Communicating with Spirits

[Sarosong]

I don't know how many of you communicate with your spirit guides, but I would like insight from those that do. I used to communicate with my spirit guides on a regular basis by feeling their presence and feeling their translation. I used to speak with them through tarot cards as well.



Recently I had a nervous breakdown which regarded hearing voices. Hearing them was different from communicating with spirits because it was more like an actual voice talking to me, and they said awful things. But after all that ended, I have found it difficult to go back to talking to my spirit guides. My intuition has been shot, essentially. But it raises a question that I want to ask y'alls.



How can you tell whether you're communicating with your spirit guide or if it's your own mind tricking you into thinking that you're communicating with something when it's really just yourself?



Also, are there any exercises I could do that would help strengthen my seemingly dead intuition?
x-posted on wiccantogether.com.

[Darroth]

"How can you tell whether you're communicating with your spirit guide or if it's your own mind tricking you into thinking that you're communicating with something when it's really just yourself?"

I would like to know that too

[darkwolf]

Aye, that's a big problem, it seems. I'm currently having a rather hectic discussion about this very issue with someone on another forum. Her belief: Everyone has a spirit guide. Mine: Not everyone has a spirit guide. Simple issue, but since she's a mod, it's led to one removed post and a lot of "holier than thou" on both sides (I'm sad to say.) What confuses the issue more is the *very* basic issue of definition. From what I can gather, she describes spirit guides as being exactly like thought forms (energy given form and purpose by yourself, whether consciously or not), whereas I define them more strictly as "spirits that aid mediums in communication with the dead."

It's a bally tricky issue.

[Nahemah]

Sheesh..sorry you are getting that,darkwolf...been there meself...much fun...not.

Wolf,Bear,Raven and Eagle great spirits are over burdened to the point of absolute burnout...eh?

Totem..shmotem...!!!!...Fetches and Fylgia versus Totems and familiars....what?

Yeah,easy question Sarosong..lol.

I'd say you can't tell and why should you have to?

Point?


I believe that when I speak directly with spirit,that I have linked in to my genetic inheritance,I have spoken with my bloodline....

Blood,in some systems of belief is the carrier of spirit or/and the abode of the living soul.If you can raise conscious awareness through trance, of the history of your bloodline,you can link with/into the ancestral spirits that guide your clan.

If your voices are dissonant,it dosen't invalidate them,it just means that you have hit a plateau,there is disparity between ancient and modern,the background is swamping the field,but it can be returned to it's rightful balance,whether through chemgnosis or another method of regulation.
Right now,chemgnosis is the way to go..risperidone and celexa...that may change through time and appliation.

I am applying Shamanmic logic to Modern Psychology here.I hope it makes sense.

[Sarosong]

Forgive me, but what's chemgnosis?

edit: nevermind, I looked it up. Unfortunately I've tried shrooms before and I don't think it really helped me attain that kind of spiritual awareness.

[darkwolf]

Well, this *is* weird. From the entire thread being deleted, to one guy seeming to sympathise... to him then getting a PM indicating hatred from other members for being "one sided"?!?

I'm terribly, terribly confused. Either the place I just left for good was 1984, or it was secretly Brazil (the Terry Gilliam one)

[Rikoshi]

I don't think there's an easy answer to this question. Shamans, mediums, and others who interact with non-corporeal entities often do so with the knowledge that it's very much like tuning a radio at some points, or traveling through a place at others.

It's up to the individual to judge whether they trust a spirit, just like you must decide whether you trust a person. Talk to it, ask questions, and make it a point to be careful. I think this is easier when having visions as it gives another 'sense' to judge a thing with, beyond just mental hearing.

If it's hard to trust at this point, make sure everything you do is sort of a formalized deal- energy exchanges for tasks performed for instance. If you start following advice from a spirit companion, it's best to really think it out, use your best judgment. Real life, we have lawyers, salesman, pyramind schemes, and others who will rip you off, as well as teachers, police man, and community servants willing to give a hand- spirit world isn't much different.

[darkwolf]

Tell me about it... the day I meet a Shade who's honest about whether he's munching on too many people's fear, or a trickster that doesn't want to break/change/joke about *something* is the day I hang up my hat with sequins and stuff... not that I have one, but the metaphor stands.

[Nahemah]

Sarosong,chemgnosis,is any knowledge or understanding achieved with/by the interaction/breakdown of certain chemicals in the brain/bloodstream.

This is a deliberately wide ranging definition by me,as prescribed medicine is just as capable of giving gnosis as any other more 'esoteric' drugs/chemicals.Urban/Post modern Shamanism,just as valid as any other kind.

Look at the responses here,we are all chiming along,with no distinction between validity of experience,no disparity between psychological/Magickal understanding.

Point: there is no one or right way.

You must discern for yourself.No one else is in your head with you.

You are more capable of this than you currently percieve,but it's not a race or a fight.Slow down.

You have just been through an intense period,you are still dealing with it and it will take time for you to recover fully.This is your time to flow,but not to think too hard.


I'm sorry for using unclear terms.


Darkwolf:you getting funky stuff on the site here? Me too....

[Venefica]

I am communicating with my Spirit Guides, but mostly it is spontaneous stuff. I do leave a small sacrifice and offer a prayer now and again, but other than that I do not do that much actively. But I am planning on working more actively with this eventually.

[Philoneus Bosch]

I was working on the idea of communicating with ancestral spirits recently and had a realization, namely that we are a lot closer to our really old ancestors than we may think because if one human life equates to roughly seventy years of human time, then there are only about twenty people between you and your ancestor of about fourteen hundred years ago.Twenty people,most people could stand twenty people in a queue and not really notice them.Time really is irrelevant.
On another topic I'm interested in is the magic surrounding family names, their origins, translations and stories around them and their holders.Do you have a (genuine please) family name with magical associations? Do you think that people born with such names are naturally drawn to magic? Are you,or were you dragged toward it kicking and screaming?

[Venefica]

Every name have a magickal meaning, and one's family name is one of the link one have to one's ancestors. I do however not think that one is bound by one's name to one type of belief or practice or the other. Though off course some families have allot of occutists in them and then the chance that someone will be interested in and/or have talent for magick will be greater. Thing run in families, min mine back problems, overweight, thick hair, creativity, magick and good singing voice is rather common and I have gotten all of that. My name is however not that magickal sounding Schultze, it is a Norwegian spelling of a German name meaning mayor or speaker, other family names are Andersen, taken by my great grandfather, he was a master tailor and there already was a tailor named Munkholm as I think his name was, so he took the name of his father, my great, great grandfather Anders and added the sen, son of Anders, Andersen. Munkholm another family name means monk island. I do not know much of it's history. My mother's last name is Eliassen, it is her married name and I know nothing about it. Anyway, these rather normal names still have magick in them. Names hold power, that have been a part of magick of early age.

[Philoneus Bosch]

Could Eliassen be derived from the Biblical patriarch Elijah? During the christianization of Europe people frequently dropped their old tribal,trade or familial names upon baptism and adopted recognizably Christian names, often taking the names of Old Testament prophets or those of Apostles.
My name is Skelly. Derived from the Gaelic Sceolog meaning a scholar, poet,historian and storyteller.Thats what my ancestors did within the Irish/Scots tribe that we were part of and thats what I try to continue. The 'Scellig' (a variant spelling) was a low level magician within the druidic priesthood employing poetry as away concealing and conveying knowledge and was alikely subdivision of the Ovates.
That names hold power is something I do not doubt, after all haven't we all gone to great efforts within our own subjects to find or generate names that not only carry within them our aspirations but also represent a convenient vehicle within which to operate as well as giving the comfort of anonymity to the outer world and protection from hostile practitioners and entities?After all if an enemy knows your name.....(oi veh!)

[Bluntpoint]

I channel this guy named "William Iron Fist" I just call him that."I like to call him Will for short. Will is good name for an ambitious strong man. I assume he's an emotional cord/spirit attachment cause he put thought forms in my head to eat meat and to piss off certain people and to boss my freind around. I have changed the past year cause of this guy. I even notice I walk differently and my mom is wopundering what has happened to my "crazy eccentric self"

I get him to help me play guitar but he's nothing like Carlos Santana's "Metatron" he's not just going to
"give" the skills to me. He's pretty bad ass. Through pain and self-discipline I get what I want.
I'm a girl too haha. I even asked him not to be easy on me cause of my gender. I asked him to make me more driven, to lose interest in video games and to gain control of my emotions. It's worked. My emotional wig outs have been reduced and I get over them faster.

I asked him to help me with barre chords last week. I did a ritual when I was off visiting my grandma. I went out at around 2:00AM went to a playground and hung out in the baseball dugout.

I lit too candles
I took the end of a spoon and heated it up with a lighter and stabbed it into my wrist. I wrote a spell
asking him I needed to hone barre chords. I waved the spoon aggressively while reciting the spell. I think
the branding lasted half and hour to and hour. I forget. It;s hard to tell when you have ADHD AND a spirit attachment/cord and lose the sense of time. When I was done I told him how much he means to me and how he's a father to me, respecting his long painful death in his mortal life and yelling at myself to stop whining about the pain becuase he had worse. When I was done I picked out some of the burnt flesh and folded it in with the written spell and let it burn. After "we" went to 7-11 and got a treat.
and......today. I was sittting with my guitar. I was forming a barres chords and a started playing this Chuck Berry-like rock n roll rhythm! it was cool. It was just a simple rock tune but he wasn't the greatest guitarist what I wanted was his ambitious drive, control and self-discipline.
It came out of nowhere. I just started doing it. I also didn't lust for the results. Crowley was right about not lusting for results. This was after swimming across the lake and back for the first time in my life. Self-discipline. There we go.

I also asked him last night that my vivid imagination has been driving me crazy I told him to temporarily stunt it so I can make focus on what needs to be done becuase I have an art show coming up. It worked. I felt depressed becuase I lacked the imagination. I daydreamed but It wasn's as bad as it was before. The clutter in my head wasn't as bad.