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Lead a Spirit-Filled Life
The Meaning of Mystical Living
Fundamentally, living a spiritual life means that we acknowledge the mystical side of reality. Mysticism has been the common denominator between all religions and spiritualities since the beginning of time. It has never been fully understood, but that’s by design. The nature of mystical experiences transcends words, and those who experience these states often spend the rest of their lives trying to understand them. Since the start, people have recognized that there is something “else” out there that makes up the fabric of existence. Early religions were based heavily on ancestor worship, which served as a communal spirituality in which mankind of the past and present were inherently linked. As time went on, polytheistic and monotheistic religions prevailed. All were attempts at looking towards the heavens for understanding on Earth. For as long as this understanding has existed, so have attempts at communicating with this “other” part of reality. This relationship is the basis of all religious practice.
Whether we’re putting our hands together in prayer or reaching a state of transcendent meditation, the goal is the same: to commune with the ether and change our consciousness for the better. All spiritual practices revolve around aligning oneself with a greater force in the hopes of bettering oneself. Prayer provides a sense of being heard, and faith motivates people to reach new heights, even when they can’t see them. These concepts are more than a belief. They’re practices. African tribes conduct hypnotic drum circles and dances that are saved only for special moments when spiritual communication is attempted. Similarly, many of us at one time or another can relate to closing our eyes and “talking it out” internally, via prayer. Catholics repetitiously say the rosary as a way of achieving their spiritual goal, while Tibetan monks utilize singing bowls to create a repetitive, drone-like sound that helps with meditation and prayer. I emphasize these practices because they all share one thing in common: there’s an element of repetition to the rituals, much like the way I scribble. Anyone who has seen me do a reading knows that it’s really more about the process of scribbling that helps me connect, rather than what gets written on the page. My process of doodling is a spiritual practice to me: it’s my cue to the Universe that I’m ready to work and enter into a different headspace. The repetition of the action helps me enter into an altered state of consciousness, best described as a trance. In this state, I’m still somewhat aware of my surroundings, but more able to notice spiritual impressions that might normally go ignored. The process of doing something repetitively can help us create a structure by which we can communicate with the great unseen.
Having healthy rituals is a way of separating the mundanity of life from the intensity of spiritual connection. When we create a sacred practice, or routine, we create a foundation for our spirituality to work off of. This is a fundamental concept that I encourage everyone to implement: maintain a schedule of spiritual practices. They don’t have to be complicated, and in fact, it’s better if they’re not. Carving out time for daily meditation and prayer creates a platform for insight. When we do our part to seek out the mystical, it lends the Universe an opportunity to seek us out in return. The results can be life-changing.
Before we get much further into the discussion around mysticism, it’s important to understand the characteristics of mystical experiences. The nature of these moments is profound and equally mind-boggling. They come out of nowhere and leave the recipient changed and inspired. American philosopher and psychologist William James (1842–1910) investigated religious experiences in his book The Varieties of Religious Experience. Though he wasn’t a mystic, he looked at the evidence and concluded that mysticism was the source of all religions. He defined four characteristics of mystical states:
Ineffability, meaning it is inexpressible in words. The experience is so unusual that words can’t accurately describe how profound it is. People may try to describe their mystical experiences, but words never truly convey the magnitude of it.Noetic quality, meaning the experiencer becomes fervently fascinated by the pursuit of knowledge. More than a logical search for insight, it’s motivated by deep feelings.Transiency, meaning they’re usually brief but meaningful.Passivity, meaning the experience makes the experiencer feel overwhelmingly part of a superior force, and they may not be able to focus on anything else.People who have experienced near-death experiences (NDEs) describe many of these traits in their own experience. Similarly, so do those who historically had religious visions and moments in which they felt divinely inspired. Regardless of your beliefs on the origin of these momentous events, they happen to people and create massive change.
From Harriet Tubman to Joan of Arc, countless historical figures credited otherworldly visitations with their world-altering accomplishments. Artist Salvador Dalí was known to regularly look at his dreams for inspiration for his surreal art. He would take advantage of the time between being awake and falling asleep to glean inspiration for his paintings. He was known to hold a spoon in his hand as he dozed off, so that the moment he entered into the half-asleep state called hypnagogia, the spoon would drop and he’d be jolted awake. Upon awakening, he’d recollect any visions or images that started to form while he was in this in-between state of consciousness. Albert Einstein was also known to routinely take twenty-minute naps as a way of going inward with the goal of coming up with new ideas. Isaac Newton, the father of modern physics, was heavily involved in the spiritual pursuit of alchemy and believed mysticism to be an extension of science. All of these individuals changed the world simply by honoring what they felt called to do. This is intuition.
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The spiritual path is the pursuit of understanding universal mysteries that can’t yet be entirely comprehended. Experiencers often feel that they don’t have the brainpower to contextualize their experience, though it was clearly real and deeply impactful. Mystical activities are deeply personal practices aimed at finding greater meaning in life, and the path they send us down often benefits the greater good of mankind. Mysticism provides a direct link to knowledge about the nature of existence and the truth of all things.
Sometimes, it’s motivated by interactions with nonhuman sources of insight, or a higher power. American abolitionist Harriet Tubman led slaves to freedom by following the guidance from visions she credited as being sent directly from God. Socrates referred to the Muses, unseen forces of inspiration that sometimes communicate with humans. Joseph Smith, founder of Mormonism, was compelled to create one of the most prolific modern religions through what he believed to be angelic messages. Jack Parsons, the often under-credited father of modern rocketry, revolutionized propulsion technology through intuition alone. Without a college degree, he created the fuel technology that got man to the moon.
When I was new to the world of mediumship, I made an effort to visit as many psychics and mediums as I could. I personally sat with over two hundred different spiritual practitioners, with a variety of results. I was particularly intrigued by where these individuals thought they were getting their psychic information from, and I was surprised by the variety of responses. Most acknowledged that they had spirit guides; others claimed to literally see the spirit they were talking to in the room with us. Some claimed to receive their information from other worlds, some from the Christian God, and others said they were in touch with ancient deities. It might seem easy to scoff at that idea, and the seeming disagreement between it all, but I found that this reflected the interpretational nature of spiritual connections. People projected their preconceived beliefs onto something that transcended any single individual belief.
All of these examples involve communing with higher forces, though no one can truly agree on who exactly is sending all of these mystical moments. A Christian might perceive a mystical experience as being from Jesus, while a Spiritualist may call it a spirit. This represents the ineffable nature of mystical experiences: words fail in describing them, and we’re never truly able to comprehend their origin.
It may not be our job to understand the sender of the message, as much as to put the message into action.
Mysticism encourages the conscious exploration of all concepts of reality that can be imagined. Even the most cynical scientists have a hard time maintaining a materialist view of reality after feeling the presence of the great unknown. Neurosurgeon Eben Alexander had to come to grips with a massive change of perspective after his near-death experience, eloquently described in his book Proof of Heaven. As it is to be expected, mystical experiences aren’t taken into account by the scientific establishment, simply because they do not fall into the measurability of the scientific method. Due to their metaphysical nature, mystical experiences characteristically transcend words, reason, or rational explanations. They’re indescribable, and impossible to create without the help of higher forces. With this intimate firsthand knowledge, the mystic gets closer to a spiritual union with a higher power, and an internal marriage of self results. People are forever changed once they’ve had a glimpse into the great hereafter. We realize we’re a small piece in a bigger puzzle, and this causes irreversible shifts in perception that change how we define reality.
My own glimpse into this truth has changed how I live my life. It has drastically influenced what I prioritize and what I don’t waste time with. People who have near-death experiences often describe being forever changed by an understanding of a bigger picture. They also describe often feeling motivated to share their knowledge with other people. In some ways, with every spirit I communicate with, I’m given insight into how the death process changes consciousness. This has gone on to alter how I view my own, and what I do with it with the time I have on this planet.
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Living a lifestyle of alignment with the Universe strips away all of what isn’t real and doesn’t serve us, giving us a glimpse into our eternal nature. Living spiritually is an individual path, and only you can understand the road you’re on. Whether you recognize the mystical nature of reality or not, it exists primordially and forever. The advancement of science hasn’t dissuaded people from having mystical experiences, nor have science’s physical explanations. Mystics have been born, are born, and will continue to be born until the end. We’re not going anywhere, so we may as well take a look at the mechanisms behind the spiritual and strive to better understand them. In this path of understanding, we better understand ourselves. When you can recognize the reality of it all, life begins to change. This is the path to self-realization.
Some people feel more connected to the unseen world than others. As a medium, I often am asked if my ability is something that runs in my family. As far as I know, I’m the only one. With that said, I believe that spiritual inclinations factor in both nature and nurture. Our environment heavily shapes our receptivity to spirituality; however, we all have an individual makeup that feels called to different modalities of perspective. I heavily credit being an only child to being part of why I was able to refine my intuition. I had no one telling me otherwise. I had a lot to endeavor alone, and I was transformed through what I learned. I was a quiet child with few friends and preferred the company of adults over children. This isolative quality made me more introspective and helped me beat to my own drum without being “corrected” by others. The fact that mysticism has inspired both organized religion and alternative spirituality is a testament to the fact that human beings have always had their own interpretation of the mystical. Because of its transcendent nature, we’re left to piece together what we know from what’s familiar to us. This, I believe, is why there’s such a disagreement and contradiction around who is the sender of the mystical: people try to attribute labels to something that cannot be simply defined and neatly categorized.
With that in mind, I think it’s important to not ever too staunchly have confidence in the origins of spiritual messages. As I am a medium, people often assume that during a reading, I’m communicating directly with a person’s departed loved one. The reality is that I have a concrete relationship with what I call my guides, and they do much of the communicating on my behalf with whichever consciousness is coming through. My guides are mysterious to me, ineffable even, and I’ve quit trying to understand who exactly “they” are. They exist, they help me receive and send messages, and that’s all that really matters to me. I urge you, too, as you go down this spiritual path, to not waste time trying to identify the sender of these profound insights. Being content with not ever fully knowing will help you recognize what you do know. The more you learn, the more you’ll realize how little one person can truly understand. Our job isn’t to figure it all out. We must look at what we feel called to do and what mystical experiences inspire. Our role is only to receive, to listen, and to better the world from it in our own unique way.
Much of what defines the New Age movement has a reputation for being a smorgasbord of ancient and recent belief systems, all combined into a single label that has no single doctrine. It’s important to know that there is a difference between living a spiritual, non-denominational lifestyle and immersing oneself in the New Age belief systems. Much of the New Age movement derives from the New Thought Movement, an earlier ideology that encompasses metaphysics, the Law of Attraction, personal empowerment, and the appropriation of beliefs deemed “Eastern.” Basically, the European elite in the early nineteenth century had a fascination with the beliefs and practices of Tibet, India, Egypt, and other newly popularized places. The chakra system was taken from Hinduism and mixed with Buddhist philosophies. Energy healing, intuition, and yoga started replacing repentance, sin, and heaven or hell. People were fed up with fundamentalism and hellfire and wanted a more personal relationship with God. They looked to ancient religions, mythology, and lore for something to believe in. In an attempt to explore spirituality beyond the Judeo-Christian narrative, they emerged with a new mishmash of concepts.
And it stuck. New Thought was rebranded into New Age, and the sixties propelled a whole new wave of belief. Though intuition and extrasensory perception have been lumped into the New Age category, it’s only because they fall into subject matter that the public currently defines as “alternative.” Herein lies an example of why it’s important to decondition many of the commonly accepted stereotypes around spirituality. It’s much more nuanced, and interwoven, than most are willing to see. Though strides have been made in the past few decades in getting more scientific insight into what mechanisms are at play in intuition, scientists will never have an answer to the “hard problem of consciousness” until they account for the spiritual nature of reality. It’s a universal truth that religion, and all of humankind, has intuitively felt drawn to, but has never been able to truly grasp. The mystical nature of reality exists no matter what we believe. Sometimes, we realize we’re an extension of it.
I can’t stress enough the importance of being pragmatic in the refinement of your intuition. As you lead a more spiritual life through the tools outlined in this book, it’s important to make balance your main priority. Be mindful of extremes, and always be willing to change your opinion with new information. If spirituality isn’t practical, then why practice it? I think it’s important when dabbling in the spiritual to be wary of certainties. In my own work, I’ve found that the second I’m certain of something, the Universe sends a contradictory message to show me how little I actually know. For example, in the beginning of my career I believed that spirits who died recently weren’t able to communicate with a medium. After doing hundreds of readings in which no one ever came through within hours or days of dying, I felt that this meant that people can’t come through when they’ve just died. Surely, it must take time. I wrote this perspective in my first book, Between Two Worlds, and then went on to my daily readings. Sure enough, the first reading I did after confidently writing this sentiment down was with a woman whose father came through with crystal clarity. He had died only the day before. Talk about keeping me humble!
My point is that it’s important to let the information you receive just be what it is. Notice it, document it, but don’t try to label it. This will save you a lot of trouble and will help you go with the flow more easily. As human beings, we look for patterns and consistency to establish our beliefs. Mysticism throws a wrench in that. When you can go down this path with the understanding that we’re only a small piece of the puzzle, and that because of that we can’t fully see the whole picture, trying to understand it all becomes a lot less stressful.
Historically, communication with the divine involved meaningful coincidences, visions, and feelings that defied logic. For this reason, it’s important that I stress the importance of mental stability. Balance is fundamental, and if your spirituality doesn’t lead to balance, then it’s not a spirituality based in equilibrium. To be able to live happily, we have to be able to take breaks from existential thinking. Using discernment with signs and hunches is key. I’m a firm believer that if you see meaning in everything, what is truly meaningful becomes meaningless. Intention is a very powerful mechanism in spirituality. It’s the basis of prayer and informs everything we do. Before any action, there is intention. Our actions may have unintentional consequences, but having the ability to intend is fundamental to any conscious being. Every reading I do begins with the meeting of two intentions: mine and that of the person being read. I communicate the intentional messages relayed by those who have passed and, as I mentioned earlier, my guides. These mechanisms are no different for you than they are for me. As you work towards a more well-rounded, intuition-based life, I hope you’ll be mindful of the intentions that inform your perspective.
This mindfulness is a form of intuition in itself. Through self-awareness, we can become better vehicles to reach and maximize our full potential. The more work you do internally to figure yourself out, the more connections you’ll be able to make externally when they’re sent to you. Synchronicity has immensely defined and guided my life, and if you’re able to utilize your intuition, you’ll get help you didn’t even know existed.
Through the tools and concepts I’ll equip you with, you’ll have a full arsenal of ideas to ruminate on and decide what you resonate with. As you go down this journey of self-exploration and progress, the need for practicality is key. Growth, and spiritual journeying, can be a messy process. Feelings can come to the surface that weren’t there before, and not everyone may share your enthusiasm for self-development. That’s okay. Applying your spirituality and being open to what it has to teach is a deeply personal process that only you need to understand.
Your spirituality and intuition should inspire you to take a call to action, not paralyze you with fear. I receive many emails from parents who say they think their child is a medium. I ask them what they’ve seen to indicate this, and the story is generally the same. Usually their child says that they’re seeing scary things, not wanting to sleep alone, or avoiding going to school because of what they’re experiencing. Generally, I find that people assume being a child medium is scary. I can count on one hand the number of disturbing moments I had as a child with a spiritual awareness. The truth is that 95 percent of these cases are anxious children with big imaginations and parents who are taking them a little too seriously. We have to actively unlearn what we’ve been taught from movies and pop culture about mediums, and spiritual communication in general. It shouldn’t be trivialized as a spooky thing that goes bump in the dark, and yet this popular idea of spirit communication continues. I say this, because it’s important to apply this mentality to your own spiritual pursuits. Demystify any fear you have of the mystical, because if you don’t, it’ll block your pursuit of it. The spiritual world is a part of nature, just as existent as the environment we live in. Though the word “supernatural” defines this subject in the eyes of the public, it is simply nature that is not yet understood. Someday, it will be. Through your own work in refining intuition, recognizing it, and bringing it to the surface, you might help in changing that narrative.
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It’s important to give weight to logic, reason, and critical thinking. This is why I put such an emphasis on validation in a reading of information that can only be known to the person receiving the reading and the spirit coming through. Anybody can tell you your loved one is proud of you, but it’s the facts and specific details that define a well-connected reading. In the same vein, we must maintain a balanced approach to any belief system we adopt, and we must see both sides. Always look at opposing arguments. Mysticism, and by extension spirituality, are sometimes perceived as intangible, impractical, or vague by people who take the materialist approach. They are none of that. I argue that intuition has informed many great accomplishments and inventions. As humans, we have always reached for the stars to understand what created us, and there’s a reason for that. Spirituality takes us on journeys, leads us into explorations, and encourages us to reach new heights. Mystical people are the revolutionaries of their time, even if they don’t call themselves mystics. Notable inventors, composers, philosophers, and civil rights activists have all been inspired to follow their soul’s call to contribute something for humans in the future. The Xerox machine, or photocopier, was born when a channeled message was given to its inventor, Chester Carlson, during a medium reading. He was so inspired by this experience that he donated the proceeds from his life’s work to psychic research. From ideological movements to utilities we use in daily life, something created the idea in the mind of the inventor. That spark of insight, that moment of epiphany, can only be credited as intuition.
The same intuition that has been used knowingly and unknowingly by the world’s greatest minds is something every single one of us has access to. When we can know what to look out for, we can refine it.
To spot your intuition, look at the times in your life when you knew something without a logical reason to come to that conclusion. Often, we can look back at when we didn’t follow our intuition as an example of when it was trying to communicate with us. It can be difficult to go with our gut in a society that conditions us to believe that hunches are unreasonable. Yet, hunches inform a lot of our behavior without us entirely realizing, and its usefulness is undeniable. Intuition is the gift of discernment. We use discernment every day, from gauging how we feel to deciding what we’re going to do. The artist uses discernment with every brushstroke. The surgeon must discern every swipe of the scalpel. Intuition doesn’t contradict logic, it works through whatever mental structures we create and nurture. The more you know logically and informationally, the more intuition can help guide your approach in everything you do.
We must get out of our own way and actively strive to decondition the things that prevent us from recognizing our spiritual nature. When we do our part, the Universe has a way of doing its part, sometimes in the most mysterious of ways.
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As a medium, I’ve seen a lot of mind-blowing validations through readings. However, the most mystical thing I’ve ever experienced didn’t happen when I was doing a reading. It happened while I was fixing a printer.
In 2016 I lived in an apartment with my then-boyfriend and parents. One Sunday morning, the printer in my room malfunctioned and I asked my mom to help me undo the jam. She obliged, and we worked on fixing it on my bedroom floor for about fifteen minutes. I was becoming increasingly frustrated, but then, out of nowhere, it happened. Suddenly the printer I was staring at intensely lit up as if someone was shining a flashlight directly on it. From behind me, a light source was illuminating the room within seconds. A bizarre buzzing noise radiated through the entire room and made my hair stand on edge. My mom and I looked at each other, and then turned around to see the source of the light. Only about six feet away near the ceiling was a moving light source, bright blue in color. It measured about three feet wide and three feet long, and I’ve never seen anything like it. We were stunned. We both watched as this light source near the ceiling began to gradually change. The bright, sky-blue light that electrified the room began appearing to collapse on itself, and as this happened it was encircled in a yellow light that floated like a mist. From this mist, golden embers of light fell to the ground onto the carpet below. It lasted no more than a few moments; we watched as this light seemed to collapse under its own weight. When I saw the golden embers begin falling to the ground, I leapt underneath it and tried to grab any residue that fell on the floor. My efforts were in vain. As I grasped at the light with my mom beside me, my then-boyfriend walked into the room and his jaw dropped. All three of us were witnessing the single most bizarre experience any one of us had ever witnessed, and probably ever will. After only a few seconds, the light collapsed entirely and disappeared, the static noise no longer more than a fleeting buzz.
Copyright © 2022 by Tyler Henry