The interview you are about to read was influenced by a psychic experience in my bathroom. One morning after a powerful meditation I decided to take a shower and perform an energy bath cleansing.

I had already submitted my questions to Slade, so I was surprised when Laura (my guide who connects me to the guides of others) interrupted me with an urgent message from one of his guides.

Slade’s guide showed me the image of the Virgin Mary and the relationship of child to mother. She wanted him to talk about his experiences with Mary and she was quite adamant that people need to hear what he has to say. The following interview grew more detailed from this experience. Despite concerns that it may be too long, we chose to trust the guides on this one…

PK: Many people have a primary mode of receiving divine guidance that comes through really strong. When did you first discover your clairaudience? And perhaps even more importantly…when and how did you begin to trust it?

Slade: I experienced what I would later come to identify as clairaudience from childhood. When I was really young, there were several episodes where the voices I heard were “classically clairaudient” — startlingly loud, unbidden, seemingly external, and having no resemblance to the subtler “still small voice” that you might normally dismiss as being “just the sound of your own thoughts.”

These earliest, extreme incidents revolved around warnings and danger — my little brother was accident-prone and narrowly escaped potentially serious or even fatal events. I first became aware of my guides and guardians in those moments. “Don’t go in there!” “Get out of here, now!” “Grab him!” That kind of thing.

As I grew up — as I was educated and, more specifically, socialized — I picked up really quickly that this was not “normal” and I spent most of my life terrified of being identified as “crazy” and ending up institutionalized for claiming to hear voices. I honestly feared that destiny up until about a year ago. It’s a fear I haven’t completely shaken, but I’m working through it.

When I was eight years old I became obsessed with three figures from history — The Virgin Mary, Joan of Arc, and William Blake. I read everything I could find about them. I was particularly interested in their childhood experiences — their claims to have communicated with angels. What happened before the great achievements for which they are known to us? What did they feel like before they told anyone what they’d seen and heard? I supposed I was comforted by the Source, which was ultimately benevolent and divine. Even as a child who had very little exposure to Christianity — and absolutely zero exposure to Catholicism — I pondered what is was like in a very real, everyday, biographical sense to be someone who claimed to hear the voices of angels. To this day I feel that there is much more to Mary’s story than what we know; her story jumps from the Nativity through a few walk-ons, a line or two of dialogue, and then on to a big tragic ending with a pieta. In Hollywood terms, if she ever had any major scenes, they mostly ended up on the cutting room floor. I feel that those missing reels must have included the drama of being socially ostracized.

William Blake died penniless and unrecognized in his lifetime. And, of course, I was painfully conscious of Joan of Arc’s martyrdom. I burned a couple of Fischer Price Adventure People action figures at the stake working through that Story.

I didn’t begin to really trust my mystical experiences until I had to — when I found myself in mortal danger.

PK: Was there a significant experience that set you on the path of digging deeper into your abilities?

Slade: Absolutely. Considering the backstory I’ve just told you, maybe it won’t seem like such a shocker when I tell you that the Virgin Mary showed up in my living room.

In 2003, every component of my life began to collapse — my intentions of working as a psychotherapist hit a brick wall, I was diagnosed with a serious terminal illness, countless “mystery” illnesses, I lost my job, I lost friendships… You name it; it all came crashing down around me at the same time. I literally had a stroke, at the age of 34. My body rebelled against all the stress. I woke up one morning partially paralyzed — the left side of my face, my left arm. It took close to a year to recover about 95% — and in that time I became agoraphobic. I didn’t want to leave the house; because of vanity, more than anything, I didn’t want anyone to see me.

In desperation, I turned to alternative, holistic healing — I went to a yoga class to connect with my body and had a total meltdown. Maybe it was one of those Kundalini Awakenings I’ve heard people talk about — whatever happened, whatever might have been blocking my channel, it exploded. It was like someone suddenly cutting on an amplifier at excruciating top volume. The messages, the clairaudience, the intuitive information came through more loudly and clearly than I would’ve wished. The presence of spiritual entities — whom I recognized as having always been there — was unavoidable.

I underwent MRI’s — they found no neurological damage — but I knew what was happening was not brain damage or hallucination. If you’ve experienced powerful hallucinations, or panic attacks, or flashes of intuition, you know that they’re simply not similar. The scary stuff is scary, hallucinations are disorienting — epiphanies are intense, but they’re CLEAR.

The first thing I heard the morning after my yoga meltdown was the message “You are in danger. If you don’t make powerful adjustments to your path, you will have another aneurism. The next one will kill you.” I believe they said I had twelve days.

I turned back to a lifelong faith — praying to the Goddess to heal me — with a volume and dedication that I’d never attempted before. Now, something that’s important to understand — I had already established two decades worth of spiritual practice, entirely in neo-pagan traditions. I was also a graduate student in clinical psychotherapy. I was very comfortable in my highly “intellectualized” system of belief.

But I was praying for a miracle — beyond anything I’d contemplated or learned. I swear to you, no one was more shocked than me when the Goddess responded and showed up in the aspect of the Blessed Virgin Mother. The Christian Mary. And these entities that were attending me revealed themselves to me as angels in her service. In order to even process the experience, I had to throw out my belief system and start from scratch. There simply was no denying that these voices were… angels. There’s no better word for them; it’s a concept that transcends faiths, cultures, and human history.

I had to accept that my complex, intellectual understanding of the psyche and the soul was seriously OFF. In many ways, I’ve discovered that the most popular, low-brow, simple-minded perceptions of the supernatural are sometimes a better fit — the most straightforward way to describe what I experience.

I believe with all my heart that I was physically healed by Mary’s divine intervention, that I am protected by her, and that I am here to serve a greater purpose — a part of an agenda bigger than me and beyond my understanding.

PK: When did you realize you could use this gift to help others and how did that come about?

Slade: The answers I began to receive in response to praying were undeniably specific and detailed. As I moved through the crisis, the messages once again shifted to warnings for people that I knew. It was actually my failure to trust the messages on a few occasions that convinced me to act on the gift. Because of fear and pride and vanity, I talked myself out of relaying these messages — and a few times, realized after the fact — in horror — that I had missed an opportunity to help people save themselves. When I acted quickly and put my ego-motivated discomfort aside, the results were powerful. I began to trust the messages because NOT trusting them and following through was even worse than the fear of someone thinking I was nuts.

I remained a recluse for a couple of years and out of necessity began to look for ways to work from home. It just so happens that the only work I COULD do at that point coincided with the work I most wanted to do. Having run out of alternative detours in my life path, I discovered the only option left. I began to pursue writing, web design, and publishing as my last, best hope — also as an instrument. The mission Mary prescribed for me was two fold — to share my personal experience on a global scale, but also, more importantly, to teach others how to harness technology to broadcast their own missions.

I still spent a lot of my energy as a web designer, marketing consultant, editor, copywriter, and a professional blogger on everyone else’s businesses and projects. I became adept in the technology that would power my purpose, but a meaningful personal project of my own was still missing from the mix. Mary also wanted me to write a book.

In 2005, my guides started telling me that I had to put all my fears aside, become my own client in every respect, and come out of the psychic closet, once and for all. Until I did that, everything else I spent my energies on would only have limited success.

In February 2006, my friend John asked me to attend a trance-channeling session with Dr. Meg Blackburn-Losey. I was hungry to see into the lives of people who called themselves psychics, channelers, or mediums — to get a sense of how I might model my mission after theirs. It was immediately confirmed for me that the entities — the Ascended Masters — who Dr. Meg channeled were entirely familiar to me. I recognized what was happening. I recognized Them, and They me.

Through her, They spoke directly to me with the same message. The externalized source confirmed what I already knew. I’ll never forget what they asked me:

“You are already everything you’ve ever wanted to become. You fulfill your life purpose with every breath you take. How long do you intend to stay in your Tower, learning, practicing, preparing, contemplating, when sharing what you know could benefit so many other people?”

It was like a guilt-trip straight from God.

That question ultimately resulted in starting my blog Shift Your Spirits [link: http://sladeroberson.com/] about six months later — to find an audience for my experiences, and my Marian memoir. It was really only after I began writing about my experiences and doing readings for other people that I got a clear sense of how I could impact others on a larger scale. In April 2007 I abandoned my web design and blog marketing consultation business to work exclusively with other spiritually motivated authors through a second publication called Spiritual Blogging [link: http://sladeroberson.com/blogging/]

PK: Guides communicate through a language of energy using images, sounds, scents, tastes and or just a knowing that we must tune into our spiritual senses to receive. Please describe some of your most significant experiences with learning to use your spiritual senses and decipher the symbolic language your guides speak.

Slade: I haven’t so much learned the language my guides speak as I am developing a language with them. They know more of my language than I do theirs. But overall, it’s a kind of immersion — discovering a common denominator of communication motivated by need, in the moment, on the fly. There’s no one to teach it to me first — I learn by living it. More than anything, we teach each other — it’s a language that’s constantly evolving and emerging — it’s a creative process. I might compare it to learning to communicate with a pet, or the private language created between close friends, over time. The key shift in perspective for me was to move from learning it as if it exists as a language outside myself to co-creating it. Like dream symbol interpretation, there may be many similarities between what a particular symbol or image means for you and for someone else — but there are no hard-and-fast rules. You have to look within the context of your inner world. What does the symbol mean to you? When does that feeling, sign, sense repeat — for you? Why does the repetition get your attention? What does it feel like it means? You have to step to the side and observe the laboratory of your unique reality. A sign in a reference book is only one general interpretation — start there, but don’t stop. Let tradition or another person’s process inspire you — but see that it’s only a jump-off point.

This is such a complex and entirely custom process — I feel that I’m always dancing around this and unable to pin it down. There is an art to it. I can lead you toward finding it for yourself, but it’s a little bit like leading you to create an amazing painting or writing your own novel. When I finally listened to the advice of other psychics — stop using divination tools, they’re a crutch, they’re limiting you — my channel expanded. Even if I could write it all down in a symbolic dictionary or reference guide — the literal interpretations would only work for me. To some degree, it’s a language no one else will ever speak but me and my guides.

Your goal should not be to learn my language, but use it as inspiration to learn your own.

PK: If you could give one piece of advice to those wishing to connect to their own angels and guides what would it be?

Slade: Trust that you are not missing anything.

There’s nothing “outside” your experience to bring in. There’s no secret ingredient that you’ve yet to discover that’s not already there. The secret shift is entirely your perspective. You DO hear your guides. You ARE receiving divine messages every day, all the time. Release your expectation of what those signs are supposed to look like or what those messages and voices are supposed to sound like. The signs and messages and symbols and nudges are all right in front of you. It’s an Easter Egg hunt — messages are hidden in plain sight. If you feel you can’t hear the answers, step back and look at everything you’re already hearing and start asking “Which of those sounds are my divine answers in disguise?” Don’t discount the really simple, common, everyday stuff — that the answers you seek may be piggy-backed on emails from friends, or a passing exchange with a stranger at a convenient store. Maybe this interview is providing you with one of those answers, right here on this page. Maybe it’s the television show you just happen to catch while channel surfing. Maybe it’s the song that’s stuck in your head. Maybe it’s the bumper-sticker on the car in front of you…

Start wondering. When you go looking for these answers, these signs, these divine communications, preface every thought with “I wonder…”

Don’t expect a booming voice from heaven accompanied by a thunder-crack and an ethereal beam of light. Sometimes, you get these Big episodes — but generally, it’s just not that extreme. You’re not likely to experience many of those bigger-than-life scenarios.

Look at everything in your conscious awareness as if it hides a clue, a piece of the puzzle, a fragment of a mosaic. What magic is masquerading in the mundane? What wonder are you dismissing simply because it seems ordinary? You ARE hearing voices, messages, language — look at everything that represents a voice, a message. Consider all the possible vessels and forms of information you are bombarded with.

Look again at everything that might be speaking to you — it is.

PK: What would you like every person out there know about divine guidance?

Slade: Divine guidance is not supernatural — it’s super-common. It’s everywhere. No one is excluded. You can exclude yourself by making choices based on fear or self-doubt. How might your life change when you decide to behave as if you are divinely guided? Because you are. If you knew who walks beside you, you would have no fear. Whose permission do you require to create the life you want to live? Permission granted — please proceed.

PK: And lastly if you could give everyone out there one of your own experiences to help them expand and understand, what would it be?

Slade: If I could give — literally transfer — some of my experiences and the emotions that accompany them, they would all be shifts in perspective:

The magical daily existence that comes from the decision — the choice — to live your life AS a miracle.

The comfort and the release from fear that comes from knowing that you are never alone.

The success that comes from creating the life you want to live — even — maybe especially — from the challenges that break your heart.

The simple, direct truth that you are already everything you’ve ever wanted to become. You fulfill your life purpose with every breath you take. You aren’t missing anything. There’s nothing extra to acquire. You can transform the life you are already living into the powerful spiritual experience you know it’s supposed to be with a choice.

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