Okay, so welcome to our first interview in mystical course that we're having here. This is more of a podcast sort of infomercial sort of style. So I'm here with my good friend and professional interviewer, Tom Ward today. And so I'm going to let Tom kick it off the first question. So go ahead, Tom. Yeah, I noticed in the title you mentioned mysticism.

What kind of experience do you have? Have you had any mystical experiences? Well, as a matter of fact, I have but let me read the definition of mysticism before I dive into that. And the definition I have here says that mysticism is the attainment of insight and ultimate or hidden truths and to human transformation supported by various practices and experiences. That's kind of a mouthful, but I can say yes in my experiences to human transformation. And experiences so my life has been transformed by certain experiences that I've had in the spiritual realms.

And so. So let me tell you a story if you'd like. Sure. So we have to go into the Wayback Machine. This is in 1991. And I was living in Republic, Washington, which is a small isolated town in northeastern Washington up near the Canadian border.

And I had moved there. As a geologist, I got a job there working in an underground goldmine. And much to my misfortune, or probably fortune is that I was fired from that job. And so that was my first experience with being fired from a corporate job. And so I stayed in their public area, I was married, I had two small children, and we were really scraping to get by. So we're just kind of, you know, living hand to mouth and really scratching it out.

And so that put an undue stress on the relationship, for better or worse. Yes, it did. And so we were going over To a neighboring town during this time, maybe once a week or once every other week, I can't remember to I think we're doing marriage counseling. And so we go over it was called hills the name of the town, we go to call villa. And after the therapy sessions, I would stop by the local food Co Op, and they had this great bakery there and I would get like a heated, holy bun is there. Great.

And then next door to the to the co op was a little bookstore. And so I went into this bookstore one day, I remember very vividly, and they had this little New Age publication. And as it's kind of like a newsletter, or pamphlet, and I was reading through this little thing, and had an article in there on clinical hypnotherapy. And I read the article, I thought, Wow, that's really cool. And then I read the article again, I thought, you know, this fascinating, and then I read the article one more time. And I said, I got to try this.

And so yeah, sign me up. Exactly. And so, so we went home that day, and I remember looking Through the phonebook, this is like, you know, BC before computers. And lo and behold, there was a woman who did hypnotherapy not too far away. She's in a small town along the Columbia River, up near the Canadian border. I thought, Man, I'm going to try this.

So I booked a session with her like for a week later, some. And then during that time, I was looking for a job. And so I got it. I got called for an interview for a job with the Flathead tribe, just south of Flathead Lake in Montana. They wanted some kind of water quality guy, and so it's a three day trip. I did drive over there, interview and then drive back.

And so went over to the interview, did the interview. It's one of those interviews where as soon as you leave the office, you know, well, I didn't go very well. long drive for nothing, you know. And so obviously, I didn't get the job but on the way back, I was driving in through northern Idaho is between a town called Sandpoint, Idaho. And priest river, Idaho and there's a two lane highway. And on this highway, I was probably in a string of cars, maybe five cars or so nice about in the middle.

And then somebody comes up from behind. And it's like a logger guy or something who is late for work, I don't know. And he decides he's going to pass this whole string of cars. Right before a turn, it's in a narrow gap. And so as this guy pulls out and goes around a string of cars comes from the other way. Yeah, it's like, you know, a train wreck, you know, and so everybody peels off into the ditch.

No one got hurt. There was no wreck. Thank goodness, you know, but all of us that were in that line of in that on the on my side of the road, went to priest River, which was the next town and we all stopped and changed phone number, exchange phone numbers, because it's such a near life threatening situation. And so And then later I heard from the Washington or Idaho State Patrol, they arrested the guy for reckless driving or something like that. So whatever. And so on the way home, I was going back and I was going to stop my hypnotherapy session before I went home.

Okay, so I went on my way back before I go to Republic I stopped in this little town and I have this hypnotherapy session so I go in as kind of you know just had a near car accident you know not knowing that this near car accident was like an omen you know, and so I'm going into this session not getting a job and and almost in a car accident I go in to see this lady and so so she does this little interview with me before we get started. She does Why'd you come see me? You know, it's like why are you hearing that? Well, you know, I said I read an article in a magazine is really cool on and I just want to try it out. And then being somewhat intuitive or psychic. I later found out she stopped me said know why you're really here and I kind of went Oh, no.

And then I said something. And when I said, what I, whatever I said, whatever came out of my mouth, I remember very distinctly because it felt like somebody else said it. And what came out of my mouth was, I feel like I have a block to my creativity. And so when I said that, that's a really weird thing to say, because I come from a very uncreated family. I had no creative inclinations. I have, you know, I've grown up, played sports, chase girls, went to college, got an education and got a job.

You know, I just had a couple kids and was doing that, you know, and so, so we go into this session, and we get into the session, she gets about halfway into it, she stops whatever she's doing. It says, What does the word abandonment mean to you out of the blue, and so this is where my mystical experiences began. So all of a sudden, I just kind of exploded the tears I start crying like crazy and I just see one image after another, just zoom past me, for my past, every time I'd been abandoned, you know, zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom zoom, so and so, you know, I have this incredible meltdown on this lady's couch. And then we finish the session. And, you know, I think I may have scheduled another session I can't remember. And then I went outside.

And as as I was getting to my car, I realized a couple of things I thought, you know, first I thought it was really, I was really embarrassed because I just like, lost it in front of somebody I don't even know. So I felt really stupid. Yeah, so. But then I also realized that I stumbled on some really powerful medicine and I didn't know what it was. And so I was about ready to find out the cause and effect of meditation. So when you meditate or release emotion like that, what will happen is it will go to work in your day to day life and you'll start to see shifts and changes in your 3d 3d circumstances, your day to day life.

So I went home, drove home And lo and behold, things had changed while I was gone, and I was going to get divorced. So I went home and my marriage immediately collapsed and fell apart because things had happened transpired while I was gone. That wasn't going to continue. Yeah, so you can, I'll let you guess what those circumstances were. And so I was out on my ear, living in a friend's teepee that summer. And, and I did not know that when I left.

A few days after that, that I would never live with my small children again. So my marriage fell apart. And, you know, I had to move and then I was working this job for the county, I believe. And they went through this interviewing process where I was the manager and as a shoo in to get the job. But it was a political job. And so I got political alized out of the job.

So I got I lost my job. So now I've lost my family. I lost my job. And then winter was coming. I can no longer live in a teepee. So I said I got to go somewhere.

So I moved back to my hometown in Spokane. And then so I lost my friends and the place that I loved living so so and then I was going back and seeing this woman all the time like every other week I was going in like this whole new universe, it was opening up inside of me. And when I moved back to Spokane a few things happen. One I started to play guitar. I started writing, which I became a published author later on, and then I started painting Also, my paintings later got on the walls of, of, you know, the galleries in New York City and stuff and so so what happened from that one event of kind of mystical proportions where this lady asked me why are you here to this because I felt like I had a blocked my creativity. Well, what happened to go into these sessions with these people and going through all these mystical experiences that every all the blocks that I had to my creativity got removed through metal And so what it was it was everything that was standing in my way, which was essentially everything shifted.

Yeah. Yeah. So as I began my spiritual walk, that was kind of my first mystical experiences, it was absolutely life transforming. I just had to let go of things that were in the way. So that was my introduction to spiritual mysticism. And it was quite powerful.

That series of that period of time lasted about three years. So that's going in and out of all these mystical experiences and creativity was like, coming unglued. So life changing event, life changing event. Yeah, so that was my introduction to mysticism spiritually. So we'll go on to the next one. How's that?

Sure. Okay.