Spiritual Gifts of Discernment

by Rev. Judith A. Baldwin

Excerpted from the forthcoming book,
The Spiritual Gifts of Discernment, by Rev. Judith A. Baldwin

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That which is looked upon by one generation as the apex of human knowledge is often considered on absurdity by the next, and that which is regarded as a superstition in one century, may form the basis of science for the following one.

-Paracelsus

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Humankind is spiritually ripe; or at least a growing number of us are. Perhaps it is the anticipation of apocalyptic events which urges us back to our spiritual roots. Or perhaps we have grown weary of the limits of the reasoning masculine mind bereft of the intuitive feminine mind. In any case, isn’t it strange that 20th century humankind should at once be irrevocably drawn toward spirituality, and yet be ignorant of what qualities and skills are inherent in a spiritual being?

With the intention of reclaiming the knowledge of our inherent spiritual nature, let us look backwards to pre-history, and retrace the journey our thinking has taken. Once this was a world where spirit and human were inextricably linked, where every experience was rooted in the rich soil of spiritual overtones. But we turned away from our spiritual heritage and sought after what was intentionally spirit-less.

Before the historical period, the human and non-human species which inhabited this earth, relied upon a sixth sense to sustain themselves. This visceral knowing, of gut feeling, was present in all of nature long before we learned to rely solely on what we now call the five senses.

Throughout history, were it not for the hierarchal pronouncements which declared spirit, mind and body as being different “stuff,” Western science would not have discounted the remote internal sensing we now call intuition, or non-local mind. In other worlds, our thinking would not have veered away from what was natural to life on earth; that is an inner knowing, or intuition. In time, this prescribed disowning of “aspects” of our spiritual selves, resulted in the ostracism and even murder of those most intuitively gifted or spiritually advanced.

Across the millennia the faculty of thinking, passing from universal mind to individual human, can be recognized in these distinct stages of human consciousness.

A Glimpse at the History of Thinking

1. In the beginning, human and nature were entwined. This human was a being belonging so entirely to the natural processes of the world that she was without an individuated consciousness. That is to say, the consciousness of this “natural being” made no personal response to the impact of nature. Rather nature and she were one. Until this “natural being” evolved enough to detach from the organic process, and observe natural events through the eyes of onlooker as opposed to inherent participant, mythological history could not begin. For history belongs to human beings with consciousness sufficient to separate enough to view events from some distance, no matter how slight; and not to natural beings so finely interwoven within the matrix of nature they could not be differentiated from it.

   However, there was a price for humankinds’ extrication from natural beingness. It was the loss of, or the denial of natural clairvoyance, clairaudience, and the other psychic faculties intrinsic to natural being’s experience. Without an individual consciousness, natural being shared unselfconsciously, or naturally, in thinking which was the purview of higher intelligence, or greater beings. Natural being was so close to the spiritual world she was more aware of spiritually than she was of the physical world around her. This was the time of mystical “history” when humankind intrinsically knew the secrets of the cosmos.

2. The epoch of “natural being” came to an end between 4000 and 3000 BC and was typified by the people of the Middle East who civilized and socialized their existence. They precipitated a startling transformation of consciousness when through language and writing they defined themselves, and thus separated themselves from the natural world around them. Now were they more observer than participant in the greater experience of Life. At this point, they declared themselves no longer the puppets of the gods or the spirits, and began to disregard their inner knowing. Thus, with this separation from the spiritual world, they began to exclude themselves from their natural though unconscious birthright, the inherent experience of psychic awareness.
3. As we cross the bridge of socialization to ancient Greece, we find individual thinking humanizing universal intelligence through the great myths. Now is humankind weaving her own thoughts and beliefs, replete with the capacity for human error. Whereas fate once rested in the hands of the gods, individuals proclaimed themselves masters of their own destinies. So wanes the ancient faculties which gave birth to mythology; and thus is born the beginning of the Greco-Roman Age, we find the first blossoming of Western art, architecture, drama, poetry, oratory, and politics.

   Fading is the reliance on intuition or inner knowing. Thinking now is based on logic as exemplified by Aristotle’s reflections on perceptual stimulus and response. This kind of thinking was to last more than two thousand years.

4. In 524 AD at the sixth Council of Nicea made the disowning of spirit official. The Council ruled that humankind would no longer consist of spirit, but only of soul and body. Thence forward the spirit was relegated to an intellectual quality of the soul. Quite literally, by eradicating the individual human spirit the Council closed the gates of the spiritual world for the mass of humankind. Only the hidden Orders of Initiates retained the knowledge of spiritual realms and the capacity for spiritual vision, and the original gifts of discernment.

   The Dark Ages (A.D. 476 to about 1000), inexorably followed the Council’s ruling. Humankind turned away from the light of spiritual inspiration from the end of classical civilization until the revival of learning in the West. The belief that thinking, arising solely from the physical brain, is the way to reach ultimate truth would last into the Middle Ages.

5. The 14th century Renaissance which ushered out the Middle ages, led Western mind to quickly become familiar with the forces of the physical world in order to harness these forces for material ends. Now does mind turn fully toward invention, investigation, technique and the properties of matter. Humankind was at the gateway between handcrafting and industry. Yet this was not so much a sign of greater mental acuity, but rather the result of mind moving into a new sphere.
6. In the fifteenth century Western thinking is following sense-derived observations. By the sixteenth century the dawn of the age of science and materialism is well underway. As with the later Greek mind, ideas are “real,” and phenomena, including and most especially mystical experience has become insubstantial.

   Francis Bacon, the father of modern science, expresses perfectly the mood of this age: “Reality only presents itself to us when we look upon the world of the senses. The senses alone provide us with realities, the realities of empirical knowledge.” Thus was the age of inductive reasoning underway, and the Western mind was now fully separated from its former awareness of spiritual origin; and alone in a mind devoid  of “heavenly help.” Science is the “place” to worship, and observation and experiment are “holy.”

7. Thus did the Western mind completely sever the link to the spiritual mind. By the beginning of the seventeenth century, consciousness was focused on materialistic existence. Spiritual faculties were kept alive only within the secret lodges of the craftmasons who had built Europe’s great cathedrals, and the secret Orders of Initiates and their Mystery Schools.
8. In the present moment, thinking has descended even further from its spiritual beginnings. It has turned into cold inhuman abstraction; the kind of thinking which spawned nuclear weaponry, ethnic cleansing, genetic experimentation and manipulation, environmental devastation of this planet, and the proposed rape of distant planets, all in the name of scientific advancement. Now have we unleashed powers which our thinking cannot control. We have arrived at the threshold of our annihilation – and/or new beginning. Perhaps our salvation lies in the full reunion of body, soul and psychic spirit.

But wait, what if all is not lost? Can the mind actually lose some of its inherent properties? Can the powers that be actually dictate the quality of our thinking – without our acquiescence, that is? Is it possible for us to actually fall so far from the original blueprint of consciousness?

Thinking is but the product of the mind, not the mind itself. Perhaps as our thinking moved farther and farther away from our spiritual essence, so did the expressions of our souls until what was once inherently spiritual now is exclusively mental. If that were so, at the deep inherent level of being, or our natural state, we would not be changed at all. Rather we would be expressing ourselves differently, thought not really changed. Our thinking and beliefs may have wandered far from the original us, but the original self remains nonetheless, regardless of the wandering.

That being so, what if history is no more than a subjective perspective of what has occurred? What if there are parallel histories: one seen by thinking humankind, and one seen by spiritual humankind? What then would be normal and what paranormal? What believable and what extraordinary?

It is intriguing that in our Western dictionaries psychic is defined as extraordinary mental processes; while the ancient Greek defines psychic as of the soul. Further exploration of the dictionary reveals “psyche” as “the spirit or soul. The mind [non-local] functioning as the center of thought, emotion, and behavior.”

So another word for soul is psyche, which also means mind and self. And mind comes from the Greek menos, for remember, indicating that the psyche has a past. While self comes from the Sanskrit swa, meaning one’s own, oneself. Then does it follow that psychic skills are the gifts of the spirit resident in our original mind?

Discernment comes into the equation because these original gifts were meant to be used to guide we spiritual beings safely through our earthly adventures. After all, discernment is defined as “the act or process of exhibiting keen insight and good judgment.” Spiritual wisdom admonishes us to be wise stewards, and so we shall be with spiritual discernment.

Though we have been anesthetized, deadened, blinded and deafened, we long for our spiritual gifts of discernment, or psychic faculties, in which is encoded our spiritual certainty, to show us the way to reawaken our sleeping Self.

In the seventeenth century, the Cartesian dogma of dualism pronounced the rational mind king, and the felt sense as second rate, unimportant and unreliable. Perhaps three and a half centuries later it is time for a fresh start. What if we changed Descartes’ “I thin there I am” to “cogito ergo non sum, I think, there I am not?” For clearly we no know that it is only when we stop thinking that we begin to be. And perhaps science would like to join in the experiences of spiritual being. As Charles Tart so clearly stated in his address to the Second Parliament of the World’s Religions in Chicago in 1993: “…we would also be fools not to let the potential and power of genuine spirituality inspire our scientific efforts, lest the world expire in that slough of despondency know as scientism.”

Even though it would seem that although there is a conflict between spirituality and the current scientific paradigm, the paradigm is not science. It’s just the scientific belief system adhered to at this point in history. Right now science is faced with an unexplainable anomaly: that is, it has no explanation whatsoever for the existence of consciousness. The fact that we humans are, each and every one, being that have experiences is undeniable.

Day after day every scientist on earth must face the fact that they are a conscious being. Yet nowhere within the current scientific paradigm is there a prediction that life is conscious. Indeed, this is a scientific anomaly. Itself mystical and nearly ethereal, quantum physics has given scientist the means of exploring the human experience heretofore unreachable. Because of the quantum correlations now confirmed as present in nature, one wonders if perhaps the original sense, that is the intuitive or inner felt sense, is the natural sense, and therefore the first sense.

Quantum hologram research leads us to this conclusion and explains virtually all the psychic or intuitive experiences and effects that humans have reported during historic times.

Further, as science moves into the next paradigm, the superparadigm, it will see that consciousness is primary; and space, time, matter and energy emerge out of consciousness.

Spiritual Gifts of Discernment

For every physical sense there is a corresponding spiritual gift, or spiritual “sense.” Humankind is ready at last to resurrect and redevelop these gifts.

• Seeing/Clairvoyant: One who sees clearly; seeing beyond what the physical eyes can see; acute intuitive insight or perceptiveness; visionary; ability to “see” into the etheric world and other dimensions; ability to see lights, shapes, colors, geometrical figures, auras, thoughtforms, discarnates, other worldly being, etc.; understands the meaning and significance of messages and/or symbols; ability to reach into another vibrational frequency and ascertain symbolic information; can see at will or spontaneously; best accomplished in meditative or alpha state.
  Subjective clairvoyance is ” seeing” within the mind, or behind the yes, seeing on back of eyelids or back of forehead.
  Objective clairvoyance is perceiving a vision at a point in outer space, like watching a play or a movie.
  One is advised to keep clairvoyant visions under control, perceiving only when desirable or advisable. Being besieged by or interrupted by constant visions can rob the seer of her own life. Such continuous psychic intrusion and distraction can lead to nervous disorders mental illness.
• Hearing/Clairaudient: One who hears clearly; hearing of things beyond the range of the normal perception of physical ears; hearing the music of the cosmos; inner hearing of profound words, or hearing important messages from other dimensions; understands the meaning and significance of messages and symbols; can hear at will or spontaneously; best accomplished in meditative or alpha state.
  Subjective clairaudience is “hearing” within the head.
  Objective clairaudience is “hearing” words, music sounds from “out there.”
  A more rare skill is tuning into the subtle vibrations and frequencies of nature to hear the sound of grass growing or flowers opening. One is advised to keep this skill under control at all times. Uncontrolled or incessant sounds, voices and messages can interfere with tasks at hand, become extremely distracting, cause accidents, and eventually lead to psychotic breakdown.
• Feeling/Clairsentient: One who feels clearly; inner sensing or feeling; hunchability; inspired feelings and knowings; especially sensitive to “gut feelings” and whole body sensations like “shivers” or “goosebumps;” synonymous with intuition; understands the meaning and significance of feelings; can feel at will or spontaneously.
  This kind of psychism is easy to develop but it is doubted the most. Clairsentience is the least disturbing to the feeler because it comes within the body at any time and does not take her attention from other things. It is often disregarded, or when noticed, is quickly put aside.
• Knowing/Claircognizant: One who knows without reason for knowing; clear knowing; meaning and information come into the mind like downloading a computer; knowing “bottom line” information without benefit of data; appeals to the masculine. “I don’t know how I know, I just know”; understands the meaning and significance of information; can know spontaneously or at  will.
• Sensing/Clairempathy: One who feels or senses the physical, mental, emotional sensations, impulses or thought of another; a form of telepathy; ability to tune into an area or event and feel the attitudes and feelings of those who were present; understands meaning and significance of feelings; can sense spontaneously or at will; often used in police work.
  One is not clairempathic unless she can discern which attitudes, thoughts and emotions are hers and which belong to another.
  It is advisable to keep this skill under control so one is not overridden by symptoms, conditions and reactions which are not one’s own. Taking on another’s responses can lead to confusion and uncertainty, and eventually sickness.
• Smelling/Clairscent: One who smells clearly; smelling odors, foods, fragrances not in one’s surroundings; can indicate an omen such as being in the presence of a high being; e.g. essence of rose indicates presences of a Christed One; frequently a psychic taste accompanies the smell; understands the meaning and significance of the smell and/or taste; can smell at will or spontaneously.
• Tasting/Clairsavorant: One who tastes without putting anything in the mouth; clear tasting; frequently a psychic smell accompanies the taste; understands the meaning and significance of taste and/or smell; can taste at will or spontaneously.

In addition to the spiritual gifts, we are gifted wsith the spiritual sensitivities and the spiritual faculties, all of which are part of the original endowment of our spiritual blueprint. Mostly that endowment has “rusted and atrophied,” laying in wait for us to reclaim it. such a reclamation asks of us the same kind of commitment and discipline needed to refine any skill or attribute.

There are prohibitions to the spiritual gifts built into the beliefs, personalities and behaviors we have adopted. Likewise there are tools which aid and refine our lifestyle, allowing us a greater expression of the spiritual gifts; just as there are instructions for expanding the spiritual faculties and honing the spiritual sensitivities.

It is likely that not all the spiritual gifts, sensitivities and faculties will be highly developed in all of us. Some may remain potentially ours, while others may mature. Just as we are not all talented in the same ways, so we may not all express our spiritual talents to the same degree. Still the potential is there, and as humankind evolves more abundantly into the full expression of spiritual giftedness, what seemed exceptional will be the norm. Our spiritual future is guaranteed. In this we can rejoice. A child of God is a spiritual prodigy whether she realizes it or not. Even though she may never choose to develop the full allotment of spiritual giftedness, the gift is nonetheless given. As with any real gift, only she can say if and when it will be realized.

Pay Attention

Paying attention is one of the greatest, oldest and deepest spiritual masteries; and very few of us have achieved any significant degree of proficiency in it.

The simple task of observing, and acknowledging, which thoughts, words, emotions, and actions one is choosing, is not only life enhancing, it makes life credible. When I am fearful, I am harmful. When I am loving I am helpful. Love joins; this is healing. Fear separates; this is traumatic. What could be clearer?

Consequently, with everything I think, say, do and feel: I am always either contributing to the light or adding to the darkness of this world. What a (potentially) wonderful or disastrous responsibility!

The keystone of protection is the ability to pay attention. Only if one is cognizant can she be conscious of what is around her, or coming towards her. How can she declare “Stop! I do not give you permission to approach” if one is oblivious of herself and her surroundings?

Most of us live in a kind of trance. We’re pretty much running on automatic. In our “overcrowded” lives, we are scarcely able to recall what we did yesterday, much less be aware as we are doing it. Therein lies the problem. Until we are paying attention we cannot measure our spiritual expertise. Thus we cannot know accurately where we are on our journey to spiritual expertise; usually we give ourselves more credit than we deserve.

Homework: commit to paying attention one day per month. At the end of the day tally how well you did.

Thoughts

We are a product of thought. All thoughts, our own, other people’s, and the collective world thought, affect us.

Thoughts are things. Until we fully comprehend that the power of our mind is sufficient to “create” the world we live in, we can delude ourselves into believing that so long as we don’t realize what we are thinking, or doing, we will be spared the consequences of those thoughts.

Christ said to pray unceasingly. All thoughts are prayers. All thoughts call for a response from the universe. All our thoughts will either contribute to our healing, and therefore the world’s healing; or they will postpone healing. Such is the power of our God-created mind. Consequently, we must recognize what it is we are praying for. When we focus our thinking on what we would avoid, or what is destructive or fearful, or dreadful, or painful, to ourselves or another, we re actively praying for the unwanted to occur. Thus does our “prayer” empower those things which are contradictory to well-being, or which oppose the integrity of our being.

Homework: One day per month commit to observing one’s thinking. Notice how much is “stinking thinking.” Keep score.

Declarations

We may not think of speaking as a privilege. In this moment consider the power and the consequence of the spoken word. Frequently we neglect the discipline of intentional, careful use of our words. For the most part we pay little heed to what we say, how we say it, or when we say it. Such a lackadaisical attitude regarding the power of our declarations has sometimes gotten us in trouble.

At one time, all agreements were contracted by a person’s word. What one said had substance, and people were categorized by whether their “word” was good or bad (which meant meaningless). Now, however, we don’t seem to take our words as seriously as we once did. Every day we say things which we do not mean, or what we mean we do not say. In emotional outbursts we blurt out cruel words, vile words, words which compromise ourselves, and any others in the path of those words.

This is a mistake. Words are still as potent and meaningful as ever they were; and like all volitional proclamations, the consequences of our words remain one of our great prerogatives. For we can have the fruits of our pronouncements, or will suffer the consequences of them.

For this reason, we must not allow our wounds, fears, or weaknesses to “speak” for us. Unfortunately, this is often what we do.

Homework: One day per month commit to observing the quality, or lack thereof, of the day’s declarations. Take note of “foul mouthed” (as in stinking thinking) words and what they produce.

Actions

How many times have we heard: “Your actions speak louder than your words.” To know what we truly believe, simply watch what we do. We may talk differently, but we always do what we believe. Our behavior will tell the truth about who we really are.

There are not enough good intentions or sweet words to cover up the actuality of what we do. Right action is an important part of the triune law of life: purity in thought, word, and deed. We are foolish if we believe we can bypass any of the three parts of wholesome spiritual living. We are measured by our actions.

Homework: One day per month make your words match your actions and thoughts. Speaking aloud what you think and what you do will force you to take not of your “real” beliefs. Keep a record.

Beliefs

In my experience, fear can be summarized within three main categories:

1. I will not get what I want

2. I will lose what I have.

3. There is not enough to go around.

Though we may not realize it, a disproportionate amount of time we are involved in some kind of fear thought. It is shocking to discover we live as fearful primates. Fear is the single most effective tool of the dark. Without our fear the darkness would have very little influence on us.

Honest examination of one’s mind set will likely lead, directly or indirectly, to a hidden coffer of fears. Fear is a universal condition. It is the great barrier to human growth. As we grow older we learn more and more fears so that by the time we reach maturity most of us are loaded with them. Unknowns create fears. When these unknowns are commonly and regularly exposed, the fears seem to diminish and disappear. In most cases this is but a temporary repression of what was never reconciled, only exposed. Thus does the buried fear putrefy and spread like an infection of the mind.

The trick is not to deny the presence of fear, nor to attempt to banish it by force. Rather admit to fears, as well as mistakes or shortcomings, and acknowledge them openly. “Confessing” this way is sufficient to unplug the emotional charge of fears and inadequacies which undermine calm, clear thinking. Confession can be an intensely, empowering act of self-reclamation. “Unfriendlies,” whether they be self saboteurs or the DFEs, use our secret fears and guilts as effective tools for twisting self worth into self loathing. Fear of exposure must be active in us in order for DFEs to use these secrets and fears as a weapon against us.

Ask yourself: Am I thinking, or am I fearing? Fear is anything unlike peace, love or well being. Therefore all worry, concern, anxiety, doubt, uneasiness, revenge, guilt, blame, condemnation, resistance, and so on, is fear. No matter how slight the disturbance, it is nonetheless. Just as a female cannot be a little bit pregnant, so also we cannot be a little bit fearful. With our thoughts we are either “growing” fear and thereby adding to the darkness; or we are “growing” peace and thereby contributing to the light. It is that simple. That clear. That unequivocal. There is no middle ground of fear.

Homework: Daily ask yourself all through the day, am I fearing or am I thinking? Before retiring, think about: How am I growing my fear?

The evidence from my research and clinical experience, as well as that of other clinical professionals working with experiences of ET encounters, strongly suggests that the vast majority of close encounter experiencers have an acute, mild-to-severe transient reaction, if any, to their close extraterrestrial encounter. With prompt expert attention, chronic symptoms re rare. these are experiencers who have had an Uncomplicated ET Encounter. They exhibit the temporary symptoms, if any, of Close extraterrestrial Encounter Syndrome (CEES). A Brief Intervention Model of exploratory, educative and ventilative counseling about close ET encounters generally suffices for the vast majority of experiencers with an Uncomplicated Close Encounter. In these cases I have found that one to six sessions of therapy and education generally are sufficient. After this brief counseling is completed, the experiencers typically have worked through any anxiety they might have had about their encounter(s). they are then ready to move on to an experience consciousness-sharing group to explore further what ET contact means.

Close Extraterrestrial Encounter Syndrome (CEES) is an Adjustment Disorder Not Otherwise Specified (DSM 309.9): a reaction to a close extraterrestrial encounter (CEE), remembered or repressed into the unconscious, which substantially alters patterns of daily living or social relationships in a mildly disorienting or unsettling way, and has four or more of the following 20 associated symptoms. these symptoms may include:

1. Repeated anxiety/unexplained restlessness after an anomalous event, (such as one involving nocturnal lights, viewing a UFO, a sense of a foreign presence in the house, or an unexplained detour from one’s ordinary driving route);
2. Phobic reaction to phenomena consciously or unconsciously associated with a CEE, (such as an accurate sketch of an extraterrestrial face);
3. Repeated sleep disturbances or nightmares with UFO/ET themes;
4. Obsessional “Dreams” or daytime thinking about UFOs, ETs or CEES;
5. Compulsive behavior (e.g., reading) concerning the UFO topic;
6. Unexplained moodiness/irritability after an anomalous UFO/encounter incident
7. Preoccupation with body symptoms/marks associated with a CEE (such as tiny scoop marks, or laser scars which don’t bleed or hurt and which heal very quickly, or inexplicable bruises noted upon wakening consistent with an extraterrestrial hand grip, or episodic ringing in one ear, or other episodic resonance vibrations felt in a particular body site, such as the upper nasal sinus cavity or the occipital lobe region of the brain);
8. Experiencing an unexplainable, substantial period of “missing time” following an anomalous incident, (such as being paced at night by a “car” with a single powerful headlight, or sitting down after dinner to watch television, immediately noticing an unusual pattern on the screen, and “waking up” at 9:00 the next morning unable to remember having watched TV or going to bed, etc.);
9. The sudden, unexplained onset of feelings of social non-ordinariness (i.e., that one is out of sync with the world, or that the world no longer seems as it used to);
10. Cosmic awareness (thinking about the Earth as a living whole, instead of confining one’s perspective to neighborhood or town or country; or thinking about the Earth as just one among many inhabited planets) which enters with unusual frequency into one’s daytime thinking;
11. Suddenly feeling an affinity for CEE experiencers one reads about or hears interviewed on television, or feeling a strong attraction to extraterrestrials as somehow familiar;
12. A sense of receiving telepathic messages or repeated gifted intuitions, presumably from an extraterrestrial source;
13. A sense of one’s mindspace being episodically entered into and shared with an extraterrestrial being;
14. The onset of or marked increase in, psychic/ESP ability, (such as clairvoyance, telepathy, precognition, or telekinesis);
15. Onset of attraction for a spiritually or religious practice based on the in-dwelling of the Supreme Source in all nature, and resultant reverence for all lifeforms as related;
16. Sense of longing for the primary-contact Extraterrestrial one has dealt with during one or more Encounters;
17. An obsessive sense of having a mission (clear, vague or unconscious) derived from the CEE, and related to the extraterrestrials’ messages;
18. A sense of strong “pull” to travel to a specific area, either with an intuition of an impending close encounter there, or for an unknown reason, (which turns out to be a CEE);
19. Having an extraterrestrial perspective to the Earth’s situation, or feeling a genetic heritage partially derived from extraterrestrial sources, or having a sense of having come from off-planet, or having somehow had an extraterrestrial as one parent;
20. Sense of one’s destiny as off-planet, or feeling a “pull” to go “home” to an extraterrestrial planet one was shown by the ET’s, or to “rejoin fellow” extraterrestrials elsewhere in the galaxy.

Then, there are those experiencers who are suffering from major symptoms of a Complicated Close Extraterrestrial Encounter Syndrome (CEES). Most often this is because they are still dealing with residual emotions from an earlier, severe, human-caused trauma, for which they have not yet completed a successful course of psychotherapy. In such instances, the extraterrestrial visitations cause an abreactive exacerbation of previous, human-caused Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Other preexisting disorders which predispose an experiencer to develop major symptoms after an encounter are: Dissociative Identity Disorder, Borderline Personality Syndrome, severe Histrionic or severe Dependent Personality disorder. For such dually-challenged persons the therapist will need to consider longer-term psychotherapy.

Such therapy will need to deal with both the human-caused traumatic issues and the emotional exacerbation and turmoil resulting from extraterrestrial visitations. Special care will be needed to keep distinct the issues stemming from the human-caused trauma, and those issues stemming from the extraterrestrial contact itself. It cannot be expected that the experiencer who has had previous human trauma will initially be able to keep the two events separate. In fact, in my research experience, such experiencers almost always confuse the feelings coming from their extraterrestrial encounter with the residual feelings from their human trauma.

And this is to be expected. The reason such confounding of close encounter feelings with feelings from human trauma occurs is because the human trauma is invariable extremely intense, catastrophically unexpected, out-of-the-norm, and extremely intimate. The unresolved human traumata most likely to cause flashback emotions after a close encounter are: childhood sexual molestation, childhood or adult rape, or childhood ritual (Satanic) cultic abuse, (usually involving sexual molestation and torture). Such human traumata leave the victim with deep feelings of being intruded upon intimately by an unwanted other person, feelings of being overpowered in a frightening way, feelings of loss of the usual protective boundaries between what is personal and what is socially shared, and feeling of loss of distinction between where self ends and where another person begins (intimate invasion).

Because extraterrestrial encounters often involve the sudden appearance of one or more extraterrestrials without warning in an expected location, such as one’s bedroom at night, their appearance can feel, at first, like an invasion. the extraterrestrials’ use of mental telepathy, and their facility for reading one’s thoughts and the contents of one’s mind, can feel, to the previously traumatized person, like an old, familiar, and unwelcome intrusion into what is in our culture one’s private space. Here we have the clash of two cultures, polar opposite in their assumptions. In human culture, (Western modern industrial culture, anyway) the assumption is that one’s thoughts and living space are private, because individualism is prized. In extraterrestrial cultures researched thus far, it appears that living space and thoughts are inevitably shared, because of the automatic, two-way nature of the mutual telepathic ability of all members of their society. they live in a shared mind-field “commons”.

There are other aspects of some close encounters which may also cause traumatic flashbacks. Sometimes an extraterrestrial will cloak him/herself (yes, they have gender) by imposing on the mind of the experiencer the borrowed appearance of a familiar family figure, so that the experiencer believes (and remembers) that it was Dad, or Uncle Henry, or Grandma that was actually in the bedroom the night they woke up with a presence in the room. If that close encounter also includes a scientific-medical exam, with the experiencer on her back, paralyzed or held in place by force-field ankle or wrist restraints, and if palpation of the pelvic or buttocks areas, or a gynecological procedure is part of the procedures, and the experiencer has only sketchy recall of the encounter, their memory may put the fragments remembered together and come up with the pseudo-memory that Dad, or Uncle Henry, or Grandma pinned them down in their bedroom and molested them. I have discovered at least five instances of such pseudo-incest memories in an 86-case research sample, and Hard psychiatrist John Mack reports more.

Then, there are those minority of cases, perhaps 5%, of persons who are the victims of pseudo-Alien abductions. These are staged by human Military/Intelligence “Special Operations” personnel to extract information or test exotic technology, and may include drugging, narco-hypnotism, psychological and physical abuse, interrogations, threats, rape, or torture, in exotic unfamiliar settings, with bizarre pseudo-”Aliens” (costumed Special Forces) present. The federal Department of Health and Human Services has been collecting reports from these victims.

Differential diagnosis of CEES from schizophrenia is relatively straightforward. Genuine experiencers do not have bizarre, grandiose, somatic, religious, nihilistic or persecutory delusions, (although the clinician must distinguish such report as telepathic communication by ETs from schizophrenia thought-insertion delusions.) Likewise, schizophrenic auditory hallucinations, where “the voices” criticize or command, must be distinguished from audible-seeming ET telepathic communication. And genuine experiencers are not incoherent, nor locked into illogical thinking or loose associations, as schizophrenics so often are. Also, experiencers’ affect is anything but blunt or flat. Nor is their behavior grossly disorganized, as the schizophrenic’s so often is.

Borderline Personality Disorder, as well as Factitious Disorder with Psychological Symptoms, provide differential diagnosis challenges, because many attention-seeking Borderlines and Factitious Disordered are now hopping on the “abductee-victim” bandwagon. Further, they have been exposed to enough media or support-group data to cleverly mimic experiencers. But persons who have had genuine encounters generally lack the marked mood-shifting, stubborn anger, history of intensely unstable relationships, gnawing identity disturbance, impulsivity patterns and chronic acting-out to enliven an empty life, which are the hallmarks of Borderlines.

Likewise, the Factitious-Disordered person’s chaotic array of symptoms and stubborn clinging to “victim” status do differentiate them from the generally well-functioning experiencer, who genuinely wants to understand their experiences and come to feel resolved.

The differentiation of Delusional Disorder, Paranoid Type from CEES is more exacting, because a Delusional could, and sometimes does, have a single-topic delusion of extraterrestrial visitation, and otherwise be functional. However, the characteristically-disproportional, consuming paranoia of the Delusional is quite different than the sometimes-afraid reaction of some experiencers. And Delusionals are refractory to reality-based educative counseling, which experiencers are able to use to master their misgivings and uncertainties about their encounters.

Frontal-Lobe Epilepsy may produce transient organic hallucinations, which can infrequently include “seeing” extraterrestrials. But the emotional lability, impulsiveness, intellectual rigidity or social disconnectedness often also seen in these organic personality syndromes distinguishes them from genuine experiencers, who are usually psychologically indistinguishable from the general population.

In my view, there is no more interesting and rewarding work than working with persons who have experienced a personal extraterrestrial visitation. The opportunities for healing, learning, and growing are immense. Yet clinical skills will be tested in this arena. And the need for vigilance to screen out the false and imitation presentations will always be present. And traditional sources of professional and colleague support are not yet evolved to encompass this reality. Until then, one finds new supports, in organizations like ACCET and PEER and from other avant-garde clinicians and experts.

One hundred years ago psychiatry was not an accepted discipline. One hundred years from today, people will marvel that Psychology once excluded extraterrestrial encounters as delusions.

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Richard Boylan, Ph.D.
2826 O Street, Suite 2
Sacramento, CA 95816, USA
(916) 455-0120
E-mail: rich.boylan@24stex.com
Primary website: www.ufonetwork.com/boylan/
Author: Close Extraterrestrial Encounters; Labored Journey To The Stars, and Project Epiphany

Soul-Mind Fragmentation

Soul retrieval is a shamanic approach to healing. In the native tradition of shamanism illness was an indication that the soul had vacated the body. The shaman journeyed into the underworld to retrieve the soul and return it to the sick person restoring wholeness and health. The technique can be modified and used the clinical setting.

Soul-Mind is the term used to define the mechanism which records the sum total of experiences through physical incarnations of the spirit being. It is the permanent intellect or consciousness that composes a person’s character or individuality.

In the process of treating people for the symptoms of spirit attachment, it is not unusual to find a fragment of the mind of a living person as an attached entity. This condition invites speculation about the other person whose mind fragmented and from who the fragment separated. As part of the exploration within a session, the therapist can be alert for signs of soul-mind fragmentation in the client. Fragmentation seems to be a common condition stemming from the many perceived traumatic situations in life, ranging from minor to severe, real or imagined.

Life in human form can be considered a physical experience for a spirit being. In this human experience, most people suffer trauma, physical and emotional. Physical traumas which lead to soul-mind fragmentation can be any bodily intrusion with a real or imagined threat to survival such as surgeries, organ donation and transplants, amputations of limbs, beating or damage to any part of the physical body. Any sexual abuse such as rape or incest usually causes fragmentation with intense emotional residue can develop in military combat situations with death caused by explosion, decapitation, and atrocities such as severing of the genitals.

The emotional trauma caused by these physical violations can initiate dissociation and splitting of the consciousness as a coping mechanism. Emotional trauma following loss of a loved one, or the sight of a loved one being seriously harmed, can lead to fragmentation. The experience of the trauma is literally stored in a fragment of the consciousness, the subpersonality which becomes separated and isolated from the main consciousness.

Multiple personality disorder is the result of severe emotional, physical and sexual trauma. Inmost such cases extensive fragmentation is inevitable. Further study of MPD patients reveals that some of the fragments have indeed separated.

Some people can recall and describe incidents of childhood molestation during which they stood across the room watching the molester fondling their little body. One client reported leaving her body lying in bed while father was touching her. She jus went outside and sat on the roof until he went away. Many molestation victims report floating near the ceiling during the periods of molestation. In many cases the fragment separates only briefly and rejoins the consciousness with in the confines of brain/mind, forming a sub or alter personality the same ate as the child at the time of the molestation.

The percentage of fragmentation can range from minor to total. There can be any number of separate fragments. Each fragment maintains a connection with the main consciousness by a thread, a fiber of the silver cord which attaches the soul to the body. Bodies can function as long as the silver cord maintains its connection, even if there is total evacuation of the fragments. Evacuation can result in coma. It also opens the way to total possession by an intrusive spirit.

The fragments continue to be connected to each other by the silver threads, even after the being leaves the physical body in death, when the silver cord is detached. The fragment of the soul-mind associated with a severed body part remains with the body part, yet maintains connection to the main consciousness by a thread.

A fragment can become partially dislodged and still remain connected to the body. A fragment can separate and follow the person like a balloon on a string. It can remain in some distant location or structure, it can also attach to another living person. A fragment can actually move into the Light.

A fragment of the mind of a living person can be attached to one or more other living persons. The condition of fragmentation is not healed by death of the fragmented person. the newly deceased spirit, the discarnate entity, is also fragmented. This fragmented entity can then attach to still another living person. Thus a discarnate entity can be attached to two or more living individuals.

Another aspect of this situation provides an interesting twist to the classic condition of spirit possession in which a living person is considered to be influenced by the spirit of a deceased person. If the living mind fragment remains connected to the spirit of the newly deceased person, then a deceased spirit is being possessed by the mind of a living person.

Diagnosis

Diagnosis of fragmentation is fairly straightforward. Nearly everyone who has suffered trauma has some form and degree of the condition. On one symptom is diagnostic, though a combination of symptoms may be indicative.

The language of the client will describe the condition of fragmentation. A person may describe the experience of feeling dissociated, ungrounded, disconnected, or feeling like they are not in the body. The eyes may appear vacant. The senses may seem muffled, a person may sleep a lot and feel apathetic toward life. They may feel like they are “not all there,” “not at home,” as if something is “missing.” There is a feeling of emptiness, of having no heart, of having an empty tube or a big hole inside.

As a client in altered state of consciousness scans their body they may discover dark or shadowy spots, voids, holes, and empty places. These are the spaces left by the fragmentation. The client is directed to look for the threads that lead out from the spaces. When these threads are found some will appear darker, some lighter. Joyful or happy episodes can cause a fragmentation almost as readily as unhappy occurrences and the threads to these fragments may appear light, even silvery. In all cases of fragmentation and separation the silver thread connection remains, and it is this link that makes possible the recovery process.

Recovery of the Fragment

The trauma which led to the fragmentation is processed for the mental, emotional and physical residues as for any traumatic event. These residues are retained by the fragment, the subpersonality formed by the fragmentation.

The traumatic incident which originally caused fragmentation might be located in another lifetime. The fragment can literally be floating free or clinging to a location or structure on earth in the present time, even though the event occurred in another era. Past life therapy can assist in recovering and healing this fragment.

A child can be born with the condition of fragmentation. For a young child the recovery of the fragments must be done remotely.

Witchcraft and black magic, spells, hexes and curses can cause a fragmentation of the practitioner, witch or sorcerer. their fragment remains with the victim of the magic spell or curse, even though the practitioner is deceased. There is always dark energy involved in this sort of intrusive activity. The demonic entities must be released appropriately and the fragment sent to the Light. If the practitioner is still living, a remote releasement of the attached dark entities is completed and the fragment is sent back to the person.

When the conflict resolution is complete, the fragment is invited back into the present moment. It is welcomed into the body wherever it belongs, sometimes into the empty hole inside, often into the heart. The client will report a feeling of warmth, peace, and a pleasant new sense of wholeness.

The term holistic stems from the word wholeness, meaning completeness, totality of body, mind and spirit. Fragmentation as the source of illness is an important concept in the native healing traditions. It may prove to be an important contribution to the concept of holistic healing.