Anna DeStefano's Blog

The BEST part of my research for my new psychic proposal is learning about clariaudience and spirit guides. Both play key roles in the developing series about a new family evolving into a legacy of latent parapsychological gifts. If you’ve ever felt someone near you when no one was there, experienced an epiphany from out of nowhere at the exact moment that you needed it, had a stranger share the precise message or insight that will get you through a personal struggle, or avoided disaster at the last moment because of a random encounter with someone or something that diverted your from danger… Haven’t you wondered if there might just be more intent than whim behind what you’ve encountered?

First, let’s back it up and talk about a spirit world theory that is the basis for new books in my Legacy series and the foundation of a philosophy that says that the energy of beings we can’t see coexists all around us, every second of the day.In a world such as this, spirits surround us but exist in a dimension that most of us are incapable of interacting with. Those most likely to see and hear them tend to be children, because they’re more spiritually conscious and less likely to dismiss an encounter, and animals (whom some believe are the most spiritual evolved beings on the plant).

So, whithout digressing into past life philosophy and a deeper discussion of whether higher/faster plains of existence that we can’t see are possible, let’s agree for the sake of this blog post that spirits of those most of us cannot see and hear do exist. Spirits, the theory goes, of those who’ve died before us and whose energy has passed on to another dimension.

A principle like this opens up a world like the one I’m drawing in my books to fantastic possibilities.

Why? Because what if these spirits were regularly trying to communicate with us, all around us, from wherever their energy has gone? If only we could hear them, what could we learn? How could these souls help (or in some cases) harm those they’ve left behind? In fact, how would they go about getting our intention, while we walk right by and ignore them.

Which brings us to the terms clairaudience and clairsentience–the gifts of being able to hear beings and information from another dimension, or receive and actually experience the physical and emotional projections of those spirits on the “other side” of your dimension, respectively.

Many say children are born with these gifts (that all children have at least one psychic gift). Have you ever witnessed a child talking to her imaginary friend, having a tea party with no one, or repeating something that’s been said to her that she should have no way of knowing? Have you ever wondered how they can be so engaged?  What if they were really hearing, seeing, and interacting with something?

These would be the gifts of people who tell us they communicate with the dead and can pass on information from spirits. But what if the person with the gift is unaware or unwilling to accept the energy being sent to them? If we’re talking about the protagonist in my next contemporary fantasy, the spirits will find ways to get around such basic human denial and stubbornness ;o)

My heroine can get into any protected, hidden, heavily secured place with not prior knowledge of whatever’s being done to keep her out.She can pick any lock, find any treasure, and get herself out of any jamb, without exception. Why? She has no idea. Well, maybe a little of an idea, but she’s not interested in knowing too much about why answers find her before she hears their questions or why her father trusted her “gifts” so much, he’s become unstoppable international thief because her instincts are never wrong.

Now I’m not going to give away any more about the plot. At least not yet ;o) But suffice it to say that things go awry and the spirits who’ve been biding their time must take my protagonist in hand and force her to deal with them, and her growing powers, or she’ll fall into the hands of a group of scientists who will use her for far worse things than stealing priceless paintings and shiny baubles. So, how do they make her see?

They ratchet up their interaction with her, until she has no choice but to believe in what’s been right in front of her face, literally, all her life. The theory I borrowed for doing this is called Apportation: a spirit manipulating a physical object in our dimension to get our attention. Think of objects moving, changing, appearing and disappearing. I’ve come up with something totally cool and personal and incredibly interactive to lure, drag and drive my protagonist through her story, until she’s on a bit of a scavenger hunt in the midst of the danger surrounding her.

I also use Spirit Guides: specific spirits chosen for each person who advise, support and guide. There are those who believe that these spirits communicate by sending messages that are often mistaken for hunches, instincts and problem-solving dreams. And that spirit guides, like angels, can use other human beings to send these messages to their charges. Doesn’t that sound like fun?

We’re going to have fun over the next few months, now that I’m back from summer break and once more on my writing treadmill. Look for weekly Psychic Realm posts on psychic children, cool concepts like the ones in this post, Native American mysticism, and even the fringe science behind all of it that might not be as far fetched as many think!

See you soon ;o) Bwahahahahaha

Tags: Anna DeStefano, Clairaudience, clairsentience, contemporary fantasy, creativity & inspiration, Dark Legacy, fantasy author, Legacy Series, Secert Legacy, spirit guides

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 28th, 2011 at 4:09 pm and is filed under What About Everything Else?. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.