Archive for category: Writing

Retrocausation and the Mystic Imagination

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The Dance of Time and Imagination

Retrocausation speaks of enigmatic reversals—moments when the future ripples backward through time. It dwells in a mystic twilight, that charged realm where archetypal realities meet the mathematics of modern physics. Such a dynamo of psychic energy disrupts the tidy progression of hours and years, whispering to attuned minds that destiny and memory move together in a single, eternal rhythm.

Quantum theory tells us that the observer and the observed co-create reality. So too, the writer and the written—each summoning the other into being. From that mutual act of seeing, imagination becomes event, and writing becomes a shimmering web of fascination and wonder.

When I embarked on the journey of writing The Unholy, Goddess of the Wild Thing, and Goddess of Everything, I believed I was delving into the archetypal darkness—the collision of the sacred and the profane. Little did I know the novels themselves would begin to anticipate me, a revelation that filled me with awe and wonder.

In Goddess of the Wild Thing, the Quantum Mind revealed itself as the unseen orchestrator—entangling love, fate, and psyche in a single shimmering field where desire becomes both a creative and destructive force. The books were reaching through time, as if they already existed in some radiant elsewhere, beckoning me to catch up. The process was uncanny, alive—a luminous reciprocity between imagination and fate.

Scenes I had not yet conceived appeared in dreams. Symbols emerged in therapy sessions and along desert trails. Readers later wrote describing the same images before they had even reached those pages. The books were reaching through time, as if they already existed in some radiant elsewhere, beckoning me to catch up. The process was uncanny, alive—a mysterious reciprocity between imagination and fate that kept me engaged and fascinated.

 

Stories, Quantum Mind, and Retrocausation

The more I live and write, the more I sense that both are acts of psychic attunement—immersions in energy fields that defy prediction. To write is to participate in the quantum, to brush against currents that shimmer just beyond anticipation.

It is a thrilling venture into the depths of the mind, where cosmic forces choreograph their own hidden dance. Every word, every image of mystical eros and perilous love, arrives charged with a voltage not entirely one’s own. Characters are not invented so much as encountered—living sigils whose presence forges correspondences between art and life.

Heroines and heroes wrestle with love that pretends to redeem yet secretly consumes. As I wrote their struggles, parallel dramas unfolded in the consulting room: patients drawn by the promise of wholeness only to confront the devouring shadow beneath it. The boundary between fiction and therapy blurred. The stories seemed to bend time itself, sending messages backward, arranging the synchronicities that would make their truths unavoidable.

The Unholy, my first novel, became my first initiation into this quantum dimension of storytelling—a revelation that consciousness is not confined to the mind that dreams, but to the field that dreams through us. What the books would one day disclose was already shaping who I was as I wrote them. Retrocausation had crossed from theory into experience—from page into psyche, from imagination into lived revelation.

 

Shadow and the Future Self

Goddess of Everything is the darkest of the trilogy, exploring how maternal love can morph into psychic possession—how the instinct to protect can slide into the will to control. In writing it, I felt time folding around me. Dreams from years before suddenly aligned with scenes I had not yet written. The unconscious seemed to be orchestrating events, reaching backward from the future toward the present moment of creation.

To glimpse how the Quantum Mind operates, imagine the Blue Door scenario: You stand in a room facing two doors, one red and one blue. You choose the blue door and walk through it. On the other side, you find a box waiting. Inside is a note that reads, “You will go through the blue door.” In a retrocausal framework, your future choice influenced the message written in the past. This is not fantasy—it mirrors the strange simultaneity of consciousness itself. The psyche, like the quantum field, does not obey linear time. Future decisions, unconscious impulses, and creative acts can reverberate backward, altering the symbolic landscape that led to them.

Writing Goddess of Everything felt precisely like that. Dreams, intuitions, and clinical experiences seemed to anticipate what would later emerge on the page. The novel’s mother-figure—both healer and devourer—revealed herself as a living archetype, shaping not only the narrative’s destiny but also my own psychic evolution. Retrocausation became experiential: the story’s future self shaping its author’s present.

After publication, letters arrived from readers describing the same revelation I had lived: that the book seemed to read them. One woman left a controlling religious order months after finishing it, saying the story had whispered her freedom before she could name it. Such moments demonstrate how art intersects with the same realm as dreams and synchronicities. The novel is not merely about psychic reality—it is a psychic event.

 

Writer and Readers as Quantum Participants

Writing metaphysical fiction is, in truth, a quantum experiment. Each paragraph condenses a constellation of possible worlds into a single, flickering form. The finished book may already exist somewhere beyond time, sending impressions backward to guide the author’s hand. The novelist becomes both magician and medium, attuning to a signal that originates outside ordinary chronology.

Writing feels less like invention and more like retrieval—as if I am remembering something that remembers me. When readers step into the work, they enter the same energetic field, becoming essential participants in its unfolding. Across the strange continuum of past, present, and future, readers and writers collaborate to summon the story they both need. Lives are affected, dreams emboldened, psyches attuned.

The dreams, emotions, and insights of writer and reader flow back into the text, subtly rewriting its past. The book continues to generate new realities each time it is opened—a living field of correspondence where consciousness meets itself across the folds of time, awakening a deep sense of mutual recognition and connection.

 

The Living Word and the Time-Fold of Soul

When we allow the mind to enter Quantum Reality, a strange recognition stirs—an awareness that we have seen this moment before seeing it now, dreamed it before living it. What we create in the present may be the echo of something already conceived in the future.

Retrocausation thus opens a new way of understanding inspiration: writers and readers are joined in a timeless collaboration, co-creating stories that live, breathe, and liberate the soul.

The muse whispering through the quantum field may well be one’s own future self reaching backward with a spark of remembrance—sending nourishment from what has yet to be born. Words composed in the past become food for the present; insights rising now become the sustenance of what lies ahead. Through this exchange, consciousness feeds itself across dimensions.

Writing and reading are, therefore, rituals of correspondence between what has been and what will be. Each sentence is a seed cast into the spiral garden of becoming. The psyche writes itself forward and backward, kindling meaning in both directions at once—an ever-turning time-fold of soul.

Live Deeply. . . Read Daily

 

The Alchemy of Enough

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To understand what is enough—sufficient to live well and meaningfully—is to step into what I call the alchemy of enough. The Swedes have a word for it: lagom, loosely translated as “just the right amount.” In a world that clamors for more and more, to live by lagom feels quietly rebellious. It is not resignation but a soulful practice: enough, just enough.

After seventy-two years of living and forty years of practicing depth psychotherapy and writing, I’ve discovered a simple truth—enough satisfies, and more leaves us slack-jawed and empty. What an empirical finding! William James, father of American psychology, would have called it radical empiricism: what is true is what works. And lagom works.

As a depth psychologist and author of essays and books on mysticism, trauma, and the evolving psyche—and as a writer of metaphysical fiction exploring archetypes, spirits, and the struggle between soul and soullessness—I’ve witnessed the strange alchemy of yielding to limits. Limits are not barriers; they are crucibles. They generate an inner fire that heals, strengthens, and transforms.

In the therapy room, I have sat with earnest souls exhausted by the pressure to stretch beyond what their lives are meant to hold. Their liberation often comes not from grasping more, but from daring to stop. When I turn to fiction, I walk through multiverses where magic and myth are as real as the ground beneath our feet, and what unfolds there reflects our own lives. Characters discover again and again that mastery does not lie in boundless excess but in the hidden power of enough.

I remember Marcus, a financier in his forties, who once confessed that joy had become a measurement—more clients, more status, more risk. He bought art he did not love because it signaled value. He wore suits that gleamed under showroom lights, yet his heart, he admitted, pounded in hollowness. He had equated potency with opulence. When he spoke of emptiness, his eyes were shadowed, his presence dim.

One evening, he and his wife hosted a dinner party meant to impress. He served a four-ounce filet instead of the lavish eight-ounce portions he usually provided. At first, he worried the choice would seem small. But to his surprise, the meal was celebrated. Guests praised its flavor and balance, grateful—many of them, quietly, had been struggling to eat more healthfully. At the end of the evening, rather than shrinking with embarrassment, Marcus felt steady, even radiant. In yielding to measure, he discovered strength not in scale but in proportion.

Then there is Lena, a writer who spends summers in a modest studio beneath the pines. She eats simply. Her furniture is secondhand. Her novels, woven with lore and natural magic, serve as both art and talisman against the endless hunger for more. Because she writes, she understands the mind as I do—how longing can become a hunger without end. She has learned to nourish her imagination while starving the idol of excess. In her quiet sufficiency, she glows.

The alchemy of enough is not abstract. In my clinical work, I see people wrung raw by the pursuit of more—more recognition, more feeling, more success—only to find themselves in psychic rooms of their own making, spaces that feel emotionally and spiritually rumpled. They live in inner shabbiness, despite outward polish, because their inner order has collapsed. The value placed on the external grows so inflated that anything less than a grand gesture feels like betrayal. Yet when they allow themselves small ceremonies—writing under lamplight instead of glare, eating simple food with gratitude, abandoning one unnecessary obligation—they begin to recover their soul’s architecture. They begin honoring lagom.

There is something I always pass on to patients, friends, or family who find themselves in such a psychological conversation with me: Lagom isn’t settling. It is not humility collapsing into resignation. It is fierce discernment. It asks: What is sufficient in this moment? What measure of comfort, beauty, indulgence, or connection does the soul truly need—not what the ego, driven by fear and image, demands?

As a writer working in the deep mental and mythic realms, I return again and again to this principle. My visionary fiction draws on folklore, trickster mischief, and archetypal conflict not to escape the world but to illuminate it. Myth teaches that overreach always exacts a cost. In countless tales, figures of great power fall because their appetites run unchecked. Tricksters, on the other hand, reveal the opposite truth: it is often the small, clever act—not the clash of armies—that changes everything. The power of myth lies not in boundlessness but in the wisdom of limits.

In my novel Goddess of Everything, a mother’s affection and her son’s struggle unfold against the loom of supernatural forces. There, suffering arises from excess—power wielded without compassion, love demanded rather than freely given and received. Yet redemption emerges through moderation, where truth takes precedence over grandeur. In Goddess of the Wild Thing, the lore of the land, the magic, even the horror, reveal another paradox: what appears small can be vast; what seems fragile can conceal immense strength.

What I teach and learn—because patients teach therapists, often more than we care to admit—always seeks to stir psychic depths, to awaken thought, and to nourish life. You cannot pour water from an empty cup. No project built on excess can endure without collapse. Enough, then, is not an endpoint. It is a foundation. When someone who has lived by exaggeration begins to shape their days around sufficiency, something shifts. Breath deepens. Posture straightens. Creativity renews. Relationships soften into truth. The philosopher’s stone is not some distant object of quest; it is the inner measure, the recognition of delight hidden within sufficiency itself.

The promise of “more” is haunted by the specter of “never enough.” As long as excess is mistaken for potency, the hunger never ends. But sufficiency whispers a different secret: real potency lies not in magnitude but in authenticity. It is found in the peace of truth-telling, in the quiet strength of refusing to be hollow vessels echoing society’s roar. To live by sufficiency is to say with confidence, “This is enough”—whether in art, in work, in love, or in the sanctuary of home.

Our culture rewards inflation. We applaud size, accumulation, spectacle. We live under the spell of “bigger is better,” as though magnitude alone could grant meaning. Yet myth, poetry, and psyche remind us of a deeper truth: they honor limit, attention, resonance. In myth, the quest is rarely for endless conquest—it is for what is missing: love, insight, spirit, belonging. And often that “missing” is not absent at all. It waits quietly at the margins, already present, if we will measure, refine, and attend. The soul does not hunger for more; it hungers for what is sufficient.

Here, then, is a small practice—drawn from both therapeutic work and the imaginative worlds of fiction—that guides us toward the alchemy of enough. Close your eyes. Picture balancing scales within your chest. On one side rests the heavy weight of appetite, of “more,” of image and spectacle. On the other, near the heart, lies the soft weight of sufficiency: the warmth of home, the laughter of close ones, the soil beneath your feet, words that teach and awaken. Breathe until the scale steadies. Then call to mind something in your life that you have accepted, though it is not aligned with your values. Perhaps it is a project that feels grand but hollow. Perhaps it is a space that signals ambition more than belonging. Imagine stepping away. Ask yourself: Does this serve my soul? Is this measure true to who I am?

When you open your eyes, let your coming choices—your acts of creativity, your gestures of kindness, your moments of rest—arise from measure. Let your writing seek what is essential. Let your therapy offer what heals rather than what dazzles. Measure your life in victories birthed by resonance rather than expanse. For within myth and psyche, within the complexity of human life and the pages of metaphysical fiction, the alchemy of enough is a bridge between who you are and who you might become. To live the alchemy of enough is not to diminish, but to discover—the philosopher’s gold hidden in sufficiency.

Live Deeply . . . Read Daily!

Psychic Gold: The Magic Hidden in Our Dreams

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The Hidden Language of Your Soul

Dreams are not merely echoes of the day or flickers of your sleeping mind. They are pure psychic gold. Alchemical in essence and transformative in effect, dreams carry the hidden language of your soul.

They are not only a reflection of your current state but also a powerful force that can guide you toward personal growth and healing. Whether you believe in the unconscious, the spirit world, or the simple wisdom of symbolic imagery, dreams are one of the most potent sources of guidance, clarity, and psychological evolution available to you, empowering you to navigate the flow of your personal growth journey.

 

The First Dream Gate

And yes, dreams are born even in the most stubborn minds. In fact, stubbornness is often the first gate dreams must pass through. It is the first crust of lead to be transmuted. Because when we insist on seeing the world only as we wish it to be, trouble inevitably follows. And the problems are not minor. They are corrosive, soul-draining, pattern-repeating trouble. It’s the kind of trouble that feels like it’s going to go on forever, and it does—until we learn to listen.

The first step is vulnerability. It does not signal weakness but wisdom. The inner alchemist of your deep and sincere self knows that gold doesn’t come from arrogance but from attentive work and inner heat. If you’re willing to connect with humility, vulnerability, and sincerity, dreams will begin to speak with stunning clarity.

And no, you don’t need a degree in Jungian psychology or a library of Freud to understand dreams. Dream interpretation is not reserved for the scholarly or the elite. You don’t need to wedge your dreams into the elaborate temples of archetypes or the endless staircases of repressed wishes. Dreams don’t abide by or require decoding by outdated rulebooks.

They live. They breathe. They are a revelation, and they are open to everyone.

 

Dreams Can’t Be Pinned Down

And here’s more truth. The spirit world can’t be pinned down, but it can speak plainly. The most complex, baroque, apocalyptic dream often boils down to something stunningly direct. They say: stop. Or go. Or watch out, you’re selling your soul for comfort. They offer inspiration, caution, and sometimes outright illumination. You’ve lost yourself—come back. Anchor yourself. Return to your truth.

And once you start listening—truly listening—your dreams become louder, clearer, more regular, and more visionary. You begin to understand that they’re not just stories; they’re tools for the soul. They aren’t merely byproducts of your unconscious; they serve as a way to comprehend and navigate the complexities of your inner world.

In my metaphysical novels and the deep work of dream therapy, dreams are central. The golden threads of dream imagery weave through trauma and transformation, impacting relationship patterns and moments of profound decision. Their imagery illuminates hidden corners of the mind where shadows dwell. The energy in dreams serves as a transformative gift that nourishes you toward your most authentic life, inspiring hope and change.

 

 

Dreams as Pure Psychic Alchemy

Living with this kind of clarity is pure psychic alchemy. You start to expand emotionally, spiritually, and even practically. You move toward your most authentic life, not just a version handed to you by others. And you do it guided by a light that comes not from the outside but from deep within your own dream mind.

Now, if your inner world is clogged, if old grief, rage, fear, or confusion is jamming your signal, you may need professional help. A dream therapist, or someone skilled in symbolic and spiritual interpretation, can help you clear the channel. That process is soul work. You clear the vessel so that psychic gold can flow.

When it does, it’s unforgettable.

 

Dreams Whisper Hope

One patient, Suzie, came into therapy convinced she’d never love again. Her heart had become a sealed tomb. But her dreams told a different story. Night after night, she walked into a deep, enchanted forest. There, always waiting, was the same man. Not aggressive, not demanding, but present as an illuminating and loving force. It was her soul’s whisper: hope is not dead.

Eventually, she encountered a man she had only known casually in waking life. One rainy afternoon, they spoke. “It was like a crystal-clear stream,” she told me. From that day on, love bloomed again. It wasn’t because she forced it, but because the dreams kindled her readiness.

Another patient, Tommy, had nearly given up on achieving financial stability. Work felt meaningless, and money remained a constant struggle. But in his dreams, energy poured from the heavens and rose up from the earth, meeting in the center of his being. Repeatedly. These dreams were not abstract; they were visceral, direct alchemical mirrors. Inner energy reflected the potential for outer flow.

He started listening. He restructured his creative habits, followed his dream guidance, and slowly saw his creativity, productivity, and income rise. The dreams didn’t just reflect. They infused. They encouraged. They revealed and helped him attune himself to his natural rhythms.

 

Dreams Unleash Inner Magic

So, what is it with the outer world and the inner world? They are mirrors. They are one.

Dreams help us navigate not only the chaos of our waking thoughts but also the sea of unconscious symbols and emotional forces we experience while asleep. They are oracles from within, constantly updating us on our current state along our spiritual journey and what still needs to be healed, claimed, and transmuted.

And dreams don’t lie. The truths they bring, if we’re brave enough to honor them, transform us. In love, in money, in health, in purpose. They touch every corner of the self, of our innermost soul.

So, listen. Let the gold rise. The magic is already inside you. Dreams don’t lie. They unleash inner magic, a stream of pure psychic gold.

Live Deeply . . . Read Daily!

 

The Heart of Dreaming

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There’s a sense of knowing you’re dreaming when you’re dreaming, and then there’s the bliss of simply dreaming. The two aren’t necessarily at odds, but they can be if we try to inject techniques to control the process. Workshops, seminars, classes, and teachings abound on how to dream, control your dreams, and be awake while you’re dreaming. When these dream attitudes and practices are mentioned, a gritty anxiety crawls up my spine and goes into my torso.

Dreams are among nature’s most wondrous forces. As a teenager, I first encountered the deep realms of the unconscious mind. It was through a dream that I was prompted to become a depth psychologist. Exploring the profound depths of the mind, both in therapy and writing, has since felt as natural as breathing. In fact, the thought of not practicing therapy and stopping my writing causes my breath to catch. Therapy and writing originate from the realm of images and symbols at work in both waking and dreaming states, and theirs is a life-giving force.

Yes, we dream while awake as well as when we sleep. Waking dreams are what mystics and sages have referred to as visions. With our eyes open, images drift through our consciousness. As you pay attention to them, you’ll notice that they occur more frequently. The unconscious, when given time and devotion, offers a steady stream of insights and visions. Whether our eyes are open during the day or closed while sleeping, images flow, and their significance addresses daily realities and ongoing potentials. What we need to see and what would benefit us to see is revealed through images and symbols from the unconscious surfacing to the conscious mind.

The unconscious evades control as it dwells in the deep realms of the soul and lofty planes of spirit. The prophet from Nazareth taught that the spirit moves as it wishes. We dream far more than we consciously remember, and it is enough sustenance for the day to know the dreams we can easily recall. There is no need for force, contrivance, or control. Dream images and symbols emerge in their own time and manner, bringing their own wisdom.

We dwell in the heart of dreaming when openness guides our way, and trust illuminates our path. There is no need for prescribed steps to achieve “effective dreaming” or methods for becoming lucid while dreaming and controlling outcomes. Techniques do not represent the spirit that flows freely, as it wills and how it wills. The heart of dreaming resides naturally within a dreamer who nurtures an attitude of openness and devotion to the unconscious mind. It is a realm of creative spirits and meaningful encounters with guiding energies and transformative powers from personal and transpersonal dimensions.

When I write, practice therapy, and live life, images flow. I can be in the midst of a conversation with colleagues, friends, family, or patients, and spontaneous images flow along the white screen of my mind. I write about it in my metaphysical novels. You’ll discover that the images relate to the person you’re with, the nature of the interaction, and the situation at that moment. Meaningful insights are birthed from sleeping dreams and waking visions. They’re nature’s way of guiding us along the path of life.

You know you’ve hit on the meaning of a dream or waking vision when things “click.” There’s an emotional resonance. American psychologist William James’ work has always resonated with me regarding the nature of genuine mystic experiences as helpful and practical. This holds true for understanding dreams and waking visions as well. It is both helpful and practical. There’s no room for demeaning others or oneself; instead, there’s life-giving insight and practical assistance. As spontaneous understanding occurs, things come together, and we feel lighter and set free. It reflects the generative nature of the unconscious mind and its symbols and images, which are always beneficial and practical.

Paying attention in waking life to the images that float through your mind’s eye, reading novels filled with the metaphysical dimensions of images and symbols, and conversing, whether in therapy or daily exchanges, with like-minded individuals stimulates the heart of dreaming. The wondrous reality of this experience is that it is within this realm, as the Western mystic text suggests, that we live, move, and have our being. Becoming attuned to the inner world of images and symbols enlivens that which resides within you and hungers for psychic nutrients and attunement to what I refer to, vis a vis William James, as the Great Unseen, that within which we live, move, and have our being—the heart of dreaming.

Live Deeply . . . Read Daily!

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!

 

The Dreaming Poet

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Once upon a time, there was a poet named Maya who dreamed every night. She loved her dreams and felt they were friends and messengers. Every night Maya and her dreams looked forward to seeing each other and talking in the language of dreams.

Once in bed, Maya tucked under her covers and closed her eyes. As her body relaxed, she let her mind wander and enter into the world of her imagination. The descent into dreams came slowly, smoothly, and gradually. And one night, something magical happened.

As she drifted to sleep, Maya felt herself settling in a large meadow filled with wildflowers and green grass. It was twilight, the air still and calm. The earth held her like the strong and warm arms of a loving mother. She could see the beauty of the universe all around her, and she felt like she was a part of it.

As she sat amidst the wildflowers and grass, her soul drifted through the cosmos. Maya noticed the twinkling stars. Her thoughts quickened, and began to take on a life of their own. Her dream became more vivid, images of loving people, the beauty of nature, and the wonder of simple moments. She felt like she was living inside a poem, each line flowing effortlessly from her mind.

Through the night, Maya realized that her dream was not just a dream but a glimpse into something more. She saw things in a new way, in a new light. Everything was full of meaning. She knew she had entered a realm where poetry and dreaming were one.

When Maya woke up the next morning, she felt changed. She knew that her dreaming had opened up a new world for her and that she would never be the same. She spent the rest of her days writing, creating, and dreaming.

And although she never had that same dream again, she felt content and thrived in the realm of poetic dreaming, writing, and living.

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!

Holidays: Demons, Angels, and the Dance

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Holiday Angels and Demons

Holidays are WONDERFUL . . . HAPPY . . . DELIGHTFUL TIMES! You might ask what the heck is going on with this horror writer. As I’m sure you’ve caught on, I’m being facetious about the holiday wonderful, happy, delightful times business. Holidays are a mixed bag—good and bad rushing at us like speeding locomotives.

Angels and demons abound when people gather and eat, drink, and make merry. How the dance goes depends on the people and the angels and demons. It helps if we can be in touch with the light and dark sides of things. When fine times are popping, there are also nasty places to step into.

Holiday Metaphysical Thrills and Chills

So, ready or not, holidays hit, and it takes serious maneuvering to manage emotional and spiritual currents. In the metaphysical thrillers I write, good times and merriment often harbor crazy darkness—demons up to thinly disguised shenanigans. But, as my wife, Kate, said this week, vis a vi Tolkien, all that is gold does not glitter, and all that wanders is not lost.

Essentially, we’re all wanderers trying to find our way. And, during the holidays, when the good and bad, angels and demons are at a high pitch, the pressure is on to be merry, cheery, and bright. I say it’s best to dance! Keep an eye out for the light and the dark, the angels and demons. Then twirl. It’s life, the stuff of honest living.

Paranormal Party Time

In paranormal stories, there’s the twirl of threat, meanness, sicky-sweet niceness, and life-or-death, back-up-against-the-wall drama. This comes close to party time with “friends and loved ones during the holidays.” We, humans, are a complex mix of angels and demons, a dance that’s gone on long before recorded history.

Here’s a metaphysical practice out of my novels that will heighten your psychic sensitivity during the holidays. Take a minute to close your eyes and focus on your aura, an energetic light emanating from the circumference of your body. Concentrate and let it grow stronger and brighter. Let it sharpen your appreciation of the good and awareness of the bad. It’s all there. It’s all part of the dance.

Let’s Do The Holiday Dance

For the holidays, let’s keep it real. Let’s do the dance with both the angels and the demons. They each require their own kind of negotiating. As a writer, therapist, and sojourner, I think life is a magical thrill ride. Every day ushers in thrills, chills, scariness, and hope. Sounds like the holidays! So, speaking of the holidays, let’s do the dance and, with it, consider dipping into a metaphysical book that speaks to the evolving reality of demons, angels, and the dance.

Live Deeply . . . Read 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

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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