Rumor has it ghosts roam this 55-room Pythian Castle
GEORGE JARED
Bulletin Staff Writer

It was just a whisper.

Isaiah Collins, a carpenter, was replacing a window when words echoed softly through the room. “You’re doing just fine,” a voice said.
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There was only one problem. No one else was in the room with Collins. “I heard him talking at the side of my head,” Collins said. “It had to be a ghost.”

Collins was replacing a window inside the Pythian Castle, a Springfield, Mo., structure built in the early 1900s to house orphans. The castle is now owned by Tamara Finocchiaro, and she says it’s haunted.

“We didn’t know it was haunted, but we figured it out pretty quick,” Finocchiaro, 41, said. “I didn’t believe in ghosts when I moved here. I do now.”

The 55-room castle, built by the Knights of Pythias, has been certified by the Ozark Paranormal Society as a haunted dwelling, according to Finocchiaro, who bought the castle in 2003. Among the castle’s rooms is a ballroom, movie theater (the oldest in Springfield), king’s room, and even a dungeon. There’s also a 300-foot underground tunnel that connects to an adjoining property.

Built in 1913, the castle housed orphans until the 1940s when it was bought by the military. Stage performers such as Bob Hope entertained officers stationed at the castle.

Prisoners of war were kept in the basement. A wall in one of the basement rooms is riddled with bullet holes — fired by military officers to make enemy combatants talk, Finocchiaro said.

In 1993, the castle was bought by a farmer. The cost? “He paid $4,000,” she said. “Can you believe it?”

Weddings, murder mystery nights, tours, conventions and castle rentals are offered, Finocchiaro said. Dance classes such as salsa, ballroom dancing and swing are also availible, she said.

Before opening to the public, the castle underwent major renovations. Finnocchiaro said the cost of buying and renovating the castle was about $500,000. Many rooms still need to be refurbished, she said.

Encounters with ghosts have been numerous.

One night, Finnocchiaro’s mother, M.J. Page, woke up to the howlings of their three whippet dogs. As she stumbled through the darkness, Page said she heard crates being stacked in the basement.

No one was in the basement, and the dogs refused to go in. “I wasn’t going by myself, and the dogs weren’t going either,” Page said. “It’s something you’ll never forget.”

One of the ghosts in the castle, A.J., dwells in the movie theater, Finocchiaro said. She said he’s a good ghost; he talks to workers as they renovate the room.

A.J. was a black man who worked in the theater in the 1930s, Finocchiaro said.

Johnny Lambert, a dance instructor at the castle, said a ghost chased him through the theater one night. “I knew something was behind me; it was very weird,” Lambert said. “Before that, I really didn’t think there were ghosts.”

Finocchiaro said she’s had several experiences with ghosts, as well. At night, she says some of the ghosts talk to her. “I swear to God they’ve woke me up,” she said. Most of the ghosts are friendly, she said. Paranormal researchers have found mostly green orbs, a signature of a “friendly” ghost, throughout the castle. Red or black orbs denote “troubled” or “restless” ghosts, she said.

Ghost hunters think she has troubled spirits in her basement. “Sometimes I get really strange feelings when I’m down there,” Finnocchiaro said. She said she doesn’t know if any of the ghosts are of children who lived there when it was an orphanage.

Despite the ghosts, Finnocchiaro said she and her mother love their new home. An aerial dance artist, she said she plans to expand the activities and offerings at the castle, including kids’ circus training and an adult-only New Year’s Eve Party.

Do visitors see ghosts?

“All the time,” Finocchiaro said.

For more information, contact (417) 865-1464 or visit her Web site at pythiancastle.com.

gjared@baxterbulletin.com
Originally published June 17, 2006

REM intrusions much more prominent in people reporting NDEs, study finds
By Robert Roy Britt

Updated: 8:31 p.m. ET April 11, 2006

Experiences you have in the here and now could hint at whether you’ll see a light at the end of the tunnel when you’re close to the hereafter. A new study finds that people who have had near-death experiences are generally more likely to have difficulty separating sleep from wakefulness.

Researchers surveyed 55 people who’d had a near-death experience (NDE) and 55 who had not. The experience was defined as a life-threatening episode such as a car accident or heart attack when the person experienced a variety of feelings, including:

• a sense of unusual peace
• alertness
• being outside their bodies
• seeing intense light

For 60 percent of those who had been through an NDE, the rapid-eye movement (REM) state of sleep intrudes into their regular consciousness while awake, the study found. Both before and after their traumatic event, these people had experiences that include waking up and not being able to move, sudden muscle weakness in their legs, and hearing sounds that no one else hears upon waking or falling asleep.

Only 24 percent of people who had not had an NDE report this REM intrusion.

Inside your mind

The human arousal system is activated from the brain stem, a primordial control system that manages other vital functions like heartbeat and breathing. We all have a switch there that regulates between REM sleep and being awake, explained study leader Kevin Nelson, a neurologist at the University of Kentucky in Lexington. In people who have had an NDE, the switch is more likely to blend those two states.

“These findings suggest that REM-state intrusion contributes to near-death experiences,” Nelson said. “People who have near-death experiences may have an arousal system that predisposes them to REM intrusion.”

The results are detailed in the April 11 issue of the journal Neurology.

Near-death experiences are seen by some as evidence for the paranormal, as a link to the world beyond. Not everyone who recovers from being near death or declared clinically dead describes the same eerie sensations, however. Nelson says that about 10 percent of cardiac arrest patients who survive had an NDE during the event.

In a Dutch study of 344 cardiac patients who had been resuscitated after clinical death, 62 of them, or 18 percent, reported an NDE.

What’s going on

During REM sleep, many body functions are known to change. Muscles lose their tone, for example.

In a crisis, if the REM-state intrudes on an otherwise awake person, the lack of muscle tone “could reinforce a person’s sense of being dead and convey the impression of death to other people,” Nelson said. “REM-state intrusion during danger and brain impairment from lack of blood flow or oxygen could contribute to the experience of near death.”

The intrusion might also explain the vivid scenes described by some NDE survivors, such as seeing their own bodies from above during surgery.

“One of the basic features of REM state is activation of the visual system,” Nelson said. “REM-state intrusion could promote the prominent visual phenomena of near-death experience.”

NDEs appear not to be dreams, however.

“Most dreaming occurs in REM sleep and despite the possible contribution to NDE by REM-intrusion, NDE and dreams fundamentally differ,” Nelson explains. “Near-death experiences are recalled with an intense sense of realness that contrasts sharply to dreams.  Furthermore, NDEs lack the bizarre characteristics of dreams.”

The new study does not answer the question of whether near-death experiences have a biological rather than paranormal basis, Nelson told LiveScience, but he plans further research in an effort to settle that issue.

For now, there are hints that biology and the paranormal might converge. Our emotions are controlled by the brain’s limbic system, which is strongly active during REM sleep.

“REM-state intrusion provides a mechanism for robust activation of the limbic system, which is expected to underlie many of the paranormal, transcendental and emotional aspects of NDE,” Nelson said.

© 2006 LiveScience.com. All rights reserved.

Greetings!

Our magical Circles Research tour is July 19 - 26, 2006 and we are taking bookings now. We hope this year you can join us. Our tour is tax-deductible as we are a 501(c)(3) non-profit. If you feel you would like to join us please email me with a physical address and I’ll mail you a comprehensive tour packet.

Our private visit inside Stonehenge is July 24 at sunset!

The Global Consciousness Avebury Project is set for July 22, and you can get an idea of what we’re doing at the following websites:

http://noosphere.princeton.edu/avebury.html

http://www.kochkyborg.de/Avebury2006/Aveb03ED.htm

http://noosphere.princeton.edu/fristwall2.html

This opportunity is educational, inspirational and lots of fun. We are open-minded researchers and enthusiastic about the science of subtle energy which we find in crop circles and old sacred places. We have daily experts, good hotels and pubs and you’ll enjoy yourself while learning. Our small tours are for the self-chosen few to make these personal advances.

If you wish to consider this opportunity please ask for the tour packet with itinerary and booking form, and call me if you have any questions.

Our Glastonbury tour is July 26 - July 31, 2006 and this information is in the tour packet. Here we visit places of true magic, places where Jesus walked, where Mary and thirteen saints of the early Culdee church are entombed. Also a Holy Well, the Tor, and much more. We’ll stay in a B&B. All transportation in Britian included, all breakfasts and fees paid.

Thanks,

Ron

Ron Russell

Circle Research Tours

PO Box 460760

Aurora, CO 80046

303-341-1947

501(c)(3) non-profit

tax deductible spiritual renewal

http://www.travelwebs.net/CropCircles/

http://theculturedtraveler.com/Archives/Dec2005/Crop_Circles.htm

Everyone who signs on for either tour will receive $100. off Dr Heins Resonant Viewing classes in addition to a copy of each of his books, Opening Minds and Planetary Intelligence. Discount of 200. for two people signing up together and sharing a room.

Russian ufologists have opened a school where they teach people what to do if they encounter a UFO and where to look for extraterrestrials.

The commotion over UFO sightings in Central Russia’s Togliatti began this summer when crop circles appeared in a field just outside the city. The enormous pictogram in the grass attracted dozens of journalists and hundreds of curious onlookers.

In response to the evident demand, local UFO researchers decided to establish a school where people would learn about the paranormal. Togliatti’s popularity with extraterrestrials makes it an ideal spot for such an institution, a local daily said Thursday.

“We know of several places in Togliatti where UFO sightings are frequent,” chairwoman for the Togliatti Ufology Commission, Tatiana Markova, told the Ploshchad Svobody daily.

“We have studied several of the most popular flying saucer routes. We have often visited the places where UFO’s were sighted and filmed the phenomena we saw, for instance we have lots of video footage featuring the so-called Belgium triangles, they are frequent visitors to our city.”

At the UFO school, experts give students lectures on various types of anomalies, the correct behavior in case of encounter with a UFO, and basic guidelines on UFO-watching. After all the theory is done, the students will go out to practise their skills.

“In late April we will take our students out to see UFOs,” Markova said.

“However we are not going to take crowds of amateurs to UFO sighting spots just to satisfy their curiosity. We expect newcomers to extend our UFO-sightings map,” she added.

Iasos: A Guide to Inter-Dimensional Travel

Musician’s collaborations with hyper-dimensional being result in soul-nourishing sounds.

4/17/2000

Eudaimonia, written by Rachel Dempsey (a.k.a. “Tressa”) is a column dedicated to spirituality and health.

Music is a mode of transportation. A simple melody can be what serves as a threshold between various places in time and space. A tune reminiscent of our childhood might bombard us with memories, even let us feel as we did then. A song reminding us of a former lover easily whisks us back in time, stirring up emotions we thought were long gone. Certain songs from the ’60s connect us with the mentality of a passed era, the climate of a country in turmoil. We are able to travel to Spain simply by listening to flamenco music, which embodies the essence of the Spanish culture more effectively than words could describe.Iasos (pronounced ya-sos) is a joyful and lively music creator who specializes in “celestial music.” Graciously he delivers his listeners to places that stretch well beyond earthly boundaries - to various dimensions and heavenly realms.Born in Greece, Iasos moved to the United States at the age of 4. By age eight he was playing the piano, and by age 10 he began studying the flute. In our interview, after warning me about his tendency toward loud, explosive bursts of laughter, Iasos shared why he choose to play flute. When signing up for the school band, he originally expressed interest in learning the saxophone. He laughs as he explains that his instructors took one look at his teeth and told him he’d be a flute player. He remembers feeling “sad and disappointed” at the time, but admits that “actually either way would’ve been great.” He considers the flute to be a very magical instrument, featured frequently in several of his pieces.After earning a degree in anthropology from Cornell University, Iasos decided to devote his life to manifesting the “paradise music” he was hearing in his head. Considered one of the founders of the contemporary genre of “New Age” music, Iasos communicates his musical intentions through his statement of purpose; he hopes to “help a soul achieve an enhanced resonance-connection with the grander part of who they really are.” Blessed with divine collaboration, Iasos is further motivated by the potential “uplifting, healing and spiritually invigorating” effect his music would have on listeners. Iasos has been described as a .traveler in consciousness. and his what he manifests as .renditions of his travels in the form of sound.”

AlienZoo: Can you tell us about the inspiration behind your music?

Iasos: I am getting music ideas from a higher-dimensional light-being named Vista, and they don’t call him Vista for nothing! He is a very high-level being and his specialized focus is activating the third eye, activating other people.s third eye to the point where they have the all-seeing eye of god. The music is very visually triggering, innately visual for pretty much everybody.

AlienZoo: Can you tell us more about Vista and your first encounters with him?

Iasos: I was hearing music in my head spontaneously for a few years and I didn’t know where it was coming from. It was somewhat like putting on headphones and listening to music, but without headphones. It felts really heavenly to me. Initially, I called it “heavenly music.” Now I call it “inter-dimensional music.” I was hearing it, loving it, and I said I wish I could create music like this. But synthesizers didn’t exist yet and I was hearing unusual sounds - not like trumpet and violin.[Vista’s] part of the agreement is to transmit musical visions in my mind. And my part of the agreement is to receive these visions and manifest them into an actual sound that anyone can hear. The whole point was not to make me wealthy or famous, but to create music to facilitate the vibrational upshift that our entire planet is going through.I looked up to him like a younger brother would look up to an older brother. I say this with tremendous humility because his level of evolution is far beyond mine. The difference between us is like a worm and a human. Despite the tremendous gap in spiritual evolution, there is this oneness and love we have for each other - I totally adore him. When you work with a divine being their qualities begin to rub off on you.

Iasos on ETs and UFOs

In addition to manifesting music channeled from divine being Vista, Iasos has also experienced a close encounter. On his Web site, iasos.com, one can find channelings from the Essassani and Pleiadian civilizations.

AlienZoo: What are your thoughts on aliens and UFOs, and the extraterrestrial beings that have been channeled?

Iasos: I have not personally met any ETs, but I’ve absorbed wisdom from many of them. Basically, wisdom is a matter of remembering what you already really know. The ET I personally have the highest respect for, for communicating the highest wisdom, is from a civilization called the Essasani. These beings are one dimension higher than we are: Right now the Earth is evolving from the third dimension to the fourth dimension, and their civilization is evolving from the fourth dimension to the fifth dimension, which is non-physical. They are also 300 years ahead of us. They can time travel, so it is no big deal to pop in here. For them, channeling information here is like channeling to their grandparents.I had a UFO sighting on Maui in 1979. It was pretty spectacular visually. The sun was setting and I was playing flute out by the water. It started to get dark and I could see stars. I look up and I see this huge, huge white circle in the sky. It was hard to gauge how big it was. When you look at a sunset you know how wide the sun looks? It was the width of five suns right next to each other. That’s how wide it was but it was a full circle. It was milky white and its edges looked as if they were air-brushed. It wasn’t a sharp boundary but a hazy boundary. It was perfectly still, perfectly solid.Suddenly, with incredible intensity, a point of brilliant light shot out from the edge of the circle. It shot out with a brilliance and intensity that my eyes had never seen before or since. That brilliant point of light started getting bigger. Then I realized that I was seeing rotating circles. These were actually different-sized circles sharing the same center. Some were rotating clockwise, some counter clockwise. They were spinning so fast, strobing. They were of an intensity that is not normal to our dimension, glowing neon pinks, lavenders, oranges. The only thing similar to it is if you are looking at a fire and you see glowing hot coals. You know how they are a glowing, incandescent orange? It was like that but it wasn’t just orange it was all of the colors.Here’s the interesting part: The axis of the circles just happened to be pointed exactly at me! So, when I saw these circles getting bigger and bigger they looked like they were coming closer. I was ready to go because I thought they were coming to get me - they were pointed right at me. [Laughs.] There was no sound at all. It was perfectly silent. You’d think something so visually spectacular would have a sound to it.It soon became two milky circles of the same size. Then, another brilliant point of light came out of the second circle just as had come out of the first. It was the most outrageous thing my physical eyes have ever reported to my brain. Eventually, there were three perfect circles in the sky and then they turned on their side, displaying a classic UFO shape. The three circles were exactly parallel to one another. The next day in the Maui Sun they had a cover-up explanation for this. They said it was an unannounced, high-altitude, barium explosion test. How could a test like this create three circles of the same size, hovering exactly parallel to each other?They remained in this position for another 10 minutes. Gradually, the first one started fading and then disappearing; this took about seven or eight minutes. Then the second and third.

AlienZoo: Were you afraid at this point?

Iasos: No, when I tuned into them telepathically, I got a very benign feeling from them. I also got the feeling that they were so much more advanced that they could think circles around me. They were busy doing some kind of manipulation.

AlienZoo: I find it incredibly interesting that you happened to be playing your flute when these events transpired. What are your feelings in regards to music as a communication with ETs?

Iasos: I think of music as an emotional communication. If they can relate to it they can relate to it. Each ET civilization has its own way of thinking and feeling. I suspect it had nothing to do with that. I suspect that they were doing something important to them. I got a feeling of great benevolence and that they could think five or six times faster then I could. They were just busy doing something they needed to do, and they did it and split.

AlienZoo: Earlier you mentioned that the earth is due for a vibrational up-shift. On your Web site you say that the human race we will be entering higher and higher vibrations, and eventually shift to a higher dimension. Can you explain this idea?

Iasos: Humanity on this planet has agreed collectively (meaning as souls we agreed to this before we were even incarnated) that the whole planet is going to up-shift and that we are going to up-shift with it. There is also the free will of each human personality here. Some choose to go along with it and some choose not to. God/Goddess loves everybody and wants to make sure that each person has a play ground that’s just right. It’s like a third grade schoolroom becoming a fourth grade schoolroom. To beings that insist on taking advantage of others, on warfare, and on killing, God says, “You want to do that? No problem, we’ll create a world were you can do that as long as you want until you are good and sick and tired of it. I am a patient being.” The people who don’t want to go along with the up-shift can stay where they are. Those who want to go with the up-shift can just flow along with it. Each person can pick whether they wish to go up the escalator to a higher dimension or whether they just want to stay put. God loves them all he says, “Take your time learning your lessons - take as long as you like.”

AlienZoo: Is your music a tool to help people reach these higher levels of vibration?

Iasos: Exactly. It is designed to help people make this transition. There are many things patterned into the music to facilitate this process. I’m helping people refine their perceptions. And this is done musically by making very subtle time discriminations. This is analogous to a painter who paints with a very fine or microscopic brush, as opposed to a medium brush. The tinier the brush, the tinier the detail on the painting.An architect creates structures in a three-dimensional space, a musician creates structures in time. I am a time architect. Some of the patterns I create are very tiny, and as a person perceives them, it obliges him or her to work on the highest subtle perceptions that they possibly can. Another way of doing it is by taking a field of sound that is gradually fading out and adding another field of sound gradually fading in. If I do it subtly, you can just barely hear it. The mind thinks, “Am I hearing this or just imagining it?” and it tries really hard to hear it. This gets the brain to work on very subtle levels.The frequency of emotions work just like octaves. When you go up or down an octave you double the frequency or half the frequency. The emotion for gladness, for example: an octave higher you have happiness; another octave, joy; then bliss; then rapture. It just keeps going. But the human language doesn’t have words for it because humans very seldom go there. Angels cruise in those emotional altitudes. They live there.My music is designed to familiarize people with higher octave versions of emotions that they are already familiar with. Instead of love, higher-octave love, instead of happiness, higher-octave happiness. I just finished a new piece that will be on my up-coming album, “Rapture of the Heart.” It is a very intense version of ecstatic feelings. On Earth, when we experience intense emotions, they are typically negative emotions like intense anguish or anger. It is very seldom intense bliss. This particular piece has such intensity, it’s almost unbearable. However, it’s only harmonious emotion that is being experienced with this intensity.

AlienZoo: Can you tell us about the next album?

Iasos: Yes, it will continue where (my last album) Elixir left off. Elixir is a journey through six different celestial higher-dimensional realms. Likewise, my next album will be a journey into higher-dimensional realms. Each piece will take you to a different space; all of the pieces are wonderful and wild.AlienZoo: In conclusion I wanted to ask you about your favorite composers. Who do you most admire and why?Iasos: I most admire two classical composers: Claude Debussy and Ravel. Basically, musicians are merchants who are marketing emotions served on the latter of sound. Musical preferences boil down to emotional preferences. There are some classical composers that may be great classical composers but I don’t like them because I don’t like experiencing the emotions their music evokes.There is a book called Music and its Secret Influence Throughout the Ages, which talks about how evolving particular composers had an effect on mankind in that point in time. For example, Bach’s music was orderly and mechanical, which helped stimulate people’s intellect. Beethoven helped bring repressed emotions to the surface. Stravinski helped crush crystallized thought forms to help people become more open-minded. The influence of Debussy and Ravel was to make people more sensitive to the invisible nature forces, the “elementals.” Afternoon of a Fawn and pieces like this help make people more sensitive to this realm of elemental beings: angels, faeries, divas, and gnomes.

Finding a personal path to God

All religions lead to the divine, reminds author Joan Borysenko. The path taken to get there is up to the individual.

4/8/2000

Eudaimonia, written by Rachel Dempsey (a.k.a. “Tressa”) is a column dedicated to spirituality and health.

God is everywhere — on bumper stickers, billboards, and book covers. For some clever marketers, God is a selling point. God is present, somehow, in tubes of shower gel gracing bathtubs: .Next to Godliness. is what one company has named its rather aromatic bath product..You may not believe in a brand called Jesus, but it.s hard to imagine the last two thousand years without him,. writes Will Novosedlik in the Autumn 1999 edition of Adbusters. God is pervasive, indeed. But how we imagine he, she, or it depends on our own individual vantage points and experiences.Noted author Joan Borysenko, Ph.D. suggests that pledging loyalty to a specific .brand. of religious dogma isn.t always the healthiest practice. She dispels the fear of going to hell for not devoting oneself to a specific religious practice . a concept many of us were raised to believe. In 7 Paths to God: The Ways of the Mystic, published by Hay House in 1997, she contends that God doesn.t mind if we .come by land or sea,. for all religions ultimately lead to the divine. Before anything, she recommends, we should determine our own very personal path, one that complements our strengths and satisfies our specific spiritual needs.A pioneer in mind-body health, Borysenko received her doctorate in anatomy and cellular biology from Harvard Medical School. She also co-founded and directed the Mind/Body Clinic. Other books she has written include Mending the Body Mending the Mind and The Power of the Mind to Heal. In an effort to assist women in particular, Borysenko recently authored A Woman.s Book of Life and, more recently, A Woman.s Journey to God: Finding the Feminine Path. She has led numerous women.s retreats across the country.

According to Borysenko, the inspiration to pursue a spiritual path is often provoked by a moment of enlightenment. These moments reveal the .unity of all things. and the realization that .everything is sacred.. 7 Paths opens with such a moment of enlightenment, where the author retells a striking vision she had, where she, herself, was .simultaneously a pregnant mother giving birth and also the baby being born.. Suddenly, she becames the child only, emerging from a long, dark tunnel into a merciful light, which exuded unconditional love. Borysenko encountered this vision, we learn, at the moment of her mother.s death. Just as her mother brought her into the world, she delivered her mother.s soul in to the divine light.While Borysenko describes this moment as a turning point in her spiritual quest, she points out that these moments may not always be quite so dramatic. A moment can result from a kind look from a stranger in a crowded elevator. Regardless, in these moments, time seems to stop, and we recognize the interconnectedness of all things. Once we realize interconnectedness, we realize that all paths are sacred, and our own path becomes more evident.

Seven paths

The paths outlined by Borysenko serve as the chapters that frame her book. Path One is titled .Earth and Home: The Everyday Mystic,. and describes one who perceives divinity in everything and has an intimate connection with earth. Path Two relates to the ecreativity and abundance that can be achieved through a generosity of spirit; a Path Two mystic receives from God and gives to others through her own creative gifts. A Path Three mystic is constantly inquiring, .How can I help?. and .Whom do I serve? . Path Four is the way of the heart: bridging Earth and Heaven; with the strength of their love, Path Four mystics create a Heaven on Earth.A Path Five mystic is ruled by discipline, ethics, and will, and often struggles with moral dilemmas: .Thy will, not mine, be done.. Path Six corresponds to opening the wisdom eye through contemplation and transformation; this is the path of insight achieved through meditation and contemplation. Finally, a Path Seven mystic follows the way of faith and is aware of the paradox of grace: While positive events can actually impede our spiritual growth, negative events may provoke a higher spiritual awareness.Why seven paths? Sevens have a natural simplicity. There are seven colors of the rainbow, seven seas, seven days in the week, and seven notes to the musical scale. As Borysenko explains in the interview below, the number seven has spiritual significance in numerous religious traditions and in Eastern health and medicine. The author touches upon the seven directions of the Native American medicine wheel and the seven chakras. For example, Path One corresponds to the color red. In the medicine wheel it represents the Earth. Path One flows from the root chakra. This path describes this first path as earth and home-centered. Someone on this path is recommended to protect and connect with the Earth as much as possible, unclutter the home and workplace, and nurture pets and plants.These paths are spiritual rather than religious, however. No singular path is more evolved than another. Just as all colors in the rainbow combine to make up white light, all paths originate from a .universal energy. or .life force.. The seven paths to God .form a rainbow bridge.

AlienZoo: Can you describe how you came to understand each of these seven paths and their significance? What led you to choose the number seven?

Joan Borysenko: I came across the number seven through physiological literature. We had a post-doctoral fellow, an endocrinologist, who came from India. When I went to do a particular experiment, seeing whether meditation and yoga might help people with diabetes, to lower blood sugar levels, she said I must include certain yoga postures. She explained that when you stimulate different chakras, you get a different physiological result. In Hinduism there are a number of different branches of yoga, which also have to do with the chakras. I thought it would be a wonderful idea to look at the number seven because it is sacred to virtually all traditions. You have the seven-branched candelabra in Judaism, the seven sacraments in Christianity, and the fact that Buddha walked around the Bodhi tree seven times before he sat down and arose enlightened.I.ve been interested in spirituality all my life . ever since I was a young child and started to explore. I was raised in Judaism, but by the time I was 10 or 11 years old I was also exploring Christianity and the Unitarian church. I wanted to know: Who was Jesus? What is Christianity, and where are its roots in Judaism? I became fascinated later on with Eastern religious traditions primarily because I had a number of mystic experiences, where I actually became one with the divine light and felt the unity of all things. And I thought, Gee, no one ever told me about that in Hebrew School! [Laughs] My husband is part Native American, so I became interested particularly in Lakota spirituality.

AlienZoo: What influenced you to be so inclusive and respectful of several different approaches?

Borysenko: I grew up knowing that somehow there must be some truth in every religious tradition. Like blind men describing an elephant. It.s all one elephant. There was never a time before I thought that.

* * *

A woman’s journey

Borysenko.s A Woman.s Journey to God: Finding the Feminine Path maintains that in addition to seven distinctive paths, the spiritual journey is modified by gender. Men and women approach religion completely differently. Just as Western medicine extrapolates from male to explain female, the majority of religious writings and rituals have are defined by men expected to satisfy women.s needs. Women are fed up with atoning for Eve.s alleged crimes, as well as the image of God .as a jealous, punitive white Anglo-Saxon male with a long beard and a longer arm.Women are born with an innate spirituality, Borysenko believes, and this spirituality is further developed through nurturing and relating. Intuition and compassion naturally connect women with the divine. Achieved effortlessly, this connection is often overlooked by women. Unfortunately, this can result in confusion and frustration, especially in light of traditional practices, which may be insensitive to a woman.s needs.

Borysenko highlights the distinction between male and female paths with the image of Jacob.s ladder. Climbing a ladder is a measured process taken step by step with one logical destination. Such a linear course mirrors the male approach to spirituality and to life. Typically, men measure their success by the goals they set and achieve. Alternatively, .Sarah.s Circle. better describes a woman.s spiritual path. Sarah, the matriarch of Judaism, bore a son in her postmenopausal state as a result of divine intervention. This event is characteristic of a circular process: unexpected, unintentional, and illogical. A circular path is relational and provides for a change in direction at any time. The entire path of the circle is measured equally from the central point representing the heart, or intuition. By contrast, a ladder has no central location; each rung is nearer or further from the top. Of course there are times when women climb the ladder, and men walk the circle. Borysenko points out that these are merely models and that neither one is superior to the other. With love, respect, and support these models can intersect and overlap.

AlienZoo: 7 Paths to God is not gender specific in its message. Why did you focus on women in A Woman.s Journey?

Borysenko: Part of why I focused on woman comes from doing 12 years of women.s retreats. There are women who conform to all of the seven paths. I have friends who are really contemplative; they are Path Six mystics, and they really enjoy that particular path. I think the way they practice it is different from the way that a male practices it. My meditative women friends are much less likely to say, .Is my meditation getting me from one step to another?. or .Let me look at the hierarchy of practices.. They are much more likely to settle in with something . for example, centering prayer, or whatever type of meditation . and simply doing it becomes a part of their life. I recognize that probably the way men and women do each of the seven paths is going to look different. I haven.t gotten specific enough to say what is the difference in the path between genders. That interests me.

AlienZoo: How can women get in touch with God’s feminine energy, that of the Goddess?

Borysenko: Some women like the image of God the Father. Some women really need the image of God the Mother, or Goddess. And there are others who really don.t need a personified image at all, who are happy with mystery.Women must ask themselves: What feels holy? What is it that when you contemplate this image of God you feel more connected to yourself and to life? If we should discover that it is the feminine face of God, we are living in fortunate times, because there are so many books about different aspects of the Goddess and about the Goddesses of different cultures.Brought up in Judaism, I didn.t know anything about a feminine face of God. However, there is, in the Jewish tradition, something called the Shekhina, the Divine feminine. Now many women from the Jewish tradition are celebrating the Shekhina and they have changed the traditional prayers to include Goddess as well as God. For example, there.s a celebration in Judaism called Rosh Hodesh (new moon) and that is often given the flavor of drawing down the feminine, beginning another month, just as we have our menses every month.As I.ve gone around the country, what I.ve seen is whether people belong to a Catholic, Protestant, or Jewish religion, women are in fact re-writing prayers, liturgy, and services to be inclusive . and they are developing appropriate rituals. Find a group of other women with whom you can celebrate in this way.

AlienZoo: In A Woman.s Journey you make the statement, .Women are intrinsically mystical.. How do men react to this statement?

Borysenko: I haven.t spoken to enough men about this. I.ve presented in many settings, for example, as part of a conference on pastoral care. The pastors who came, although they came from traditional approaches, were used to caring for dying, and used to the ecumenical approach to all religions, so they were just fine with it.I think that what you.ll find is that if we were to pull men, some would say, .Isn.t that great! They have a path of their own and through understanding that, I understand better what the male path is!. I.m sure that some men from traditional religions would be very upset by it. Especially when they read the love scene between Jesus and Mary Magdalene . I.ll sure get burned at the stake for that one! [Laughs.]

AlienZoo: How could you describe a typical woman.s retreat. And what would you hope a participant would walk away with?

Borysenko: At a typical retreat you might have 100 women and they will come from a variety of different religions. The larger part of them will be Christian, a small minority Jewish. Occasionally we will have a couple of Buddhist women, a couple of Muslim women. A good 50% of the women are religious dropouts. A number of them have never gotten over being angry at the religion they dropped out of.Something that characterizes these retreats is the longing women have to connect with the God of their heart. Anger takes up so much psychic space, they need to heal in order to make room for a spiritual connection. Women in general are furious at the patriarchy. Religious loyalists who have managed to find nurture in their religion still don.t like the way women have been treated. Part of what happens, very gently, is some forgiveness: a lot of singing, crying, hugging, storytelling and bonding (which women do naturally). We create ritual because women are so hungry for this.We always begin with a Sabbath celebration; every religion has a Sabbath. I believe that women in our culture are so overworked and busy that we do violence to ourselves. We start with the idea that the weekend is a gift we.ve given to ourselves, the whole weekend is a Sabbath. That night, women meditate for a little while and try to identify in their hearts the longing that brought them to the retreat. Why did they come? Why now? What is it that they are searching for? What is their intention for the weekend? Then they light a candle with that intention to honor that longing and it is a kind of prayer for them. There may also be seasonal rituals depending on the time of year. Some retreats are devoted to silent contemplative prayer while others focus on The Woman.s Book of Life where we look at the life cycles and focus on emotional healing. They all have the components of ritual, prayer, song, dance, storytelling, of bonding.

AlienZoo: You have written books that reflect your medical background: books about health. Is there common thread or bridge between your books about spirituality and your books about health?

Borysenko: Absolutely, because I actually believe healing and spirituality are exactly the same thing. I am going to borrow the words of a very dear friend of mine, Janet Quinn, a nurse Ph.D. who studied healing and therapeutic touch for many years. Janet always defines healing as the .emergence of right relationship.. It.s coming into that sense of harmony with ourselves at every level of life, realizing our ability to have an intimate connection with other people and our ability to maintain boundaries . coming into harmony with the Earth, with the creator, with the food we eat, with our exercise, with every level. When we come into a right relationship, what we feel is that sense of inner peace and connection and gratitude. It strikes me that that is exactly what spirituality is.

AlienZoo: Joan, I want thank you so much for everything you have shared with us today. In conclusion, one final question: If someone were to write a history on wellness and spirituality in the future and you were mentioned in a chapter, who would you like to be mentioned with and why? Which contemporaries do you most admire?

Borysenko: I imagine having come out of the health field I would be connected with Herbert Benson, Andrew Weil, and Bernie Siegel. I would be honored to be associated with my friend Janet Quinn, who also came out of a medical background and has the interest in spirituality.