Posted on 25 June 2018, 8:01

When a business client heard about Suzanne Giesemann’s first book, The Priest and the Medium, he was taken aback and asked somewhat cynically if she was really into that “stuff.”  She responded that she surely is.  “If he’d asked me the same question a couple of weeks earlier, I might have waffled,” Suzanne told me in a November 2010 interview, explaining that she was concerned that some people might think she had lost a few marbles since her retirement from the Navy seven years earlier.

Now, a decade or so and seven metaphysical books later, she’s still very much into it.  In fact, she is one of the most sought-after speakers on the spirituality and consciousness conference circuit, not just as an author but as a highly regarded medium.  “My life has become an ongoing exploration of a greater reality,” she states in the Preface of her latest book, Still Right Here: A True Story of Healing and Hope, going on to explain that it all started with the 2006 death of her stepdaughter, Susan, who was struck by lightning.  It was Susan’s passing that led to her search for the truth of life after death, meeting Anne Gehman, the medium in that first book, and ultimately to the discovery of her mediumistic abilities.

Before that, Suzanne (below) had a pretty “straight-laced” background, serving 20 years in the U.S. Navy, including as a commanding officer, a special assistant to the Chief of Naval Operations, and aide to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.  Along the way, Commander Giesemann earned a master’s degree in National Security Affairs, taught political science at the Naval Academy, and traveled to 56 countries.  Her husband, Ty, is a retired U. S. Navy captain.

She began developing as a medium after meeting Gehman and several other mediums who provided evidence of Susan’s survival.  That prompted her to take several classes in mediumship and an intensive course on the subject at Arthur Findlay College in England.  It was while meditating on her sailboat one day in 2009 that she felt the need to pick up a notebook and start writing.  Words started flowing without her thinking.  “They came so quickly that I didn’t have time to think,” she further explained in that 2010 interview.  “I just kept writing and realized, ‘They’ve sent me a poet!’”  She filled page after page without opening her eyes.  She could tell it made sense, but she had no sense of the content as a whole, and she was certain the words hadn’t come from her conscious mind. 

A year or so later, while in an altered state, Suzanne began bringing through messages from an entity named Sanaya, who identified “themselves” as a collective consciousness of minds with both feminine and masculine energy from a higher dimension than our own.  Sanaya has delivered thousands of messages to date (see https://www.suzannegiesemann.com/).

While Sanaya has continued to provide wisdom, Suzanne has continued to lecture and provide both evidence and higher truths in her books, at conferences, and in both individual and group meetings.  I recently had the opportunity to again interview Suzanne for The Searchlight, a publication of The Academy for Spiritual and Consciousness Studies, Inc.  This is a slightly abridged version of that interview.  (note: See http://ascsi.org/ for information on the Academy’s 2018 conference to be held in Raleigh, NC., Oct. 4-6.) 

Suzanne, are you aware of what you are saying while in this altered state?  Do some of the ideas expressed by Sanaya differ from your own?

I channel Sanaya from an altered state, but I am still somewhat aware of the concepts as they come through me, if not each word.  Yes, they have definitely shared information that was contrary to my personal belief system, and I have subsequently changed my views based on their teaching. By the way, it was several years after Sanaya instructed me to call them by that name that I learned Sanaya is an Arabic girl’s name meaning “flash of lightning.”  This is amazingly ironic, considering a flash of lightning is what killed my stepdaughter Susan and the young man I wrote about in my book, Wolf’s Message.

Psychologists and many parapsychologists would say it is all coming from your subconscious mind.  How do you respond to them?

Sanaya has taught me that there is only one Mind projecting consciousness through multiple realities.  I believe their words come from a superconscious level of mind and are filtered through my subconscious mind.  It is a cooperative experience and I have stopped asking if it is real or unreal.  The only question that matters to Sanaya and to me is, “Is it useful?”  Those who experience the energy and the words during these sessions are uplifted and they learn new perspectives, resulting in greater love and compassion in our world.  Some have even been healed of physical ailments during the channeling sessions.  I can’t prove where this is coming from, but it is highly useful to the Whole, so I continue the practice.

I understand that clairvoyance/clairaudience and trance mediumship are two different types of phenomenon and that you experience both.  Would you mind explaining the difference?

When I merge my awareness with that of a discarnate being in a mediumship sitting, I experience their presence through visual images (clairvoyance), hearing words or thoughts (clairaudience/claircognizance), as well as feeling their emotions and their presence (clairsentience).  In the deeper altered state from which I channel Sanaya, the words simply flow without time or need to interpret the information.  I experience a seamless blending without images or any seeming separation, yet I most certainly feel the power of their presence.

I would like to point out that I no longer need to be in a deeply altered state to access Sanaya’s guidance.  These days I merely shift my focus with the intention of connecting with my Team and I instantly become aware of them.  This kind of connection with guides is possible for anyone, since we are all expressions of Consciousness, just as our guides are.  Once a person comes to know how it feels to be in a state of focused awareness, anyone can shift their focus and gain a higher perspective on our human issues.  The reason I enjoy the channeling sessions so much more than simply checking in with them throughout the day is that once I enter into the deeper states of awareness, I can maintain that connection with Sanaya without the distractions of the physical world.

The “collective consciousness” calling itself Sanaya seems to be what was called a “group soul” with other mediums.  Imperator and his band of 49 who communicated through William Stainton Moses a century ago immediately comes to mind, as does Jane Roberts’s Seth.  Do you think we are talking about the same thing?

I do.  I have read and listened to the channeled materials of Jane Roberts and others such as Paul Selig and Esther Hicks.  Just as a sensitive person can feel the energy or level of consciousness of an author when we read books written by contemporary authors, the channeled works of these well-known channelers all have a similar “energy” or feel to me. 

The basic messages coming from Sanaya seem to be about love and forgiveness.  How much is there to say about those subjects?  Is what “they” are now saying different than what they said seven or eight years ago?

There is no change at all in their teaching.  In fact, they have told us many times that there is nothing new under the sun in this regard and that we cannot hear these messages of love and the soul’s evolution too often.  All we have to do is read the headlines each day to see that there is still plenty of learning to be had in this Earth School.

Given all the chaos and turmoil in the world today, do you think we are making any progress in overcoming our materialistic and hedonistic ways?

I believe that ever so slowly, we are making progress.  Sanaya repeatedly tells us not to be discouraged.  They point out that we have progressed from the Dark Ages to our current era, which they jokingly refer to as the “Dim Ages.”  In the grand scheme of things, this is an improvement, but we have a long way to go until the majority of humans understand that we are here to learn to extend not fear, anger, and hatred, but love.

Do you have a preference between channeling Sanaya and mental mediumship?
 
I love them both.  Thanks to the Internet, channeling Sanaya helps us to send ripples to a large number of people around the world, but there is nothing like being one-on-one with someone in my private sittings and providing them with evidence that their loved ones who have passed are right there with us.  The kind of verifiable information that those in spirit are able to get through in those sessions is wondrous and can be incredibly healing.  I’ve seen people’s grief be transformed in one hour when family members go from despair to the stunning awareness their loved ones live on across the veil.

You’ve come a long way since our interview in 2010.  You now lead webinars and classes and host an online radio show on Unity FM with the same name as your memoir, Messages of Hope (see http://www.SuzanneGiesemann.com/radioshow)  Did you foresee any of this when you wrote your first book about mediumship?

I truly did not, and it’s the greatest honor I can imagine to serve in this way.  When I interviewed Anne Gehman for The Priest and the Medium, I didn’t have any idea that I would one day be a medium myself.  Because my waiting list for readings is over three years long now, I offer classes, workshops, webinars, online courses, and CDs to help others connect across the veil themselves. I work harder these days than I ever did in my Navy career, even when I was assigned to the Pentagon working what my husband calls “half days” (6 AM to 6 PM) as aide to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs!  Honestly, though, I wouldn’t change a thing.  I have the most supportive husband in the world, and I love my life with Ty and our two longhaired dachshunds. 

What does the future hold?

I have no idea!  I used to be a big goal setter and I had to have everything planned out in great detail, but Sanaya has taught me how much better things turn out when we allow ourselves to be guided moment to moment by Higher Consciousness.  These days, I’m very happy to simply follow orders from Spirit.  Of course, I still exercise my free will, but it’s a very peaceful, freeing way to live once you stop striving and allow yourself to be guided.  I want to help as many people as possible to know the peace and joy that come from awakening to the fact that we are never alone and that what connects us all is love. 

Michael Tymn is the author of The Afterlife Revealed: What Happens After We Die, Resurrecting Leonora Piper: How Science Discovered the Afterlife, and Dead Men Talking: Afterlife Communication from World War I.

Posted on 11 June 2018, 8:23

Following the recent suicides of fashion designer Kate Spade and travel show host Anthony Bourdain, there has been much in the media about the alarming increase in suicides in the United States, especially in the 45-64 age group.  Considering that both Spade, 55, and Bourdain, 61, seemed to have had everything going for them, materialistically, at least, the media has been searching for answers

In a USA Today report, Maria Oquendo, chair of the department of psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania, is quoted as saying the trend among middle-aged adults is puzzling because people in that age group are more financially secure and have more experience in solving life’s problems.  She further stated that the opioid epidemic doesn’t explain it all.

At least two reports referred to a popular book, Lost Connections, in which author Johann Hari opines that the suicide rate is up because modern living has resulted in people being isolated from friends and relatives, which leads to loneliness and depression.  Hari, who has battled depression himself, states that such depression is most often viewed as a chemical imbalance in the brain and treated with medication.

I believe the answer to the “puzzle” is obvious, but since mainstream science and medicine refuse to recognize the strong evidence suggesting that consciousness survives death, it is never considered.  The root cause of many suicides is most likely an existential one – a failure to find any real meaning in life. A Time Magazine report by Belinda Luscombe points out that happiness is not the end result of a sum of accomplishments, quoting Bourdain, “What do you do after your dreams come true?”

In his popular 1969 book, The Immortalist, humanist philosopher Alan Harrington expressed it this way:  “An unfortunate awareness has overtaken our species.  Masses of men and women everywhere no longer believe that they have even the slightest chance of living beyond the grave.  The unbeliever pronounces a death sentence on himself.  For millions this can be not merely disconcerting but a disastrous perception.”

As Harrington viewed it, when people are deprived of rebirth vision, they “suffer recurring spells of detachment, with either violence or apathy to follow.”  Harrington, an atheist himself, saw mass-atheism as responsible for most, if not all, of society’s ills, including misplaced sexual energy.  “Orgies, husband and wife swaps, and the like, more popular than ever among groups of quite ordinary people, represent a mass assault on the mortal barrier,” he wrote. 

“The state of anxiety, the feeling of powerlessness and insignificance, and especially the doubt concerning one’s future after death, represent a state of mind which is practically unbearable for anybody,” wrote Erich Fromm, another humanist philosopher. 

As Carl Jung, a pioneer of psychology and psychiatry, saw it, critical rationalism eliminated the idea of life after death. He noted that most of his patients were non-believers, those who had lost their faith.  They were neurotics.  “They seek position, marriage, reputation, outward success or money, and remain unhappy and neurotic even when they have attained what they were seeking,” he wrote. “Such people are usually confined within too narrow a spiritual horizon.  Their life has not sufficient content, sufficient meaning.” 

Jung, who had a convincing near-death experience in 1944, went on to counter the mainstream view by saying that “a man should be able to say he has done his best to form a conception of life after death, or to create some image of it – even if he must confess his failure. Not to have done so is a vital loss.”  He added that the man who does not grasp the idea of life after death despairs as he “marches toward nothingness,” while the person who believes that he will survive death, though he may be uncertain, “follows the tracks of life and lives right into his death.” 

Renowned psychiatrist Viktor Frankl referred to it as “mass neurotic syndrome” – the result of an “existential vacuum,” a feeling of emptiness and meaninglessness. The more one seeks pleasure, Frankl observed, the more it eludes him. “Pleasure is, and must remain, a side-effect, or by-product, and is destroyed and spoiled to the degree in which it is made a goal in itself.”  A human being, he continued, is not one in pursuit of happiness, but one in search of a reason to become happy. Self-actualization, he further proclaimed, is possible only as a side effect of self-transcendence.

Even Sigmund Freud, who was not spiritually inclined, was concerned that one’s attitude toward death has a bearing on his or her psychological health.  “Is it not for us to confess that in our civilized attitude toward death, we are once more living psychologically beyond our means, and must reform and give truth its due?” he asked. “Would it not be better to give death the place in actuality and in our thoughts which properly belongs to it, and to yield a little more prominence to that unconscious attitude towards death which we have hitherto so carefully repressed?”

The non-believer will immediately interpret all that to suggest that we should live for the afterlife and not for today.  However, that is not what Jung and Freud were saying.  William James, another pioneer in psychiatry, may have summed it up best when he said,
“The luster of the present hour is always borrowed from the background of possibilities it goes with.  Let our common experiences be enveloped in an eternal moral order; let our suffering have an immortal significance; let Heaven smile upon the earth, and deities pay their visits; let faith and hope be the atmosphere which man breathes in; and his days pass by with zest; they stir with prospects, they thrill with remoter values.  Place around them on the contrary the curdling cold and gloom and absence of all permanent meaning which for pure naturalism and the popular-science evolutionism of our time are all that is visible ultimately, and the thrill stops short, or turns rather to an anxious trembling.”

Jung, Freud, James, and Frankl were not suggesting that we live for the afterlife, only that we keep the larger picture in mind as we go about our daily activities.  Otherwise, we risk succumbing to the Epicurean motto, “eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die,” while striving to be one with our toys and eventually wondering what to do after we accumulate enough toys. 

I think Giambattista Vico, an 18th-century Italian philosopher, hit the nail squarely on the head when he wrote that men first feel necessity, then look for utility, followed by comfort, then pleasure, and finally luxury, after which they finally go mad – when “each man is thinking of his own private interests.”  In that pursuit of pleasure and luxury, there is a certain social disconnection, which involves moral, intellectual, and spiritual decline.

“Despair over the earthly or over something earthly is really despair about the eternal and over oneself, in so far as it is despair,” existentialist Søren Kierkegaard offered, referring to the person in despair as a philistine.  “Philistinism tranquilizes itself in the trivial, being equally in despair whether things go well or ill,” he continued, going on to say that many philistines don’t actually realize they are in despair, or if they do realize it they don’t understand what they are in despair about.  Neither do their psychiatrists, the politicians, or the journalists.

Michael Tymn is the author of The Afterlife Revealed: What Happens After We Die, Resurrecting Leonora Piper: How Science Discovered the Afterlife, and Dead Men Talking: Afterlife Communication from World War I.