done.

I have to keep reminding myself of the advantages. Once in digital format a book content not only attains immortality but can be loaded onto the screen reader of choice - my laptop, a PDA/ iPod, or Amazon’s Kindle. No more packing up heavy book boxes to transport to the next country, or search for hours to find one particular piece of cross-referencing writing. My Right Brain welcomes these benefits, despite loud protestations from my luddite Left Brain.

I have just taught a Psychic Development teleclass (now available for sale as mp3 files), and part of the distinction I made about human consciousness was at this basic level of brain structure. As everyone knows, we have a two-lobed self, a Left Brain rational personality and a Right Brain intuitive identity. Research shows these two aspects of human experience co-exist in a single cranium, one happily adjusted to a structured and verbal-orientated reality, while the more intuitive and here-and-now identity lives in symbols and pictures. In this teleclass we explored an energy practice to charge and balance these two hemispheres as an essential precursor to connecting to - and energizing - the Etheric Double.

Why is this relevant to my awful confession of book homicide? There are parallels to the PDF file and the ego-self identity of everyday reality (ie, “the book”) and the permanent soul-self (ie, “the PDF file”). One has substance, heft, and weight, and the other is ethereal, invisible, imbued with essence of the author. Self and Soul. Physical Book and PDF file. The comparison is unmistakable.

The digital medium of the PDF can be further stripped down (see File Juicer) into a plain text file, and then dropped into an online speed reader (http://www.spreeder.com/), allowing you to read at 300 words per minute, or more. The Right Brain is unimpeded by the Left Brain’s need for word order and sentence pattern. The Right Brain can simply “suck” the meaning out of the author’s writing, and the one-word-at-a-time speed reader will crank out reading well above the conscious comprehension reading level. Researchers speculate that the Right Brain reading speed limit is limited only by training, and the processing power of the visual cortex. While my Left Brain enjoys the tactile experience of holding a book, admiring an author’s elegant phrasing while easing through a literary classic one page at a time, my Right Brain longs to operate at warp speed. Perhaps a thousand words per minute. Or more.

If I want to remember the physical book cover as it once was, or need to see an overview of my virtual library, I can always use Delicious Library, the Mac-only archiving software program.

Research shows us that the plasticity of the human mind slows with aging, but does not stop completely. It is possible - and perhaps even essential - to continually absorb new important information and ideas throughout our lives. It’s crazy to limit learning only to our early adult years. The ability to place both new and old information into meaningful and relevant context increases as we age and (hopefully) results in wisdom. And so, I’m forcing myself to continue processing my beloved books, liberating them from their earthly containers, sending them on to attain digital soul status.

But I don’t think I’ll ever be able to silence the voice of that part of me, the deep lover of the printed word, that wants to hold a book, carry it around with me, fall asleep while reading it. The computer screen is just not quite as sexy as paper and ink. Maybe for me, one day, that will change.

All of us are here to develop our spiritual lives in some way but it is easy to be distracted in the hustle and bustle of everyday life. In a Muslim country, such as Malaysia, they make it impossible to forget. The call to prayer is the first thing you hear every day, and then throughout the day. And as a non-Muslim I find it inspiring, not invasive.

There’s a line in the pre-dawn prayer that is unique to the five other daily calls: “Prayer is better than sleep”. For myself, as a spiritual seeker, prayer is any decisive act that turns me within, away from mundane worldly distractions. It’s any act that welcomes the divine back into my life and awakens my  true nature. To help shake me out of the daily “sleep” state.

Last night I listened to a very different call to prayer; a strangely powerful song by Johnny Cash, “The Man Comes Around”, with its multiple references to the Biblical Book of Revelations, and the second coming. The ragged voice of the aged country singer, recorded shortly before he died, transmits a sense of the Christian apocalyptic vision. It looks forward, towards the ending of time, whereas the Fajr Adhan eternally embraces a new beginning. As the day approaches, the invitation for turning within is sent out, again and again. “Hasten to prayer”, the Fajr Adhan calls out. It’s a brand new day.

There is another tyranny of which to be cautious: scientific authoritarianism. The scientific expert, we are told, will tell us what is real over that which is primitive. The medical technician will tell us what medication we should take, not the shaman, or the wise woman. Herbal medicine is primitive, science tells us: take Prozac instead. Or Lipitor. We are encouraged to revere the scientist, despite knowing that the ability to create medical drugs or to manufacture advanced computer chips does not equate to an equivalent spiritual or moral development. We should always question any point of view that elevates the technician over the spiritual teacher, materialism over spiritualism, corporatism over tribalism. And, style over substance.

To train in depth to become a psychic helps release the grip of scientific imperialism on our lives, because the moment we deepen our connection to our soul nature we immediately realize we are, fundamentally, free. This realization alone takes us half-way to becoming a psychic human. The rest is just training and practice, done over time.

So, what are the steps to fully developing our psychic nature? If we have accepted that we have a soul, that others have a soul, and that our work on earth is to express our divine nature, how can we develop further?

In my view the first task is to begin to build increased awareness of yourself as an energy being. This does not imply any rejection of your physical nature, but does ask that you take on a physical and energetic personal practice that will charge - and clear - your energy body. Various styles of meditation, guided visualizations, yoga, and martial arts are examples of such private practices. The idea is to learn to shift from a body-centered awareness of self into the energy-body-centered awareness of our true nature.

Secondly, we must activate or further develop those aspects of our psychic nature that are the the building blocks of the psychic. Here’s a list of some essentials:

* Develop your intuition: learn to become aware of hidden forces, within and without.

* Track universal trends and adapt to these greater forces.

* Learn to shift and change habitual mental/emotional patterns in order to enhance your life.

* Commune with the spirit world, and build allies in the Astral realms.

* Gain awareness of the lower astral world and the ambivalent astral beings.

* Encourage the flow of prana between yourself and another, in either active or passive modes.

* Find teachers; put together a series of teacher-helpers who can activate your full potential.

* Release the bonds unconsciously dominating your life, and make new soul choices.

* Create a strong and healthy etheric double.

* Develop your inner eye: Agnya chakra.

* Draw upon the pre-existing wisdom of your soul: the Guru chakra.

* Develop discernment: learn where - and with whom- to invest your precious life force

* Find your life’s work in the world.

If this work interests you please join me on Monday February 9, at 9pm EST, for a teleclass exploring many of these important areas in your psychic development Each class will be a combination of lecture and exercise, as well as the opportunity to submit to me your personal questions and comments. As a bonus, you will be able to download a CD-quality archive recording of each hourly class, to review and practice the class exercises.

My interest in social media has been slow to grow, mostly because I’m a late babyboomer and value the hard-printed word (I have a huge personal library) and in-person human contact. But with my recent relocation to Borneo and away from friends I’ve been drawn to explore the blogging phenomena more closely. I love to write, and yet put absurdly high standards on myself that result in a low level of actual published output. It was only at the enthusiastic urging of my terrific website and SEO expert Brad Spencer, (a millennial, of course) who emailed me to say,  “Dean, You should totally Twitter!”, that I took the jump into a new world.

After only a few weeks Twitter has begun to change how I think of writing, and of publishing. I now see that my resistance to publication has been due to an insecure babyboomer thought-form: publish, and hope not to perish. But, because Twitter is in real-time (you blog about what you are doing right now, or what you are finding interesting, or you state an opinion) and is short (you get about two sentences, including an URL address) it encourages… well, courage. And spontaneity. Just get it out there. Write it, and just like releasing a bird into the wild your twitter is gone, lame pun intended.

I also find enjoyment in reading over other people’s twitter postings and their links to what catches their interest. In the space of an hour this morning I had scanned the micro-blogging of a WordPress expert in Belgrade, a web designer in Brisbane, and an engineer in Pune, India. All very interesting people, the kind you’d like meet up with in Starbucks, and ask about what is on their minds. My main purpose in searching through Twitter this morning was information on web site optimization, but along the way I found great links to interesting YouTube videos and web articles unrelated to my quest. My new “friends”, blissfully unaware of my existence, generously share their insights and post links to stuff which could be valuable to me.

So, this will be my first blog posting in Twitter-Time, rather than in Babyboomer-Classic mode. I wrote this blog posting in about an hour, and after editing it for poor punctuation and silly typos I’m going to immediately post it on my blog, with no fear. Twitter-Style.

To most people this Ayurvedic Shiro Dara treatment is surprisingly pleasant, but for psychics it’s a unique opportunity. The warm and fragrant oil flows through Agnya Chakra ( aka Ajna), and creates a profound effect. The hour-long session was washing my third eye chakra clean of accumulated astral grime, seemingly penetrating deep into the energetic prefrontal cortex of my brain. Something in my Western mind speculated that the treatment generated a tiny electrical field through combining oil and copper with the kinetic energy generated by falling oil, but I choose to ignore myself and keep the attention on the clearing experience. Man, this feels so good.

In the map used in Relational Energy Healing Agnya Chakra is a part of the energetic structures of the prefrontal lobes of the brain. It allows the inner visual function of the evolving human being to place what is “seen” (or intuited) into a meaningful and relational context. We don’t progress in life if we just know a bunch of facts and memorized rules. We need human wisdom to sift through the raw data of our lives, and to recognize patterns and subtle nuance.  Only then can we practically apply what we see to what we do.  Agnya’s function is to provide us with that unique perspective: synthesizing the complex reality of the everyday world with the hidden realities of the spiritual realms. Everyone has an Agnya chakra, and uses it to some degree. The difference with psychics is that the “muscle” of Agnya - and the prefrontal lobes - are more heavily utilized. We all know any over-used muscle or body part is prone to tension and stress. It will need therapeutic aid, just like an athlete’s knee or a dancer’s ankle. Which brings me back to Shiro Dara.

As the oil swirling across my forehead dropped me deeper into meditation I had a momentary thought that I was in a psychic “Jiffy Lube” drive-in service station, getting my oil changed so I could run another 3,000 miles. Probably not too far from the truth.