What is it like to be psychic?

Robert Smith (Editor of Venture Inward) interviews psychics

Venture Inward Jan/Feb, 1989; Part II Mar/Apr, 1989

Three nationally-known professional psychics are participating in an A.R.E. field conference program, Be Your Own Psychic.    They are Aron Abrahamsen of Everett, Washington; Al Miner of Santa Rosa Beach, Florida; and Kevin Ryerson of San Francisco. At a recent program in Washington, D. C., they were interviewed jointly by Venture Inward editor A. Robert Smith about how their psychic ability has changed their lives.

Q. What is it like to be really psychic? Edgar Cayce said we all have that potential but few of us develop it in this fife. Tell us how it is for you; how has the way you experience fife changed since you realized your clairvoyant gift?

Aron: In my case, it has given me a greater appreciation for this great universe we live in, for Mother Earth, for God, for all people. There was a fame when I could only love Baptists, the people in my denomination, but now it makes no difference what you are or even if you don't have any religious background, I still love you. Also, it has changed my outlook in life on what I am doing: Does it make me a better person? Do I have a more meaningful life, and can I help somebody, just one person? For I consider that if I'm able to
help just one person in my whole life, I'm very successful. So it has helped to sharpen the focus much better on how I am to live my fife.

Q. Some people in service professions such as doctors or ministers feel like they're called to help people, but they're not necessarily psychic. What is it especially about being psychic that caused that, do you think?

Aron: I think you have a knowing from within that the guidance you are receiving is right. You have a greater confidence, a greater alertness about you. Though the walls may be falling down around you, you can stand there in peace and quiet and confidence knowing that, in spite of all this turmoil things are going to turn out well. Also, I know myself now a little better. And if I know myself a little better, nobody can intimidate me unless I allow them. It allows me to overcome the very problems that I'm in, for my problems haven't come to undo me, they have come to teach me. And so I look at each problem not only as a challenge, but as a teacher. You have heard the expression, "When the student is ready, the teacher will appear." When I see the teacher in each problem, then I'm ready.

Q. Did you come to that concept through the experience of being a psychic?

Aron: Yes. I'd heard that expression before, that when the student is ready the teacher will appear, and I was looking for the teacher behind every door, and every place you can imagine. But as we have been doing this work, giving readings, it came to me that the real teacher is the experience.

Q. It's not necessarily a person?

Aron: It can be, but more often it's the experience. The reason that people don't see it as a teacher is that they aren't ready. So here again, you see, it's a double whammy-when the student is ready, the teacher will appear.

Doris Abrahamsen (Aron's wife, who has conducted his readings and serves as his business partner): But the teacher is around all the time.

Aron: Yes, it's a matter for us to be alert.

Q. How long have you been working as a professional psychic?

Aron: Since 1970.

Q. Al, what about you in terms of what it's like to be psychic-how has this changed your life experience?

Al Miner. I was active in the computer field and knew little or nothing about psychic phenomena. But after my first experience with hypnosis, discovering that such things are not only possible but that I could do it, that turned my life really inside out. I had to reorient my thinking from A to Z; I had to reconsider who I was and where I was going and most of all why, and why was I doing the things I was doing; what was the purpose. I had to look at my family and all society in a much different fight. I would support totally Aron's and Doris's comments about all of life being a classroom and everything and everyone in it being both student and teacher. It was a very traumatic time for me the first couple of years because of my lack of knowledge about the work, and so I was highly critical of my own work. Only after friends showed me evidential things that had come through my readings did I really begin to accept that these things could be true. It was very difficult for my family to accept what had happened, as difficult as it was for me. I believe that it is of critical importance to people striving to develop their psychic ability to do so in an environment where they have a support mechanism, such as an A.R.E. study group or any group of similarly motivated people, spiritually speaking.

Q. What was it like for you, Kevin, after you realized your clairvoyant gift?

Kevin: I have heard spirit, that is, sources that speak through me in a meditative or trance state. I think Webster defines the word "psychic" as of the mind or of the soul, and I think the degree to which people believe the spiritual forces in their fife is how much that philosophy or world view affects them. I think people who believe in a strictly material order of things perhaps when things aren't going well might have a tendency to become a little bit panicky because their world view is more narrow. I think the spiritually-inclined person has a natural reservoir of optimism and altruism, and just naturally works with a broader world view and doesn't feel limited by circumstances, even though that seems to be the
message he is getting through his biophysical senses. So it's almost a transcendental quality. It's like an extra emotional reservoir that you have for your life, which is the discipline but also the joy, that we call spirituality.

The insight that is traditionally associated with the psychic nature is not so much that psychic people are better informed or have an extra alarm system that prevents harm to them. It is that they have that extra emotional reservoir for whatever occurs in their lives, positive or negative. They reinterpret it, so that what was formerly conflict for them becomes understanding. With that extra emotional reservoir, which some people call patience or spirituality, they are able to translate everything that occurs in their lives into a lesson So they end up not depleting that emotional or feeling reservoir but constantly replenishing it.

Q. Has being psychic changed the way you relate to people on a personal level, Aron?

Aron: Yes. Before, I was very critical of people. Unless they agreed with me, it was very difficult for me to love them. I never sought to develop my psychic abilities. To my recollection I didn't even know what it was at that time. I was only seeking to grow in my relationship with God through my spiritual disciplines and as I served in the church.

Q. Baptist?

Aron:- Oh yes, I was a very loyal Baptist. Whenever the church was opened we were there and we supported
everything in the church unequivocally. When we began to look outside to see what was going on, I became frightened. For here I believed, and others have told me, too, that we know everything there is to know about the universe and about God from the Bible-that's all there is, there isn't any more. And when we met some people who believed 'in reincarnation, I thought, that's impossible. Then I read about Edgar Cayce and the thing that drew me to him was that he read his Bible, and he taught Sunday school class, and I did the same things-we had something in common That kept me reading on. When I came to the point where he also came across reincarnation in his readings, he was troubled with it and so was 1. But then I remembered a Scripture verse which says, "With God all things are possible," and that word "air in the Greek is an inclusive one. So I thought if it's true that with God all things are possible, why not reincarnation? And so all these years I've come to genuinely love all people. I just changed my perspective so that even when people don't agree with me I still love them, regardless.

Doris: We've been ostracized.

Q. You've been ostracized from the church?

Aron. Oh yes.

Q. How did that happen?

Aron. As we came into new insights and broadened our perspectives, people in the church became somewhat hostile toward us. Many told us they couldn't have fellowship with us because we believed that everybody would eventually know God and that we also believed in reincarnation. These beliefs were not Baptist doctrines.



We went through a very difficult and painful time and finally left their denomination. But we still love those who turned their backs on us. We have since found that there are a few mainline denominational clergy people who believe what we have come to believe. You just have to seek them out.

Al: That's one of the things that we discovered in those first few years. We went from place to place, religion to religion, trying to find someone to talk to about what was happening to me. Interestingly, we went to a Catholic retreat center near Phoenix, Arizona, and at first the priest who was in charge of the retreat center was almost irate. He said, I want you to know that I don't condone any of this and that the church's position is very clear on this sort of thing." I was there with two friends who knew the priest personally, but he had assumed that I was trying to sell him something which was totally the opposite of my purpose. I was trying to find out what in the world was going on. Did the Devil have me by the throat or had I fallen into a black pit from where I would never be redeemed, or what? After he realized that, he softened and became almost charitable and sympathetic but had no information to help me. Then I met a Methodist minister who was into this stuff and became a good friend. He started telling me a little bit-spoon-feeding me-and I said, "Well, this is really scary, because what I've experienced while I've been hypnotized suggests that: (1) reincarnation is true; (2) we are much more than what we see ourselves as, here in this human form; and (3) life is eternal and we are- unlimited." And I said, "That philosophy doesn't fit into today's society at all." So it was an interesting experience for me from the standpoint of what I learned about modern religion. I want to be fair here-modern religion is extremely supportive as long as what you are doing is in agreement with its doctrine. As soon as you step beyond it, the religious leaders seem to feel threatened. I got the distinct impression from them that while God talked to men centuries ago, he isn't talking any more; and, that people like us who are doing this work are considered by these religious people to be undesirable.

Aron. To put it bluntly, they consider us servants of the Devil. So to add on to what Al said, we found very few people within their church system who (1) were sympathetic with what we were into and (2) could give us any counsel. The only person we found in those early days was a Presbyterian minister who believed that reincarnation was a valid Christian concept.

Al: The Methodist I mentioned eventually left his church.

Aron-. So many people have to leave their churches-they don't want to, but they're forced to-and yet the people who leave the churches keep on growing, and the people who rejected them are afraid to venture any further.

Q. How has this phenomenon changed your relationships, Kevin?

Kevin: The largest impact I have had is that a lot of my world view comes with a deep appreciation of human intelligence. I feel that I've always had a spiritual world view but I gave precedence to the academic and the intellectual
methods. I don't think that intellect necessarily retards the psychic; if anything, I think it helps us appreciate and understand it more deeply. However, while I certainly cared about people in my fife who were very close to me, I would have to say that I think, as your fife increases through spirit or through spirituality, you become more sensitive to other people's needs. At times a person may say, "Gee, I've had a hard day," and your intellect may go into a rational problem solving mode; but that is almost insensitivity because that is not really what the person is communicating. What they're really saying is, "I need a hug," or "I need some emotional support right now." So the largest impact of the spiritual thing is increased sensitivity.

Q. With increased sensitivity is there any greater danger of emotional instability? Is that a problem for people who develop their psychic ability?

Kevin: Unfortunately, our society, with its emphasis on the academic and a strictly rational basis for everything, interprets the so-called nonrational as synonymous with emotional. Historically speaking, elements of our culture are very reserved, and when immigrants come from another society that is more emotional, say Italian, we often interpret that as emotional instability, when really it's a more volatile, more passionate way of expressing ourselves. I think that people who have psychic experiences are tapping into deeper passions. But I think that if they associate with people who are in touch with those passions, and have learned not only to cope with them but to grow from those passions and emotional experiences, that kind of fellowship can help a person gain an increased awareness of what these increased passions are really all about. It's not unlike a person of more reserved culture going into a more passionate culture-when in Rome do like the Romans do-and associates with more passionate friends and taps into those reservoirs in a constructive manner. I think if people take that same logical and commonsense approach to their psychic growth, they won't have to go through an unstable, emotional state.

Q. Sounds like you're describing a richer, fuller Me, really.

Kevin Exactly. I think there are people, for instance, that tap into what we perhaps need to redefine as psychic reservoirs. People who have lived their lives in what they consider a very basic way, suddenly discover that perhaps they have artistic ability, and so they're introduced to people who are considered more passionate people-the artists in our society, who may express themselves through the art form known as Expressionism or Impressionism. Or maybe they channel it into a form of Realism, but they tap into a psychic reservoir called art or creativity. I think the psychic role is very similar to being an artist, tapping a new sensitivity, a new reservoir of feeling, emotion, and power. The psychic person does indeed live a more spiritual life.

Q. What do you think, Aron, is there a higher risk of emotional instability if you develop psychic sensitivity?

Aron: It all depends on what your motives are. If your motive is to become famous, you're going to be awfully disappointed. Or if you become famous, and are on that pinnacle without the emotional and psychological set to know how to deal with it, then you're in for a fall. Yet I believe that you have heightened sensitivity toward service for the good of the people.

Q. In other words, you have to hold to your ideals in order to protect yourself.

Al: I agree with Aron but I would state it maybe a little bit differently. If you are going to be open, which you have to be to be a psychic, then one of the first forms of energy that you're going to encounter is emotion, because emotion is one of the strongest forces emanating from people. So you had best be well balanced when you start to deal with such quantities of emotion or pretty soon you are going to be in a sad emotional state yourself. The key here, in my opinion, is to be neutral, to be an open, dear, loving channel. In other words, if you detect emotion, you let it flow through you to God and let God's healing energy flow back through you to that person. Don't take that energy into yourself, which is what could happen if you were, in Aron's example, striving for fame, which is an emotional desire on your part. Any time you deal with that same emotional energy it's going to feed yours.

Q. Once you become psychic in the way that you are, do you find that you know more about other people? Aron, you
have an easier time loving people, but do you also find it more difficult to trust some people because you know more about where they're coming from or what their motives are?

Aron: I love them in spite of that.

Al: That's part of the lesson that Aron and Doris were talking about. There's a very critical line that you have to watch, and you stay on the right side of that fine. Very simply, you need to practice these truths. You can't be on the other side of the fine and say, 'Well, I know all about these truths and some day I'm going to practice them." Or, "III do those at 4 o'clock but the rest of the day I'm going to be what the world expects me to be." You live that truth and honor it and, as Aron said, learn to find something in everybody to love, because it's there.

Aron: I also want to add that as you become more psychic, you also become sensitive to the needs of the people. Sometimes people just come to us and talk, and Doris and I can usually "psych" them out as soon as they walk in the door. But discretion tells us, "Don't tell them that you know what their problem is." Because if Al, for example, came to us, and I told him, "Oh, you have this problem, "l could go on and read him a whole page full of recommendations. But Al needs to unburden himself, with somebody to talk to, and in that conversation he realizes what his solution is. He comes to it himself-so in that case, being a psychic isn't as glorious as having your name on a marquee in flashing lights. You have to show discretion, knowing what to say, when and how to say it. Sometimes I just remain quiet while someone keeps talking for an hour or so.

Doris: If you talk to someone that you sense you can't trust, or you sense some characteristic that you find unpleasant, you see in that their growing edge, the place where they need to grow. We all have places where we need to grow; knowing that we too have those places gives us compassion.

Aron: Also, it doesn't mean because we are psychic that we automatically trust everybody. It makes us more alert-not all
people can be trusted, some shouldn't be trusted.

Al: When you realize the greater pattern-and I'm sure that I've only glimpsed a minor part of this pattern but enough to overwhelm me-but when you sense what the greater pattern is, it gives you a totally different perspective on life. As you said earlier, Bob, you used to get upset when something like the tape recorder wouldn't work and you had an interview scheduled, but now you look for a reason. We are trying to live our lives that way, where every event, every moment of every day is an opportunity, not only for us but for everyone around us. One of the classic examples of an emerging or beginning psychic is the telltale symptom of their wanting to give spontaneous readings. They say, "Oh hey, Bob, let me tell you about your aura," or "You know, there is a spirit behind you, and it says for me to tell you this." Volunteered readings are the sign not of a practicing or professional psychic but usually a sign of an eager amateur.

Aron- They mean well, they're eager to help. Sometimes they also help people to death.

Al: What happens, if I may turn the tables on Aron, he comes in with a dire problem. He doesn't really voice it to me, but I pick up on it. At that point, I may also pick up on a solution. If he hasn't asked me "Al, what do you think I should do about this problem?" I have no right to meddle in his karma or his life or the opportunity in front of him. So if I do, I risk violating a universal law, I have meddled in his karma. I have tied a big rope around his karma and the other end is tied around my neck.

Q. Let me see if I understand that -- I'm concerned about a friend of mine because of what I regard as a dangerous relationship he's developed. I've been debating whether I should speak to him about that or whether that's none of my business. I do care about him and IT go on caring about him but I'm not sure whether I should intrude on the way he's living his fife.

Al: Do you mean physical or emotional danger?

Q. Emotional.

Al: Actually, in my experience, you don't really have the right to put your nose into it until he asks and says, "I've got a mess here, what do you think?" Then use your intuitive ability and ask for help when you're in a situation like that. You have guidance every moment of every day as we all do, so the next time
you're in a situation where you're talking with this man, quiet yourself for a moment, say a little prayer-say "Father, if it's your will for me to be an instrument to help this man, then help me, guide me in the words and actions that follow." And He will, and you will be amazed, almost as though you're a third person watching what unfolds. You'll say the right things to draw him out, and as Aron and Doris said, you will make him realize his situation without your having to say it.

Aron: Absolutely. If he doesn't talk to you or even mention these problems, you can't help him. Dons and I have had years and years of experience in that. We can't help people unless they want to be helped. We can come with all kinds of solid advice, but they won't hear us until they recognize their need and ask for help.

AL- Right, and it's important for us to believe in what we say we believe about life as a classroom. This man is in a classroom and he's getting his lesson which provides opportunities for him to grow, and these are opportunities for the other parties as well. We have to have the faith to believe and to practice these beliefs.

NEXT. Are psychics good lie detectors?

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Part II

What Is It Like to Be Psychic?

Three nationally-known professional psychics are participating in an A.R.E. field conference program, Be Your Own Psychic, in many cities (see Calendar, page 30). They are Aron Abrahamsen of Everett, Washington; Al Miner of Santa Rosa Beach, Florida; and Kevin Ryerson of San Francisco. They were interviewed by Venture Inward editor A. Robert Smith about how their psychic ability has changed their lives. Part I appeared in the Jan./Feb. issue.

Q. Hugh Lynn Cayce told me that as a boy, when he got into trouble, as boys will, and he tried to he his way out of it, his father, Edgar Cayce, knew what was going on. Hugh Lynn said, "I learned that I just couldn't get away with anything." Have you had any experiences like that, of people lying, and you knew it and they knew you knew it?

Aron: Oh yes, we have had people write to us, and we could see it all over the letter, that they weren't telling the truth. And yet we haven't said anything or called them on it. We don't want them to lose face. And in the long run they are the ones who have to work it out, not us. In many cases, we serve as a sounding board.

Q. Is that one of the responsibilities of being a psychic?

Aron: Hugh Lynn told me, "You, know, your readings have a message to the people you do them for, but it is up to them to implement it. You can't do it for them, and it is not up to you to keep them honest. They have to learn that you're not the savior of the world." I remember those words of Hugh Lynn Cayce's, so we don't go around telling people to do this or that. Instead, we say here are some options and if you choose to follow them, other doors will open.

Doris: Al, you must have some experience with this, too?

Al: Lucy, my wife, and I, learned many years ago that we had a responsibility of controlling how open we were and how much we "knew" about people. That was two-fold in purpose. First, you can be inundated with facts and information. If you walk around open like a sponge, you soak up all kinds of things; and in order to preserve your own sanity and balance, you have to learn how to close yourself down, so to speak. Also, we learned that essentially it's an invasion of privacy to go around trying to tap into everybody and find out who they are and where they're coming from. That sort of thing just isn't fair. You don't have a right to do that unless they're asking for your help, or unless your purpose and motives are the same as theirs.

Aron: When we are invited for an evening at somebody's house, people are often afraid of me, thinking I'm going to read their minds. In fact, someone once asked me, "Aron, are you reading everybody's mind?" I told her I had more
important things to do.

Al: Lucy has several girlfriends who won't come to the house when I'm home for fear that I will know what they're thinking, which is absurd.

Q. If these ladies come into the house, do you automatically see their auras or begin to pick up things, and do you have to consciously shut down in some sort of way?

Al: Yes, especially if they are concerned. The first thing I feel from them is their concern and fear. And my normal reaction is, "For goodness' sake, what's wrong?" And when you realize that it's because of you, then you make a conscious effort, because it just sort of floats, it's just emanating from the people. It's sort of like you, Bob, are a center of fight like the bulb in a lamp, and that fight is radiating out. The only way I cannot see your light is to cover my eyes or to close that part of my vision down.

Aron: When I talk to people and have a fair idea of what the problem might be, I get my inspiration in our conversation. I talk with the person and suddenly I may interrupt myself and say, "Here is the solution" or "Here is what you're looking for." That's the way I have operated for years. I don't see auras unless I concentrate, but I can feel the emotions of people. I know when they have been through the wringer, or whether they have come from Paradise. Doris and I can pick up on what problems people have and what they have been into. But we don't want to intrude on their privacy.

We have people write to us and ask, "Can you do a reading for my wife, but she doesn't like it and doesn't know anything about it." We refuse unless we have her express permission through a signed application. One time we got the application back from the husband with his wife's signature but when we compared the husband's signature to what he said was his wife's signature, it was the same signature.

Al: We had that happen, too, and we tried to do the reading. I was stretched out on the couch but the reading said "we can't give the information for this person because they haven't requested it." Aron: The identical thing happened to us. We gave a reading for a woman who said, "I have a friend who wants to have a reading." She sent in an application for her and the signature was different, so we didn't think anything of it. So I started the reading, lay back and closed my eyes, then opened them again and said, Doris, I can't do this reading, something is wrong." Doris told her to have her friend contact us-she never did.

Q. Have you had any experiences, Kevin, when people were being deceptive or not straight with you?
Kevin: When people frame a question that is less than truthful, and misrepresent facts, I have found more often than not that if I really care about those people and tell them that I want to have a totally honest rapport, several things happen. They kind of get guilty and lock up and stop short of asking it or almost confess to what their intentions were. If you can tune in to the truth of the person to begin with, you can almost dissolve those kinds of situations. It isn't so much that I have an increased awareness as in functioning as a he detector, so much as trying to function more out of an inspiration. There's a saying, "He who tells or practices the truth does not have to worry about having a bad memory."

Al: Aron brought up an interesting point when he talked about auras. He said he didn't really see auras very well, but he felt them. I think there's a common misconception that one should see glowing, vivid, living colors from people. Sometimes I do see auras that way; but most of the time, like Aron, I feel it more than I see it. I think this misconception limits many people and I often hear them say, "I wish I were progressing better, but I can't even see auras." And I say to myself, "So what?"

Aron.- Exactly.

Al: I could "see your aura better with my eyes closed than with them open. I would not be influenced by you, I'd be influenced by what I feel.

Q. Kevin, when you walk into a room of strangers, do you see auras or do you see things that distract from just enjoying the company as you did before discovering your gift?

Kevin: When I walk into a room and am introduced as Kevin Ryerson, the psychic reputation somewhat precedes me and I notice people withdraw, hoping that I'm not going to see something in their auras. It's more that people react to me than that I necessarily see anything. I think the value of the psychic's gift is the ability to turn it on and turn it off, so when Yin off duty, Yin just listening to people and communicating with them verbally In other words the only energy exchange occurring is the energy exchange that words have. If I use strong language that has an impact on a person, and they use strong language back, it's definitely an energy exchange. But at times if it feels appropriate, I try to tune in and see a person's aura. I think that people who are psychic have very strong first impressions, something that has a strong impact on your intelligence and your sense of people. It's more like a strong gut or intuitive reaction. At times you might also see it in a person's aura, you might see it as a brilliant, a very vital aura that corresponds with a very vital and forceful personality. I think definitely that a person who is trained as a sensitive or psychic will have those senses, and I have those impressions. Whether I choose to interpret them or not or bring them down as a very direct insight, is determined by a discrimination process which I'm very much in control of. It's like when you spot someone at a party who's going to bore you to tears, you avoid them by striking up a conversation with someone else, thereby limiting the influence that person has on you for the evening.

Al: A curious thing that most people don't consider is that in order to see your aura I have to look through my own. If
my aura is yellow and yours is blue, I will see green. If Aron is looking at your aura and his is clear as it should be when you're trying to see, he will see the blue around you and I will swear to Aron that it's green and he'll say it's blue.

Q. What is it you receive in the readings or in feeling my aura? Is it vibrations or what are you picking up when you receive information?

Aron: I'd say it's a vibration, and that vibration can be friendly or hostile. The important thing is if my vibration is friendly, at peace, and I pick up something that is unfriendly, I will know it right away.

Al: He's learned to be lovingly neutral.

Aron: But if I have hostility within me and pick up something that is friendly, that would be strange to me. So it's
like AJ said, you must be neutral, be peaceful, and have everything be very quiet within you. Then you'll be able to pick up what is required, and all that takes time, takes practice.

Al: When you are doing your readings, would you say that you are in a deep meditative state or a trance-like state? How does your sensitivity in that state differ from your sensitivity in your awake, walking-around state?

Aron.- There is an increase, I'd say, by several magnitudes.

Al: When you are in the deep meditative state?

Aron: Oh, very much so. When Doris sometimes raises her voice, I think that she is shouting, or if the doorbell should ring I think it's a cannon going off.

Al: Everything is amplified?

Aron: Everything is amplified.

Al: That's interesting to me, and this is one of the benefits that Aron, Doris, Kevin and I have had from these programs we've been doing with A.R.E. We've had time to sit like this and compare experiences. It's really been delightfully refreshing for us to find that our experiences are comparable and very much alike, so that in itself indicates that there is a common pattern of events involved in the psychic process.

Q: Many psychics seem to be specialists. Some give very good medical diagnostic readings, not all psychics can do that. Some psychics seem to be better at finding missing objects or missing persons. How do you account for the differences in the special talents of psychics?

Aron: I think each psychic has his own limits. If, for example, I could do medical readings, and I could find children, and do archaeology, which I love, and fife readings, and readings for myself, I wouldn't need anybody else. But that isn't the way it works. I think God has put into each person a limit, so if you can't go beyond it, you go and see Al. Or if Al has limits, you go see Aron, or Kevin. That way we can get to know more and we have our knowledge increased.

Doris: Aron, I expect that you're using the wrong word when you say limits because I believe, as Al said, we're really limitless as far as God's creating us. But most of the requests seem to be for the fife readings, and so we do that and have less time for something else, so we don't develop that other side. I think that's good because we do need one another and it makes us close to another person.

Al: I'm glad Doris added that last commentary. I don't believe we have any limits I do believe that the limits we have are self-imposed, and I think that Aron gave a key comment when he said, "I love doing archaeological readings." Well, I think Aron would be the best to do archaeological readings because he loves doing this, so he is much more open and receptive to any work in the field of archaeological research, right?

Aron.- Yes, I love that.

Al: Some people love doing criminal work; it actually stimulates them. Others love searching for lost things. So I think it is the individual focusing on what he feels best doing, and is most comfortable with. I agree 100 percent with Aronwe should all do what we feel is best for us, we should do what makes us happy because that's what well do best. If we would force Aron to do readings, for example, only for missing children, which is an incredibly worthy cause, I would wager that after six or eight months of that, Aron's health and energy would be depleted to a very low level, whereas if he did only archaeological readings he'd be in better shape six months from now than he is today.

Q. What's your explanation, Kevin-any theories?

Kevin: I think it depends on the area of interest of the channel. Crozet, who was considered extraordinary, almost a psychic detective, had a strong interest in missing children-particularly those who drowned in his native Netherlands because of an experience he had had with a relative who had drowned as a child. So of course he had a great passion for finding children, particularly those who may have drowned. I have a strong interest in prophecy, and that's part of what attracted me to the Cayce readings. So therefore I feel that prophecy flows from me fairly easily with some degree of described accuracy because I have a strong interest in that area. And I'm not so much interested in finding lost objects or missing persons, which has also been a personally frustrating experience for me. Psychics themselves don't have the authority to interject, and they don't have a sympathetic ear with the authorities to be effective and sometimes they may even be a distraction if the people don't know how to interpret what can sometimes be very fragmentary insights. Other times, of course, they're extraordinarily effective. Peter Hurkos has a really sound reputation. But it's the psychic's area of interest that usually holds the greatest level of expertise and the greatest efficiency in their psychic gift. I like to think of myself as helping people find lost talents through career counseling, rather than lost objects. ******

Q. Is that your point of emphasis career counseling?

Kevin: The point of emphasis with my channeling is sort of futuristically oriented. It helps people discover talents that they have, and often to translate them into occupational career perspective. Problem solving in relationships with other people is another emphasis of mine. At times I discover lost aspects of a person's own identity that can be used to build a better rapport, say in marriage or family relationships, or in health and well-being, very similar to the Edgar Cayce readings.

Q. A woman asked Charles Thomas about several psychic experiences that she wishes she hadn't had, such as a sudden flash that first her father, then her brother was about to die. She didn't want to hear that news but it did happen within a day or so, and she wondered how she could shut it off, because she doesn't want to experience that sort of thing.

Kevin: My answer is that when you receive psychic impressions, you are receiving information. If the loved one dies, and we receive that information in the form of a black bordered telegram, we know immediately what its content is, by the tradition of our society, that someone has died, and the impact of that is just as traumatic or dramatic as if we received it psychically; but we don't know who, so even the emotional drama of having to confirm who that loved one is, by opening it up, and reading the information, and the dramatic impact of the grieving process, is natural. Also in the psychology of Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, during such incidents that cause us to go through change, the first thing we go through is denial. We don't believe it. It can't happen to us. We don't want it to happen to us, and we don't want it to happen again. If we see that the conflict comes out of that, either emotionally or just our difficulty in coping with it, and we can confront it with a ready heart or mind, we will grow from that conflict. But there's a tendency in us to want to suppress and not experience what is emotionally dramatic because we consider it to be unsettling. But there are also people who look back on those experiences and say, "I almost look at it as though it was a gift that that person chose to die right at that moment, because the family came together. It transcended our shortcomings, and now we're even more close because of the gift that person left us." So people need to take these psychic incidents and try to use them to increase their understanding and also to move past their fear. There's a tendency of people to be attracted to what's dramatic, so our psychic as an information resource tunes in to what is most dramatic, such as a falling airplane or an earthquake. But if we learn to tune in to the emotionally positive, we're going to have to start saying, "Gee, so and so's going to get married," or "This person's going to have a baby and aren't they really going to be happy when they hear that information." It's just a matter of training, for which meditation is the best source.

Q. Much of what you said, Kevin, makes it sound like having psychic ability really gives you a much better life or at least a fuller fife. Is there a downside to it, or any drawbacks you didn't have before this gift manifested itself?

Kevin: Oddly enough, it doesn't come on so much from being a psychic or working with the psychic as with increased notoriety. Because it exposes you to a broader number of people where you have less degree of control over who you really want to share your time with. But being trained somewhat as a counselor, I'm geared to dealing with a broad variety of personalities, and actually enjoy it. But boiling it down to its assets, it's definitely a talent. I have found that when I was working as a commercial and graphic artist, I had favorite subject materials, such as working with native American portraiture. Some people took offense that I chose that as a particular form of subject material to work with in art. They just felt that that was not an appropriate artistic subject for a person to concentrate on. Other people thought I was the greatest thing since nickel ice cream. And some people who were just insensitive said, "Oh you're an artist, you're weird and strange because you exercise this talent, and we all know artists are weird and strange." Surprisingly, people are much more sophisticated about psychic terms, particularly if you articulate your position. I certainly feel I get a lot more response than some people in other occupations. It's like any other talent. People just need to develop higher degrees of tolerance and get past their prejudices and look at it as though they're exercising their talent.

Q. Are you more idealistic than you were before?

Kevin: A graphologist who looked at my handwriting said I am basically almost an inexhaustible optimist. I feel like anyone whose value system sort of catalyzed around the Kennedy era, with a tendency to be highly idealistic. Even people who are being cynical are a little bit more like the Humphrey Bogart kind of character, where there's really sort of an ideal just below the surface. Also, my early exposure to the Edgar Cayce readings made me more hopeful, and therefore more of an idealist.

Q. Are there temptations that you have to guard yourself against once you realize you have this gift and what are the responsibilities of the psychic in that context?

Kevin: I think the responsibility that comes with the development of any kind of talent is the increased trust that people place in you as you display or work with that power. As a graphic artist, people trusted me to counsel them as to the interior decor in their home. They trust that you're giving them a direct historical perspective of ideas and colors and concepts that aren't going to clash and prove to be an embarrassment to them when they invite people into their home. As a psychic counselor, I'm entrusted with a more sensitive area of interior decor, working with people's inner colors and their inner values. And I think that an artist needs to keep to his trust with people and not become so elitist as to think that all these people are just country bumpkins, and he's a superior artist. People who develop their psychic values need to have an honest inventory and knowledge and not go beyond what their knowledge is, which sometimes can be tempting for a person, to represent that they have more knowledge than they actually understand.
Or the temptation may be as a counselor, a person with certain psychic gifts, to use it almost as a conversational piece at parties as you develop a reputation as a psychic. But I think that the person will know as they compare it to a past-fife situation or talent, it's really no different from any other human temptation.

Q. Isn't there a tendency on the part of some people to visualize you as having a pipeline to God, and to almost worship or revere you, and doesn't that lead you into some kind of temptation to play God? Is that a problem for psychics?

Kevin: When you put it into the context of ego, I think it does. Picasso is an extraordinary artist, who had a tremendous influence over people as an artistic, creative intelligence, and apparently there are a number of people who almost surrender to these accomplishments as being by the single most dominant artist of the 20th century. At times, apparently, Picasso surrendered to the temptation for people to look at him as a sovereign genius, and he became abusive of people's trust. He probably didn't exercise his talent of being a full human being, which means to be loving, so it's really a lack of an exercise of talent in other areas that he possessed as a human being. The psychic faces the same type of temptations. The people begin to invest him as they did Picasso, with an authority that isn't really his to claim. I try to cope with it with self-effacing humor, and the fact that my wife makes me take out the garbage every Sunday. I think the minute you see people getting out the hammer and -chisel and a block of marble and you start seeing them build a pedestal, you don't want to go out there because it's a long way to fall.

Aron: When a person becomes a psychic and gives readings, there is a danger that he can fall for flattery. Stay away from flattery, for it will kill you if you allow it.

Q. You mean flattery from people who admire what you're doing?

Aron: From people who will put you up on a pedestal. They want to call you "my guru" and everything else and pretty soon you begin to believe it. The second point is, if you're a psychic and give readings or counsel or whatever it is, then do the best you can. Give it all you have, be totally committed and if in that process you become famous, good and well, and if you don't become famous, good and well, it shouldn't make any difference. Remember your purpose. Your purpose is to serve humanity.

Al: That's the purpose for all of us, to serve each other. As Edgar Cayce said, "Have a good purpose for what you do and
then God will be there with you."