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A
TALK WITH HOPE
an
article by Stephanie Beynon
As
a child in Jane Hope's home, to even speak of religion was almost
taboo. This absence of Traditional Religion, she believes left
her free to explore any and every path of her hearts desire.
She always considered herself to be spiritual, continually seeking
for a path that "fit". One path she ran across was that of paganism.
Paganism she thought was beautiful, and liked a lot of the ideas
about worship of the earth and being in touch with natures cycles;
however, this just didn't quite fit for her. She decided that
she would like to help other people in need of guidance and
become a social worker; so she did an anthropology degree up
at Simon Fraser University. Then, one day while she was still
in school at SFU, she ran into an interesting lady who belonged
to the Church of Divine Man. This lady invited her for a psychic
reading, so she went to check it out. After receiving her reading,
she just knew that this was for her; it fit!
Now many mediums claim to have a spontaneous revelation, one
that comes from seemingly nowhere and changes forever their
whole belief system. In Jane's case, however, the psychic ability
did not come to her spontaneously. She gradually learned how
to get in touch with these abilities, first working on healing
herself, until she attained a higher level of clarity and knowingness,
then working on others. She joined the two-year clairvoyant
program at the Church of Divine Man; first year focusing on
clairvoyance, and the second year was on how to be a minister.
She is now an ordained minister, a spiritual practitioner, and
a trained clairvoyant on Vancouver Island near Nanaimo. She
talks about how in order to begin healing others, one must first
work on healing and balancing themselves. Then through healing
others, you continue to heal yourself.
Jane claims that the best way to get in touch with these abilities
is through meditation, focusing into the subtle energies. She
says that our spirit is constantly growing and changing and
our vibration or energy system changes along with it. In a psychic
reading, Jane will look at ones energy and feel out what growth
and changes are currently affecting you. The energies speak
to her through images of her own set of predetermined symbols.
These symbols are differentiated, specific to each person, based
on their presentation and her feelings or knowingness that accompanies
the images. One of her symbols is a rose. The openness of the
rose tells her about the openness of the spirit to growth; whereas
the stem may tell her how long a spirit has been taking bodies
on this earth, etc….
Her aura readings consist of looking at the colour vibration
of each of the auras 7 energetic layers that correspond to the
7 chakras. She assesses how you are using that energy as well.
It is through the characteristics of her own sixth and seventh
chakras that she is able to tap into other people's energies.
The sixth chakra is responsible for clairvoyance and abstract
intuition. The seventh is responsible for knowingness (or "realization")
and the ability to leave the body and channel energy of another
being. I asked Jane what it was that gave her faith in her psychic
abilities and she said she surrounded herself with open-minded
people, who believed in it and who had validating experiences.
She also found that the more she practiced her abilities on
people and they verified it to be true, the more validation
she felt. Her faith in her abilities has also grown with the
knowingness that comes from strengthening her seventh chakra.
She emphasizes that this is not a talent of hers, but that everyone
can reach this heightened state of awareness. Everyone has the
potential to be a psychic.
With all the commercial hype about psychics and psychic networks
you see on TV. or can call for a small fee, it's hard to know
what or who to believe. Jane believes that a lot of psychics
out there are frauds, especially those that focus on predicting
the future. She strongly believes in free will. For example,
although you might be heading in one direction toward some life
lesson your spirit has chosen for you, nothing is set in stone
and the path can always be re-chosen or redirected. This is
why Jane does not read the future or tell you what to do. She
feels that though we may be misguided, only we can choose what
will be our path. She helps to guide people by making us aware
of how our spiritual and subtle energies are affecting us and
how we are presently using them.
I asked Jane if she was able to contact or sense spiritual bodies
around us, and she said yes. She told me that I have two spirit
guides with me, one an emerald/translucent green, who is with
me in my day-to-day activities, and one a clear red, more watchful
and protective. When I heard this a great feeling of familiarity
and comfort came over me.
This
brought up the question about the dangers of channeling misguided
or mischievous spirits, ones who have agendas or unenlightened
intentions behind their guidance. How do you know which spirit
bodies are trustworthy? Jane said she had come into contact
with negative energies and bad spirits; and has even been tricked
before. It is her faith in herself, in God, and her spirit guides
that gives her the ability to know the difference. Also, a helpful
being, and enlightened being will never help or tell you what
to do until you ask! Some try to create contracts with the person.
These are usually bad, because contracts can be very restricting
to the growth of the individual, and an enlightened spirit would
know and respect this.
Jane talked a little about the astral plane and astral travel.
She believes that those dreams that are clear as a bell and
you see places exactly as they are, hovering above them, those
are out of body experiences or astral travel. She said she hasn't
looked too much into the meaning of dreams, but she answered
some of my questions about premonitions in dreams, summing it
up like this:
Our
physical body operates in time and space, however, in the spiritual
dimension there is no time or space. It is where ever
you put your attention, that's where you'll go. Into the future,
the past, or somewhere else in the present.
Finally, when asked what she believes the term New Age Movement
to mean, she replied that she believes it to be a fancy term
for going back to older spiritual beliefs. She agrees that the
reasons for the movement on an individual decentralized level,
is because these practices are more and more socially acceptable,
so people are no longer being suppressing their internal desire
for spirituality. On a more holistic or centralized level, she
agrees that there are also divine forces or a cosmic consciousness;
which is guiding people to this awakening. Although she acknowledges
the convenience and usefulness of such a term, she also has
problems with it, especially the fact that she doesn't think
it's "new". If asked whether she would consider herself a New
Age practitioner, she would say yes she's a part of it, but
she would continue on to say more about the limitations of that
term, and what she truly believes she does. Jane says one of
the problems with a few New Age practitioners is that they are
extreme toward the spiritual side of life, and are probably
wandering out of their body half the time. They have no real
sense of balance between the spiritual realities and the physical
realities, which are both a part of life. Life's a matter of
Balance.
Jane Hope was an easy person to talk with. She had a really
fun, open and intelligent way about her. She seemed to me a
very confident and balanced person, which suggests that people
can trust that she knows what she is doing. I think that Jane
hit on an important concept; that of free will. I think this
is a prominent idea influencing many people in the New Age Movement.
The free will to accept or reject any religious ideas that do
not fit with their intuition or higher consciousness. People
are getting away from the authoritarian nature of the traditional
church and seeking practices that empower their own spiritual
being ness. A common thread amongst New Agers is to reach for
the god with in ourselves, and nature around us. However, as
Jane said, this is not a new Phenomenon, the thread reaches
back through to ancient times through many Arts and religions.
As a person who is trying to bring myself to a higher or more
complete being ness, I can relate to Jane's long search and
struggle to find something that "fits". There are many things
I have come across, that really ring true for me. Like Sahaja
Yoga, holistic healing, magnetics, energy chiropractics, spiritual
evolution, different planes of reality, etc. However, for what
ever reason (lack of knowledge, lack of experience) nothing
paints a whole picture for me. I am still weeding through ideas,
finding common truths and trying to piece them together. Although
I have not experienced Jane's healing methods, listening to
her I feel like many of the things I believe in and would find
hard to ignore, are easily integrated into her belief model
of the physical/ spiritual body. They fit very nicely and still
left room for personal variation. Just as she believes humans
and spirit should not be restricted, so too does her principles
leave room for unrestricted growth.
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