Archive for category: Psychology

The Magic of Metaphysical Reading

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Metaphysical refers to what is natural but outside the ordinary realm of human perception. It’s about realities lying beyond empirical data usually picked up by our five senses. As a psychologist and writer of metaphysical thrillers, it’s magical to move into the realm of the unconscious mind. Images and feelings flow in creative, startling, and sometimes life-changing ways when I open my mind during therapy and writing.

As I opened my computer to write this brief essay this morning, I felt an inner prompting. I like short essays and slim volumes. They catch the inspired vibe without thinning out the spirit of the work. The inspiration I feel is a touch of magic from what William James, father of American psychology, called a great unseen realm that affects our daily lives. So, I’m touching the keys, writing, and letting word magic flow.

Word magic in essays or stories touches our imagination. The words, sentences, ideas and narratives are living things. They impart life. Before sleep, I read metaphysical fiction. It’s magic! It stimulates my soul, the reading encouraging my unconscious mind to roam freely. And, out pop unexpected characters and dramas, angels and demons, and catch-me-by-surprise psychic encounters. And, inevitably, there’s an embedded message.

Reading metaphysical fiction stimulates the mind, embedded imaginal messages downloaded from page to soul. You needn’t pick up a book on symbol or dream interpretation. The feeling of the story, whether in a dream or a piece of fiction, conveys all we need to know. Feelings are triggered, something in us shifts, and our minds are opened a little more. It is common for imaginations to shut down; rigidity, snarkiness, and emptiness are signs of a malnourished imagination. Images and symbols in dreams and stories are the soul medicine we need to reinvigorate and get us going again along our life path.

So, dipping into the magical realm of the unconscious mind when dreaming and reading can give us a life reboot. It’s why we feel better after a good night of sleeping and dreaming. And it’s why we can feel open and even excited about living in a world that lets us tap into the unconscious mind, the spiritual realm. And lastly—a little embedded thought—reading metaphysical stories is a waking dream that takes us deeper into the imagination, images and symbols that kindle magic and invigorate our soul.

Live Deeply . . . Read Daily!

 

Shadows Hiding

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Ever wonder about shadows? You know, over there in the corner, the dark nook in the room. From the corner of your eye, admit it, you thought you saw something. It was quick, not a glimmer, not a refraction of light. You know what it was, or at least you’ve wondered during mind-tired, end-of-the-day times when your defenses are down. There could be something there, something unknown, mysterious, and dark.

It’s just a shadow, you say. Or it’s your mind playing tricks. And then there are the times it’s so real it gives a chill, and you shake your head to be sure. And poof. . . there’s nothing there. You think. As a psychologist who works with the unconscious mind, I’ll tell you there is something there. It’s not a mental artifact. It’s not some loony-tunes concoction from too much booze, eye strain, or toxic stress build-up.

There’s even a clinical term for such shadows. They are autonomous spiritual energies. C.G. Jung called them psychoid realities. They have a life of their own and live in a world bigger than your conscious or personal unconscious mind. They live in the shadows. Feel the chill up your arms and the back of your neck as I tag them and tell you where they live? Freud could tell the presence of the uncanny by the chills up his spine.

So, where I’m going with this is that stories, and metaphysical horror specifically, tap into shadow realms. They shine a spotlight on the corners of the room where things are dim and hidden. It’s there that the shadowy energies reside. It’s there, in the basements and locked closets of your mind, that they also hang out. They’re anywhere, inner or outer, that holds deposits of charged emotion. It can be good, bad, loaded with high-octane creativity, or red-hot with buried trauma. The shadow realms are emotional hotspots.

Read stories to nourish your mind, read stories to let go of stress, read stories to exorcise demons, and heal your fractured soul. Yup . . .. soul food, stress release, exorcisms, and healing are specialties of metaphysical horror. In Goddess of Everything, there’s a horrifying psychoid reality—thank you, C.G. Jung—hiding in the darkened corridors of a convent. In Goddess of the Wild Thing, the creepy crawlies fly up the spine and back of the neck as an old witch conjures black magic mojo to keep a man’s soul from his one true love.

The Unholy, my first award-winning metaphysical thriller, tears through the high desert of northern New Mexico (Aztlan in the story) with the evil antics of a possessed archbishop. Talk about a wolf in sheep’s clothing! This guy is a gospel-professing Dracula dressed in a man-of-the-cloth’s resplendent regalia. He’s a draconian wheeler-dealer of darkness. And, people flock his way, hang on his every word, kneel and kiss his bishop’s ring, and ever so slowly hand over their immortal souls. How’d he get away with it, you might ask? He did it by abiding in the shadows.

Come out, come out, wherever you are. That’s what we say to the shadows outside and inside our heads when we read metaphysical horror. Too scary, you say. Not scary enough, I counter. Better to face the shadows than be haunted by ghosts. Yeah. . . let’s get them out in the open for metaphysical playtime. Reading is playtime, settling time, healing time, and exorcism time.

So, hold not thyself back out of fear. Curl up into your favorite chair and dare to immerse yourself in the stories of The Unholy, Goddess of the Wild Thing, and Goddess of Everything. You’ll discover the surprises, shocks, and exorcisms you need to shake your mind loose of the shadows clogging your head with darkness and despair.

One last thing . . .. as you settle in and read, go deep into the words and characters. Let the story stream through your psychic veins. I’ll guarantee you’ll spot shadows hiding.

Live Deeply . . . Read Daily

Empathy and What’s Enough, What’s Too Much?

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Empathy ~ what’s enough? What’s too much? Ahh, what questions? Having healthy empathy gives us a sense of people and situations. So, empathy helps. But too much empathy hurts. It hurts us because we stay with bad people and dire situations. We feel sorry for them, and we think things will magically change. We feel too much. We become a psychic gusher of painful feelings carried for others and down-on-ourself attitudes “because things never change.” It’s too much feeling, too much empathy.
I love stories. Stories teach me so much. Thrillers always hit the psychic hot spot for me. They’re fast-paced, and if the story is horror-based (all good stories are), it really cuts to the bone. I’m unsettled and shocked, but my psychic senses are opened. As a psychologist, I help people open up. The human mind is nourished by openness to sensitivity and empathic feeling. The problems come with too little or too much emotion, empathy. Too little is denial. Too much renders us dysfunctional and codependent. Our life story becomes miserable depending on too little or too much empathy. Reading stories takes us into what people have gone through, learned from, or suffered and died from due to one sort or another of codependence.

In The Unholy, Claire’s life depends on being true to her feelings. It’s a truth-or-die situation. Goddess of the Wild Thing propels us into a world of suffering and possible redemption. What hangs in the balance is one woman coming to terms with what’s genuine love and what’s fake—no good! She must deal front-and-center with the fact that there are those who are no good and others . . .. Then in Goddess of Everything, there’s the whole thing of mother love gone bad. Face it when it happens or suffer and suffer and then suffer more, unless . . .. Truth to feelings, to self, to what others are about and not about. It’s empathy at its most fast-paced and finely tuned.

We feel the stories we read. They’re our stories. They’re about life’s ups and downs and feeling too much and feeling too little. They’re about boundaries and no boundaries and destruction threatening. Page-turning thrillers get us into a headspace of seeing what’s not enough and what’s too much, what’ll help and what’ll kill. It’s fantastic to read psychological thrillers! We can go through thrills on the page, empathize, get a little more real (boundaries), and better deal with life’s inevitable thrills.

Live Deeply . . . Ready Daily!

Return to Your Own Center

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We learn from healers, teachers, wise women, and men. Then we return to self to see, hear, feel, and live out the wisdom in our own way. Supernatural tales usher us into dark realms where wisdom must be sought and found. Life depends on it! Then wisdom must be lived out uniquely, from your own center.

When reading novels, our deep imagination takes hold. It moves us beyond our conscious mind. As a psychologist/writer, I sense the emotional currents and psychic images in the stories I write. As in Goddess of the Wild Thing, the characters come in vivid images, dreams, and intuitive flashes. They pop forward to the front of my imagination and whisper: This is me, write about me, I’ll guide you.

In metaphysical stories, the characters have a message. The message is for you and me. It’s one of the dark paths and light in the distance. We have to go to the course, and the way can be fraught with troubles. But there’s a payoff — not guaranteed, but definitely there for the soul who stays the course and does not give up.

Those who make it often turn to a teacher, a spiritual guide. Without a person who listens, understands, and can pass on the light, we often can’t find our way, our light. Things are too bleak and too dark to get along without help. The story of Goddess of the Wild Thing starts with the light going out on love. There’s no love, been no love, and the hope for love is shaky. This dramatic tale of one women’s spiritual journey to discover love is, at times, despairing. No hope in sight.

A healer, visionary, and guide, arrives on the scene to offer light. But then, darkness senses potential and wants to destroy it. Something terrible happens! Eve has to go deep within and call upon all she has learned from her spiritual guide. The healer then comes in quiet whispers, visions, and dreams. Eve has learned and knows she has to move on and put the light the teacher imparts and has imparted into action. She must now go her own way and face the horror ahead.

Only by returning to centerpoint — the soulplace her spiritual guide opened with her — does she stand a chance to deal with wickedness that seeks to destroy love. It’s a story like yours and mine. We’re caught unawares by dark forces. Centerpoint . . . it’s there. Go into it. Listen to your intuition, spontaneous images that impart wisdom, and dreams that speak to what cannot be seen with everyday eyes.

We learn from our teachers, guides, wisdom stories of deep forces and human potential for life and love. Then, we must act, go our way, follow our own path, and live out our own story with all its horrors, triumphs, and potential for life and love.

Live Deeply . . . Read Daily

 

Start Now and What You Need Will Come

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“As long as you can start, you are all right. The juice will come,” wrote Ernest Hemingway. And, as in writing, so in life. Get started, and the juice will come. In Goddess of Everything, I wrote from the image. It presented itself to my mind then the fire spread to my belly! Readers have noted surprise, shock, triggering, and ultimately satisfaction from the read. Although there may be twists and turns, we lean into vital instincts, it typically leads to a satisfying ending point. So, when the impulse is there, I go with it, and the energy builds from there. From experience, it’s a fine thing to start things up and trust that the juice will come, making for a good follow-through and a good ending.

As a psychologist and writer, I’m always in the learning mode with the conscious and unconscious mind. It’s an attitude I nourish. It’s there first thing in the morning, a sense of wanting to see and follow through with what I see. It comes in intuitive images and instincts that rise to consciousness and give me the beginning of a scene or words to say to a patient. At the start of Goddess of Everything, we’re into a funeral, the pull into the realm of death and mystery unmistakable. It was rough for me to begin a novel with this eerie scene. But, the image from my unconscious that rose at the beginning of the book guided me to go there. So I did. Turns out, readers were immediately drawn in, and the story flew onward from there. So, as you can see, whether it’s a dream that comes to mind the night before writing, or an image in the morning, or a strong feeling as I open my laptop to write, it’s a starting point for me to jump into the page and take off. We begin with what comes to us, usually just a little bit, and then off we go into helpful insights that lead to living out our story.

As you’re coming to see, while writing, doing therapy, and living, I do my best to flow with feelings, images, and dreams. They are the starting points, a little something to trust and go with. Try an experiment today. Trust your strong feelings, the ones that stay with you about a person or situation. Trust the image that comes to mind or what you dreamt about what’s going on. You’ll find that your intuition gives you enough go with, and once you start, the rest will come.

Let’s do our best to nourish trusting strong feelings, spontaneous mental images, and dreams. We can start now to listen a little more sensitively to feelings, intuitions, and your initial impression of what your dream from the night before is telling you. Go with it, and you’ll find that the rest will come. It’s a big step to trust, so lean into it. And, as Hemingway said, the juice will come.

Live Deeply . . . Read Daily

Creative Pulsations of Special Moments

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Challenging Pulsations in the Moment

This morning I came across William Blake’s words about the creative pulsations of special moments. When I write, there’s a pulse, an energy that moves from my core to fingertips to the page. Words happen, scenes roll out, and characters guide my heart and hands to tell their journey. In my recently released, Goddess of Everything, the supernaturally charged thriller charged out of my unconscious mind. Dreams and nightmares inspired the creation of characters and scenes.

On Amazon this morning, I read this: 5.0 out of 5 stars Goddess of Everything review: “Definitely not for the faint-hearted but an AMAZING read. Reviewed in the United States on March 7, 2021, ~ “What an unexpected surprise this book was. Dr. DeBlassie has one of the most interesting ways of telling a story that I’ve seen in a long time. It’s almost like sitting around a campfire listening to urban legends. This dark thriller with some supernatural aspects was yet again an excellent example of this man’s talents. He took the normal good vs. evil to a whole new level with exceptional world-building and character development. Definitely not for the faint-hearted but an AMAZING read.”
Amazement grabbed me throughout the creative pulsations of moment after moment driving this story forward to publication. The book’s subtitle reads A Blood-Curdling Tale of One Mother’s Affection for Her Son and Her Son’s Struggle for Truth, Freedom, and Love. Shock, the creative pulse of challenging mother love, runs through this novel like adrenaline infusions. You don’t go up against what everyone wants to believe, says convention. People want to believe what people want to believe.
Risk It!
Goddess of Everything gets to the heart of love. When mother love is challenged, everything is turned topsy turvy. Creative pulsations are birthed from challenging norms. What mainstream accepts and says must be, then has to be accepted, or we risk disapproval and rejection. Risk it, I say! Risk living the creative pulsations of special moments when out-of-the-ordinary ways of seeing things and being come knocking at the door of your mind. Answer the door, listen, follow, and grow.
To risk growth is to be alive. There’s no living without risking. In Goddess of Everything, Gabriél is torn between love for mother and wife, Consuela. Devotion to a widowed mother turned religious Mother Superior clouds his mind. Consuela ushers in reality. She helps Gabriél discover nighttime blood sacrifices of children in the desert, a centuries-old ritual that imparts immortality to Mother and her nuns. He’s run from risking truth facing throughout his adulthood. Risk it, see what you need to see. Risk the read and grow!
Special Moment
The moment of reckoning comes in the story. Spirits, light and dark, teem through the nighttime desert as Gabriél faces off with wickedness hidden behind what was supposed to be good. At the very least, this is a special moment. They come. Maybe, like for Gabriél, they’re hard. We don’t want them. We want to go on not being challenged to see, to stretch, to grow. It’s easier that way. But it’s not. Special moments are risky and come for special reasons—risk and grow reasons.
Risk reading one of the most thrilling novels of your life. Open Goddess of Everything, plunge into a supernatural world of mother love turned upside down and inside out. It’ll cause you to rethink what love’s all about. It’ll cause you to rethink your life, relationships, where you’re at, where you’re going. Getting on with the creative pulsations of special moments, no matter the cost, equals risk equals growth.
Live Deeply . . . Read Daily

Dreams, Spirits, and the Unconscious Mind

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Dreams and Beckoning Spirits

Each night we long to sleep, enter the restful realm where images swirl and spirits beckon. The images we see during dreams are spiritual. Perhaps we’ve always thought they were simple symbolic remnants from the day. They are not. Images are loaded with psychic energies depth psychologists call numinous.

The more attuned we become to the world of dreaming, its realities, and meaning, the more it will speak to us. The spirit world knows we are ready. Often crisis brings the ego to its knees, drops the scales off the eyes of dulled sightedness. Crisis propels us to turn within and listen to deep feeling states then to dreams. Once we have been humbled, suffered, the ego hangs its head, and the mind opens to dreams and spirits.

Life-Changing Energies

The unconscious mind is the repository of life-changing energies, spirits that positively touch our hearts or seek to possess us. There are those who delve into this inner world for power. Low-level spirits are associated with power grabs. As a visionary thrillers writer, I sensitize the reader to dark spirits, power grabs, and decisions.

Life is a matter of dreams, crisis, and conjured spirits. Choices determine outcomes. Ego centered decisions conjure low-level spirits in dreams as seducers, rushes of wild and purposeless energy, or a black and hopeless abyss. These are the lures of destructive spirits.

Mysterious Spirits

Visionary thrillers are an imaginative adventure. We are visionaries, dreams gifts, visions while sleeping. As humans, we are a mix of where we have come from and what we’ve done about it. It’s the doing about it, that visions of the night, dreams address. Life is a visionary thrill ride, and dreams point the way.

The unconscious world of spirits teeming with nighttime visions help you live out your story and make decisions that conjure spirits light and dark, scary, and mysterious.

So, let’s together explore the world of dreams, spirits, and the unconscious mind. As a depth psychologist of forty years, I’ll share insights and hard-won truths. Stories I have written and psychotherapy and life experiences will be woven into the articles. If you haven’t already, sign up today for my newsletter, and let’s begin this journey into mind, dreams, and spirits.

Live Deeply . . . Read Daily

Reality ~ Enough Already!

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Reality and Imagination

Reality ~ enough already! We need a break. So . . . where to go? There’s a story. It ushers into the imagination. After a tough day of seeing patients, I look forward to watching and reading stories that entrance and reset my mind.

As a psychologist, I know the imagination as a wellspring for healing and consciousness. Helping patients with troubling dreams is a lot like taking my readers on a soul journey through stories. The books I write are like dreams, a free-flow of imagination that bypasses outer reality and taps into hidden worlds that offer unthought secrets.

Clogged Emotions and Stories

Visionary stories take you into a different zone. I need to go there. You need to go there. It blows out what’s been clogging up your emotional and spiritual life.

Stuck emotions translate to a stuck life. We’re working harder and harder and getting nowhere. Everyday problems get blown out of proportion because we’re dealing with the small stuff. Soon, one small issue leads to another and our heads are crammed full of anxiety and weighed down by care.

Picking up a story gives your conscious mind a rest so your unconscious can enter reverie. Yeah, reverie. It’s a word that means “pleasantly lost in thoughts,” as one dictionary states. Without needing to know how it works, it’s enough to experience a good visionary thriller. Somehow, in a way mysterious to logic and linear thinking, it cuts to the quick. And, we feel better, our mind a little more unclogged and our disposition a little lighter.

Inspiration and Wisdom

Friday through Sunday I both read and write visionary stories. Folks who write and read visionary books are seekers. We sense a tug from the unconscious mind, the realm of spiritual inspiration, and old wisdom.

Daily challenges hit us one after another. They seem unending. In my stories—The Unholy, Goddess of the Wild Thing, and the soon to be released Goddess of Everything—there’s one fright and then a bigger one and then (you’d never guess it!) a seemingly insurmountable obstacle that threatens life and limb. There seems to be no way out.

When you lose yourself in reading a visionary thriller, your unconscious mind feels understood. People go through things, and the things they go through can leave them on edge. They’re dangling from a precipice, hanging between life and death. Admit it—you know the feeling.

Pick up a visionary read. Browse through your favorite online book retailer under visionary/metaphysical fiction if you don’t know where to start. Discover worlds where unthought wisdom comes to the aid of a sincere soul at a dead-end time of life. You’re in for a time of mind expansion and soul finding.

So . . . enough of reality! Let’s consider the inspiration of Albert Einstein who wrote that imagination is more important than knowledge. It births human evolution. Let’s do this! Let’s take time to take leave from outer reality, plunge into the imagination, and evolve.

“Live Deeply…Read Daily”

pauldeblassieiii.com

 

Tap Into the Life Vibe

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Bad Contagion and the Vibe

In the midst of the creeper contagion of Covid-19 and any other bad creature inside or out that comes our way, we can tap into the life vibe. It’s there and in you and surrounding you. In visionary fiction and occult horror (good books one and the same), there’s a horrid contagion. It’s usually in the form of a person or people. If it’s people, then it’s a cult. A cult becomes occult when it’s kept secret. That’s what occult means – secret. A chosen few, think they have the truth, and pity those who stand in their way.

The Vibe Will See You Through

There’s a tension in thrillers. Real life has tension. Daily is packed with tension. If we try and live so that it’s tension-free, we’ve got one hell of a problem that will translate to our soul. What you try and escape will get you. It’ll bite you in the ass. Stories, occult thrillers, are visionary because they raise consciousness. That’s the vibe—heightened awareness that gets you through the hell that’s come your way and out the other side in one piece and a better person for it. You’ll learn to stop the running, face the issue, and get on with the decision that needs to be made.

We can’t outrun making decisions. They’re either bad or good, but they are ours to make. And, we live out the consequences. Hopefully, the reading of stories helps us become a little wiser about the choices we make. They are critical because they determine the course of our life.

Vibe Restored and Replenished

As a depth psychologist in private practice for forty years, I’ve seen people repeatedly choose the bad and suffer terribly. The vibe’s gotten dulled down. It’s barely pulsing, beating, breathing. Often, folks have gotten enmeshed in cults like dysfunctional families (yup, they qualify), oppressive religious groups, dogmatic professional associations, and a legion of other nasty entities. I’d rather my patients not have suffered. But, it was their road to take, their path to walk. I help them regroup, learn what they need to learn from the experience and how dreams have spoken to the pain. Then the vibe returns like the morning sun rising over the Sandia Mountains in my native New Mexico. There’s wisdom gained, vibe restored and replenished, from stories, the living out of our own, and the reading of cut-to-the-chase visionary fiction.

“Live Deeply…Read Daily”

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Image: Moises Llerena and Alfredo Zacateca

When Life Gives You Lemons, Call the Alchemist

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Alchemical Books

We are all alchemists. In depth psychology and visionary books, alchemy is at work. Alchemist Awakening speaks to the amnesia within, sleepwalking through life until we psychically wake up. Everyday Enchantments lifts the veil from our eyes so we can see the magic in daily life. Daily alchemical magic transforms base, raw emotion into meaningful experiences. Love trauma in Goddess of the Wild Thing rips the mind apart and makes room for alchemy. The Unholy shocks us with religious horror then transports us into a realm of dreams and natural magic. Literally, everything that happens in life can transform us to the core.

Depth Therapy – Visionary Thrillers

When I do psychotherapy, write visionary thrillers, and live everyday life, I call on the alchemist within. This is a psychological dynamic that energizes experiences so daily happenings help and heal even as they can upfront hurt and sometimes shock.

We tend to this vitalizing force in the human psyche by raising our awareness. It’s a quiet and gentle knowing. Therapy assists patients in discovering this realm, reading ushers the attentive into imaginary states of mind, awareness then transforms dangerous and horrid experiences into meaning. That’s the luscious juice in the lemons life dishes out, the alchemical gold in the base metal of human suffering.

Alchemy and Unconscious Mind

When visionary writers write, they live out their characters and stories. Depth therapists have to descend into the unconscious mind and learn its ways before helping others make the inward descent and heal. Therapy is an alchemical awakening, and reading visionary fiction also wakens the alchemist within.

Awakening is a must lest we perish in a black hole of despair. We’ve all gone down the tube at one time or another. We’ve needed help. More times than I can count, I’ve opened a book randomly (to include novels) and found a paragraph that speaks to me. It’s uncanny, moving, and more than a wee bit mysterious. It’s the alchemist within spontaneously guiding us to awakening, however small or revolutionary.

Alchemy and Enlightenment

During the middle of my day in psychotherapy practice, I have lunch and read. Frequently, I turn to alchemical texts, let my eyes land where the text falls open. One noontime, the writing spoke to the therapist’s need to sit silently, act as a quiet container of practically unendurable pain until the patient sees for herself the meaning behind the crisis. Wisdom lies in not speaking what the patient cannot yet see or understand. They must, with the caring presence of a depth psychotherapist, feel all that must be explored and then and only then will the clouds part and enlightenment, perchance, dawn.

Well, wouldn’t you know it, the first session of the afternoon ushered the patient and me into a realm of nearly unendurable trauma. Listening without rushing into words allowed her to go through a dark emotional tunnel and, fortunately, by session’s end gain insight. It was soulful enlightenment regarding heart-rending pain birthing tearful insights and a release of pent-up emotions. I breathed a sigh of relief, grateful for the noontime reading that prepared me for the rough time ahead. It awakened the relational alchemist inherent in depth therapy and visionary/alchemical books

Reading Awakens Inner Alchemist

Visionary reading awakens the inner alchemist as we enter a dark emotional and spiritual tunnel through the challenges of the protagonist and the horrors of the antagonist. It’s a story like our story, the narrative that is our life replete with hopes and dreams gone south and turned sour. The inner alchemist awakens within our imagination as we delve into the feelings and the ensuing meaning of life experiences and visionary books.

“Live Deeply…Read Daily”

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Paul DeBlassie III, Ph.D.

Paul DeBlassie III, Ph.D., is a psychologist and award-winning writer living in his native New Mexico, crafting visionary thrillers energized with trickster mischief and natural magic.

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