The event

I was driving from Wiener Neustadt to the IAEA’s lab in Seibersdorf, where I worked as a clerical assistant. I was driving along the Babenberger-Ring. Just in the moment when I was passing the fire station, I heard a strong, driving wind. It was very loud and lasted a number of seconds. I realized immediately that it wasn’t a physical wind, but rather a spiritual wind. Nonetheless, I looked at the trees along the street to see if they were moving, but, as I expected, they weren’t.

Nothing further happened.

I had no idea what it meant.

Thoughts and theories

In Acts of the Apostles, Verse 2 lines 1 through 3, it says, “When the day of Pentecost came, it found them [the apostles] gathered in one place. Suddenly from up in the sky, there came a noise like a strong, driving wind which was heard all through the house, where they were seated. Tongues as of fire appeared, which parted and came to rest on each of them.”

My theory is that I heard the same wind. Was it around the time of Pentecost? I don’t know, as I didn’t write down the date. There was no tongue of fire, at least none that I saw, but in the moment of hearing the wind I was driving past the fire station.

Reading the next lines in Acts, I learn that everyone around heard the wind, not just the apostles. My theory, however, is that on this occasion I was the only person to hear the spiritual wind. This can only be a theory, of course — there’s no way I can know if others heard it or not.

Der Beitrag Hearing the strong, driving wind erschien zuerst auf spiritual-encounters.

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1^st account — My mother could see “fairy lights” as a child

You remember what we call those colourful lights that we string up at outdoor parties? We call them fairy lights.

When my mother was a child, she could see small colourful lights up at the ceiling inside their home. She saw them again and again, always in the same spot. One day she mentioned them to her mother. Her mum said, “Oh don’t be silly. There are no lights up there.” My mother never saw the lights again.

2^nd account — My mother met my father three months after he died

Three months after he had died, my father visited my mother. It was daytime in Port Moresby when Mum’s subconscious mind suddenly said to her, “I’m going to meet Alex tonight.” That night, she fell asleep. She came to consciousness in mind, although not in body. She saw the arrival of some kind of mass, which had light and was vibrating very fast. The vibrations slowed down, and Mum recognized my father’s form, just his head and chest. He was very young; he was the age he had been when they first met. My mum said, “Oh Alex, I knew I would meet you!” My young father spoke these words to her, “You were right. There is life after death.” With that, the event was over. My mother woke up in the morning.

3^rd account — My mother met Alex Stewart after he died

A similar event.

Mum had an old friend whom she had known in her younger day in Sydney, Alex Stewart. (He was also called Alex, like my father).

One morning in Port Moresby, Mum woke up and could remember that Alex Stewart had visited her during the night. He told her that he had been killed by a car. On waking in the morning, Mum told us about it, me and my sister. She couldn’t figure out if she had been dreaming, or if it was a real meeting. My sister and I assured her it had been a real meeting, and that this visit showed that he still loved her very much.

Two or three years later when visiting Sydney, Mum was talking to another old friend. The old friend said to her, “Did you hear about Alex Stewart? He was walking home one night and got hit by a car and killed.”

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When my Mum was a young woman in Sydney, she had to choose between two men who wanted to marry her — Alex Stewart and Alex Flory. Mum chose Alex Flory.

4^th account — I met my mother three months after she died

I’ve never forgotten that Mum met Dad three months after he died.

After my mother died, I hoped I could have the same experience. I prepared myself for it. I spoke to Mum in a normal fashion, telling her that I wanted her to visit me exactly three months later, just as Dad had visited her.

Looking ahead to the exact day, three months later, at the exact time on the clock, I knew where I would be. I would be driving home from our Seibersdorf lab. I identified, in advance, where I could pull over and park. I timed exactly when I should leave the lab, to reach that spot no later than that exact time. The spot was in Eggendorf.

So on the day, I was approaching Eggendorf. Just moments before I reached the spot, I smelled a very familiar fragrance inside the car — it was Mum’s fragrance, the same fragrance we could smell on her pea-green cardigan when we were children. We loved that cardigan because it had Mum’s fragrance on it. I turned to the passenger seat and smiled. I spoke, although I could see nothing there, “Oh Mum, you’re here! Thank you for visiting me.” Moments later I reached the spot and parked the car. I sat there for a little while.

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Actually, I should include this event under Part 1 — Momentary experiences, but for some reason, I would rather put it here.

Here’s one account that no-one told me, but rather, I read it in a book, so it has no place on my website at all, but I can’t resist sharing it with you. I can no longer identify the book. It was a collection of supposedly true stories. I got it from Pickwicks in Vienna and took it back there, not thinking that I would need it again today.

5^th account — The fairies at Hills Hotel

A guest was staying at the Hills Hotel on the hill above Largs in Scotland. In the morning he took a walk outside, passing the well-tended flower beds. He saw, to his astonishment, fairies dancing in the flower beds. He went inside and told the people at the Reception. Another couple said, yes, they had also seen the fairies but hadn’t mentioned it because they thought no-one would believe them.

It wasn’t clear if the fairies could see the people.

Many years later, in 2014, I visited the former Hills Hotel. By then it had been turned into a sports hotel, open only to athletes, but you could still drive up the hill, up the long driveway, park and walk into the hotel. I did that. I visited the flower beds. They were two long narrow beds. They weren’t well tended and had become more like weed beds than anything else. If I had hoped to see fairies, I was disappointed.

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These are freak events, but they do happen. As people say, “The veil must have been thin on that day.”

I have read (and again I can no longer remember in which book) that fairy-tale creatures do exist in spirit. So fairies, elves, gnomes etc. exist in the spirit world. Over the centuries a great many people must have seen them. Those people have shared their knowledge by writing fairy-tale stories for children. Think of the English expression, “There are fairies at the bottom of my garden.” You bet there are.

We had an elderly Austrian medium (who died in 2023), who said that when she was a child, she could see fairies (or elves or something) when walking in the woods. She didn’t say if they could see her.

And of course I’ve met those imps, the scumbags, which I describe in Part 1.

6^th account — The psychic nomadic tribe in Egypt

In Moresby Mum met an Englishman called Peter, and a years-long friendship developed.

Peter told Mum about an experience he’d had as a young man hiking in Egypt with a couple of friends. Here’s his account.

The three Englishmen arrived at the dwelling place of a nomadic tribe. They were welcomed as guests. At some moment a man in the tribe, or perhaps several men, drew Peter and one of his companions aside and told them something in private. They said that their third young companion was going to die in three days’ time. They said it would happen within sight of the sea.

Peter and his friend told the third young man about it, and they all had a good laugh.

On the third day, the three young men were hiking along a dirt road, in single file. A truck drove past them. The first two young men, Peter and the other, turned and looked back at the third man. He was lying at the side of the road. They ran back to him. He had been hit in the head by a stone that had been thrown up by the truck’s wheel. He was dead. The road they were walking on had a slight rise. On the other side of the slight rise was the Mediterranean Sea.

The men in the nomadic tribe, very psychic people, also told Peter that he would marry, but they couldn’t “see” his wife anymore. Peter asked if his wife would die, and they said no, she doesn’t die, we just can’t “see” her anymore. Peter did get married but later got divorced.

The tribe members also told Peter and his companions that their fellow countrymen were frightened of them. See, the nomadic tribe were very psychic people. Their fellow countrymen probably thought that not only can they foresee things, but they can make things happen. That would frighten people.

I doubt that the psychic nomadic tribe could make things happen. They could only foresee them, so my theory. And as I say elsewhere, people who are on the move become very psychic.

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Peter’s account gives me goose bumps every time I think of it. I posted this account yesterday and have just realised today, 6 August, that this was not a spiritual experience. It was a psychic matter and the tragic death of a young man. It doesn’t belong on my website, but I’m going to leave it here.

7^th account — The leprechaun

Richard, a friend of my sister and her husband since their 20s, told my sister this thing:

Richard met a man in Australia who had lived in eastern Europe as a small boy. Back then, his parents would choose one day every year to bring every single thing out of the house. They cleaned the empty house from top to bottom and put everything back in again.

On one such day, the small boy was standing alone in one of the rooms, now temporarily empty, the room with the fireplace. He looked over to the fireplace and saw a little man standing there. The little man saw him. They looked at one another. The little man was dressed in proper clothes, colourfully, like a gnome.

The boy heard the adults walking along the corridor toward the room. He knew they would enter the room in the next moment. He turned and looked at the door. Then he turned and looked back at the little man, but the little man was no longer there.

The boy never saw him again.

I call the little man a leprechaun. You could also call him a gnome. They can only be male, it seems. This brings me to a new thought: Can fairies only be female?

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You remember the Irish poem — “Up the airy mountain, down the rushy glen, we daren’t go a-hunting for fear of little men …”

8^th account — Meeting the Masters of Law

I met a woman who’s a gnostic student. She’s had several spiritual experiences. She’s learned through reading the works of Master Samael Aun Weor that there are Temples of Healing. These are spiritual temples, not physical buildings. This woman prayed for healing. This provoked the following spiritual experience that she had. I quote her:

“What I was looking for was help with energy. I often feel depleted of energy. I feel tired when there’s no reason to be. Medically, I do lack chromium, which plays a crucial role in energy production within the body. Through gnostic studies I’ve learned that there are healing temples that you can go to, so I was doing some meditations with the purpose of actually being able to go, in an astral experience, to a temple of healing, which has a name, and in that temple there are actually Masters of Medicine, and if they’re allowed to heal you, they can take you into an area of the temple and see your entire body in its atomic form, just like atoms whirling around and they can see where you have damaged your ephemeral self, or your atomic self, and they can begin to heal you.

However, having done the meditations and followed the protocol and prayers that were needed, I then had an experience in the astral where I went to an entirely different temple. I found myself travelling, moving on the astral plane, and I came up against, or in front of, three (or maybe four) “Masters of Law”, sitting at a podium, like a large judge’s desk. They were all in black, in black robes. They had black berets on their heads and their faces must have been behind something that was black, like a veil, because I couldn’t see their faces, but I had a sense that their faces were there and they were looking at me — but I couldn’t see anything, they were just black forms. They were not in any way threatening; they were just sitting there like three judges dressed in black robes. I got a very definite sense that they were three males. And the one on my left as I was standing there facing them had some sheets of paper in his hand, and he was looking at the papers and passing them rather quickly to the next man, who looked and gave a cursory read and passed them to the next judge, and they each passed at least three pieces of paper between each other, to the end person. This didn’t take them very long. It seemed like there was a lot there, but it didn’t take them any time at all to absorb everything that was written there.

I was there to ask for healing, but I didn’t have to say anything; I just stood there. And then one of them said — I don’t know which one it was — No, I could not be healed by the Masters of Medicine because I had karma to pay. They didn’t tell me how to pay this karma; that’s something I have to find out for myself. I’m still in the process of that, but the upshot was, from these Masters of Law, that I couldn’t be healed because some of our medical problems in life, or our physical problems in life, are because we have karma, it’s not because we have any other thing at all; it comes from karma, and he said to me, telepathically, You have karma to pay.

Then that was it, and for the first time in my life I was aware of Divine Mother, standing right there beside me, on my right-hand side, and I was dismissed, again telepathically, as in, You have to go now. And Divine Mother immediately ushered me out of that scene, and it was as if She had spoken to me, We have to go. I wanted to stay and say, “But … I have circumstances …”. That’s what I wanted to say, and I wanted to explain my circumstances, but there was none of that. The circumstances don’t matter. What matters is I have karma to pay, and until I pay that karma, I will have this problem, the problem of no energy, the lack of chromium in my physical body. You get chromium from almost everything you eat, broccoli for example, and I eat broccoli almost every night. I should be topped up with chromium; I should have an excess of chromium, but I have none, and not even taking chromium tablets helps. But I know now that that comes from the fact that I have karma to pay. Divine Mother was there, and once I had been dismissed, there was no further dialogue. I wasn’t needed anymore. I had to leave, and She, without touching me, just lead me by Her power or Her force or Her strength — She lead me away from that scene. It seemed like I had to turn and walk into what was perhaps bright light, and the words from Divine Mother, the first time I ever heard Her speak, were “We have to go” and She took me out of that area.

And then that was it. The whole experience finished. I woke up with full and complete awareness that I had been in the astral, that I had been in front of these three judges. I did write all this down, and I did go and talk to my gnostic lecturers at the time.

Q: How did you know they were the Masters of Law?

A: Because that’s how they presented themselves. There are Masters of Law as there are Masters of Medicine. They’re the only two types of Master that interact. I have not learned about any more. So the Masters of Medicine are there and I certainly will, at another time in my life, try to meet them and to be healed by them in other ways, but for now I know that I have to pay karma. So I asked my gnostic lecturers, How do I pay off this karma? By meditation, they said. You have to meditate, and that’s how you can pay back a lot of your karma — by daily meditation.

Q: Were the Masters of Law once human?

A: Yes, as far as I’m aware, the Masters were human souls. I asked recently about who they were … Socrates is one of them. I was told that two are living now, and they know they’re Masters of Law (or their Beings are).

So to me that was just an absolutely incredible experience. It gave me a huge insight into what is really there in the astral world, on the astral plane. I learned always to go with Divine Mother. Always pray to Her to lead you safely into the astral world, if that is where you want to go, and to guide you when you are there.

Q: Is the Divine Mother Mary?

A: Mary is a Divine Mother. She is like the Divine Mother, the Mother Superior. We all have our own Divine Mother, as we all have our own Being. She’s part of us. She’s part of our spiritual wholeness. Our Being is our inner God. The Divine Mother is the feminine aspect of that. We have many parts to us, and in my studies I’m learning more and more about these different parts, but so far I can talk about the Being, and I can talk about Divine Mother, because they’re the two that I have experienced. Everyone’s Being has many, many parts. We all have our own Being, our own inner connection with the ultimate God.

The Divine Mother, Kundalini, is always with you. When you want to go into the astral, you should always pray to your Divine Mother and ask Her for Her guidance and protection. She is always with you. But before I had this experience, I was not aware of Her. I had never met my Divine Mother. I was told of Her existence but I had never experienced Her.”

Der Beitrag Other people’s encounters, as told to me erschien zuerst auf spiritual-encounters.

Your past lives

People want to know if they were a certain person in a past life. There are two ways to find out, that I know of.

The first way you can’t make happen — but if it happens all by itself, then it furnishes absolute proof. This way is when you “take on” your spiritual body from a previous incarnation; you take it on from one moment to the next, in full consciousness. This way can only be provoked by a strong trigger, and it’s outside your control.

The second way you can make happen — it’s the simple “hand levitation” exercise, using a written list of names. I describe this exercise in Part 3. You can argue that this way doesn’t furnish absolute proof. Myself, I think the proof is good enough. But that point is debatable.

True dreams

These are psychic dreams. Joan Grant had many of them. They reveal an event, or events, from a past life. Maybe you’ve had some of these.

My psychic ability, limited though it is, has enabled me to have the occasional true dream. You really do see an event, and yourself actively involved in that event, your own event, from a past life. A true dream requires a trigger. Me, I find the trigger to be a person. If a person, someone whom I knew in a past life, comes into my environment, their arrival might trigger me to have a true dream. Do I know which person it is? Sometimes I do.

I won’t recount my several true dreams here. I’ll mention just one. I had it when I was a teenager. It showed me an event that happened, in which I was involved. I read about it later, when I was a older. My true dream was accurate, even pinpointing the exact location, a location I can visit today. I figure that if one of my true dreams is accurate, they all are.

True dreams mostly deal with past lives, but I had one that showed me my next life, from age 19 to about age 26, so seven years.

Early memories

From earliest childhood up to age 10, I could remember the places where I had lived before. By “places” I mean the facades of buildings, and by “before” I mean the time before this time.

As a child, it didn’t occur to me to mention these memories to Mum. I assumed that everyone had such memories. When I got older and realised that such memories weren’t universal, I did mention them to Mum, just once.

My theory: All infants and small children remember scenes from their most recent past life. But they grow out of these memories so early that they don’t later remember having them. In my case I didn’t grow out of the memories until age 10, so I never forgot that I had them. I can’t recall those facades today. I know only that they were European buildings, not Australian buildings.

Your next life

If there’s something you want to achieve in your next life, do the groundwork for it in this life.

As I say elsewhere, work on your delinquencies now, otherwise you might take them with you into your next life.

You are now — or will become — a huge reservoir of experience, gained over many lifetimes. You gain stature with every lifetime. An old soul has immeasurable stature.

Reflecting further

Humans are the highest entity in the physical world

The highest entity that can live in the physical world is the human soul. Higher entities can visit on a spiritual plane, but they don’t come physically into the world.

The world’s quietest moment

When did the first human soul come into the world? We know it happened, because we’re here. My theory is this: A divine spark, creating a human soul, was bestowed on two embryos, male and female. The two children were born. They belonged to a tribe of our earliest ancestors.

The two children grew up in the tribe. Together, they produced more children. Their children were human souls, who in turn produced human souls. And from those two earliest humans we all descended. You can call them Adam and Eve if you want to, but I call them Og and Ug, because we didn’t have language back then.

What a day it was in our world when the divine spark was bestowed. What a moment. But no reporter was present, no cameraman. It was the world’s quietest moment.

The higher spirit world doesn’t interfere

The higher spirit world doesn’t step in to stop bad stuff from happening. Our decisions are our own free will. A higher entity doesn’t appear before us and say, “Would you like to re-consider your decision?” As Dolores Cannon says on YouTube, “This is a free-will planet.” We alone bear responsibility.

There’s an exception to every rule. I’ve heard of an occasion when the higher spirit world did step in to stop something bad from happening: A Negro teenager and two adult Negro men were about to be lynched by an angry mob. A voice in the crowd spoke, “Leave the boy alone. He had nothing to do with it.” The voice, unidentified, spoke with such authority that the crowd obeyed. The teenager grew up to become a pastor.

The key to peace

The key to peace is assimilation. Gandhi said, “There is no way to peace; peace is the way”, but Gandhi got it wrong. There is a way to peace. It’s assimilation.

The three commandments

We have the Ten Commandments, and we have the Noble Eightfold Path. And then we have my three — you shall not kill, you shall not steal, you shall not harm. The rest takes care of itself.

The seat of knowledge

The solar plexus chakra is our seat of knowledge. Sometimes a piece of knowledge comes up from there, into our conscious minds. That’s the gut feeling that people speak of. You can strengthen this ability. Take a minute to travel in your mind down to your solar plexus. Be there, and be aware that you’re there. I find this simple exercise strengthens my ability to get gut feelings.

Dilys Gater describes the solar plexus chakra very well in one paragraph in her book, Celtic Wise Woman.

The grounding cord

When meditating, or just simply contemplating, it’s very important to stay grounded. If you don’t stay grounded you can open yourself up to spiritual harm. Use your grounding cord, like this: Imagine a very strong, thick root that’s wrapped around your waist. It goes down, down into the ground, very deep. It keeps you well and truly grounded. You can practise this exercise anywhere, even when standing in a queue.

The colour spectrum of the chakras

The seven main chakras each have a colour, and the colours follow the order of the colour spectrum. Since colour arises from light being refracted, this shows that our chakras are receiving spiritual light and refracting it. Why do our chakras receive spiritual light? Is it so that colour can be created, thus creating beauty? Or is there some greater purpose? I suppose that spiritual light, refracted or otherwise, is one of the essential qualities of the spirit world.

Seeing visual purple

Rhodopsin, so I read, gives rise to the visual purple we sometimes see when our eyes are closed. But what triggers this to happen? For me, it works like this: When I have contemplative thoughts, “edifying” thoughts, if I can use such an elegant word, it produces visual purple in front of my closed eyelids. The purple is like a beacon light, revolving. But when I stop thinking “edifyingly”, the purple disappears immediately.

Psychic moments

Sometimes we have a psychic moment when waking up — the brain has theta brainwaves upon waking up, for a few seconds — this is a well-known phenomenon.

People who are on the move become more psychic. Simply travelling in a vehicle increases my own psychic ability. I also became more psychic as I grew older.

The difference between men and women?

What makes us different is testosterone, not the various appendages.

The way I see it: A man has two masters, testosterone and ego. He has to get them under control. A woman has no testosterone and an angelic ego.

For a man, it’s a case of Do or Die, but a woman doesn’t entertain such nonsense. Women don’t like things happening outside their control. A man can handle that, and sometimes even goes looking for it. A man can ride on the back of a whale, attached to it by a piece of string. He doesn’t know what’s going to happen next. A woman can’t do that. A woman doesn’t like danger and abhors injury.

Why do girls not like getting hurt? We have to protect ourselves. We’re going to bear new life inside us, one day. We mustn’t get any injury, especially an internal injury.

The soul has to progress, and the only successful progression is a well-balanced one. In some lifetimes we have to use male power, push boundaries. In other lifetimes we need to have a different range of experiences, to live effectively, but in a subtly different way.

Goethe was once asked what the world’s most important work was, and he said it was the work of a mother. (I can’t verify that this is true. I read it decades ago in a leaflet.)

Melody of Ode to Joy

It’s clear that Beethoven didn’t compose this melody, and apparently Mozart didn’t either. When I came to live in Vienna in 1978, I read in German that it was a Volksweise, a folk tune. This was stated in one sentence, without further detail. The original composer wasn’t named (I assumed his name was no longer known). I think I read this sentence on the sleeve of a recording of the Ninth Symphony. I’m pretty sure it was a recording, and I didn’t buy the record because I didn’t have a record player. I know of no way today to find that single sentence again. People have long ago stopped quoting it, and it’s gone out of our knowledge.

Back to the melody — Mozart popped it into KV 222. Beethoven made a grand affair of it. I think Beethoven copied from Mozart, and Mozart copied from the Volksweise. Or they both copied from the Volksweise. Well I’m glad they did that, or otherwise we would have lost the melody.

Every time we mention the Ode to Joy, we should mention Schiller.

The Gospel of Judas

Years ago I saw parts of a documentary on TV about this. An ancient manuscript has been discovered. It records some things that Christ is said to have told Judas alone, in private. One of the things was, “You will exceed all the others” (meaning all the other apostles) — because Judas’ action enabled Christ’s destiny to be fulfilled. It’s not clear in what way Judas will exceed the others. A great many lines from the manuscript have been lost. But even if we had every line still intact, we might find that Christ didn’t clarify this matter further.

When will Judas “exceed the others”? It won’t happen while he’s a human soul. No human soul is raised above the level of another human soul.

My theory: Judas was asked, in the spirit world before he was born, if he would take on this role. (As we all are asked to take on roles, big and small.) Judas said “yes”. (As we all say “yes”.) After he was born, he had no conscious memory of this. Christ was well aware of it. It was, for some reason, not appropriate for Christ to share this information with anyone. In the gospels Christ is quoted as saying some pretty harsh things about Judas (“It would be better for that man if he had never been born”) — but did He really say these things? Perhaps those words were put into His mouth.

Why did Judas commit suicide? Because he had no conscious memory that he had agreed, in the spirit world, to perform this deed. But why did he agree? Why didn’t he say no? He can say no, can’t he? Yes, he can. But he knew that if he says no, someone else will have to do it.

Be clear about one thing, people: I’m not doing a whitewash job on Judas. He was a misguided man, who totally misread the situation. But a misguided man was needed. None of the others could be asked to do this deed; they weren’t misguided.

Whatever we decide about the Gospel of Judas, we have to remember one thing — Christ chose Judas.

Daily stuff

How to think properly

Rudolf Steiner said that, in order to think properly, you should remove yourself from the subject and then think about it. This is very good advice. Follow this advice and you’ll become neutral and fair. Your opinion will no longer play a role. Follow this advice and you’ll never be bettered in an argument.

The power of formulas

Formulas are very powerful things. Some of these are my original ideas, others have been told to me.

• Don’t contrive — The first formula I ever devised. It allowed me to comport myself properly in an awkward situation, several times.
• You don’t need to look for courage if you put fear aside.
• Action is better than inaction — This simple sentence gets you up and moving.
• When in doubt, say “yes” — We don’t know what to do. The pros and cons weigh exactly the same. Say “yes”, not “no”.
• This is the perfect moment to do this thing.
• Be of good cheer, but if you can’t be of good cheer, be of good energy — Restores your positive mood.
• What would superman do? — Very helpful in an insecure moment.
• I also read this: If someone frightens you, imagine them dressed in long underwear. My own idea: If you dislike someone, imagine them being very old, very old and frail. Do this repeatedly — it brings your mind into proper balance as regards that dislikable person.
• And finally, a very important formula: If you see someone who doesn’t like you, you might be unsure how to handle yourself in that moment. Tell yourself this: “That person doesn’t like me. That’s alright. That person doesn’t have to like me.” It defuses the situation immediately.

The power of visualizing

You have to learn a physical skill? In your mind, do this physical thing again and again. This is “visualizing”, and it will improve your skill greatly. I learnt a physical skill to a very high level doing this.

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Anger?

Anger is a regular human emotion. As I learned in the Art of Living (AOL) course, you may get angry but don’t be angry.

Revenge?

You don’t always win. Don’t take revenge.

Hatred?

We’re supposed to hate what people do but not the people themselves. This means we hate what Hitler did, but we don’t hate him. Manage that, if you can.

Forgiveness?

Is forgiveness only possible after atonement has been done, even hundreds of years later? Perhaps. And atonement can be done as a service to any person — it doesn’t have to be done to the original victim.

You forgave someone — you succeeded in forgiving them, and yet you couldn’t make it stick. I think you just have to acknowledge it. I come back to the thought that forgiveness will be possible after atonement is done.

Your decisions

Don’t blame other people for your decisions. You knew what you were doing.

My two epiphanies

When I was in my 20s, I had two epiphanies. An epiphany is not simply getting a new idea. We do that all the time. An epiphany is more powerful: You wake up to something; you never forget it, and it guides you for the rest of your life.

Realist vs idealist

I was 24 years old. I was at work at IIASA, standing by my IBM typesetter. I suddenly had a revelation: I can be either an idealist or a realist, but I can’t be both. It’s time to decide, and my decision will set my path for the future. Up until that moment I had been an idealist, and I defended idealism. I decided to become a realist. I changed in that moment.

Thinking for myself

I was in my late 20s. I was hiking. I crossed a farmer’s field and saw something incongruous in the field. I didn’t know why it would be there. I looked around. Was there someone I could ask? Was the farmer out there somewhere, within calling distance? Nope. As I stood there, it dawned on me that people aren’t going to come to me and drop answers into my lap. If I want answers, I’ll have to figure them out for myself. From that moment on, I started thinking for myself.

(I can’t remember what the incongruous thing was.)

Der Beitrag More reflections erschien zuerst auf spiritual-encounters.

In my next life I want to learn all this again, but at age 20 and in one sitting.

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Drink full-cream milk

A lot of people are down on drinking milk. One doctor told me it causes flatulence. It doesn’t. Sitting in your seat all day produces flatulence, doctor.

In my 30s I started drinking one, sometimes two, glasses of full-cream milk daily. The benefits kicked in almost immediately. First of all I got a feeling of well-being. Then I stopped having muscle cramps (thanks to the magnesium) and my muscles got stronger, giving me more physical strength, especially in my arms. My gums became healthier and stopped receding. I also stopped getting gum infections, which I had been prone to. My teeth were no longer sensitive to cold, and my bite got stronger. I also stopped biting the inside of my cheek when eating. My fine, straight hair started to look better. And finally, I stopped waking up in the early hours with a ticklish cough. That cough was caused by a lack of calcium. I also remember reading that a lack of calcium causes premature greying.

You need the fat in full-cream milk to absorb all the minerals properly.

Mouth ulcers, dry lips

Sores in the mouth are caused by a lack of Vitamin C. Taking Vitamin C cures the problem immediately. Do you have dry lips? That’s a lack of minerals. Start eating mixed nuts.

Cranberry juice

Drinking cranberry juice cures a urinary track infection (a UTI), in my own experience.

Eating fish

Your lungs are healthy, but you have a problem: You can’t absorb air when you breathe. Do you never eat fish? Start eating fish twice a week, and your problem will be solved. Me, I never ate fish and had no breathing problem until early middle age. But then I got the breathing problem, and it was bad. Coincidentally I started eating sushi around that time — simply because it was all the rage — and the problem went away immediately. I realised, after a little while, that eating fish had cured the problem.

Date syrup

Take a spoonful of date syrup every day. It cures spring sleepiness (Frühjahrsmüdigkeit), which is very common in Austria, and it’s probably good for you in other ways. You can buy it in Middle Eastern shops.

Hiccups

Sugar stops hiccups.

Don’t re-freeze frozen vegetables

If your veggies thaw and you re-freeze them and then eat them later — you’ll get very sick. A warning is printed on the packet, but not everyone reads the packet.

Put brandy in jam

It stops mould from forming. Also wipe the inside of the jam jar cap with brandy. This is a well-known tip, yet not everyone knows it.

The benefit of Underberg

Underberg is a digestive bitter. Sometimes you have a problem digesting a good meal — and there was nothing wrong with the meal, but you know you won’t be able to keep it down — then drink some Underberg. Within minutes you’ll be all better. I always kept some Underberg at work, because sometimes colleagues felt sick (for some unknown reason, maybe stress combined with eating), and it cured them immediately.

Rennies or Quick-Eze antacid tablets

Sometimes you get an acidic stomach, especially from work stress. Or you get a bad pain, usually in the leg, from having too much alcohol. Take antacid tablets to cure that problem.

Wake up with fresh breath

Drink a glass of warm water first thing in the morning, as soon as you get up. It’s said to clean the system, and it probably does — I started to wake up in the mornings with fresh breath. It took a while for this good effect to kick in. (It goes without saying that you have to clean your teeth before going to bed.)

Use a cover-up cream

This is an upsetting personal problem. Some people have blackheads on their nose. They’re hereditary. There are plenty of tips on the Internet for deep cleansing, but deep cleansing doesn’t help. Blackheads can indeed be removed by cleansing, but what’s the point? They come back ten minutes later.

Here’s the solution: Use a cover-up cream, like Crème Camphréa from Guerlain. The cream is very effective at covering up. It lasts all day, doesn’t clog the pores and isn’t visible — no-one will realise you’re wearing cream.

This tip is just as critical for men as it is for women.

Brush your hair backwards

Put your head down and brush your hair up and over your head — this gives your hair more body.

Freshen up with talcum powder

Put the powder on your clothes, not on you.

How to stay warm in bed

Lie with a pillow next to you. One pillow on one side is enough.

Wear a towel around your waist

Getting back to that bad pain you can get if you drink too much alcohol (because of too much acid, I suppose) — wear a big towel around your middle. The pain goes away after 20 minutes. Many years ago a doctor recommended this to an elderly person we knew, and she slept every night with a large towel wrapped around her middle. I was too young to ask her what her problem was (in her case it wasn’t alcohol).

Don’t use anything elasticated. You need a cushion of air between you and the towel, and an elasticated garment won’t allow for a cushion of air.

Cold wet rag on hot days

Wear it around your neck. It’ll keep you cool. This is helpful if you don’t have air-conditioning or a fan.

Hair falling out

Have you started losing hair? Single hairs are falling out, and you find them everywhere? This can be a symptom of cancer.

Colonoscopy

From age 50 onwards, it’s essential to have colonoscopies. Repeat them every 10 years, or more frequently. Many people develop benign polyps in their colon in middle age; they’re very common. They’re symptomless for many years, but when symptoms do come, they’re puzzling and inconvenient. The polyps have to be removed — quickly and cleanly in a colonoscopy — otherwise they can become cancerous.

Sore spots

As we grow older, it happens that sometimes we discover a really sore spot somewhere. Press strongly with your thumb or finger on the spot. Do this repeatedly over a few days. The sore spot will go away.

Lumbago

In my mid-60s I got a case of lumbago, lower-back pain. I could hardly walk. I went to an orthopaedic surgeon, who said it was caused by getting older. He offered cortisone injections, although he himself thought they wouldn’t help. I gladly accepted them, but he was right, they didn’t help.

Coming home from the orthopaedic surgeon, I sat in my reclining chair. It occurred to me to put my legs up, something I’d never done before. Recliners always come with footstools. Some are built in, some are sold separately. For the first time, I put my legs up. The next day I got the idea to lie down in bed with my legs up. I did that. I lay with my legs up on the bedstead, not bent but straight, for 15 minutes. After 15 minutes, I got up and could walk without pain. I repeated this over the next few days.

It cured the lumbago.

I also realized what had brought on the lumbago. It wasn’t caused by getting older. Every day I had been getting out of my high bathtub very heavily, landing heavily on the same leg. I started to get out of the high tub very slowly and carefully.

The lumbago has never come back.

The benefit of massage

When I see an elderly person hobbling across the road, I wonder – would they be able to walk properly if they would have massages? I’ve started having chair massages, and they’ve made me more nimble. I’m able to walk fast again, to lope, as I did when young. I think especially the massage that treats the fascias is effective for this.

My Mum had a Thai massage once a month in her old age. She was surprisingly nimble.

Der Beitrag Health and beauty tips erschien zuerst auf spiritual-encounters.

Eau de Cologne is an odour neutralizer

Eau de Cologne neutralizes the odour of urine. Use it to get rid of cat pee, for example. You can daub it on clothing, mats, on anything. Another thing — elderly women should know about this tip. But we don’t need to speak more about that.

Write against a ruler

If you write against a ruler, it produces perfect printing. Very handy for writing labels, etc.

Wear a scrunchy on your wrist …

… when you’re washing your face and brushing your teeth. It stops the water from running down your arm.

Driving in a foreign country

Before your trip, arrange with a driving school in that foreign country to have a double driving lesson. This will give you all the confidence and knowledge you require to drive in that country.

Look at people’s hair

Do you want to notice what people look like without staring at them? Don’t look at their face, look at their hair. If you look at their hair, you see the entire bust of that person. You notice what they look like. I discovered this trick at work. One day I realised that I didn’t know what my colleagues’ hair looked like, or even the colour of their hair. So I started to look purposefully at their hair. Then I realised, by doing this, that I was noticing the entire bust of the person, and this was more effective than looking at their face.

I used this trick when travelling to work on the Vienna metro. I wanted to pay attention to the people in the train carriage, but I didn’t want to look directly at them, because they realised I was looking at them and they didn’t like it. So I started looking at their hair; I noticed what they looked like, and not one person realised I was looking at them.

Der Beitrag Practical tips erschien zuerst auf spiritual-encounters.

The whole of Part 5 has nothing to do with spiritual matters, but the tips are valuable and worth sharing.

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Dogs and cows

Don’t take your dog walking in a field where there are cows. The cows get enraged at the presence of a dog and will attack you, the human, sometimes fatally. They won’t attack the dog.

No cat or kitten in a room with a sleeping baby

When I was in my 20s, I read a piece of advice: Don’t let a cat stay in a room with a sleeping baby. The cat will lie on the baby’s face and will suffocate it. When I was 40 I adopted a kitten. Several times at night the kitten lay on my face, covering my nose, and I stopped breathing. Each time I woke up and shifted my head slightly, so I could breathe again. A baby wouldn’t have done that.

I think the kitten was annoyed at the draught, the flow of air from my nostrils onto her fur, so she blocked the annoying draught. When she became a full-grown cat, she didn’t lie on my face anymore.

Upshot: I would let neither kitten nor full-grown cat stay in a room with a sleeping baby.

The footbrake on your automatic car …

… won’t work if you haven’t turned the engine on. Don’t coast down the hill without turning the engine on.

Don’t keep an empty chest unlocked

If you have an empty linen chest in your home, and you have children, keep the chest locked and the key hidden. The children can be playing hide and seek, and they can hide in the chest. The lid closes, and the children can’t open it from the inside. It’s airtight.

This tragedy happened in Austria. Some years ago, two small boys hid in a chest. They couldn’t be found. By the time the family thought to look in the chest, the boys had died.

Last year, 2023, I heard of such a tragedy again. This time it was in Florida. Two twin sisters suffocated in their toy box. I can’t imagine why a toy box would be built so sturdily that it’s airtight and sound-proof, but it was.

My advice is to tell your children about the danger and either get rid of large, airtight boxes, or keep them locked.

Repel sharks with brightly-striped swimwear

It’s known that bright stripes repel sharks. For sharks, the bright stripes look like coral snakes, which are brightly striped and poisonous. Sharks are frightened of coral snakes and will swim away.

For this reason, people put bright stripes on their surf boards. I say go one step further: Wear bright stripes yourself. Swim with clothing that’s brightly striped, such as a brightly-striped t-shirt. Best is if the t-shirt has elastic fibres (spandex, elastane), so it’ll hug your body and won’t float up.

My own experience: In 2017 I went swimming with the nurse sharks at Staniel Cay in the Bahamas. I think I was wearing my swimming t-shirt, because I always wear it to protect from sunburn (although I don’t remember this particular detail on that particular day). My swimming t-shirt just happens to be a bright, red-and-white striped, body-hugging t-shirt. Our whole group was in the shallow water with the friendly nurse sharks milling around. But then I got in the water, and the nurse sharks all swam away. After a few minutes I got out, and the nurse sharks all came back.

My feelings were hurt. Back then I didn’t connect repelling the sharks with the striped t-shirt, which I might or might not have been wearing.

It’s not enough for your swimwear to be bright; it also has to be striped.

A young Austrian man asked me if all sharks are repelled by stripes, even those who’ve never seen a coral snake. I can’t answer that question.

Update of 28 July 2024: Today I asked Google’s Gemini if it’s true that sharks are repelled by bright stripes. Gemini said “No”. But I don’t agree. Here’s one way to test it: Go to an aquarium, a large aquarium with a shark tank where you get to stand on one side of the glass and the sharks are swimming on the other side, a few feet away from you. Wear bright stripes and see if you repel the sharks.

Der Beitrag Lifesaving tips erschien zuerst auf spiritual-encounters.

There’s a lot of info out there on this topic. Here’s what I have to say:

You hold the pendulum, and it moves by itself. You ask a simple Yes or No question. The pendulum moves as if answering the question. The answer can be right or wrong.

Since the pendulum isn’t guaranteed to give only right answers, its value (at least for me) is in provoking new thoughts. It provokes me into thinking more. This exercise also brings the brainwaves down to a deeper level, so I’m more calmed, better balanced, at the end of it.

The lighter the pendulum, the stronger the movements. A threaded needle is recommended by Dilys Gater (in Celtic Wise Woman), and I also find it to be the best choice.

This is how it works for me (and possibly for others):

Right at the start, the pendulum moves in geometrical lines, always the same lines and always in the same order. The lines draw the design of a wheel with eight spokes. So, first the pendulum moves in a horizontal line, then a vertical line, then a left diagonal, then a right diagonal. Finally, it moves in a circle, usually clockwise, although sometimes it can be anticlockwise. Only then does the pendulum come to rest.

At that point I can start to ask questions. The pendulum moves again, but this time in response to the questions — the horizontal movement being “yes” and the vertical movement being “no”. But since the answers can be right or wrong, the value is really only in the new thoughts that this exercise provokes, and in the calming effect it produces.

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Since learning about Buddha’s Noble Eightfold Path and seeing the wheel that’s drawn to represent it, I realise that the movements of the pendulum are drawing the same geometrical figure, including, right at the end, the circumference.

Going further, I googled the number eight and read that it can mean, among other things, “a sign of balance and inner stability”. That makes sense. The pendulum exercise produces balance and inner stability.

But I haven’t figured out the full value of the pendulum exercise. I don’t know how to get only right answers on every occasion.

Der Beitrag The pendulum exercise erschien zuerst auf spiritual-encounters.

Time:  During the night
Date:  Summer of 1999
Place:  My flat at Lange Gasse 24/1, Wiener Neustadt

I was 43 years old. I slept through the night. When I woke up in the morning I could remember that I had been visited during the night by a woman whom I did not know. The woman appeared before me and said, “There will be romance in your life.” I answered diffidently, “Surely I’m too old for that now.” She replied wisely, “Who knows?” That was the end of the visit.

I understood that the woman was a “wise woman”, a gifted medium.

The takeaway

During an astral visit we feel no surprise, no wonderment that it’s happening. Even on this occasion when I didn’t know the visitor, I felt no surprise, no need to ask her who she was or why she was visiting me. For her part, she knew how to find me.

Background

There is a background and I’m aware of it, but I prefer not to share it.

Thoughts and theories

I was very pleased that this visit had happened.

Afterword

There was indeed romance in my life some little time later. But the man whom I was smitten with was married, so unattainable. For a long time I felt upset that the wise woman hadn’t told me that the man was married. Why didn’t she mention such an important fact? I mean, it changes everything. I realised only years later that she herself had not known it. She couldn’t have told me. I stopped feeling upset with her.

Der Beitrag The astral visit of the “wise woman” erschien zuerst auf spiritual-encounters.

Time:  Early in the morning
Date:  May 1998
Place:  My flat on the Wiener Straße 19/6, Wiener Neustadt

I was 41 years old. It was early morning, and I was sleeping lightly. Although I hadn’t quite woken up, I saw the arrival of an old acquaintance at the foot of my bed. I saw that he was in a sexually aroused state. In the next moment, he started to have sex with me. My astral spirit was lying next to my physical body. I woke up fully in surprise and returned to my physical body. My old acquaintance left immediately.

You might think he was a hot-blooded Latin lover, but no, he was an Englishman.

The takeaways

It’s possible to do every physical thing with our astral bodies, and everything is easy and unencumbered. There are no laws of physics that have to be followed.

If we know the person who visits us, we recognize them immediately.

People know how to find us, even if they don’t know where we live.

Background

Shortly before, I had published an article in our organization’s staff journal. My old acquaintance (a former co-worker) had read it, I guess. It brought me into his mind.

Thoughts and theories

This event is too personal to share, yet I have to share it. People should know that this kind of thing can happen. My discomfort at revealing this personal thing is a small matter, compared with the importance of sharing information.

On the astral plane, people can find us immediately. They only need to think about us and they come to where we are. My old acquaintance didn’t know where I was living, but he found me. He didn’t need a map. Did he know where he was himself? I guess not. Even though he was with me, he wouldn’t know which building, or which street, or perhaps even which town he was in.

Taking this further — can anyone visit us? Does this mean we have to accept a visitor whom we don’t want? No, it doesn’t mean that. If we don’t want a visitor, we can repel them. And don’t forget the other side: If someone doesn’t want to receive our visit, and they repel us, then we skedaddle.

Afterword

There isn’t one. We never met again after that.

Der Beitrag The astral visit of an old acquaintance erschien zuerst auf spiritual-encounters.

One day in my late 30s when I was commuting to work on the Vienna metro, I started to wonder, “Where in the brain is the conscious mind located?” I sought out my conscious mind and located it at the front of my brain, almost as far back as the centre, but still frontish. From then on, whenever it occurred to me, I would return my thoughts “home” to the front of my brain for a few seconds, just on the off-chance that it might be a good idea.

In time, this led me to a new thought: I could visit each part of my brain with my conscious mind. I was seized with the idea that doing this might turn me into a genius. I started doing this exercise. Here’s how it goes: Start at the front of the brain, the “proper dwelling place” of the conscious mind. Fill the whole front part of your brain with your conscious mind. It’ll take a little while. You’ll find that you’re breathing deeply and evenly. Once you’ve occupied that area properly, move to the left side of your brain and do the same thing there. Then go to the right side, to the back and base, and finally to the centre. At the end of the exercise, having gone to all locations, spread the beneficial effect over the whole brain, including the top.

After some time, you can do this exercise very quickly.

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What are the results? Did I turn into a genius? Hahaha, I’m not going to tell you! You’ll have to try it for yourself and see.

Der Beitrag The brain exercise erschien zuerst auf spiritual-encounters.