First and foremost it’s important to know that my father was a Levite Jew and my mother was raised Catholic (although it appears her family converted to avoid anti-Semitism.) When my father died (I was 10) my mother went to the Rabbi and asked him what to do. He introduced her to his friend – a Monseigneur at a Catholic church in the suburbs of Chicago. The Rabbi told her to raise us as she had been raised because she didn’t know anything about the Jewish faith. So I was baptized (at 10) and confirmed a catholic (at 12) in record speed in a matter of just a couple of years.
I had always been freakishly psychic and as early as grammar school had scowered the local library in an effort to figure out why I knew things before they happened, had displayed an ability for telepathy as early as I could remember to such a degree that it would often be caught out by adults who would ask me how I knew what they were thinking. By the time I was around 7 or 8 I knew I was “different” and I scared people. I actually had adults get upset when I’d look at them and tell me to look away because they said they felt like I was looking “right through them.” I was actually reading them and they felt it. From as early as I can remember I had premonitions, sometimes I had so many I got confused about whether these things had happened already and would be in the middle of a dream I’d had and say to my mother, “but this already happened.” She didn’t like that too much.
I suppose everyone else’s fear of me and the fact that there was a lot of poltergeist activity always swarming around, like the garage door opening and closing all day, the TV turning itself on and off and the radio dial moving of its own volition when I’d sit in front of it to listen to music, that I realized there was something strange about me. My mother seemed terrified by it and often upset, my brother hid in closets most of my childhood and I often felt presences around me which began to scare me just before my father died. This is when I started doing things like taking a tape recorder and listening to see if I could hear spirit voices, which of course I did. I was nine.
About a year or two after my father died I began a regiment of daily meditation. I’d read a book about TM and thought it might help me. However it really unleashed a floodgate. At such an early age, grappling with my ability by myself, afraid and alone I had to be my own teacher, but of course I didn’t know anything about psychic defense or protection. Well, I learned the hard way, let’s leave it at that. This very scary period co-occured during my Catholic period and I can tell you Jesus never came to my defense nor did I feel anything when I prayed to him. I did feel the connection when I prayed to God and so I gave up Christianity and went searching. From about 12 on I went to every church, temple or spiritual place I could via my friends. I investigated Buddhism, and read books on Wicca.
When I went to college I studied with a High Priestess in the Celtic tradition. Long story short, that wasn’t for me either. I then studied Ceremonial or High Magic which is Talmudic magic based on the Kabbalah and comes from Western esoteric tradition which was started by the Jews. Still didn’t feel right and I decided that all Gods and Goddesses and forms of the divine (which by then I had personal experience with through meditation on) were just different paths leading up the mountain of the true God/Goddess/Great Spirit or known in kabbalistic terms as Ain Soph – the one Great Intelligence beyond our comprehension. All the Gods and Goddesses are just keys for our mind to grasp to get a glimpse of the Great Intelligence. And over the years I have come to believe this more and more accepting whatever works for people to get close to Ain Soph as their unique way, their path, deserving of respect.
So I would call myself nothing. I am not affiliated with any religion. I am not affiliated with the “New Age.” If anything my training is in the tradition of Magi and Priestesses of old and my kinship with them. I believe we all have God/Goddess within us and it is up to us to determine the road needed to travel back to our connection to Him/Her.
I suppose in all fairness I am a mystic and my belief system is in constant evolution as is my connection to the Great Intelligence. I just don’t believe anyone else can do this work for you, you have to do it for yourself.
Many blessings,
Denise
Astrology and Psychic Predictions 
Hi Denise,
Gosh, I felt such resonance when I read your post.
It read like a scary movie…..I have had child experiences somewhat like yourself, followed the same path, somewhat, struggled with Hindu derived meditation, etc, spiritualist church, made friends with local Psychics, learned a few things, and finally, after studying Gnostic Christianity, (The closest to what was intended, perhaps) finally ended up in mainstream Buddhism, (Theravada). Without My local Buddist meditation group, I do not know where I would be. I say all this only to sort of give comfort to those who are still struggling to find a path, that enables them to lead a basicly decent life, in this modern World.
So Your own path was very comforting, when I read it. I personally have a long way to go, and I’m always relapsing, and almost “Falling off the Wagon”, (spiritually, not from the spirits that come in bottles!). So I am probably average.
So If can do it, most people can. Your site is really quite a help, to many people, as it is a focus to make them realize they are not alone out there, there are others, there is a way.
Keep up the really good work.
Regards
Buddha Dreamer