When I first got these emails, years ago, it distressed me. I wrote back to people to try to explain myself and why I felt I wasn’t going to Hell. It didn’t really matter. Most of the people used fake email addresses and didn’t want to get a response. Those that did, would just come back with longer Bible passages and more evidence that I was in league with Satan.

I realized they were the ones with the problem, not me.

So I started sending back joke answers. “No, I don’t work for Satan, he offers no health insurance and I hear he fires people all the time.” Most people weren’t amused by my clever rejoinders.

Recently a guy wrote to me and was very worried about my soul. I’m touched, honestly, that people want to make sure I’m going to Heaven. He told me the voices I think I’m hearing are really satanic demons who are tricking me. I wrote back to him and said, “So these demons that I’m communicating with, they want me to help suicidal people find a reason to live? They want to help find missing people? They want people to live these really happy lives, become encouraged, inspired, and motivated to do wonderful things on this planet? Because that’s what they’re doing.”

He was quiet for a while. But he wrote back a few days later and said, “Oh, I didn’t realize that’s what you did with your abilities. It does seem odd that Satan would want you to help so many people. I’ll have to think about that. Maybe he wants them to be happy now so he can hurt them more later.” Yeah, maybe it’s a big old setup. Never heard from that guy again.

Then a few days ago a woman emailed and told me she was cruising my site and was loving the articles because I talk a lot about compassion, helping others, oneness, love, and connection, and she really resonated with that. But she was distressed because she couldn’t see any articles where I mentioned that Jesus was my Lord and Savior. She wanted to make sure I knew that if I didn’t accept Jesus as my Lord and Savior that I was going to Hell.

So I wrote back to her and told her I appreciated her words and her sincere desire to help me. I let her know that God’s gift has allowed me to assist others, bring comfort, and help them be happier. She responded, “But you still haven’t mentioned Jesus.” I responded with, “So if I don’t expressly mention Jesus, then all this good work I’m doing to help others is going to land me in Hell? Do you think God is angry that I’m using this gift to save people’s lives? Should I stop?”

She said, “Unless you praise Jesus, you and your site are just satanic, and you will not be saved. You clearly worship Satan and all those articles you’ve written and all those people you’ve helped were really helped by Satan.”

So I sent her one last email that said, “Well how do I know you’re not Satan disguising yourself as a Christian in order to get me to stop doing God’s work?” I never heard back from her.

When you think about it, though, it makes a lot more sense that these folks who write to me are actually the demons working for Satan. They are trying to stop me from helping others. They’re trying to prevent me from bringing people out of dark places and into the light. And they have even threatened to kill me in the name of their Lord.

I don’t know about you, but I think that’s pretty dark stuff. I wonder what Jesus would think.

Answer: This is a great question and one I’ve been asked many times. The short answer is that I could communicate with Source during my intuitive sessions with clients. The only problem is, the reading would be very short, as God only has one message, and it’s the same for everyone. That message is, “You are loved.”

If you want to expand on that a little, here’s the slightly longer version. You are of Source. You are connected to Source always. There is no other way you can be. You may forget your connection. You may disconnect from Love. You may turn away from Source. You may dabble in disbelief. You may question the existence of Source. Doesn’t matter to Source. You are still loved.

If you ask Source whether you should leave your job as a computer programmer to become a singer, Source will respond, “If it helps you remember you are loved.” If you ask Source whether you should marry your fiancé, Source will say, “If it helps you remember you are loved.” If you ask Source whether you should have a baby, Source will say, “If it helps you remember you are loved.”

You are here to experience all that this life has to offer. And Source has gifted you with free will to make any decision you want. In the process, you will either remember you are loved or you will forget. And the more you remember, the happier your life will be. The more you forget, the more difficult your life will feel. In the beginning, before you got here, you were loved. In the end, when you return home, you will be loved. What you do in between is your choice. Source has no requirements for you.

When I do readings, people want to know what direction to take their lives so they can be happier. I’ve never had someone ask me how to make his life more difficult. So I turn to the spirit guides, which are the beautiful beings assigned to you before birth to help you navigate the maze of your life. It is their specific duty to encourage, nudge, guide, direct, and drop clues on your path so that you may find what you desire.

So when I ask your guides if you should leave your job as a computer programmer to become a singer, they offer me information that only they can see about that path. I relay it to you and you make the final decision about what will bring you more happiness. If you ask whether you should marry your fiancé, they may shine a light on the qualities your partner possesses that will bring you happiness or unhappiness, and then it is up to you to decide if you’d like to experience that. And if you ask about having a baby, your guides will present to you what your life will be like with or without a child in it, and again you will decide if you desire the outcome.

There are no wrong choices in life. You get to experience whatever you desire, whatever you attract, and whatever comes your way. But always, you are loved.

So during a reading with me if you want me to channel Source for you, you’re going to hear back, “You are loved.” If you feel like you need a little more than that, you’ll probably get, “You are loved. A lot.” It’s quite powerful really. But it definitely won’t take me 30 minutes to convey the message.

I had friends who were religious.  My best friend, Frances, apparently belonged to a very religious Christian household.  Whenever one of her family members would leave the house they had to say, “Goodbye, I love you, and Mary and Jesus too” or something like that.  When I spent the night at her house, her mother made me say prayers.  I thought it was cute, but I had no idea who this God person was that I was supposedly talking to.  This was also a violent family.  The son was a vandal and arsonist, setting fire to the hill behind his house.  I watched from afar as his father whipped him with a belt to teach him a lesson.  Frances was often dragged by her hair down the stairs by her brother.  The father was a lawyer and was often called upon to keep his own son out of jail.

I remember one time my babysitter took us to her catechism class.  We got to paint pine cones and dip them in glitter.  I think we were making a Christmas tree ornament, but alas, no tree graced our home.  In fact, during  Christmas break from school my sister and I would often lament that all the stores were closed because of those Christians.  We were the ones going to the movie theatre and eating Chinese food on Christmas.

I got a vague understanding of who this God person was when my friends would talk about him.  They all seemed to think it was cool that we didn’t have to go to Church on Sunday, as they mostly thought it just wrecked their Sunday morning.  I remember asking my Christian friends why they believed there was a guy sitting on a throne up in the sky.  None of them gave me a particularly compelling answer.  Most said, “Because the bible tells me so” or “My parents told me there is a God so there must be.”

I am really grateful that I had parents who were not religious.  I never had to break free of religious indoctrination.  I never feared God or loved him.  I never feared going to Hell, which to me was this fictitious prison that bad Christians got sent to if they angered God.  Sometimes I was told that God was a loving God and sometimes he was furiously angry, wiping out entire civilizations on a whim.  The story was very confusing.  Being non-religious, I never felt like I was missing out on anything important.  It all seemed so silly to me to believe in some invisible guy who was constantly watching you to make sure you were good.  I thought that job belonged to Santa Claus. 

As I got older, some of my friends told me they feared for my soul because I wasn’t baptized.  They told me I was automatically going to go to Hell because I was not a Christian and did not believe in Jesus.  Honestly, that seemed sort of stupid to me.  I recall saying to one of them, “So if I am really loving and kind and good but not baptized, I go to Hell?  And someone else can be a murderer or pedophile and as long as he believes in Jesus, he gets to go to Heaven?”  They told me yes.  I’m sure it’s not as easy as that, right?  I said to these friends, “Why would you want to believe in a God that punished the good and let the bad into Heaven?”  They told me believing was not a choice but a commandment.  None of it made sense to me.

There was one thing I liked about religion.  Community.  There were a lot of Christians who seemed very kind and loving.  These were usually old ladies and they ran the church parking lot sales.  I met many Christians who were so kind, compassionate and caring.  People in the church took care of each other.  Families looked out for one another.  I thought that was kind of cool.  I asked my parents what would happen to us if we were ever destitute and poor and didn’t have the Church to take care of us.  They told me I didn’t need to worry about that, as we did quite well financially.  So I stopped worrying.

By the time I got to high school I assumed I was just an atheist.  I didn’t believe in God and that was the end of my story, or so I thought.  I found myself praying to God when I was in trouble.  I found myself making deals with Him all the time.  I hoped I was wrong about God because it sure felt comforting to think there was a kindly old guy looking out for me from above.  I couldn’t rationally convince myself that He existed, but when you’re in trouble, you’ll reach for any hand that might pull you out!  Still, I never saw any evidence that He existed. I figured if he was really there and all powerful like people said, that he surely knew I didn’t believe in Him and if He had an issue with it I was sure He would take it up with me personally.

I like how my mom puts it, “I don’t believe in God but I’m afraid to say that out loud in case He gets mad at me.”  Lordy. 

As I matured I realized that religion is man’s way of trying to interpret the divine presence inside all of us, of trying to make sense of the memories we retain even after the veil is drawn and we are left here, seemingly disconnected from Source.  I reconnected with Source on my own.  I explored the divine inside of me and found God staring back.  I began to remember where I came from, where we ALL come from.  And I began to see how we are all connected, simply projections of Source incarnated into outwardly disparate bodies.  I didn’t have this realization in a church, and I didn’t read about it in a book.  I felt it.  I remembered it.  I stopped cutting myself off from Source and Source came back to me.

Today I know there is a God, but God is not some man sitting on a throne pointing his finger at us in judgment.  God is what’s gazing back at you when you look in the mirror.  Which aspect of Him are you?  Are you His compassion?  His love?  Or are you His anger?  His judgment?  His intolerance?

I’m glad I grew up without a religion.  It left me free to find God on my own, in my own way, and in my own time.  I doubt I will ever be religious.  I find it unnecessary.  God is either in your heart or not there at all.  You either carry Him with you all the time, or cut yourself off from Him.  Have you found the divine presence yet?  Can you remember where you came from and where you will return?  Does God reside in your church, or in a book, or is he sitting quietly in your heart, waiting for you to notice Him?

You can do both and they will hear you both ways.  When you think a thought, it creates energy.  That energy can be received and understood by guides, angels, higher selves, God, anything with a consciousness.  You can cast your thought to one specific energy, like your higher self, or you can cast your thought out to the Universe, like, “I am ready for love, Universe.  Bring it on!”

A lot of people think they need to be in a specific building, praying to God in a certain way.  That works, but it’s not necessary to be in a building, on a certain day, praying in a certain way.  Our guides on the other side can hear our thoughts whenever we think them. 

If you want to hear them back, that’s another story.  They don’t communicate using vocal chords and mouths to your ears.  They will respond energetically, the same way they received your communication.  So if you’re not able to tune in to their frequency, you won’t hear their message. 

But there are other ways of receiving their response or communication.  For one, you may get an image in your head, a form of clairvoyance.  You may hear a thought come back to you like, “Yes, my child, you are indeed loved.”  That’s clairaudience.  You may get a warm tingly feeling in your stomach or chills up your back.  That’s clairsentience.  Alternatively, you may get signs, symbols or synchronicities in your life, which is their way of letting you know they received your message.  Interpreting them isn’t always easy, but you do the best you can.  You can consult an intuitive, someone whose job it is to receive energy from the other side and interpret it for you.  These people, such as myself, have trained themselves to receive and interpret communication from the other side.

Who should you address yourself to?

If you need help immediately, like your life is in danger, call upon the angels.  Specifically, Archangel Michael would be a good choice.  If you need healing, call on Raphael.  If you want to commune with God, Source, Oneness, Love, direct your thoughts to your version of God.  If you want to make something happen in your life, like you want to change careers or find a new relationship, I would address yourself to your spirit guides.  If you want to remember who you really are and consult with the highest version of yourself, talk to your higher self.  If you’re curious about what it’s like on other planets or in other dimensions, ask a high vibration celestial being to communicate with you.  If you’re, uh, more attracted to the dark side, you can ask for a low vibration being to assist you.  I’d watch out for that though.  They don’t always play fair.

How do you talk to them?

Some people use meditation.  Quiet your mind, open your chakras, breathe deeply, and ask them to appear to you in your mind.  Talk to them telepathically and see what they say.

Some people like ritual.  Light some candles, turn on the fountain, add some relaxation music, chant, hum, sing; however you feel like connecting, connect. 

Some people like prayer.  Sit quietly or kneel, go into your heart and/or mind, and commune silently with your God.

Some people do well with journaling or automatic writing.  I especially recommend this technique for the left-brained folks who don’t go in for the woo-woo stuff.  Just write down some questions in a Word document, and type back the answer you see, feel, hear, or just know.  Or the answers you think you just saw, heard, felt, or knew.  Rationalize it later.

You can communicate with the other side in dreams too.  This was a method I preferred growing up.  I would program a dream or ask for a message dream on a certain night and pay close attention to what my dreams were about.  If I got myself a lucid dream, I was good to go!

There are many ways to communicate with the beings in the ether.  Try different methods until you find the one you like best.

How do you know if your guides are communicating with you or if you’re just hearing things or making things up?

Practice for one thing.  Keep communicating and acting on what you get.  See if it turns out like you thought it would.  That will strengthen your communication.  I also find that the deeper into meditation I go, the stronger the connection.  You want to get yourself to the point where you can discern the difference between your ego, logic, intuition, and guides.  It’s not likely going to happen on your first attempt unless you’re already a pretty advanced intuitive and just didn’t know it.

You can talk to your higher self, guides, angels, and God out loud with your voice if you want.  That sends the same energy as doing it in your mind.  Sometimes it feels better to hear your prayer out loud.  You can put some oomph and inflection into it. 

Knowing that the Universe receives your thoughts and wishes, I encourage you to send love and gratitude out whenever you can.  That tends to be returned in kind.  And I encourage you to watch the negative thinking as you don’t want to accidentally manifest something unfortunate for yourself.  The universe responds to our thoughts. Guard yours well or they will become your destiny.

I can’t for the life of me remember the woman’s name, but it’s probably just as well.  My aunt paid for my “lessons” which at the time cost $375 for 3 sessions.  I very nervously called her and arranged for my lessons.  But she told me she didn’t take on just anyone to be her student, so she interviewed me, asking questions about my current abilities and interest.  I think I answered all of her questions pretty well and demonstrated a fair amount of knowledge of psychic phenomenon.  Then she asked me why I wanted to learn to be psychic.  If I recall correctly I said something to the effect of, “So I can explore other realms, learn cool techniques like mind reading and telekinesis, know my future before it happens, and learn to communicate with the dead.”  She was silent for a moment and then said, “But where’s the love?  You didn’t mention love and you didn’t mention God.  You also didn’t mention helping people with your abilities.”  Oh… er, I tried to correct my answer but it was too late.

“Erin,” she said, “being psychic is about caring for others.  It’s about helping people connect with something they’ve long forgotten exists.  It’s about using your abilities to help people make conscious decisions about their lives with all the facts at their disposal.  It’s about compassion and love.  If you don’t have that, you won’t be able to reach a level where you can actually use your abilities to help others.”

I was very annoyed by her statement.  Pfft… love?  What’s love got to do with it?  Just help me unlock my powers and let me figure out how to use them okay?  Teach me and let me decide how I’ll use them.

She decided I was not a good candidate for training.  I felt so let down and defeated.  But I was eventually able to convince her that I would use my abilities to help others.  Maybe she really needed the money or maybe some other source told her to give me a shot, but she relented and agreed to train me.  I was beyond excited!

In our first phone session she went through a lot of educational material, explaining the different ways of tuning in to any latent psychic abilities I might have.  It was fascinating and I totally understood what she was conveying.  She talked about God/Source and about protecting myself and my energy whenever I did any psychic work.  She gave me meditations to use to connect with my spirit guides.  I did them religiously, enjoying every minute of it.

In our second session she explained how to gather information and took me briefly through the process for each method (tarot, pendulums, psychometry, numerology, clairvoyance, etc.)  At the end of the second session she had me take out 16 small pieces of paper.  On four pieces I wrote down the same name.  On another 4 pieces I wrote down another name, and so on until I had 16 pieces of paper with one of four names on each.  This was my big assignment.  Each day I was supposed to pick a folded piece of paper out of a basket and just hold it in my hand.  I was supposed to tune in to my guides and write down any impressions I was getting about the name on the paper.  I was not supposed to open the paper but I was supposed to put a number on it for referencing later.  So the first one I picked I wrote down all my impressions and then labeled my entry as #1 and labeled the paper as #1.  The goal was to see if I was accurately picking up impressions about the name on the paper.  She knew who all 4 people were and she knew I didn’t so she would know if I got anything right.  I had four chances with each one.

It was very hard not to cheat and open the papers after I’d written my impressions, but I didn’t want to fail so I did not cheat.  When the time came for me to call her for our third and final session I was so nervous!  I was afraid I’d get the whole thing wrong, dashing my hopes of ever becoming psychic.  In fact, I was so afraid of failure that I postponed our call and told her I was studying for finals and couldn’t call her.  She gave me another date. 

I flaked out on our final call.  I could not bring myself to call her and tell her what I’d written down for each name.  I was too afraid to fail, my ego was too wrapped up in being right or wrong.

One day she called me.  She expressed some disappointment in me for wasting her time and not trusting her own instincts about me.  I felt very ashamed because I had wasted my aunt’s money and I had wasted this woman’s time.  The last thing she left me with was this… “When love is your primary reason for being psychic, your abilities will come.  When care and compassion are what drives and motivates you then the door will open.  Everyone has the potential, but not everyone is able to unlock it.  Only love unlocks this gift.”  I asked her why love was so important, why it made such a big difference.  She told me, “Love is what connects us with God/Source.  If you can’t feel the love, you cannot feel God’s tendrils.  And it’s God’s gift you are receiving.  You must be worthy of handling the gift.”

I was young. I really didn’t understand.  Today, I understand completely, and she was right.  Sure, I’ve had psychic abilities my whole life.  I’ve been able to tune in to my own psychic radio since I was a young girl.  But it wasn’t until I developed an intense compassion for people, until I understood that we are all One, until I cared what happened to others, that my gift was unlocked and I was able to use it to help others.  I am just a conduit.  I understand that now.  I am blessed and humbled to be able to hear and see what others cannot.  And I have a responsibility to pass on what I hear and see to those who consult with me.  There is love behind every reading I give, it’s the driving force behind what I do.  It took me almost 20 years to figure it out.

If you’re working on developing your own psychic abilities ask yourself the same question she asked me.  “Where’s the love?”  Do you feel it?  Are you connected to Source?  Have you allowed yourself to be a conduit for that love, or are you developing your abilities so you can pick lottery numbers or intrude on people’s thoughts?

I wish I could go back today and tell her I finally understood what she was trying to tell me.  I hope that wherever she is she somehow knows that I finally got it. 

Love is the key, and you don’t have to go too far to find it.  It’s buried in your own heart.  Remember your connection to Source and that you are never truly alone.