In a recent podcast episode featuring renowned psychic and meditation teacher John Friedlander, we journeyed into the realm of reading the personal aura, and the profound influence of energetic communication on our day-to-day life and relationship dynamics. As we navigate the labyrinth of human relationships – friends, family, intimate partners and in the workplace – it’s crucial we understand the critical importance of healthy boundaries, recognizing our differences, asserting individuality and avoiding the pitfall of enmeshment.
An intriguing aspect of our discussion centered on the topic of energetic cords within the personal aura, a subject we cover quite extensively in our EHT-100 training. These cords can affect our overall auric field and consequently our life experiences, and the ability to identify and clear these cords can transform the electromagnetic field surrounding the body, paving the way for a more balanced and harmonious life.
Another significant area we delved into is the subject of emotions, considering perspectives on whether they are ‘useful’ or something to extinguish or control. John posited that emotions provide an opportunity for intimacy and are not necessarily to be controlled or eliminated, rather, they should be understood and navigated effectively for personal growth and spiritual elevation. We also venture into the importance of the practical application of psychic skills in relational dynamics. We discuss the intricacies of clairvoyant abilities and learning to read the aura, and the importance of grounding when dealing with the powerful energy of Kundalini.
The essence of this episode lies in usefulness of exploring one’s personal aura, and its critical influence on our lives. A touchstone of our work here at Field Dynamics! The practical application of psychic abilities, the identification and clearing of energetic cords, and the nuanced understanding of emotions and energy in spirituality are profound insights that listeners can take away from this conversation. These insights provide stepping stones towards a deeper understanding of ourselves, our relationships, and our potential for profound spiritual heights.
Enjoy the episode on your favourite platform, or listen directly on our website! You’ll also find a full episode transcript below; you’re welcome! Enjoy.
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Christabel Armsden: 0:12
Welcome to the Field Dynamics podcast. We’re here to facilitate inspiring dialogues about the nature of consciousness across disciplines, communities and practitioners, all with a holistic perspective.
Keith Parker: 0:24
From energy healing to somatic therapies, from neuroscience to meditation. We believe the most interesting things happen at the boundaries of disciplines.
Christabel Armsden: 0:33
I’m Christabel.
Keith Parker: 0:34
And I’m Keith.
Christabel Armsden: 0:35
Thanks for joining us today and enjoy the episode. Hello and welcome to the Field Dynamics podcast. Today we have with us guest John Friedlander. John holds degrees from Duke University and Harvard Law School. He studied meditation during two trips to India in the 70s, trained in psychic meditation and aura reading with Louis Bostwick at the Berkeley Psychic Institute in California in 1973, and joined Jane Robert’s seminal Seth class in 1974. He practiced law for almost 15 years but began to teach classes in psychic awareness in 1975, gradually phasing out his legal work in favor of his busy metaphysical practice. He has authored multiple books, including The Practical Psychic, Basic Psychic Development and Psychic Psychology: Energy Skills for Life and Relationships. John has become one of the nation’s best known psychics and has lectured and taught across the United States. So firstly, welcome, John. It’s a real pleasure to have the opportunity to speak with you today.
John Friedlander: 1:50
Well, I’m looking forward to speaking with you too.
Christabel Armsden: 1:55
It’s hard for us to know where to start! Your work has so many shared threads with our own. You’ve described yourself as a teacher primarily of meditation, a meditation based on one’s ability to perceive one’s own aura and the aura of others, and I wondered if you went behind just perhaps introducing yourself and your life’s work to our listeners in your own words, as you see it today.
John Friedlander: 2:25
Every day is brand new. I learn all kinds of things. I just have a lot of fun. I love interacting with the people I interact with doing readings all day. It’s so intimate, it’s so warm, it’s so wonderful. My co-author, Gloria Hemsher, and I are currently working on a book on advanced women’s energy. The focus of what we teach is how to use what I call the personal aura. There are many ways you can look at the aura. We work with many, many ways of looking at the aura, but everything comes back to the ability to be engaging the world as it is, at a human as opposed to transcendental level, the messy world where there are tensions and contradictions. And those very tensions and contradictions are part of what creates the incredible beauty. It’s that rich complexity of life that generates the meaning, and I argue based upon my studies, with Seth and 50 years of working through it. I argue that the Aquarian age is not about a group consciousness where individual differences are blotted out, and it’s not about transcendental, so-called enlightenment. It’s about working through enough clarity in the personal life that a whole new level of intimacy that no one currently alive is capable of, where you literally share consciousness, and each person brings his or her differences, as well as similarities, into that, making something much more. Your differences, what Jane used to call your idiosyncrasies, and the type of aura reading that we focus most of our attention on, allows you to gain that day to day intimacy and authentic kindness and generosity.
Keith Parker: 5:20
So you called it the “personal aura”, differentiating it from other aspects, and that this is a pathway towards a certain kind of deep intimacy you’re saying is it really pronounced or important in the work you’re doing. So how do you teach people, or how might you extrapolate a bit on this idea of focusing on the aura in this particular way, at the human, at the personal level, at the relational level, at the heart level?
John Friedlander: 5:49
That’s a good question. We don’t do that much direct teaching of aura reading anymore. What we do is we teach a lot of the abilities that are talked about in the book Psychic Psychology and as people work through that system they tend to develop the ability to see, especially to do what we call “say hello. So let me back up. There are two basic operations that we use for engaging the personal aura. There are more complex things that can be done, but everything can be done based upon these two basic operations. So number one is whose energy is it? That’s what makes it the personal aura. Other auras that vibrate either lower or higher. There’s no your energy or my energy. What makes this the personal aura is that we explore boundaries and we explore engaging differences. By we I mean humans, by having energy that becomes marked as yours. It can be yours even if it’s stuck in someone else’s aura for 15 lifetimes. It still has that distinctive mark as yours. Your energy adapts to your creative will, but someone else’s energy doesn’t. So when someone else’s energy is in your personal aura, two things happen; it clogs up your aura and leaves no space for your creations and it runs around like a greased pig in your aura because you can’t really catch it. You do create your own reality, though. No one’s energy can be in your aura unless, in some way that you may not track, you’re holding it in there. So the first skill we develop is learning to recognize what your energy and what is at this personal level, learning to pull back your energy. The truth is, someone else’s energy can’t be in your space unless you’re in their space, so you learn to pull back your energy and send them back theirs. That feels really good, and as you start to do that, you start to become more aware of aura, whether you see it clairvoyantly or you feel it or you hear it. You don’t actually have to be able to see, or it’s nice if you can, but if you feel it or hear it, you can work with the energies. So the second major function is if it’s your energy, is it vibrating in current time? By that we mean are you holding on to the past or holding on to the future, in either a positive or negative way. If you are, it’s like a string on a guitar that has a knot in it. Your energy cannot vibrate cleanly for whatever experience you’re having at that moment, when you learn how to do what we call “explode pictures. You learn how to take the knots out of your energy aura so that you are open and available to be present personally in your next experience. And then everything we do grows out of that. And it’s pretty remarkable. People do start seeing and start growing. And what we’re working towards – and this is fairly advanced and one never gets good enough at it – but what we’re working towards is you being able to have a conversation where you are able to track who that person is you’re talking to, who you are, what the similarities and differences are and, at an energy level, acknowledge – we call this saying hello – acknowledge who they are. That’s neither approving nor disapproving, just acknowledging with an energy. And when you succeed in that, inevitably their aura will brighten and your aura will brighten and there is actually – you don’t necessarily have to track this – but when you do that, there is actually a transcendent, intimate energy that gets activated in that process.
Christabel Armsden: 11:44
Fascinating. I know many of our listeners are going to be very intrigued by what you’re sharing here. Because of that, I’d like to just distill or clarify slightly how you’re defining boundaries in this personal aura. Why might a boundary break down or have holes in it or be weak, and in what circumstances is it that we are giving our energy over to others or resonating to energy coming from them? Is it conflict? Is it karma? There must be a lot of different inputs here, but I’d love to hear more about your thoughts on this.
John Friedlander: 12:17
What a wonderful question. Let me start kind of at the end, because one of the most interesting things that I’ve noticed in consulting and counseling people is most people think of setting a boundary as something you do, exercising control over the other person so that they don’t violate you. That is not at all how you set a boundary, because the moment you’re controlling another person, you’ve violated your boundaries and theirs, no matter how righteous what you are talking about. I remember a respected teacher was doing a reading for someone I know and the teacher said well, that’s because you’re trying to control your parents. And the person said I’m not trying to control my parents, I’m just trying to make them listen to me. And the teacher said that’s what I mean. You don’t get to make someone do the right thing. What you do learn how to do is communicate what you do do and what you don’t want to, and you leave your personal energy on the outside of their aura. As a communication, you can say I’m unhappy with this, I don’t like the way it’s going, if this continues, I’m going to call the police or move to Florida, or in other words, you communicate. Now, that’s only the extreme where you’re talking about violating boundaries, but there’s also the case of, let’s say, you really, absolutely want the best for someone. I remember about 50 years ago, when I was in the Seth classes, I had a dream where I saw these born again Christians and they were very strict and I disapproved of them, so I started sending them a healing. They circled up and they started sending black magic towards me and I woke up and I realized I had no right to send them a healing. They didn’t view what I was doing as a healing. That was a complete violation of boundaries. I was completely wrong. Their response was wrong too, but that’s part of how you create your own reality. I thought I was being great. So there are ways that you can learn to stay with what we call in communication as opposed to being in an investment, like, for example, learning to own your second chakra and not leave it wide open, learning how to set your crown and things like that that one learns how to do.
Keith Parker: 15:47
How would you describe the way in which somebody is able to discern what’s theirs?
John Friedlander: 15:53
We do a lot of creating a rose. It’s just a place or a location. A rose has been used forever in the West as a kind of place marker. But you could create a computer screen or a table or anything you want, but we use roses. It works very well. So you create a rose and you let your mother or father’s energy get on the rose. Then you see if you can notice any difference between your energy and their energy. And then over time you can do that with 20 people, one at a time. Or you put your mother and father on two separate roses and see if you can notice a difference. Or you put your cat and your mother on two separate roses and see if you can notice a difference. Or you go up and touch a tree and see if you can open your second chakra and see if you can feel the energy of that tree, see if you notice a difference. So most of psychic work is just noticing differences.
Keith Parker: 17:11
There’s a tremendous amount of inner discernment, subtle discernment, subtle sensing, development that goes along with it. And the rose as a holding space is utilized because it has a particular vibrational characteristic that’s suited for the task?
John Friedlander: 17:30
It actually has a fairly neutral vibrational characteristic, so therefore it’s not distorting. It gives you a neutral background to make comparisons.
Christabel Armsden: 17:44
A core concept in your work, John, and you just mentioned it previously, is this concept of enmeshment, psychic enmeshment, something that can often arise, maybe with a parent, for example. Can you tell us a little bit more about how enmeshment plays out in a person’s life, or good practices for working with that? Would that relate to the roses work that you’ve just conveyed, for instance? And is there a difference between just simply having some of these energies held in our aura and theirs versus a sort of full blown enmeshment dynamic?
John Friedlander: 18:20
Let me start with your question of how do you get enmeshed? There are sort of two principle ways of looking at that. You could look at it from a Sethian, what beliefs trigger that? Or a cognitive, psychological, what sort of beliefs lead to enmeshment? Then you could also look at it in straight energy and not get into all the cognitive stuff. So for the cognitive stuff, enmeshment will occur mostly in two ways. One is a kind of attempt to control the other person. Regardless of how well intended you are, that inevitably leads to at least some degree of enmeshment. Let’s say I oppose Putin unequivocally. If I try to exercise some sort of psychic magic that affects him and those that he pulls together, that in some way is going to make the situation worse rather than better, because that’s what he’s all about is coercion, and you’re just buying into that coercion. So I can oppose him in a Gandhian way or a more active way of doing what we call exploding matching pictures, which we may or may not have time to go into and that helps the earth, whether Putin responds to it or not. We’re all interdependent and some folks, including me, who I’m exploding matching pictures, will have a better energy and in the long run that makes things better, so that one way you get enmeshed is to try to control someone. The other way you get enmeshed is to try to run your friendships or intimacy or expression solely from your similarities. People will repress who they are and they’ll just get our best friendships are oh, she’s just like me. Well, that’s not the kind of friendship we’re looking for, as much of the intimacy arises out of noticing differences. I’ve been with my wife now for 47 plus years. Our relationship gets more and more intimate. You know, again, here I am at 75. I’ve lived with her for 47 years, but a major part of what makes our relationship more intimate not the only thing, of course, but a major part is I’m becoming more and more aware of where we’re different. And so as you learn to track and pay attention and even treasure or even get exasperated by differences as well as similarities, your energies will tend to be clean. They never are perfectly clean because ultimately we are in all interdependent, even in our personal auras. But you can get profoundly clear and that sets up a kind of action-orientation. That’s why I used the word authentic, next to kindness and generosity, because it isn’t based upon some sort of transcendental love that I’m working on becoming kind and generous. It’s on knowing there may be things that I find aggravating about you or that you find aggravating about me, and that’s part of the richness of life, too.
Keith Parker: 22:57
I love this general topic of enmeshment. Sometimes we use the term like merging or overlapping. Would you say that this is just part of the human condition, and particularly with family structures? It seems like many people, if they check in with this idea of enmeshment regarding mom and dad or maybe siblings, that there’s a tendency for enmeshment to just be a part of what’s happening and and I’m wondering if that’s how you, how you’re seeing it? And if that’s the case, how valuable is it for people to kind of clean themselves up, to clarify themselves?
John Friedlander: 23:34
There will always be some enmeshment in a relationship like that. I am so pleased at seeing how much development and understanding and in sort of the the nature of healthy relationships there has been In the 50 years that I’ve been closely tracking it and I see young parents today doing talking to their children in such skillful ways. It just thrills me. I think generation by generation there will be less enmeshment, but but yes, I think it’s probably the certain amount of it is unavoidable, but the amount that was fairly normal in my generation fortunately doesn’t have to happen.
Christabel Armsden: 24:35
Cords are another hot topic in energy work and something people tend to become quite serious about when they’re first introduced to this idea of cords, at least we find so in our trainings. We often hear in the in the New Age or you know, contemporary metaphysics, about this idea of cutting chords. So at Field Dynamics we tend to work more with the idea of clearing them and allowing them to to fall away when appropriate. What is an energetic cord in your experience? Where do they appear, why and how might people best work with that?
John Friedlander: 25:08
So, again, it depends upon which order you’re looking at. I still work by ‘exploding pictures’ in clearing the underlying belief that allowed that chord to come in. But if people don’t have a lot of spiritual tools, they may just go ahead and cut them and that’s better than nothing. I don’t think that cutting is a reasonable choice. A cord can’t come in and stick without you providing a piece of velcro, a psychic velcro, for that cord. Doesn’t matter how much you hate that cord, you’re the one who is holding it there. The Dalai Lama is often on YouTube and I listened to a talk he gives, and he was talking about part of the ceremony he was running was about sending away various Spirits that were obstacles, various obstacle beings, and he was laughing and he said those spirits are probably laughing at us, they’re saying ” they’re trying to send us away, and yet.. ” (I’m changing his words) “.. They’re holding us here”. So, again, it doesn’t matter how much, how frustrated you are with the cord, it’s still your problem, not the problem of the person who, quote-unquote, “is putting it in on you, and it doesn’t mean that they don’t have a problem, but that’s their problem, and Solving their problem isn’t going to solve your problem, which is you have a set of beliefs or, when you’re doing psychic work as opposed to cognitive work, you have a set of pictures that are holding there. So we use our picture exploding mechanism. By exploding pictures, we bring that energy back into current time, so it is open to whatever experience we’re having at present. It’s not it’s not tracking what happened a year ago, 50 years ago, five lifetimes ago. You can often just remove a cord just by gently, just by intending to let it go or just kind of brushing it with your psychic hands. What happens is that unconsciously, you’re exploding the picture that provided the velcro for it. The picture or pictures. Often you’ll it’ll work better if you explode pictures. And then there’s a particular kind of cord that’s called a contract cord, which we find is driven by karma, and you can always clear it slow and steady by exploding pictures. But if you know how to clear karma, you can do it much more quickly, as you clear it you clear the karma with it. It is never necessary for you to hold on to a cord because of some karma. You can go ahead and clear the karma and then you can let the cord go.
Keith Parker: 28:54
You had a really seminal experience working with Jane Roberts, the channel of the Seth material, and you yourself most recently have a book called Recentering Seth where I believe you channeled Seth for the material in that book – please correct me if I’m wrong…
John Friedlander: 29:10
You know people get uptight when you say that you’re channeling Seth. I channel a bunch of beings that are part of the overall gestalt. Seth is a creation between Jane and this large being, and they ascribe all kinds of particulars to it in their stories about Seth being a sea captain and stuff like that, and you can narrow Seth to that if you want to. That does capture that relationship between Jane and Seth and it was such an intimate, sweet and wonderful relationship. You could see it in the set of classes. Seth was so charismatic, so articulate, so brilliant and yet so kind. So to respond to your question, my book publisher, I, you have to work with your book publisher. They they know the business and and they’re human beings and they they have their thing. And I think they did try to kind of imply that, that I was channeling Seth, but I have my own unique, not just one relationship but multiple relationships with that overarching being. So that’s that. That’s what it is, and it’s not an unbroken channeling the way Jane’s books were. It’s really arises out of the 50 years – it’s now 51 years – since I started reading Seth in late August of 1972. What an amazing experience that was.
Keith Parker: 31:16
What is it like for you to be in a channeling state, like how does the information come through you? How would you describe that? And does that in any way connect to how it is when you’re working with individuals, how information, how subtle energy presents itself to you?
John Friedlander: 31:31
I’ve been doing this for a long time and I am a working clairvoyant. So when, when I’m talking, I’m watching you, I’m paying attention to me, my guides, sort of, are up there gently, sort of nudging me at times or reassuring me oh, go ahead, take it, you’re doing fine. So there, there’s a very easy back and forth for me, and I don’t do voices, so when I’m channeling, people may notice a little change in my vocalisation, but what you get is my own voice and I’m a conscious channel and that’s a very important part of it because, as information is coming in, we get to talk back and forth, me and my guides, so that I make sure that I’m getting the concept right, that I’m understanding, that I’m choosing words. It’s a very collaborative situation and there are different levels for me of channeling. So, as I’m talking to you, there’s a little bit of channeling throughout this, sometimes more, sometimes less. When I’m channeling more formally, the emanation from this large being comes much more forward and I’m much more in the background, but I’m still paying attention, I’m learning as I channel, which is a lot of fun, and when I’m doing readings, I will often just to keep my palate clear. Someone will talk about something will talk and I’ll say, well, this is my opinion, let me check and see if my guides agree. And very often, sometimes they will, and sometimes they’ll say, well, let’s make this slight adjustment, and sometimes they’ll say, John’s all wrong, here’s what we think. And that’s fun too, because I’m learning stuff.
Christabel Armsden: 34:21
There’s a quote of yours, John, that I really like; “I do believe that the complexity of personality, with its strengths and weaknesses, is the training ground for our most profound spiritual project”. I love this because it speaks to me of what it is to be a soul having a human experience, and it’s highlighting that the work is here, now, in the minutiae of daily life and our interactions with others. And you just mentioned, you know, as a clairvoyant, a lot of the skill- set that you possess is really of that more traditional clairvoyant ilk, and you’ve chosen, it seems to me at least, to be very focused on bringing practical application and practical language and bringing those skill- sets out of that arena, if you will, of clairvoyancy and maybe more traditional psychic engagement to the everyday person. So, how can we make this practical? How can we help people to bring this to their day- to- day existence? And I just wondered what inspired that drive, that focus?
John Friedlander: 35:29
You know, I think that was one advantage of having the parents that I had, and I think I probably came into this planet with the intention of being very, very practical. There’s a system called the Michael system. I don’t know if you’re familiar with it. It’s quite a nice system. In some ways it’s almost the opposite of Jane Roberts’ Seth, in that it’s very structured and things are set- up and according to that you’re set- up with a bunch of predispositions at birth, and one of the strongest predispositions I was set up with was pragmatism, and my co-author, Gloria Hemsher, is also very pragmatic. So we’re in complete agreement. We always want to know okay, you know okay. So that’s great. There is a book that I recommended 20 or so years ago by a very elegant American Buddhist writer called After the Ecstasy The Laundry. That’s my position entirely. Okay, this ecstasy is great, but how do I get my laundry done?
Keith Parker: 36:58
That’s interesting. If I reflect on, I believe, my memory of some of the things about etheric coverings. The idea that, like the granthis, for instance, I believe in Psychic Psychology, that it’s almost like these aren’t necessarily supposed to be messed with or opened up for a human, that they’re not necessary. It seems to dovetail with this emphasis on the personal aura and relationships, rather than this transcendental component, as you keep referring to it, that it’s almost like we’re getting ahead of ourselves, maybe.
John Friedlander: 37:35
I don’t have a problem with opening up anything as long as you stay down to earth. And if opening that up doesn’t help you stay down to earth, then don’t open it. You’re not ready. We don’t use Kundalini that much. It doesn’t mean we never use it. Kundalini is a very instinctual energy. It allows you to blast through things in such a way that you can go right around the mess in this of emotions and become transcendentally kind and generous. That’s pretty wonderful. That’s why I’ll listen to the Dalai Lama. I’m not knocking the Dalai Lama. He’s a global treasure. I don’t think that’s the preferred path to the Aquarian age, and so, again, I have no trouble with using Kundalini. But we don’t use it much because it’s pretty hard to stay down to earth when you’re cranking out that amount of Kundalini power that everyone’s in bliss when they’re 100 yards away from you.
Christabel Armsden: 39:03
I wonder, John, how you might define the term “thought form”?
John Friedlander: 39:07
A thought form is any organization of energy that doesn’t have its own direct connection with all that is, or, more conveniently, with the soul. So people want to know, how do I check and see whether something’s a thought form or a real life being? You just get where you can tell. Most of the things that happen in most people’s dreams are thought forms, even their parents visiting and stuff like that. Most of the time it is a thought form, and thought forms can have a rudimentary intellect. They can seem to be rudimentarily responsive to you, but they don’t have a reason. Now they don’t have genuine idiosyncratic creativity, whereas all kinds of beings, even beings that are on such a different evolutionary trend, they don’t have the kind of free will that humans have, like elementals and devas and things like that. All of those, if you feel into them, you can feel oh, this goes all the way. They have their own original. Every thought form is the effect of someone’s energy or a conglomeration. So again, referring to Putin, part of what gives Putin or Xi or Modi that kind of power is that they are profound focusers of these massive thought forms of millions or even billions of people.
Christabel Armsden: 41:14
I find it a fascinating concept and something that as we’re moving more into recent times, we see, to track a development, we see the HeartMath Institute talking about the range and the field of the heart and how they’re starting to read the electromagnetic field and its relationship to emotions. Then we’re moving into a more contemporary understanding of, let’s say, abuse – it doesn’t have to be physical, it can be emotional. Understanding energetic communication and boundaries is becoming clearer and clearer. I think that, or I feel that, a next step, for maybe the everyday person who’s not submerged in metaphysics or esoteric literature is maybe touching into some of these broader concepts, like thought forms or the possibilities we have for creating with thought outside of ourselves. The amalgamation, as you say, of energy that doesn’t have its own sentience or connection to the divine. I just find it a fascinating area that’s not really well, at least as far as I can tell, it’s not really well considered or discussed yet. It’s still quite fringe and lacking clarity.
John Friedlander: 42:24
One thing I’d like to say about thought forms. When people call things that are thought forms entities, they make them scarier. I don’t know that there’s any such thing as an actual ghost. There may be people who haven’t completely crossed over, but most of if you go to a graveyard, there are going to be all kinds of thought forms there. Again, they may have a rudimentary intelligence and if you have stuff that causes them to stick to you, they may stick to you, but they aren’t able to genuinely initiate harm towards you. They can harm you because you pulled them into it, but they can’t genuinely initiate harm to you. And people get so frightened of thought forms. I think they are less scary when you understand that. They can be plenty harmful, again, look at Putin, but they can’t – ghost’s in a graveyard can’t, snake’s in a dream can’t, they may be scary, but they can’t really initiate actions. If they’re in your dreams, it’s an opportunity for you to clear.
Keith Parker: 43:55
Emotion is one of those words that means a million things to a million people. How do you see emotions in terms of their function within the aura, their function within soul development? How do you talk about emotions? So many people come at it from different angles.
John Friedlander: 44:12
I don’t know how many people were familiar anymore with the works of Alice Bailey. She was a major occult figure and she really did bring the world forward. She used to say that your goal as a human being was to have no real emotions, for them to come entirely under the realm of automatic control. And it is true that you can have all kinds of mystical, transcendental states just by kind of hardwiring your emotions. Part of why we don’t do that many breathing exercises, because with breathing exercises you can so hard wire the etheric that it breaks the connection to the personal aura. So one needs to be careful about that. Seth said in one place that there’s something akin to emotions in all the realms. Emotions on this planet earth are where intimacy really takes place. Now there’s a kind of intellect which can also be intimate, but I think it requires an aquarium consciousness. It requires more than one body to do probably. So technically, emotions would take place in what the old theosophist called the astral plane. So I don’t distinguish between emotions and feelings. Do you have some distinctions that people make that I might address about what I mean by emotions?
Keith Parker: 46:13
I think that’s a great clarification. There’s an overlap there with the astral body or the astral plane and the exchange that’s taking place in the astral versus what you’re saying, etheric or vital, which is like lower dimensional, more physically oriented, versus transcendental, which is something above that, so to speak, and transpersonal, let’s say. That’s at least the mapping I’m getting. And that emotions on one hand might be looked at as something like ideally one has no emotions, or extinguishes the biases or distortions that underlie the formation of emotions. But at the same time you can look at emotions as a intimacy or bonding mechanism amongst people, which is that this push-pull around the general definition of emotions. As some would say, as you said, an Alice Bailey definition the goal is to extinguish the emotions. And then others might say, well, hold on a second, like love for another is an emotion, whereas you know some people might agree with that or disagree with that. Love itself is an emotional state and that, if you look at it through that light, that’s not something to get rid of but rather to actually express more and more and connect more and more with other people in the world through that state. So it’s a subtle thing and I don’t know. I’m just reflecting back to you when I’m hearing, because it’s complicated. That word emotion to me is very complicated personally.
John Friedlander: 47:40
I think it is. I’d like to address a really fine point. You were talking about the biases that can drive emotions. It’s impossible to have a perfect bias. It’s impossible to have any perfect emotion. It’s an intrinsic part. The 50 cent word is, it’s an ontological part of reality that you have yin penetrating yang and yang penetrating yin. There’s nothing that doesn’t have a kind of dynamic intention in the created world. So it’s impossible to have a perfect bias. But your biases can serve a very productive part. Every bias is ultimately has some delusion in it. But we move from one creative delusion to bigger creative delusions and more generous creative delusions. So there are what I might call unskillful biases and there are skillful biases. I have a bias towards my cats. I have a bias towards my wife. I have a bias towards you – you seem like a delightful person. I can’t have those biases without some sort of limitation and there is inside that bias some potential problem. But it’s more, but much, much more. It’s part of the adventure of being human.
Christabel Armsden: 49:42
Thanks, John. Starting to bring things to a close, we’d love for you to share with our audience your current works, projects and how people may be able to connect with you or to work with you if they’d like to.
John Friedlander: 49:55
Okay, well, we have a website, psychicpsychology. com. We’re beginning to get a little bit of stuff on YouTube where Gloria is going to kind of cover a lot of the basic technical skills and I’m covering some of the bigger picture issues. Gloria is really putting together a book that both of us are contributing to on advanced women’s energies. We are not saying there’s a right way to be a woman and right way to be a man. Back in the 90s I was channeling that there were going to be a proliferation of genders. I had no idea. But here we are, 25 years later, and there is a proliferation of genders and the more the better. That was part of my channelling. But there’s some really fascinating stuff and sooner or later we’ll get that out. We do have a women’s group that meets on Tuesday nights. It’s very inexpensive. Four times a year I teach a major intensive. They’re not actually easy to attend because it’s mostly energy stuff. So you have to be ready to deal with the ambivalence and not knowing what’s happening. But the people who like it, like it a lot. And once a year Gloria has a women’s group review. That ended in August.
Christabel Armsden: 51:47
And we mentioned a number of your books in the bio so people can look those up as well. We’ll make sure they’re in the show notes. It’s been a pleasure to speak with you today. I think one of my main elements of enjoyment is your very pure advocacy for personal responsibility in this work, energetically and socially. So thank you for that.
Keith Parker: 52:09
Thank you, John. Really nice to finally meet you after having read your work many years ago, being influenced by it, and then getting to actually have a conversation with the living form.
John Friedlander: 52:19
Well, thank you, it’s been a delight.
Keith Parker: 52:24
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