Book Review: The Soulmate Path

I have a theory developed while reading The Soulmate Path: Find the Love you Want and Strengthen the Love You Have by Monte Farber and Amy Zerner. The authors don't explicitly state this theory in their book, but it seems to be implied by what they've written. So here goes: soulmates are not born, they are grown. A soulmate relationship is not necessarily predetermined before birth, but is definitely a result of a process in which two people acquire a deep understanding of each other, and a closeness that results in the two preferring each other's company to anyone else's.

The authors have a method of finding a soulmate that I haven't seen anywhere else:

...if you put your efforts into becoming yourself fully and do your best to realize your potential and find out who you are and what you are capable of, you will become the kind of person your Soulmate will want to meet and stay with.

Well, that sounds like a well-defined, workable plan to me, so I'm trying it. The book also has very helpful advice for how to deal with issues such as children, abuse and commitment, and some delightful stories about how the authors found each other, and a set of affirmations toward the end for those of you who are into that sort of thing. I highly recommend the book for anyone who wants to find a new relationship or improve an existing one.

My Online Readings: an Update

I've been doing free readings online at The Free Tarot Network for a little over a month. The readings have gone well, and I've gotten some positive feedback. It still amazes me (though I know it shouldn't) that I can do a reading for someone thousands of miles away and have a relevant card come up.

I've also noticed that the reading requests tend to cluster around themes that are also active in my life. A couple of books that I've read said that would happen, so maybe that's a self-fulfilling prophecy, but it is what it is. In any case, I'm learning as much from the readings as the people I'm doing the readings for.

The most important thing I've learned so far is that sometimes having the right answer isn't as important as asking the right question.

George Carlin and Christian Athletes

George Carlin used to complain in one of his routines about Christian athletes "who thank Jesus whenever they win, never mention his name when they lose." It's a valid complaint if you're a fundamentalist materialist, but if you know about the Law of Attraction, what these athletes are doing makes perfect sense. Being thankful for good things that happen on the playing field attracts more things to be thankful for. I don't know if these athletes know that, but it works anyway. So, the bottom line is, Jesus may not need our gratitude, but we do.

Book Review: You are Psychic!: The Free Soul Method

I recently reviewed You Are Psychic: The Art of Clairvoyant Reading & Healingby Debra Lynne Katz. You are Psychic! The Free Soul Method by Pete A. Sanders, Jr., also addresses psychic development, but the approach is different. It's more scientific, if that word makes any sense when talking about something most scientists would vehemently deny. However, the author describes some experiments he performed, and his working process. Forming a hypothesis, testing it with experiments, and confirming or revising the theory based on the results is exactly what the scientific method is about. If mainstream science refuses to accept the results because of the subject matter, well, so much the worse for mainstream science.

The book deals primarily with four basic psychic senses: intuition, psychic hearing, psychic vision and psychic feeling. The author says that anyone can develop any or all of these four senses, but that each of us will have one sense that has more strength than the others, depending on a person's temperament and general approach to life. (In my case, the stronger sense is intuition.) Each of the senses is matched to a part of the body where the sense is said to be centered, and instructions are given for activating that sense. The book also describes sensing auras, healing through biofeedback, and some of the implications of psychic development.

There's one implication that I want to talk about today. It is my feeling that as more of us explore our psychic abilities, as a result we will have a better understanding of each other, and will lead more peaceful and happy lives as a result. I'm not saying that it will all be a bed of roses, as quite a bit of dirty laundry will have to be aired in the process, but that laundry needed to be aired anyway.

Book Review: Partnering

You can go to any bookstore and find a set of shelves full of books on relationships. If the divorce rate is any indication, the vast majority of these books just don't work. I found one in the "New Age" section that has a different approach. Partnering: A New Kind of Relationship by Hal and Sidra Stone, has a couple of concepts that I haven't seen in any other relationship book (and I've read a few).

The first key concept is that what is said doesn't matter as much as who says it. The authors mean that we tend to fall into parent/child type roles in the course of the relationship, which is fine if you're raising children, but not so much for romantic partnerships. They're not necessarily bad in themselves, but we get into the scolding parent or approval-seeking child role without realizing it. What the book recommends instead is consciously choosing which role is best to play at the time.

The other key concept is energy exchange, and there's a related concept of the relationship as an independent entity (O.K., that one's not so new). The relationship has its own energy needs, and keeping the exchange going keeps the relationship healthy.

This has been a brief review, but the authors tell the story much better than I can. The book has certainly explained why things have gone wrong for me in the past, and it should prove very helpful in making things go right in the future.

The Church of Yahweh

I found this link while looking for study groups on the Meditations on the Tarot book. I've spent a few hours over the weekend looking over the material on the website, and it's the real deal. While I haven't seen much that you wouldn't find in the metaphysics section of Barnes and Noble or Borders, or that you would get from my favorite mystery school, the presentation is very accessible and well thought-out, with the required academic rigor.

I'm sure that anyone who follows this blog will find the site very interesting.

Book Review: Transforming Fate into Destiny

There is a belief that creativity and structure are opposites. This belief killed poetry around the turn of the 20th century, and almost killed music and the visual arts. This belief is not quite accurate. In fact, creativity cannot exist without structure. This is because without structure, you get random noise, and one bit of random noise is indistinguishable from the next. The greatest writers, composers and artists all worked under well-defined structures.

What I've just said about structure and creativity also apply to our lives, which are being composed, though not quite in the same way as a symphony or novel would be. This process is the subject of Transforming Fate into Destiny: A New Dialogue with Your Soul by Robert Ohotto. In the model used by the book, the structure of our lives is called "fate", and the results of our creativity within this structure are called "destiny." But what is this structure and where does it come from? The idea is that there is something designing things from a higher level than we can see where we are. You can call this something God if you are a Christian, or your Higher Self if your beliefs are more New Age or (like me) spiritual but not religious. This higher-level design is the structure. Certain major life events are planned in advance, but we still have the freedom to work within those parameters, and the result can be something better than either party could have planned or experienced alone.

If fate and destiny are of interest to you, I recommend you get a copy of the book and try the exercises, especially the one about ego prayer vs. soul prayer.