Read an Excerpt
In Search of Guidance
Stevan J. Thayer
I have always, by nature, been inquisitive. Since my youth, I have been drawn to taking things apart and fixing them to understand how they work. This made me a natural candidate for engineering, and I eagerly unleashed my inquisitive nature on course after course, completing a master’s degree in electrical engineering from Columbia University. Bell Telephone Laboratories hired me as an engineer (a dream come true) and I began a 15-year career with the Labs. It was filled with interesting projects, lots to learn and discover. For many years I thrived. I was co-awarded a patent for a new use of a computer communications protocol, was promoted to supervisor and managed several new computer product developments. As time went on, the environment at the Labs became increasingly stressful, and I developed several illnesses which required two surgeries. I knew nothing at the time about mind-body connections, that my work environment and stress were in any way connected to my illnesses or that my illness was a message.
The Communion
In 1984, on the evening before my second surgery, I was standing at the window of my hospital room looking out at the sun setting over New York City’s Central Park. I was filled with fear as I reviewed all the possible surgical outcomes and their relative probabilities described to me by the surgeon. I wondered if I would even be alive the next day to see the sun set.
Without warning, I was overtaken by the most holy presence. The sensation was one of being outwardly paralyzed, or frozen, and inwardly pushed aside as this presence entered my body. It entered through the top of my head and felt like something thick, like honey, pouring in and spreading slowly throughout my body I could not stop it and did not want to stop it. For as the presence slowly moved through me, I was transported to the most indescribable state of spiritual ecstasy I was filled with peace of mind. All my fears were gone. I knew with absolute certainty that all would be well with the upcoming surgery. This understanding all took place in an instant. I stood there transfixed when suddenly the knowledge this is Jesus flashed into my mind. I was filled to overflowing with joy. I cannot explain how I knew, but I knew beyond all question that this indeed was Jesus. I remained in this state of communion for some time. Then as steadily and surely as Jesus had entered me, he left. Even after his presence was gone, I remained elevated in a state of spiritual ecstasy for the entire evening. The surgery did indeed go fine. I healed quickly, returned to work at the Labs and never spoke of my communion experience.
The Transformation
The long-term effect this mystical experience had on my life has been dramatic. In the six years that followed, with tremendous love and support from my wife Carol, I resigned my position with the Labs; began an intensive meditation training program at the Zen Mountain Monastery in Mt. Tremper, NY; undertook and completed numerous trainings in holistic health therapies; completed a program of studies at the New Seminary in New York City; was ordained as an Interfaith Minister; opened a full-time holistic health center called The Center Of Being; and began a full-time ministry of spiritual counseling, energy therapy and teaching. While this mid-life transformation contained many difficult times (or wonderful spiritual growth opportunities, depending on your viewpoint), I have never been as happy or as healthy as I presently am. My life is filled with meaning. I truly feel that I am now doing exactly what I was placed here to do. I am living my soul’s mission in life.
Experiencing Inner Voices
Much like my initial mystical communion with Jesus, my opening to the ability to hear inner voices and channel their messages came suddenly and powerfully. Unlike my communion, however, I had been asking to be blessed with the gift of channeling. I had been deeply inspired by the books The Starseed Transmissions by Ken Carey, Agartha by Meredith Lady Young and Seth Speaks by Jane Roberts.1 The messages brought through these channels spoke to my heart and soul. I devoured them, yet the thirst in my soul could not be quenched merely by reading these messages. I had to find out how this channeling worked. I yearned to have the transpersonal ability to connect directly with the realm of higher consciousness as these people had done and receive divine guidance directly.
In the summer of 1990, I had just read The Mists of Avalon and was on vacation in England. One afternoon, while visiting the town of Glastonbury, I created my own version of the Avalon spiritual process. In hindsight, it seems a little melodramatic. At the time, however, it was perfect. I drank water from the Chalice Well; I climbed the Tor; and while standing atop the Tor, I looked to the heavens and said out loud, “God, please use me in your service as a voice of your divine message. Please let me channel.” I expected a clap of thunder, the heavens to part and a voice to boom out bestowing upon me the power to channel that I had been seeking. Nothing happened. Or at least so I thought.
Several days later, while visiting a small stone circle called Castlerigg in the Lake District, I had my first inner-voice channeling encounter. My years of intensive Zen training had taught me to concentrate my mind’s focus in meditation and experience a deep state of inner quiet. I was sitting alone in the circle atop one of the stones, in a deep state of meditation, when I felt a presence approach me. The hair on my arms stood up. I looked around to see who was there but found that I was alone. I asked mentally and with some fear, “Who’s there?” I felt a sense of peace surround me, reminiscent of my communion with Jesus, but not nearly as strong or as loving. Words formed calmly in my mind, saying quite simply, “I am the keeper of the stones.” The words came easily and quickly, and thus began a wonderful inner-voice conversation with the presence.
The keeper of the stones explained in great detail the use of the stone circle. I found the encounter fascinating, but I completely doubted its authenticity. While my prayer on the Tor had seemingly been answered, the keeper’s words had come so easily and quickly that I truly believed that, in my eagerness to channel, I was just making the whole thing up. I expected that if and when I started to channel, I would first receive a word or a phrase and, in time, develop the ability to receive a whole thought and then a series of thoughts. Yet here I was receiving detailed information from the keeper as easily as though I were talking to another person.
Overcoming Doubt
Upon returning home, I joined a psychic development class aimed at helping people develop their natural ability to hear their inner voices and cultivate their channeling gifts. Normally, people joined the group to learn how to begin to channel. I joined fully able to channel, or what seemed to be channeling, with the goal of overcoming my doubt and convincing myself that I wasn’t just making up the messages.
In the group, I was repeatedly able to enter a state of prayerful meditation, move my mind aside and open to the messages of what I call guides (since they are like inner guidance to me) who wished to communicate through me. I received messages from a wide variety of guides. Each time I opened to a guide, I felt to one degree or another the familiar feeling of peace and love that came as I moved my consciousness aside and received their divine message. The fascinating thing was that the other group members would also feel the increased level of peace and love as the guide entered. The messages always came spontaneously, quickly and easily. I would begin to speak a sentence, never knowing what would be said, how the sentence would end or what the next sentence would be.
The messages were tape-recorded and transcribed. I read and reread these messages and was surprised at the differences in terminology and grammar that each guide used. I was amazed to see that many of the recordings were about things I had no way of knowing or had never thought of before. Also surprising was the fact that, while some messages were 10 to 15 minutes long and their transcription spanned several pages, there was an incredible consistency. Some messages clearly referred to things said pages earlier. Another phenomenon was the fact that I rarely remembered much of what was said. When I read the transcribed material it was like seeing something for the first time.
During the six months I was in this class, I became convinced that the source of these words was “not me,” that is, not my normal ego sense of who I am. But if not me, then who or what? I am still not sure of the answer to that question. Since different guides exhibited varying styles of message and quality of energy, it seemed like they were separate beings communicating to me. However, I have always had a sense that they might simply be aspects of my own higher self. (I was pleased to receive guidance from Ariel saying that both viewpoints are simultaneously correct.
