Spiritualists International Magazine

Oh, the afterlife! One of the most fascinating subjects for me since I was a child. As a mind, body, and spirit balancer, I teach others (and, I am still learning, as well) to live in the present. I guide them to release the worries of the future and the past, but what about past lives or past karmas. Or even, future lives. My daughter and my nephew were born a few weeks apart, and seem very much like brother and sister from a previous life; or possibly some other familiar relationship. They seem to have decided to come through together and have remembered each other from before. All of her stories about her castles and her daughters could be memories or could be complete imagination. Either way, I love to hear the stories and the wonderment is exciting to say the least.

My belief about death and reincarnation was formed early on in religious education, confirmed when I read through my church publications, and is the same today as it’s always been. One main thing to note is that Catholics believe in physical bodies and spiritual bodies. Our physical bodies die and decay, while our spiritual bodies have no end. The human spiritual body is called a “soul” to Catholics, and it has no physical form. It resides in our physical body while we are on this earth, but can’t be pinpointed as to where it actually is within our body. The soul is created by God, and lives for infinity in either physical or spiritual form.

            The Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) is a book that was originally put together in the 1960s as a way of explaining what Catholics believe about various subjects of the times. In 1995 an updated version was published. This updated version was not new beliefs or new doctrine. It simply added more topics of concern and changed the format of the information. This 1995 version is what I self-studied with for most of my adult life. Now, in the age of the internet, the entire CCC is available online and searchable by topic, number or keyword.

I was struck with inspiration in its truest form last week, as I attended my seven-year-old nieces birthday party. The message from my inner voice rang just as clear as it does within a meditation. Celebrate life! I couldn’t ignore this phrase, as I watched nearly twenty children enjoying an afternoon filled with a magic show, a bounce house, a swimming pool, amazing foods, and the company of each other.

            Truth be told, I had planned to release a quite different piece of writing for this month’s issue of death and rebirth. I had intended to present an over view of the souls journey through the twelve signs of the zodiac in a reincarnation sequence to reunite with source. And while that message still nears a later release, I felt clearly instructed to put it on a back burner as I watched these youngsters celebrating the miracle of living.

I didn’t cry until I heard my father weep. That sound was something I could never get used to. He stood ahead of me in line to the coffin, saying his final goodbyes to his father, William “Red.” My grief overcame me as I considered what it must be like to lose a parent. Both of my parents knew that pain, and Red was the last to go. I held onto my own son tight.

               Death is one of our society’s greatest adversaries. We push it back as far as it can go. Discussing it makes us uncomfortable. When we lose loved ones, society expects us to grieve and move on. We are offered little in the way of definitive answers aboutthe afterlife. This is troublesome, especially considering that there are many answers to be had.

The following information is based on my learning’s in the spiritual and metaphysical fields of study from a variety of sources on this topic.  In addition, know what I present may be unique, because it is also based on my personal experiences since my spiritual awakening in 2009.  It also comes from the telepathic information I have received to date from many Light Beings who exist in other dimensional frequencies. My hope is that you find my firsthand experiences helpful to you in believing in, and understanding better, the concepts of human reincarnation and our divine nature.

            I am an advanced channeler of Light Beings. To date, I have channeled messages from over forty-two different Light Beings. They impart information to help move humanity forth.  Telepathically, I am able to receive these messages in my thought voice inside my head.  I transcribe their messages as I hear them. 

            I have shared their inspirational messages on many social media platforms, including in a free eBook “Aristotle’s Teachings for the New Age, a Series of Channelings.” The numerous channelings I have received on the topic of our divinity, has been definitive proof to me of the existence of our Divine Nature, which is an essential component in understanding reincarnation.

Spirtualists International Magazine Special Feature- Death and Rebirth

     What really happens after you die? What happens when you sleep and dream? What actually leaves your physical body during an Out of Body Experience (OBE) Astral Projection or Near Death Experience (NDE)? And more importantly, how are these things connected? Theories and myths concerning the afterlife abound, based on religious beliefs and mythologies. The best evidence we have to support the possibility of an afterlife is anecdotal, including the study of NDE where people temporarily die but are then revived, sometimes with tantalizing memories of experiencing the beginnings of spectacular afterlife experiences.

     As human beings, we tend to align our personal spiritual beliefs with the consensus beliefs of our culture, so we can fit in. Beliefs and expectations have a great deal to do with the afterlife experience, even if this is only brief, as in Near Death Experience. Survivors of NDE often experience a tunnel of light and see deceased loved ones, often with religious overtones matching their beliefs. Devout Christians may see Jesus, but they will never have a Buddhist, Islamic, or Hindu themed NDE, and vice-versa. Heartfelt spiritual beliefs are deeply rooted in the subconscious mind and will always colour the NDE or afterlife experience. What kind of afterlife experience do Stone Age hunter-gatherers hidden from the modern world and its religions have? Beliefs and expectations generate individual afterlife experiences, and are not the actual truth. The afterlife environment is fluid and changeable and there is no set way that it unfolds. So in this sense everyone is right, even the atheists.

Cycles are what our space consists of, death of one thing and the rebirth of another. I have to admit that even though these are cycles, and we are aware of it most of them, they still have a tendency to be somewhat of a curveball. This means that they can throw you of balance and hurt like hell. For me personally, the worst is when we have to deal with the death part of the cycle. The death portion, or section, indicates that we have to go through the steps of healing ourself. So the sooner you get that, the sooner you can move into the rebirth. But it’s much easier said than done isn’t it.

            Thankfully, we are all different, and we deal with events in the case death differently. I consider death to be the end of a cycle. What I believe to be important, is to know that you are experiencing a loss, and then working through that loss. If you choose not to, you will end up in the same space for much longer than you need to, and remember, rebirth cannot be in the same space as death. Similar to light and dark, they do not share the same spaces at the same time.

            These are the healing steps as I have them: (it is always good to have some form of guidance, just so that you know where you are and where you are on your way to.)

1. Denial and Isolation

2. Anger / Guilt

3. Bargaining

4. Depression

5.Acceptance

We all are given many opportunities to experience Death in our lives. My Father died the day after Christmas when I was just 12 years old. I remember my Mother calling out. So I ran upstairs to see my Father lying there, not looking like my Father. I touched him, and he was cool. I told my Mother to hold a mirror under his nose to see if he was breathing. He wasn’t and I said, “He’s dead.” We had a large family and my sisters were downstairs.

            I left the room and went outside, and ran down the many stairs of our big house that was designed by my father to look like the Castle in Prague he grew up in. When I got to the street, I ran for a ways, as fast as I could, to get away from the house and death. Then I heard a Voice that said, “What are you running from?” I stopped dead in my tracks, and realized there was nowhere to run, to and walked back to the house to watch what was happening as the drama unfolded. I wasn’t really scared; for I knew that my father wasn’t really there anymore, he had left. All that was there was a dead body. And that was not him anymore.

You have a body. I have a body. We all have a body. We live, work, play, and love in this body. When this body hurts, we feel its pain. Sometimes we abuse our body. Sometimes it abuses us. Everything else in our lives comes and goes, but we always have our body. Its form alters over the years, but it is always there, providing shelter and a means of mobility while allowing us to experience the world. It becomes our faithful companion at birth, and then it dies. Well that’s a bummer. So what happens next? Is there a next?

“Please do all you can to help our readers understand the connected cycle of death and rebirth. Our goal this month is to ‘take a bite out of fear.’” -SIM

This was my task for the month as I set to writing the March article. It took some time for me to think about the best way to share what I have learned and remember. How do I show you, dear readers, that there is nothing to fear about our body’s death? How do I convey my knowledge in a way that will show you that what happens next is not unknown, and since it is not unknown, there is nothing to fear?

Let me start by talking about the one experience we all desire: Love.

Death, it’s the greatest of all taboos, and the underlying fear that plagues the human psyche throughout its physical existence. It’s the one thing that we all share as the finale to a great human drama. And birth, by contrast, is the same commonality that marks the first act of this same story. So what exactly happens between these two points of transition? Where do we reside in our true essence within the non-physical void that connects this eternal cycle of death and rebirth? And how do we spend the years within the physical realms, which also, serve to connect these two transitional points of death and rebirth?

From 1984 onward,  I developed my own way of making performances, in which my main goal was radiation, influence, a conveyance of my own psychological state, inspiration, emotions, and experience to the audience, as well as  to a broader environment. My performances were rather unusual, a real adventure at a time when, generally speaking, performances here and elsewhere had become choreographed shows, costumed spectacles, using music, light pantomime, or acting. 

            I did not dress specially for my performances; I wore my everyday clothes. I did not rehearse my performances or act them out according to some scenario, because I ”impersonated” my own self. I did not make any physical preparations either because in my performances I mainly talked and simultaneously radiated spiritual energy towards the environment.  Speech was the basic method of breaking the mental barrier between me and my audiences, and also a way to prepare them for what followed, by communicating my own stream of thoughts and finally, if needed, conveying the conclusions. In my performances, which I called (spi)rituals – rituals of spiritual exchange –

(Left image- "Love", 1984) 
(In this performance Andrej Tisma caressed  the world: continents, seas, oceans, rivers, mountains and valleys, transmitting his love to the whole planet by means of a world map. He used the phrase "I love You" from the Elvis Presley's song "Love Me Tender" repeated 200 times, as the background sound.)

Spiritualists International Magazine had the chance to sit down with Mat Wood last week to talk about the foundations of artistic creation. As usual, Mat brings his advanced insights and charm into this delightful conversation. Sharing his own artistic journey in the development of his tattoo business, while giving us a universal perspective of just how creativity manifests through our minds to give us our artistic expression in this dimension, Mat delivers a deep and comprehensive overview of art.

There’s quite a bit of spiritual information packed into this short video, so be sure to watch it a few times to absorb all that mat is passing along to us here.

You may leave your comments with mat directly below.

Anyone who knows me knows that art is a subject of deep passion for me. Art was the first spiritual gift I discovered in this life, and embraced it with a natural inspiration. It has been a gift that I have carried along with me for these thirty-seven years as Joseph, like a small treasure in my pocket.

       When the art issue arrived this SIM this month, I took full advantage of my place on the globe, by featuring a personalized video tour for our entire community, to share the artistic marvels of Valparaiso Chile. I live close to one of the most fascinating artistic communities on the planet, and couldn’t miss this opportunity to share it. Please enjoy my presentation of “Art is Life –A New Renaissance-Valparaiso Chile.”

As we continue our Art issue into February this year, we feature well-known artists from various places on earth, to examine Art in a new way. In this special feature, SIM speaks directly with Andrej Tisma in Novi Sad. Andrej speaks brilliantly on the subject of art throughout various paradigms, and explains how it has helped shape the thinking patterns and social structures of societies throughout time. This feature is sure to leave you thinking in new ways, realizing the underlying value and meaning of self-expression through the arts.     

Enjoy this special feature in SIM today, and be sure to leave your comments directly with Andrej below.

Art plays a very large part in the spiritual realm. It can comfort us at our lowest times, and it can inspire us to be the best that we can be in our lifetime. There is so much beauty to been seen, and through Art, we are able to express something quite magical, that not everyone is aware of.

            Art is self-expression; it helps us to focus on our lives, clear our minds, and also puts the magic out there. How you ask? Ok, I shall explain the best way I can. As you take a pen, paintbrush, or whatever your choice of item needed, crayon, anything you wish to draw or create with, you are expressing your inner child’s needs as you do so. When you express yourself on paper, you are saying to the universe, I am this powerful being using my talent to give you this colour and joy. You may choose to ask the universe, please bring me joy in return, and so it is. When you do Artwork guided by your souls need for outward expression, it’s a positive energy you put out to the universe, and you begin to receive more of this same positive energy as time passes.

Being me, is a very busy space to find yourself in, and honestly, can be quite exhausting at the best of times! No joke, my mind mostly does not switch off, and I cannot always sit still or keep my hands idle. Multi-tasking is a constant in my space, together with planning and preparation, which is at the top of the list. Now doesn’t that sound somewhat obsessive? J

                                 My mind on a good day

            In knowing my ego, and what it needs to survive, I learned a long time ago that I would have to find alternative ways to nourish my soul. I remember when I first started my journey years ago, that meditating was almost impossible for me.  I could not clear my mind for one minute, let alone longer. Believe me, I tried envisioning, music, focused intention, nature, and everything else that I was recommended to do, and nothing was able to keep this busy mind occupied.

Art is a result of inspiration, and inspiration has a spiritual nature. So art is in its base spiritual activity. If we would like to define art in short we could say that it is the communication of the human with the sense of existence, the discovering of deep secrets, penetrating to the source of things. The artist is, in this case, a mediator between that source and the receiver.

            The theme of the artwork, technique, style, are just the means for communication with the audience. They have been changing throughout history from epoch to epoch, from artist to artist. The artist's only true problem through history was to choose the form of mediation, but most often that form, together with the content, was imposed by the society in which he used to live. Since primitive society it was religion and its institutions, and from the l7th century secular authorities, their philosophy of life and science. But gradually the artist was increasing the space for implementation of his individuality into creation.

When I was sixteen years old in August of 1989, I Awakened. I don’t mean I awakened in the sense that I woke up after sleeping all night. I mean I Awakened spiritually. This was not something I was actively trying to do; I didn’t care about anything beyond what I could detect with my five senses. But the event forced me to completely change my ideas on the workings of the world, and I would never be the same again.

I was visiting my uncle's house in California when my cousin showed me a set of postcards. These postcards were reproductions of Unicorn artwork painted by Andy Mack. The first day I saw these, I actually mocked them. At the time, I thought unicorns were ridiculous, and not nearly as cool as dragons. Even so, as I looked at them, two grabbed my attention.

Happy New Year form all of us at Spiritualists International Magazine!!

There are few ways to reflect the true essence of our soul into the physical world, and Art, is one of them. Self-expression, though the arts, has been intimately entwined with the human experience throughout time. It’s no mistake or coincidence that art is so heavily present within all religious and spiritual structures. And it’s certainly a fact, that humanity has used art, to express its inner world in a way that has endured through the centuries. In many ways, the visual and musical arts have had an equal or greater impact on human history than written word.

            Art is literally the creation of the spirit, and when it’s expressed with awareness, it can actually become a physical reflection of our inner divinity. This month, we kick off 2016 in an exciting and inspirational way, looking at Art, and its revered presence within the human experience. We want to be sure that art, in it’s many forms of self-expression, is recognized as nothing less than a miracle, and a divine gift bestowed upon humanity. 

One must approach the conversation about Religion carefully. The concepts of God, faith, belief, dogma, spirituality, mythology, spiritual psychology, xenophobia, revelation, psychosis, and mind control, spirit possession, channeling, occultism, somehow all seem to fit somewhere in the conversation. And all of this seems to pollute something so simple as our fundamental, spiritual and emotional connection to the mystery of life and the mystery of death, and our innate and intimate connection to Nature.

            As long as we are fixated upon a view of the world where everything is outside of us, and we are just another object in the universe, we will remain an object that is at the mercy of a multitude of unseen forces. Because of our natural insecurity concerning the ‘unknown’, we are prone to setting up a system of hierarchies and superstitions to help us placate ‘the gods’ and win their favor so that we will have a better chance at survival, and ultimately at thriving.

            I am not particularly interested in discussing the pros and cons of religion, and the control that religion has had over mankind for eons, as well as the havoc that it has wrought upon humankind forever in the name of God and religion. First, we need to have a conversation about consciousness, and about how we deal with our intellectual inability to penetrate the mystery. For eons, human beings have attempted to penetrate the unknown, "the great mystery", Nature, first with the occult and superstition, and then with science.