Suzanne Giesemann Transcript - Buddha at the Gas Pump

Summary

Suzanne Giesemann describes how tragedy, meditation, and careful investigation led her from military service to evidential mediumship and channeling. The discussion explores spiritual practice, communication after death, open-minded skepticism, and how individual consciousness relates to a unified source.

Questions This Interview Explores

Can spiritual awakening happen without disciplined daily practice?
How can someone distinguish genuine mediumship from imagination or wishful thinking?
Is mediumship necessary for spiritual growth and enlightenment?
What happens to individual consciousness after death?
Can reincarnation coexist with the belief that there is only one universal consciousness?

Key takeaways

Spiritual awakening requires commitment and daily effort, not a shortcut.
Open-minded skepticism helps test spiritual experiences without rejecting new possibilities.
Meditation can strengthen sensitivity to subtle spiritual experiences.
Mediumship should be grounded in specific, verifiable evidence.
Individual consciousness may be an expression of one universal consciousness.
Personal growth continues after death rather than ending automatically.

Transcript

Rick: Welcome to Buddha at the Gas Pump. My name is Rick Archer. Buddha at the Gas Pump is an ongoing series of interviews with spiritually awakening people. There have been about 340 of them now at this taping, and if this is new to you and you’d like to check out some of the other ones, go to batgap.com—B-A-T-G-A-P—and you’ll see them all organized in various ways under the Past Interviews menu.

And I always say this—it’s my little NPR thing—that there’s also a donate button there, and it’s on the basis of support from appreciative listeners and viewers that this whole thing is made possible.

My guest today is Suzanne Giesemann. Suzanne is the author of 11 books and an inspirational speaker, metaphysical teacher, and evidence-based medium. That phrase is significant. We’ll be talking about that. She’s a messenger of hope who captivates audiences as she brings love, healing, and comfort through her work.

Suzanne’s gift of communication with those on the other side brings stunning evidence of life after death, as well as validating her teaching about the purpose of life, the nature of reality, and attuning to higher consciousness. Her work has been recognized as highly credible by afterlife researcher Dr. Gary Schwartz, PhD, and best-selling author Dr. Wayne Dyer. Have you been in touch with Wayne since he died?

Suzanne: I have, Rick. Yes, I have. With evidence.

Rick: Okay, maybe we’ll talk about that.

Suzanne is a retired US Navy commander. She served as a commanding officer, as special assistant to the Chief of Naval Operations, and as aide to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff on 9/11. In addition to earning the Defense Distinguished Service Medal, she has a master’s degree in national security affairs and taught political science at the US Naval Academy.

Her unexpected and fascinating career transformation to her current work is the subject of the documentary Messages of Hope, which has been featured at several film festivals, including the Awakened World Film Festival, sponsored by the Association for Global New Thought. Okay, great. So welcome, and thanks for doing this.

Suzanne: Thank you. It’s such an honor to be here.

🕊️ From the Navy to spiritual work

Rick: Had you ever heard of the show before we got in touch?

Suzanne: Oh, yes, I’ve heard of you. When you reached out to me, it was just a nod from Spirit. So grateful.

Rick: Good. I should mention, just because it’s sort of interesting, that you and your husband are very itinerant. You’ve spent years living on a 46-foot sailboat and sailing it all over the place. And you spend, it seems like, about half of your time traveling around the country in a big RV, which you are doing at the moment. You happen to be in Tulsa, Oklahoma, at the moment, but you live in Florida. So you’re like…

Suzanne: That’s right. The wanderlust bug hit, and off we go. But it’s so perfect for my work now because it allows me to touch so many more people personally.

Rick: Yeah, that’s cool. There’s another guy—you may not even know him—named Michael Dowd. He and his wife, Connie Barlow, are on the road constantly in a similar way, just traveling around speaking. They don’t actually have a physical home. They just sort of… They’re in their 50s and 60s, but they’re just doing this. And it’s kind of a neat lifestyle.

Suzanne: It’s a great lifestyle, especially when you have two little dachshunds like we do.

Rick: I’ll have to introduce you to our dog later. We have two of them.

So here’s a question for starters. It seems to me that, well, first of all, the most popular interview I ever did—in terms of views—was with Darryl Anka, who channels someone or an entity named Bashar. And people are very fascinated with mediums and healers and channelers and things like that. They seem to be very popular.

But sometimes you get the sense that that fascination resides in an expectation that this person is going to do something for me, rather than me having to do the work myself—like sit and meditate every day or follow some sort of spiritual discipline. Has that thought ever occurred to you? Have you run into that idea?

Suzanne: Oh, it has so occurred to me that there is no magic pill for spiritual awakening. In fact, it’s what spurred me to create one of my workshops called Awakened Living 301, the Advanced Course, because so many people attend my workshops or listen to a few of my channelings and think, “Oh, I’m going to instantly awaken.”

This takes a commitment, this takes work, and you have to be committed to the daily practice of shifting your identity to the greater reality.

For changes to take place, you have to be willing to do the work on yourself to clear out the garbage that’s blocking you from a greater connection.

I want to tell you why, when you mentioned Darryl’s video, you got my attention. I was looking through your website, and when I saw that he had the highest number of views, it was a wake-up call for me because I have been very hesitant to come out of the closet as a channeler. It’s the most woo-woo thing I do.

But when I do it for audiences, the effect on them is so huge that they are changed energetically. I can feel it. And yet I’ve been hesitant to say publicly, “I channel.” When I saw that the person who channels draws the most interest, I heard, “What are you waiting for? What are you afraid of?”

So I’m coming out of the box right here. Yes, I channel higher entities, and I just need to stand up to that.

Rick: Yeah. Well, I want to ask you a lot of questions about that, and a lot about a lot of other things. And it looks like we have quite a few people on live already who will be asking questions.

A life-changing loss

But before we do that, let’s just get into your background a little bit more. You know, I read some things in your basic bio that give us a sense of what your background was professionally, but we didn’t yet learn how and why you made the shift to what you’re doing now.

Suzanne: Well, it was the last thing I expected. A lot of people, when they hear about me or meet me, don’t realize that I didn’t always have this ability. I had no idea—my entire adult life until I was 44 years old—that there was a greater reality, and certainly not that I could tap into it.

Rick: But I heard you say that even when you were in the Navy, you had this sort of surreptitious interest in metaphysical things. You’d be sneaking into metaphysical bookstores.

Suzanne: That’s true. I had an interest in it, and I see now why that was. It kind of laid the foundation that, “Okay, this is possible.” But I never thought it was possible for me. I was certainly drawn to it for years and years.

And you’re right. I’d be in uniform going into a New Age bookstore, looking around. “Why is she in here?” But like a lot of people, it was a personal tragedy that led me to that shift.

Rick: Yeah. And obviously, if people read your books and all, they can learn the details of that. But it would be good to sort of run through it in brief, if you wish, just to give people a sense of…

Suzanne: I will. It’s two events. The first one was 9/11. I was the aide to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs on that day, and we were in the last aircraft in US airspace on our way to England. The chairman was going to be knighted by Queen Elizabeth later that week. I was so looking forward to that. And we never got there.

I went up to the pilot, three hours out over the Atlantic, and said, “Take us back to Washington.” And he said, “Commander, our flight path is going to take us right over Manhattan.” So those of us on that aircraft were the only people to see New York City, the burning Trade Center towers, and the burning Pentagon with our own eyes on that day.

It was very eye-opening for me to be stepping over jet engine pieces on the grass that day and start to ask why so many people were in the wrong place at the wrong time. And I started asking those deep spiritual questions. After a few months, I just put that to the side and got on with normal living.

But I tell people that life has a way of catching up with us. The Universe has a way of making sure we learn the lessons we came here to learn. And there’s no doubt in my mind that I was meant to follow this path.

Unfortunately, it came with a very high price. It was 2006 when my husband and I sailed across the Atlantic, enjoying our retired life together in the Mediterranean, and we got that phone call that no parent ever wants to get.

My husband’s daughter, Susan, a sergeant in the Marine Corps, had been crossing the flight line and was struck out of the blue by a bolt of lightning and killed. It was a double tragedy for our family because she was six months pregnant at the time with our only grandchild.

So, happily, I can report that now Susan helps me in all of my readings. It took me years to acknowledge that she has been here, and once I acknowledged it, she gave me a talking-to like, “Why haven’t you paid attention? What took you so long?” And now we enjoy wonderful conversations together.

Learning to connect with the other side

Rick: That’s great. Okay, so this tragedy happened, and you really wanted to know—I mean, it should have made a lot of questions very urgent in your mind. And you started going to mediums, right? And…

Suzanne: Well, not exactly. The most important fact here in my transformation is that the week she passed, I started meditating. And I had never meditated before.

But from that reading that I had done, I had the hope that it was true, what I’d read—that there is a spirit in each of us and that it survives death. From that reading, I knew that if Susan’s spirit had survived her death, then I needed to meditate to try to connect with her. And that was what led me to my awakening.

But it was a good nine months before I was able to drag my husband to a medium. I had to find somebody that I knew was the real deal before I took him because I knew I would get one shot.

He’s a retired destroyer captain, even more left-brained and by-the-book than I am. And I knew that if we got a medium who gave us airy-fairy messages that didn’t point to his daughter, he’d never go with me again.

So Spirit must have been hard at work because we got a great medium the first time, who gave us irrefutable evidence that Susan was right there in the room with us. And the rest is history.

Rick: Yeah, and maybe in the course of this conversation, we’ll hear some stories from you about these types of irrefutable evidence. Many of them are really hard to explain in any other way than, you know, you’re actually connecting with the person. There’s no way you could have known all this stuff.

And it’s kind of interesting, in reading your story, also, that you were in a way your own best skeptic because you didn’t just gullibly walk into all this and accept anything that anybody said to you. You kept scrutinizing and asking questions and demanding something specific and concrete.

Suzanne: And I still do. I think that open-minded skepticism is very important for anybody in any endeavor when you’re dealing with the greater reality.

So every reading I give, I question myself: “Is this my imagination? Where’s the evidence? How does it feel?” Because there’s not always evidence in messages. But I weigh it against what I’m feeling.

It’s constantly at work, just checking, but now there’s total trust. It’s the evidence that has led me to this point of trusting but still testing.

It’s the evidence that has led me to this point of trusting but still testing.

Rick: Yeah, when I did that interview with Darryl Anka, we got into a little bit of an interesting discussion about the difference between cynicism and skepticism. And we defined cynicism as a sort of denial of things because they didn’t fit into one’s paradigm, one’s way of seeing the world. All this couldn’t possibly be true because blah, blah, whereas with skepticism, you’re at liberty to doubt and question. You don’t have to take everything hook, line, and sinker. But you’re open to the possibility that your perspective may not be the be-all and end-all, may not be all-inclusive. And so there’s a sort of open-mindedness and a willingness to investigate and look at evidence and so on.

Suzanne: You just said the word cynicism, and I felt the energy drop. But skepticism can go either way.

Rick: Yeah, it’s a healthy thing. And we could say a scientific thing.

Suzanne: Oh, definitely. I like the scientific aspect of this. Because when you get down to it, there’s a huge scientific aspect of mediums’ work. It’s all about tuning into higher frequencies.

How mediumship began

Rick: Yeah. So, just to have a bit more of the biographical background, take us through a few of the stages of how you actually went from this initial interest and meeting with mediums and so on to actually being one yourself.

Suzanne: Yes. Well, after I had this reading with a medium who brought through Susan and her baby boy, so evidentially, my whole worldview shifted. It took me days to process. “You mean she really is here?” And then I knew, from the comfort that that brought me, I had to write a book about this.

Because I had already written several books, I didn’t want a dry book on mediumship. And I was gifted with the permission of the wonderful medium Anne Gehman to write her biography, which became my Hay House book, The Priest and the Medium.

After I wrote that, another medium, Janet Nohavec, approached me and asked if I would write her story. Hers is great, also, because she’s a former Catholic nun who’s now an evidential medium. So when you’re going to write somebody’s biography, you need to learn all about them.

I attended Janet’s class on mediumship just to study her, with no idea that she was going to pull me to the front of the class and say, “You can do this, too.” There was a spirit standing here. “What do you sense?”

I mean, Rick, I could have killed her. The Navy officer in me knew that when I stepped before a group, I was going to be prepared. I was going to know what to say. And she’s put me on the spot and says, “Bring through a spirit.”

“I don’t… I’m not a medium. What do you mean, ‘Bring through a spirit?’”

But I trusted her. And I believe that if she said there was somebody there and I could do it, then she wouldn’t put me on the spot like that. So belief is the number-one key for anybody.

And so I just closed my eyes to see what I sensed. I know now that two years of meditation leading up to that moment allowed me, when I closed my eyes, to sense the subtle presence of this man who was standing there.

I brought through facts about this spirit that I didn’t even trust in my own mind were there. But he must have worked really hard to get through my skepticism. Because I said, “Well, it’s a man. He died, I sense, at the age of 70. He was an engineer, and I hear cancer,” thinking I was making all this up.

And this girl in the class raised her hand and said, “My dad was an engineer. He died at 70 of cancer.” And I’m like, “Where did that come from?”

Then Janet pushed me a little further. She said, “What else do you sense?” I got a few more things, and I was ready to sit down. I was so uncomfortable, and she said, “Push yourself harder.”

And I said, “Okay.” I tuned in, and I said, “Well, he’s showing me a pair of black patent-leather shoes. And I hear the words ‘Twinkle Toes.’” And this girl said, “My dad was a ballroom dancer, and my mom always called him Twinkle Toes.”

That was the start for me. There was no turning back from then on.

That was the start for me. There was no turning back from then on. It’s like, “You mean I really can do this now?” What a gift.

I knew the comfort and the healing that that medium gave me when she brought Susan through. I thought, if I can do this for even one other person, I could change their life. And I just dove in headfirst, and I haven’t come up for air yet.

I ended up studying through all of Janet’s courses. I went to study with the best mediums in the world in England, at the Arthur Findlay College of Psychic Science, where they stress getting evidence.

And spirits are playing with the lights in here. I love this. I notice the light going out. But I just haven’t stopped learning since then. I’m constantly in a process of raising my energy and attunement, to see how good we can get that connection.

✨ Is mediumship necessary for awakening?

Rick: That’s great. A lot of people who are on a spiritual path would consider what you do to be sort of tangential. And there are some points I’ll get into with you as we go along. They might consider it a distraction or not really germane to enlightenment, just getting right down to the nitty-gritty reality of life.

And there are many people—I, for instance, have been meditating for something like 48 years—who’ve never had any sort of medium-type experiences, nor have I ever really had an inclination to have them.

So what would you say to such people as I just mentioned, and am I missing out on something? Or is this more like a personal proclivity or talent, that not everybody would be able to develop or even want to develop or need to develop?

Because maybe it’s just a particular skill, which doesn’t have to be universal in order for spiritual evolution and enlightenment to take place.

Suzanne: Well, the endgame in the story I wrote said that everybody has this ability, but it’s like a musician. Not everybody is a Mozart. Anybody can learn to play the piano, but if you’re not a born musical genius, it depends on how much of a desire you have to develop that ability.

And for that reason, I feel it’s a calling. Certainly, once that ability awakened in me, when I became aware of it and aware of the healing ability that it has, it’s become—I don’t want to use the word obsession, but my husband might say it is—an all-encompassing desire that I have to improve this ability.

Rick: Yeah. So most of us have 10 fingers, but we’re not all going to become concert pianists, and we don’t all need to become concert pianists. We may have other callings, other skills, other proclivities, right? Yeah. Okay, good.

✨ One consciousness, many expressions

Another sort of perennial debate I get into with people—and I just got into it last week with the guy I interviewed, J.C. Tefft, whom I liked very much—is that there are people who say, “Well, ultimately, there is no personal self. When you really get right down to it, it’s just Universal Being. And the sense that we are an individual is erroneous. That’s what constitutes ignorance.”

And then they take the leap of logic: “Well, that being the case”—some of them feel this experientially, while for others it’s more intellectual—“how could there be reincarnation? That’s just—you’re afraid of dying, and so you imagine this thing that you’re going to continue to exist once the body dies, and so on.”

They say, “No, it’s more like a drop falls into the ocean, and it no longer exists as a drop. It just becomes the ocean again.” That individuality never arises once more in the same form. It’s just, you know… You know where I’m going with this?

Suzanne: I do know where you’re going. And in just the last couple of months, I’ve been given the most incredible lessons from Spirit to help me finally integrate and understand that there really is only One Mind.

I’ve been saying it. I understood it at an intellectual level. But now, at a visceral level, I know there is only Spirit. There’s only Universe, and I and all of us are The One.

But you use that raindrop analogy, and the rain comes down, but it doesn’t stay down. It’s a constant cycle. It does go round and round. And so consciousness does individuate into limitless aspects of itself.

It’s like we’re all having a conversation with ourselves for the learning. It’s a self-informing system that we’re part of. So we have these ongoing experiences of manifestation. It’s play. It’s interaction. Without that, there’s no purpose in even manifesting. So I could go on and on about that. But I completely get what you’re saying, and I agree with it.

Rick: Well, they say that if you take a glass full of ocean water—here’s a glass—you take a glass full of ocean water, and then you dump it back into the ocean, then you go anywhere in the world, let’s say in 10 years, and take another glass full of ocean water, you’re going to have at least 100 molecules that were in the original glass. That’s how numerous molecules are. And it all sort of spreads around, you know, if given enough time.

So the question is: Do we, as individual souls, retain some sort of integrity or identity that continues on and on? Or is it more like, when we die, the individual soul sort of merges with the Universal Consciousness, and then maybe another individual soul comes out?

But it’s more like taking that glass 10 years later in the ocean. It just takes something informative.

Suzanne: I think it’s the latter. And I have to tell you that before I got into this, I didn’t even believe in reincarnation. But it’s through channeling my group of guides, called Sanaya, that I’ve learned so much.

So I’m giving you an answer now that I learned from them. And it feels right. So that’s why I share it with confidence. I would go with the analogy of the glass of water and molecules from—this is so funny, playing with the lights there.

Okay, so how it was explained to me is that Spirit is like wispy smoke. You have an incarnation, and you take on a scent that becomes your scent. Say it’s like hickory smoke. And then when you pass, you add that scent to the whole.

But then you decide, “Well, we’re going to have another go at this life,” and a bit of that wispiness breaks off and comes down, now taking on another scent, maybe like mesquite. And that’s how some people say, “Well, if my loved one reincarnates, how are you going to tune into them if they’ve already reincarnated?”

Well, it’s because I tune into the sea of all possibilities, the entire cloud of smoke, and I can sense that hickory smoke, even though an aspect of your loved one is now down here having an experience as mesquite. You get it? Or have I totally lost you?

Rick: No, I get it. But I still have a question about it. And that is that, you know, I, as Rick Archer, and you, as Suzanne—traditional scriptures and metaphysical sources would say that we have been through many lifetimes. Maybe we were a farmer in India, or we were a soldier in Persia, or we were this, that, and the other thing, and now we’re having this life. And the purpose of all these lifetimes is some sort of continuing evolution of the soul to higher and higher expressions.

Suzanne: But if I could just interrupt you, when I tune into spirits, I can immediately tell if this was a young soul or an old soul. You know them when you meet them. Now, versus… It’s the level, the vibration of love that they radiate.

So there’s definitely something to that. There are ongoing cycles, like the rain cycles, of coming back until we get it. So many people think that you pass to the other side, and you’re immediately angelic and spiritual and loving. Wrong.

I tell people, if you’re grumpy here, when you get to the other side, you’re going to still be grumpy, and I’m going to sense that. So how do you want to be felt by a medium if you come back from the other side?

Rick: So what if you’re a murderer here? Do you pass to the other side and start murdering people over there?

Suzanne: No, no, no. They’re taken…

Rick: That’s a more extreme example of grumpy.

Suzanne: I would say there are safeguards in place. I don’t believe in hell, but I do believe that you go to the level that you earn here. It’s completely a loving environment on the other side. You’re surrounded by loving helpers to help you see and feel the effect that your actions here had on others.

But certainly, it would be the soul’s choice, with a group, when your soul is ready to come back. There would be a lot of learning and growth that would have to take place on the other side before somebody like that came back for another chance.

Rick: Okay, I’m just going to keep hammering away at you here for a minute on this one point. It’s important to me. If… So, a minute ago, what you were saying kind of sounded like, you know, you do drop the glass of water in the ocean, and it just merges with all the water and doesn’t retain any kind of integrity of the original glass. It’s just all homogenized.

Suzanne: It’s groupings; there are levels. It’s like I said: those of a lower vibration would kind of be held at a certain level. So, in one way, I see it as one big cloud of smoke. But in another way, there’s… It’s vibration. So it’s segmented.

Rick: Okay, so is it fair to say, then, that it’s simultaneously all one, but also individuated? And the individual expressions don’t lose their integrity. And yet, ultimately, essentially, if we want to get right down to it, it’s all one.

Suzanne: Yes. It’s hugely important to understand that aspect, because we as humans think in this either-or mentality. But it’s both. And we’re both human and spirit. So we don’t have to be so rigid in thinking it’s either this or that. It can be all of that.

We’re both human and Spirit. So we don’t have to be so rigid in thinking it’s either this or that. It can be all of that.

Rick: The reason I’m laughing is I was just joking with somebody the other day about the Certs commercials. You know, “It’s a candy mint. It’s a breath mint. No, you’re both right.” And he said, “You have to be over 65 to get that, you know.” Irene wrote on a question: It is not clear what you’re saying.

Irene Archer: No, this is for you.

Rick: Oh, for me? I don’t know. You have to make it clear. Okay. I can’t read it and keep going at the same time. You have to write it in a way I can ask it.

Irene Archer: Just ask her to give some examples, from her experience, of reincarnation, or that life does continue after death.

Rick: Okay. I’ll just repeat that because it wasn’t very loud on the mic. She’s saying: Give some examples of that kind of evidence for reincarnation, or that life continues after death.

Suzanne: Right. Some people want to know about their past lives in readings. And I’ve stayed away from that because I’ve thought, “Well, I’m all about the evidence.” I need the evidence so that I trust that I’m not giving them false information. That’s very important to me, to have integrity in the work. And so I have stayed away from that.

But there have been several readings where, suddenly, I’m aware of a past life of a client. One recent one was—I told a woman that she wanted to take her own life now because of… I can’t remember the details. But it was details from a past life in which suicide came up, and how she had harmed someone, and that she was going to repeat certain cycles here until she dealt with that.

The point here was that the issue that came up in the past life was exactly an issue that woman was dealing with currently, that she had not yet shared with me. So I didn’t know that about her yet. It came up in relation to a past life.

So I don’t have tons of stories of this to share with you now, unlike other topics we could talk about today. Mostly, it’s just a knowing from what my guides have shared with me that we do go round and round.

My guide has shown me a past life that we shared together, and I wouldn’t have believed it, except he gave me facts of our life together in Russia. My husband was laughing at me. We looked it up online. He wasn’t a famous figure, but he was somebody who worked for a famous figure. We looked it up. My husband should have seen the look in his eyes when we found these facts online. And, oh yeah, pretty cool stuff.

Rick: There are TV shows like that, where these little kids remember all sorts of minute details about a previous life, and they start saying all this stuff and sometimes even speaking in other languages and so on. And then their parents take them to the town where they said they had lived, and they know the people, and they know this and that. You know, there’s all sorts of evidence like that.

Okay, so I haven’t read all of your books. I’ve read a fair portion of a couple of them. But do you ever get, or even see, detailed descriptions of the so-called other side the way Michael Newton does, for instance, with his life-between-lives clients whom he hypnotizes back to the point between lives, where they describe in great detail what it’s actually like there?

Suzanne: Well, I’ll tell you. Up until about a year and a half ago, I got bits and pieces. People were asking me, and I didn’t get much. And then I went to a new level in my ability. I had another opening, thanks to trusting this being who came to me to talk to me.

And once I trusted her—it was Kuan Yin, by the way—I thought, “How can Kuan Yin speak to me? This is one of those woo-woo things.” You see what I’m constantly fighting against in myself. But she brought me evidence that it was her, things about her that I couldn’t possibly have known.

Once I trusted that, she said she was here to clear away my fears, to clear away my blocks. Well, within days, I got this incredible download about what life in the afterlife is like. And it was addressed in response to questions from Dr. Kenneth Ring. He’s one of the leading experts in near-death experiences. He wrote a book called Lessons From the Light.

He had asked me, “What’s life on the other side like?” And I responded, “Well, I really don’t know,” because I hadn’t trusted what was being given to me. Well, suddenly, down came this download for an hour and 12 minutes. I wrote and wrote and wrote this solid stream from my guides of what life on the other side is like.

I sent it to him, and Dr. Kenneth Ring, who’s read thousands of accounts, said it was the most amazing document he has ever read addressed to him. And he gave me permission to put it on my website. It’s right on the homepage right now. And to me, it feels very profound and very truthful, what we can expect on the other side.

Rick: Well, people can read it on your homepage. But tell us a few tidbits from it, just for now.

Suzanne: Well, just again, that there are various levels. And so if you have not particularly been into the spiritual path, when you’re here, you’re very much tied to the earth and focused on material things, then your initial experience on the other side is going to be very earthly.

You’ll be surrounded by homes and things. You’ll feel like you’re eating. You’ll be golfing if you love to golf. You’ll just do all the things that were fun for you. You’ll create instantly and start to understand, “Oh, my goodness, I only need to have a thought of something, and it happens. I always wanted to go to Spain. Oh, I’m there.”

You just find out that you create. It says you always wanted to fly a plane, and suddenly you’re flying a plane. Then you realize that you don’t need the plane at all. And as this sinks in, you realize you don’t need this body at all.

Before you know it, you realize that all this love around you is who and what you really are, and you start to grow even more. And then you realize, maybe I don’t need that connection. My loved ones will still be with me in spirit, and you shed the earthly things, and you rise and you just keep rising.

Then you decide, “Well, you know, I know it was painful while I was back there on Earth. But maybe if I go back, I can add to the whole a little more. It might be worth it for the whole to go back and do that again.” So you reincarnate. And you just continue that cycle.

But when you come back the next time, maybe you won’t have to eat and play golf on the other side. Maybe you go straight to having no body. And you just keep going through those cycles until you say, “I’ve had enough of that earthly life. Now maybe I’ll be a spirit guide and help one of those poor earthlings get through their life without stumbling so much.”

And that becomes your task on the other side. Then, after you’ve served as a spirit guide for a while, you just keep rising and going ever higher, each of us growing and growing as aspects of consciousness.

Rick: You said that one comes back because one feels like, “Maybe I can add to the whole.” But what if somebody comes back, let’s say with fetal alcohol syndrome, or in some really dire circumstances? The natural question would be, well, how are they adding to the whole by getting a life like that?

Suzanne: Oh my gosh, because I would think that it was a more advanced soul that went into a body that had the probability of having fetal alcohol syndrome. The soul, the spirit, is already perfect. It already is love.

And so they’re going to go into that body knowing that the mother is an alcoholic and that there is a high probability that the physical body will be affected. But by going into that body, those around them in spirit are going to have the opportunity to experience love, to learn patience, to learn understanding, and to learn compassion.

So it’s a sacrifice that the soul makes, going into that body. If it would come into a perfect body, there wouldn’t be so much challenge for those around. You see?

Rick: Yeah. And how about people that come in and start doing really bad stuff? Would they just be very confused souls, would you say? Not that they’ve come in for some altruistic purpose, or if they have, they’ve totally forgotten it.

Suzanne: That’s a younger soul, Rick, who is so… I believe that all babies come in as pure souls. I mean, there’s just a basic awareness. And it’s those around us that affect our belief system and cause us to either shut down to who we are or remain open to it.

So those who commit acts that are less than loving have become blinded to who they are—from the very beginning, who we are eternally. So then free will as a human being takes over. And those very human actions come to the forefront, whereas the soul inside all of us is always connected.

Rick: There’s a verse in the Bhagavad Gita where Lord Krishna says that… Arjuna asked Lord Krishna, like, “What happens if you’re a spiritual aspirant and you don’t complete it in this lifetime? And then, you know, do you not perish like a broken cloud?”

And Lord Krishna says, “Well, no, you actually spend a long time in sort of the celestial realms, and then you come back to… You are born into a pure and illustrious family, or even in a family of yogis, although such a birth is more difficult to attain on Earth.”

Suzanne: Doesn’t that feel right?

Rick: It does. And it sort of relates to your young soul-old soul thing. So it’s kind of like there’s a certain amount of merit that’s accrued, and that you benefit from that accrued merit.

Suzanne: You reap what you sow, absolutely. Here and in the hereafter. It’s a continuous, ongoing evolution.

Rick: You kind of implied that being a spirit guide is sort of a more advanced state, perhaps, than being an embodied human being. Well, correct me on that if I’m wrong.

Suzanne: That’s my understanding. Anything I say, I always know I could be wrong. I hope I’m not. But that’s my current understanding.

Rick: Like, theoretically, a spirit guide could come back in human life and do things here, maybe? I don’t know.

Suzanne: Sure. I mean, look at Jesus.

Rick: Does everybody have spirit guides?

Suzanne: I believe they do. Yes. And I used to be so uncomfortable talking about spirit guides. “Oh, people are going to think I’m crazy.” And now, I’ve gotten so much evidence that we have guides, that how can I not give people that comforting awareness that we are never alone?

I mean, we do really stupid things as human beings because we think we’re alone and nobody loves us. Imagine if everybody knew all you had to do was ask a question and you’d get an answer. If you knew your guide was there, and you could listen to them. If you knew that somebody who loved you and was always watching out for you, always had your back, was right there? We wouldn’t have these addictions that we humans have and do all these crazy things for attention.

How can I not give people that comforting awareness that we are never alone?

Rick: Yeah. Do most people just have one spirit guide? Or is it like a little team effort going on, you know, two or three of them around people?

Suzanne: I know everybody has at least one. And that’s there for life. And then others come in as needed, come and go as needed. Some loved ones who pass become guides. I’ll give a reading, and I see, like, charades when I give a reading. And I see this motion from the loved one. And that means, “I’m guiding them. I’m guiding them.”

Rick: Are guides multitaskers? Like, you know, is there one guide who might be attending to a dozen people? Or is it more of a one-on-one kind of thing?

Suzanne: Oh, it’s one-on-one. One-on-one. Don’t you think that dealing with one human is all anyone could handle?

Rick: So there are billions of them, then?

Suzanne: Oh, sure. Spirit is limitless. It can manifest. I mean, and that’s just this reality. How many grains of sand are there in the world?

Rick: Yeah. Are spirit guides the same as angels? Or different?

Suzanne: I’m hearing that there’s a difference, that most angels have not lived lives as human beings. But most spirit guides have had that experience so that they can better understand their human beings.

❤️ When loved ones do not come through

Rick: What happens when a person dies? Does their spirit guide get reassigned to somebody else? Or what?

Suzanne: If that serves the greater good. It may be time for them to graduate to the next level. It can’t be easy being a guide.

Rick: Here is a question from

Irene: “Say somebody on the other side does not come through in spite of the relative or friend’s strong desire to connect. What could be the possible reasons for that? Or perhaps those reasons are not something we can understand. For instance, do you find that loved ones from the other side come through mainly when there is a need for some healing or resolution?”

Suzanne: It is always when it serves the greater good. And we don’t always know why somebody wouldn’t come through. Sometimes those on the other side are not ready to come through.

There are some who did some egregious things when they were here. And somebody will ask, “Do you sense my father?” And I say, “I don’t sense anything.” Then the more I tune in, I say, “There’s somebody, but he’s just standing back here and doesn’t want to speak. It’s as if he wants to give an apology, but he’s just not quite ready yet.” And they’ll say, “Well, that makes sense to me.”

I learned a couple of years ago that if I go into a reading with an agenda, knowing my client here lost a husband and that’s who we want to get, that I have cut off what may be a higher purpose in that session.

So I tell people, “If your husband can come through, wants to come through, and that serves the greater good, we’ll hear from him.” But I just surrender to what is supposed to happen in a reading. And then amazing things happen. Usually, the client hears from exactly who they wanted to hear from anyway.

The cost and blessing of the work

Rick: Does that happen to you, where you’re in a public place and all of a sudden you start getting a signal, and this person needs to know something, somebody’s trying to tell you something?

Suzanne: It rarely happens. And I kept asking my guides, “Why not?” Because I wanted it to happen. And finally, I traded sessions with a friend who’s psychic. It’s always fun because there are certain things that you can’t get for yourself. And I asked her that question.

She said, “Your guides just showed me a bunch of arms like an octopus, and they just wrap themselves around you.” In other words, when you’re off duty, you’re off duty, and they’re protecting you. And that makes such sense to me.

Because when I give a session, I’m drained afterward. And I would be doing this all the time. When people find out you’re a medium, “Oh, can you tune into my dad?” “Oh, where’s my mom?” And I would just constantly be giving that energy.

What I’ve learned is that it’s so important to have balance. But if there’s truly a tremendous need, somebody will come through.

I remember sitting at a nail salon next to this woman, and suddenly I’m hearing this voice say, “John, John.” And I knew it was this woman’s husband. I thought, “Oh my God, am I supposed to say anything?” And he’s pushing me, and I kind of looked at her.

And I did that Long Island Medium thing that you just talked about. I said, “I believe you’ve lost a husband.” And she looks at me and nods. She said, “Yes.” And I said, “And his name is John.” And she said, “Yes.” And I said, “And he was an engineer?” “Yes.” I could tell I was totally freaking out. I said, “And he died of a heart attack.” “Yes.” And I said, “Well, he wants you to know that he’s okay.”

Then I just sneaked away, and I’m sitting there in that place where you dry your nails, trying to just disappear. She walked by, and she said, “I have to tell you. This is the most interesting visit to a nail salon I ever had.”

And I felt I’d done my job, but it also felt kind of intrusive to me. But what I learned when I studied in England is that a medium serves those on the other side first. So very clearly, that man needed to let his wife know he was still here. I served him in that instance.

Why it doesn’t happen more often—again, it’s a matter of balance for me.

Rick: My former teacher used to discourage things like mediumship and channeling and so on. He said, “It’s not that it’s not legitimate, but it can have a deleterious influence on the medium. It can kind of break down their mind-body coordination or drain them in some way.”

And you just mentioned draining. So do you feel like this has been a mixed blessing in some way? Like it’s been really—it’s somewhat draining? Or…?

Suzanne: It’s a total blessing. I am so humbled and grateful for this ability. I’ve had more than I can count on my fingers—people tell me that the sessions have literally saved their life. I get messages of gratitude every day.

And so it’s not a mixed blessing. But it is draining, and it is because I have that strong awareness that I need balance that I do very human things.

This morning, I was wiped out after a workshop last night. My husband came and found me laid out flat on my stomach on the RV bed. He said, “Are you all right?” I said, “I’m so tired.” We were going to go out and get some exercise.

He says, “Well, I’m going to go for a walk.” I said, “Good idea.” And suddenly, I heard my guide saying, “What did you tell everybody last night?”

What it was, even when you’re tired, it’s necessary to get fresh air and sunshine. And I said, “Oh, I’m supposed to go with you.” I got up, and I went for a nice, easy three-mile walk. Came back to life. So it’s that balance. It’s balance. So it’s been wonderful. It’s not a mixed blessing at all.

Rick: Now, when you meditate, do you find that it doesn’t drain you? It rejuvenates you? So that’s different than channeling or mediumship? It’s sort of, in a way, kind of the opposite, because it rejuvenates or recharges you.

Suzanne: Right. And there are certain types of meditation you can do. On my website, I have a free download of a recording that I did called The 10-Minute Transformation. And it’s a very short, 10-minute exercise of balancing and aligning your chakras, the energy centers. I use it on myself all the time.

I don’t need the recording to do it. I can do it in five minutes. And it’s just like—it’s better than taking any pill that you could take. It instantly energizes and clears out the gunk, and boom, back in battery.

✨ Channeling higher consciousness

Suzanne: I do want to talk about one subject for those who might be skeptical of mediumship, because I know the process I’ve gone through of figuring out, How does this work? Is this real? How do I know this is real? I’m dealing with intelligent beings, real intelligence, and they know about our doubts. That’s why they don’t mind when we ask for evidence. So, for people who think that they’re connecting with higher consciousness and may doubt that it’s their own imagination, I want to tell them to ask for evidence, ask for a sign, and those on the other side will be happy to give it to you. They want you to know they’re here.

One of the neatest things that happens in my readings is when I get evidence that I’m not just reading my client, my sitter’s mind. I have so many examples that this is not telepathy, that I’m dealing with somebody totally separate from this person sitting here in front of me.

For example, I feel the presence of the loved one. And in fact, I become the human pin cushion. I get their physical symptoms in a reading, which to me is so evidential. I say, “Bring it on,” because it’s a fleeting pain, or a fleeting burning sensation, or my heart palpitates, and I jerk and I say, “Ow.” Sometimes it’s stabbing pain. Well, I’ll say, “I just got it.”

Oh, best one ever: piercing pain in my eye. And I went, “Ow,” and then it happened again. And I said, “Well, I know I’m talking to your husband, and he’s showing me that something happened that gave him a piercing pain in the left eye, and he’s telling me this affected him his entire life.” And the wife said, “Yes. At age 14, he was shot in the left eye with a BB and blinded for life.”

Ask for evidence, ask for a sign, and those on the other side will be happy to give it to you.

Now, I didn’t read her mind. He gave me that pain. It’s just a manipulation of frequency of energy. And I don’t mind that momentary pain. The moment I report that, it goes away, and we’ve had a beautiful wow moment. That’s just one way that I know that they’re really here.

Rick: Do you always do the readings in person? Or do you sometimes do them over Skype or something?

Suzanne: Oh, most of them nowadays are not in person because I’m doing readings for people all over the world, all over the country. Skype, phone, FaceTime, in person—the connection is exactly the same because I say to those in Spirit, “Blend your awareness with mine, blend your energy field with mine.” And of course, they’re instantly here, because they’re not in some faraway place. They’re pure energy that’s everywhere. So it’s just a shift in awareness. It doesn’t matter if the person I’m talking to is halfway around the world. The Spirit is with them and with me at the same time.

Rick: Let’s talk about channeling a little bit. I know that channeling came to you quite unexpectedly. You were giving a lecture or something…

Suzanne: It’s like the last thing I ever expected or wanted to be doing.

Rick: Yeah, all of a sudden, like your finger twitched or your lip twitched or something. And next thing you know, you were starting to speak in this strange voice that sounded sort of Russian or something.

Suzanne: Yeah, that was Boris, my guide.

Rick: Boris. I’ve heard a bunch of your sessions. It’s also this sort of accent that sounds a little bit like a mixture of British and Gollum or something. Like sibilance…

Suzanne: It’s this unusual accent. It happens that the channeling came through before I had studied trance mediumship or channeling. So I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know how to do it.

Once I went after it, started channeling, and studied what happens in trance mediumship, it was exactly what had been happening through me. The voice changes, the cadence changes, the choice of words changes, and the information that’s coming through is certainly information higher than I would normally access.

So all of those things happen naturally, once I just said, “Make me your instrument.” And I just surrender myself to the greater good. And I guess that was supposed to happen.

Rick: So why is there this sort of odd accent, if I may call it odd? And actually, sometimes the convoluted grammar and things like that. Why aren’t you just speaking in your normal tone of voice, but yet channeling this higher intelligence?

Suzanne: So I’m hearing, “How else would you know that we are here?”

Rick: So it distinguishes it from everyday Suzanne.

Suzanne: Ah, and they’re also saying, because they don’t speak in words, that it is a distinguishing element, and that they’re giving me concepts. I’m the one that has to put words to those concepts. But it’s not a conscious thing I do. Once I surrender completely, the words just flow. They just come out, and sometimes I’ll stumble over the words because the concepts are so fast.

It’s like if you look at a tree, you know that’s a tree without putting words to it. So the images, the concepts come, and This One—the subject, that’s me—has to put words to it.

Rick: It would almost… I guess the channeler has certain limitations based upon the channeler’s own capabilities. Jesus couldn’t come through and you would all of a sudden start speaking Aramaic or something. It has to come through in English. So you’re just translating concepts which are beyond language into a language you’re capable of speaking.

Suzanne: That is true. And it’s all a matter of how much the medium or the channeler is able to surrender. Because the more I’m able to surrender my focus on the human aspects of me, the greater the information that comes through.

Somebody recently asked a question that I had no idea what the answer was. And I was afraid to ask the question. What if I get it wrong? We’re all still very human. And I just surrendered, and I asked the question and got an answer, and went online, and the answer was correct.

So it’s just a matter of learning to trust and trust and trust some more. And so ultimately, maybe I will speak in Aramaic. This happens to other people.

Testing channeled information

Rick: Here are several questions that just came in. Here’s one more from

Irene: “There are so many people who channel now with different entities. How can we know that the entity has higher wisdom? How can we know if all the people who channel are for the higher good?”

Oh, yeah, there’s this joke that a friend of mine used to say: Just because you’re dead doesn’t mean you’re smart.

Suzanne: Ha ha, that is true. That is very true. Yeah, I always listen to other channelers with my heart. And it’s what Sanaya has told all of us: Listen to these words, feel them with your heart. If it feels right, take it in and use it for the right purpose, what feels good to you. If it doesn’t feel good, put it to the side.

And that’s the way you should test any channeled wisdom, to see if it is wisdom or not. Does it speak to the heart? So far, nothing that has come through from Sanaya has not spoken to my heart. And so I’ll keep doing this work. If it doesn’t, then I know that I’m not truly tuning into higher consciousness.

Rick: Right. And so Sanaya is the entity that you channel, and Sanaya is like a conglomerate of what? Jesus, Mary Magdalene, Saint Germain, people like that, or…?

Suzanne: Well, I know Jesus is one of them. And Archangel Michael comes through occasionally. They told me the first time they came through, “We are a collective consciousness,” a group of guides that had a masculine and feminine feel. And they said, “You will call us Sanaya.”

I looked it up later, and it was a Sanskrit name that means “eminently distinguished, and of the gods.” But, Rick, I found out a year ago that it also is an Arabic name that means “flash of lightning,” which is how my stepdaughter was killed. And I wrote a book about a young man named Wolf, who was also killed by a flash of lightning. So, really interesting name that they chose.

But they told me that members of this group come and go as needed. And one day, in a large group channeling session—there were about a couple hundred people there—Sanaya said, “We will answer questions.” Somebody raised their hand and asked a very scientific question, and there was a pause. And Sanaya said, “You will wait while we seek a scientist.”

And there was a pause. Then they came back and answered the question with information that I had no idea about. So it was really cool.

Rick: Jackie, from France, asks: “I learned through a channel that I had a teacher who was not in the body and that I needed to connect to him through automatic writing. I tried, but it just felt as though I was making it up. So I gave up. Do you have any advice on how to tune in?”

Suzanne: Yes, that was exactly the advice that my mentor gave me. She said, “Have paper and pen with you. When you’re meditating, your guides will teach you.” So I would get some flowery phrases. And just like Jackie, I said, “I’m making this up,” because it sounded like something I could have come up with.

Well, one day—you talked about my finger twitching? That’s exactly what happened. My finger twitched. So I picked up my pen. And this time, the words flowed—a couple of sentences, and a couple of sentences more—until all of a sudden, I had an “Oh my God” moment. I realized the sentences were rhyming. And three full pages later, I was sobbing because I had written an entire poem. And it showed me the brilliance of those on the other side.

If they want to get our attention, they will do so. They sent me a poet, the one form of writing I’d always stayed away from. And from that day on—that was, oh, I don’t know, six or seven years ago—that year was filled with 369 poems from Spirit until I finally said, “I get it, I get it. I’m not making this up. It’s really you.” And it was that week that Sanaya stepped in.

But I want to tell you, Rick, that in that period of time, I was always writing with my eyes closed to maintain that connection. And there was one time when Spirit said, “Open your eyes,” and I opened my eyes and looked down at the pad of paper in my lap, and my pen had run out of ink. It’s like they knew that if I didn’t open my eyes, I was going to miss the whole poem they were giving me.

So my advice to Jackie is to set your disbelief aside, let it flow, do your best to maintain that expanded state, and ask to be given something that you wouldn’t normally come up with. Ask a question, and start writing the answer in the third person, like, “You are… You can…” and let it go, and let it flow until you start to notice that the words are not your own. And then you’ll know that you’ve tapped into something beyond your human side.

Rick: Is this the book that you have all those messages that you mentioned?

Suzanne: That’s one of two: In the Silence. The first one was Love Beyond Words, with daily messages from Sanaya. I also post them every day on my website, and you can go there directly at sanayasays.com. There are these beautiful universal messages. I get emails from people every day: “Oh, Sanaya was talking exactly to me today. That’s just what I needed to hear.”

👁️ Living as the light

Rick: Can there be a downside or a danger to automatic writing? Ouija boards? Anything along those lines?

Suzanne: I will tell you that I have no experience in that and really can’t speak authoritatively on that at all. I’ve had no negative experience.

Rick: But have you heard of negative experiences?

Suzanne: I’ve certainly heard that. I have heard stories of that. Personally, I would not be afraid to deal with a Ouija board. But to me, it’s a cumbersome process because I hear directly now.

I don’t want to get into the whole evil spirits thing, because I don’t give any power whatsoever to that. I truly believe that we all have the light inside us and that the brighter we turn it up, the more we are the Light that we truly are.

Just be the brightest light that you can.

And I truly know in my heart that darkness does not like the Light. So if you are the Light, darkness does not come anywhere near you. Therefore, I do this work with no fear whatsoever. I just try to be the brightest light that I can.

Rick: Maybe this would be a good juncture at which to ask you for some recommendations as to how to brighten your light, for all the various beneficial reasons that would result in.

Suzanne: It’s very important to sit in the silence every day and ask to know what true divine love is, to ask what Spirit is, to ask what—I don’t even like to use the word—God, because it has so many associations from what we’ve been told to believe in God. So, ask to know what the Divine is, to have that experience of that. And because it’s beyond anything we can imagine, it’s just something we have to experience.

So, the daily process of shifting our identification away from our human side. The second thing is to be committed to making the changes within yourself to heal any wounds that you’re carrying around. I am constantly aware of whether or not I’m being loving and radiating love and identifying with my soul.

If I catch myself having any kind of judgmental thought about anybody, I stop and I say, “Whoa, that’s human side.” I kind of see us like we have a dial. And there’s an H on one side for human and an S on the other side for Spirit. And I try to keep it balanced, but a little bit more toward Spirit.

But every once in a while, I catch myself going human. We drive this huge 42-foot RV. I drive it, too. We’re towing a car, so we’re 60 feet long. We’re driving down the highway once in San Francisco—I can’t believe I’m going to admit this on this interview—and this guy cut in front of me. I cannot stop on a dime, and I’m tense because the traffic is intense. And I made a gesture that was very human, okay?

And my husband’s in the passenger seat, and he looks over at me and goes, “All right. She’s human.” And I said, at that point, it was H 100, S zero, you know? And so I couldn’t recognize that in myself and just dial back the light a little bit.

But it takes an awareness that, yeah, we are both—see, it’s not either-or—we’re both human and Spirit. So we get to choose. Do you choose to have more peace in your life? Do you choose to have the experience of joy and love at all times? It’s yours. It’s right there. Dial it up with intention, with awareness of how you are responding to all the people that push your buttons. It makes life joyous to live like that. I could never go back to being H 100.

Downgrade your demands to preferences”

Rick: We all have different callings. And I suppose if she has a real ardent desire to be doing it, then maybe it is her calling. But it should be genuine and deep. Who was it? I was preparing for something—maybe it was you! Yeah, it was you. I was listening to one of your recordings, and you were saying—correct my phraseology—but you were saying something about downgrading your demands to preferences.

Suzanne: Oh, yes. That’s from Ken Keyes—I think that’s his name—and his Handbook to Higher Consciousness. I learned this long ago, and I love sharing it. He’s passed now to the other side, but it was, “Downgrade your demands to preferences.”

Downgrade your demands to preferences.

We think that life is supposed to go our way. We’d expect things to go a certain way. But life is not like that. And so, when things don’t go your way, you can get all uptight about it and lose your equanimity, lose your peace. Or you can say, “Well, I would prefer that that not have happened, but I had no control over it. And so it is what it is.” It just instantly takes you to a place of peace.

Just like another phrase that my guides gave me. Same thing. When the drama of life gets to be too much, you realize that you are both human and Spirit. And you rise above it. You shift your identity to that of Spirit, and you look down on poor little you having all that drama. And in a place of total neutrality, you say this phrase: “Isn’t that interesting?”

Isn’t that interesting?

And it works with everything, Rick. It works with little stuff and big tragedies. It just instantly takes you to this place of neutrality, where you can now choose: “When I step back into that drama, how am I going to react? Am I going to go crazy and lose it? Or am I going to be calm and react differently from a different perspective?” It’s great. I hand out little stickers that say, “Isn’t that interesting?” on them.

Rick: That is the main key to all of this work that I have absolutely learned: all of these abilities are thanks to Spirit. I don’t do any of this.

Suzanne: And let me tell you, Rick, they will cut off that connection in an instant if any of my ego gets in the way.

I learned that lesson a few years ago in such a painful way that I was like, “I get it. Thank you for that lesson. This is all yours.” And I just—before I do a session, every time, I say, “I surrender. Because it’s not me. Use me as your instrument.” So, yeah, we have to get out of the way if we want to be that instrument of Spirit.

✨ Mediumship, awakening, and personal calling

Rick: A lot of non-duality teachers say that mediumship, which opens up as a part of an awakening process, is a distraction. It is a distraction to awakening, and focusing attention on that gets in the way of the awakening process. We’d really like to hear your opinion on that.

Suzanne: I would need to talk to her to see in what ways it is a distraction, because it is in trying to expand my consciousness, to increase my connection with those on the other side, that I personally have awakened more and more.

My life is so joy-filled. I am sometimes so overwhelmed with love, I don’t know how to contain it. As a result of becoming a medium, the side effects of becoming a medium have been this connection with all that is, with everyone around me. It has transformed my life. It has been anything but a distraction. It’s been the greatest blessing of my life.

Rick: Well, here’s an analogy that is sometimes used in spiritual circles. Life could be thought of as a big territory. And in that territory, there are diamond mines, gold mines, and all kinds of interesting things. You can go after those mines and start exploring them and trying to extract ore from them or something. But it’s not your territory. You don’t own it.

It so happens that there’s a fort that commands the territory. So what you want to do first is capture the fort. And then, once you’ve captured the fort, the territory is yours, and you’re at liberty to explore all the different mines without being in jeopardy.

The fort in this case, in this analogy, would be pure consciousness, the Self, Being. Once you’re established in that, then explore at your leisure. But if you prematurely begin exploring before having established that, maybe you’ll get sidetracked. That’s the sentiment behind this concern.

Suzanne: That, again, goes back to the ego or mentality. You’re either awakened or you’re a medium, and we’re all of that. We’re limitless beings. So follow the guidance of the heart.

Rick: Is there any way that I, or anyone, can do what you do?

Suzanne: It absolutely begins with a belief and that nudge, and he clearly has that. And I would again say to sit in the silence, to ask to be guided to be able to expand your consciousness, continuously seeking to clear out any blockages within yourself, and to just continue that process and see what unfolds.

I’ve just started teaching classes in mediumship. And it’s going to be interesting to me to see how much students who have that desire can develop, because I know that I started from ground zero, and you certainly don’t have to be born with it.

❤️ Signs from loved ones

Rick: Sometimes loved ones from the other side will communicate with us through manifestations on Earth, such as having their loved ones see repeatedly butterflies—there you go—or feathers or shooting stars, et cetera. These are seen as a symbol of their presence, and this will be verified by a medium. What are the mechanics, or how can the other side create these effects on Earth?

Suzanne: The butterflies were the symbol that my stepdaughter, Susan, sent me right after she passed in such a stunning way that I couldn’t ignore it. At first I did, and then it was in-your-face butterflies.

We’d been sailing along in the Aegean Sea in Europe the week after she died. And my husband said, “Suzanne, did you notice that yellow butterfly that’s been following the boat for three days?” I mean, that just doesn’t happen on the water. And I said, “Yeah, I did notice that.”

I looked down, and the next line in this book I’d been reading about the afterlife, which I picked up just after her funeral, says, “Those in the spirit world often send us signs that they’re around, which can be as subtle as a yellow butterfly in December.” This was from George Anderson’s book. He’s a medium. And just then, the butterfly flew right between us and left us.

We just kind of said, “Well, that was kind of random.” So we docked that night at this little island off of Croatia, and there was a swarm of yellow butterflies around our boat and only our boat. “Oh, what’s with the butterflies?” “I don’t know.” You know, not giving any credit to Susan for any of this.

So the next day, we decided to go for a hike before we got underway in our boat. We’re hiking up this hill, and I’m saying, “Susan, are you really still here?” It’s just a week since she’s passed. “Please show yourself to me.”

I’m very naive at this point. I think I’m going to see her standing on the trail. I still haven’t seen her, but I feel her constantly now. “But please just show yourself.” And I tell people—it’s in my documentary—I can just imagine her now on the other side: “Haven’t you seen the butterflies?”

Because all of a sudden, this butterfly comes out from my left side, out of nowhere, flies a complete circle around me, bounces into my heart, goes down the trail in a beeline, 50 yards straight towards my husband. I yelled, “Ty!” And he turns around just as the butterfly hits him right at heart level, flies around in a circle, and flies away.

Now I know everything is consciousness.

I get goosebumps telling the story again. Right then, I knew, “Okay, Susan. You are here in a way that I can see.” Now, do I think Susan’s a butterfly? No. But now I know everything is consciousness.

You look at a flock of birds. They fly as a group—group consciousness affecting them. So wouldn’t it be easy for Higher Consciousness to say, “We’re going to blend with the consciousness of that butterfly,” and just like it was a remote control, right? Turn right, turn left, go in a circle, right now dive-bomb the heart, and now fly off. Mission accomplished.

You know, it’s just playing with consciousness. I don’t know how they manifest the pennies out of nowhere. I haven’t figured that out. There’s a very dear friend of mine—she has pennies. A friend of mine has these pennies appear. There is no explanation other than that her husband is sending them. I don’t know.

Well, I guess when you get to the bottom line, everything really is just energy. In a way, this is an illusion. So, okay, you want to create a penny to get a message across? Let’s do it. But I can’t explain it.

Rick: For certain people, things just seem to click; they just seem to go their way. For other people, it’s obstacles at every stage.

Suzanne: If you keep hitting a wall, if you are constantly surrounded by what you consider bad luck, then you’re just not tuning into the guidance that’s always there.

If you can sit in the silence and ask, “Guide me. Show me where I’m going wrong,” and be open to what you hear and act on it, the more you act on it and things go right, the more you begin to trust. It becomes a constant process of being guided and tuning in.

Be aware of when you’re not positive, and be willing to think about and entertain more positive thoughts. Spirit wants nothing more than for you to be loved and know you’re loved. You are loved. But we don’t recognize that.

So if you keep hitting a wall and you feel the world is against you, that’s not Spirit. That’s the human side. Dial up the S and allow yourself to be guided. The more your life flows, the more that’s just a natural response to being in the flow—to being S instead of H.

Rick: After a while, it’s not just a matter of sitting in silence. It’s not like you have to take little silence breaks in order to find out what to do next. The silence gets incorporated into your active life, and you could be riding a motorcycle or skiing down a ski slope or something. The silence is all there.

Suzanne: That’s it. That’s my new workshop, and it’s coming out on DVD. It’s called Your Emerging Soul. It’s a play on words because it’s about merging the human side of you with the spirit side—realizing again that it’s not either-or. You’re both.

When you can get to that point where you walk around in that merged state that I’m in right now, I’m tuning in constantly: “Am I speaking from that higher place?” But I’m still very much aware of the human side of me. Choosing where you put your focus—then life really flows.

That’s when the magic happens, and that’s when you really fulfill your whole purpose of being here: to be the presence of love. That’s what it’s all about.

Free will and a higher perspective

Rick: Just to bring in another military example and quote the Bhagavad Gita again, there’s a circumstance where the hero Arjuna is faced with a battle, and he doesn’t want to fight the battle because many people he respects are on the opposing side, and he doesn’t know what to do.

He’s distraught, and he just wants to give it all up, sit down, and live on alms for the rest of his life. The advice he receives from Lord Krishna, who is his teacher, is, “Okay, first, transcend. First get to the silence, and then, established there, perform action.” So you can’t work it out intellectually, necessarily. But if you get established in being and then perform action, you’ll do the right thing: yoga-sthaḥ kuru karmāṇi.

Suzanne: This is where the balance is so important, because I’m married to a very much a military man. I love him with all my heart, and I so respect him. We have these conversations at dinner.

I’ve stopped watching the news because I don’t buy into all that negativity. But we have discussions about what’s going on, and I have to honor his beliefs and opinions. One time, he called me naive, and we had a discussion about that. I said, “I’m not naive. I’m choosing where to place my focus.”

There are times when I am very much the realist, so I choose whether to be in this world but not of it. It’s a choice that we make all the time. I can be very human if I want. I can take sides, and I can get totally into all this drama. But I choose peace. I choose peace.

It doesn’t mean I’m not aware of what’s going on in this physical world. But I know that there are two worlds. This is not the only one.

Rick: Even in this world, you know the old blind men and the elephant story, right? You mentioned the word paradox earlier. One can have one’s preferred side, but one can also see the paradoxical opposite of that as also having some legitimacy. It’s not like I’m totally right and they’re totally wrong on this, that, or the other.

Suzanne: That’s how we learn. That’s the thing. It’s that either-or mentality that makes us say, “I’m right; you’re wrong.” The second you recognize that, say, “Whoa, whoa. That’s human. I choose—I choose to identify more with the soul.”

That allows other people to believe what they believe without judging them. That is such a beautiful place to be, and you feel the love that’s beneath all of that.

Talk to those who have passed

Suzanne: I want to tell anybody who’s listening to talk to your loved ones who have passed. They don’t realize that they’re so near, and just thinking of them and talking to them is like a doorbell going off, and it draws them near to you.

Just thinking of them and talking to them is like a doorbell going off, and it draws them near to you.

We may not be able to hear them in response, but they certainly pick up on our thoughts and are around us. And they don’t miss the birthdays. They don’t miss the graduations. They’re right there at the weddings and all of those celebrations. Because, you know, it’s love that joins us all. So talk to them. Talk to them aloud. Talk to them quietly. They hear you.

Rick: Do you ever get any prophetic messages or knowledge about what’s going to be happening with the world five, ten, fifteen, twenty, or fifty years from now?

Suzanne: I do not. I do not. And I believe that’s because there’s so much free will involved in human living, that it’s a very changeable, malleable future. There are so many possibilities. And so it hasn’t come to me very much.

Immediate warnings happen occasionally. Just two days ago, on the road, we were pulling into a parking lot. My husband and I were going to go for a run in the middle of a long day of traveling. We often just stop somewhere, change into running gear, and go get some exercise.

We pulled in, and I had this feeling that I’ve only had once or twice in my life in the past couple of years. I said, “Honey, we are not supposed to stop here. Something bad will happen if we stay here.” And he has learned to trust me. We just got back on the road, and the feeling disappeared.

Only one other time had that happened. We had been riding our bikes, and I got that feeling. I said, “Don’t go down that road.” We turned and looked back, and way down at the bottom of the road, these two angry-looking dogs had just run out into the street, right in our path.

So, low-level warnings up to about eighteen hours, I think I can see things. But after that, life happens, people’s human will gets in the way, and things are not so predictable.

Rick: Okay, well, I was just curious because a lot of people prophesize or predict all kinds of interesting developments for humanity, most of them pretty rosy, but perhaps with a whole lot of difficulty between here and there, in terms of making the transition.

Suzanne: I’m not that kind of psychic.

The purpose of being human

Rick: Some so-called enlightened people claim there is no doer, no choice, no free will. That no one really is. And that ultimately the mind at large, the Divine, is acting through us, or as us, that we are the movement in and of consciousness at large, the universal omnipresent, omniscient consciousness as mind at large.

The scientific study from 2007, led by neuroscientist John-Dylan Haynes at the Max Planck Institute, supports this with the discovery that our conscious awareness of making a choice comes after the fact—that is, true conscious decision is illusory. What are your thoughts on this? To what extent are we autonomous beings? Do we have a free choice? What is it? How would you define it? Why do the so-called enlightened people claim there isn’t a doer?

Suzanne: I’m just smiling. And you’ve seen me smiling throughout this question, because you’re getting more and more scientific and more and more into the head. And I just go right back to the heart and say, “Can’t we just play? Can we just, can we just, can we just focus on love and make choices?”

And that’s why I say I’m like a puppet on a string. Go ahead, pull my strings if it leads me to be more loving and to enjoy this experience. You know, we’re here to get the most out of it. So I really don’t get wrapped around the axle about that, Rick.

Rick: Do you ever speak about whether or not we have free will?

Suzanne: Oh, I know we have free will.

Rick: People are saying we don’t. People who argue along the lines of the question I just read are saying…

Suzanne: No, that’s another level. That’s a whole different level of it. I know that I can make a choice right now. I could have made a choice to listen or not listen to that voice that said, “Don’t stop here. Something bad will happen.” And if I had not listened, well, you know.

I make choices all the time. Is that free will, or isn’t it? At one level of reality, that is free will. Maybe at a different level, that scientific experiment says that it already happened. That’s actually beyond my level right now.

Suzanne: Try to imagine that you’ve passed to the other side. And now you realize, as you’re surrounded by love, the missed opportunities you had while you were here to be love. And you look back at the petty things that caused you to separate from the ones you love. And you look back at the things people did that hurt you. And now you understand that hurt people hurt people.

You see everything from a higher perspective. If you could take that perspective back with you right now and make amends and be that presence of love now, you’ll be ahead of the game. I tell people not to wait until you have to come back through a medium to say those things that need to be said, to see what’s really important here and now. That will make all the difference in the world.

I’ve had people come to me in a reading, and a lady came to me who was 75 years old. Her mother came through from the other side, hanging her head down. That’s my signal. When I see that, I say, “Oh, your mother’s here, and she has an apology.” And my client stiffened. So I asked the mother silently, “What are you apologizing for?” I said, “Your mother’s apologizing. She’s showing me cradling you as a baby and throwing you away. Your mother abandoned you as a child.”

The lady said, “Yeah, me and my eight brothers and sisters.” And then I asked Mom, “What was that all about?” Your mother says that was because of X, Y, and Z, which completely explained the situation. And the woman acknowledged that and passed along Mother’s apology.

At the end of the session, the woman said to me, “I’ve carried around anger towards my mother for 75 years. And in one hour, it disappeared.”

You know, Rick, that’s beautiful. But the message here is that woman carried that stone on her heart when, if she had seen it from the higher perspective that her mother gained once she got to the other side, she could have grown more while she was here. She could have been the light and the love while she was here.

If we can just shift and have that higher perspective—because we’re both at all times—without waiting to become a soul. You are that now. Just think how much more love we can bring into the world. That’s my message.

If we can just shift and have that higher perspective—because we’re both at all times—without waiting to become a soul, you are that now.

Rick: If there were no value in being born as a human being, because just having the perspective that we would have on the other side, if that’s all there were to it, we would just stay on the other side, right? But there’s some kind of value in coming down here, where it’s not so conducive to maintaining that perspective, and yet trying to regain or attain that perspective while embodied on Earth.

Suzanne: Yeah, so if the woman had gotten to the place in her path where she understood that part of our task here is to learn forgiveness and to remember who we are, then that lesson would have been a check in the block, right? See, she wouldn’t have to go through 75 years of hell on Earth.

You know, my guides have said, “This is hell. Right here. This physical Earth.” How’s that for an eye-opener? Or it’s heaven. Well, it can be. It can be if once you make that shift in awareness. It’s a state of awareness.

But they give us credit for having the courage to come here and go through this experience of duality, where there are so many people who have forgotten who we are and stay in that state of forgetfulness. So we’re surrounded by different levels of awakening. That makes it very challenging. So it does take courage to come back here. So they give us credit for being here.

Closing thoughts

Rick: Okay, great. Well, thanks. This has been wonderful. I always have this feeling when I’m talking to somebody that it’s only a sampling, you know. It’s like there’s a huge smorgasbord of possibilities, and you can’t eat it all. You have to take what you can fit on your plate.

I also wish I could eat it all, allegorically speaking, and just make every interview a one-month affair where we go into everything.

Suzanne: I could tell you stories for hours and hours and hours of the evidence from the other side that would just knock your socks off. Somebody said to me last night, as my workshop was starting, he said, “When I read your memoir, Messages of Hope, you stated in there that you were having difficulty trusting your abilities, trusting what was going on. Do you still feel that way?”

And I looked at him, and I was so happy to say, “No more. I absolutely trust completely Spirit and how it works through me, and the existence of the greater reality. There is no doubt.”

And it’s that preponderance of the evidence and the daily presence, and the love and the transformation, that has convinced me of that. So everybody just needs to be patient with themselves and just take this path that we’re all on, with little baby steps or great big giant leaps—whatever is each person’s path. But just love every moment.

Rick: Yeah, that’s great. And since you seem to be readily comfortable with the fact that you, like all of us, are a work in progress, and you keep discovering new things and breaking new ground, maybe in a year or two we’ll do a second interview, if you like, and bring everybody up to date on what you have discovered.

Suzanne: And then whatever unfolds. Thank you.

Rick: Yeah, thank you. So let me make some concluding remarks. I’ve been speaking with Suzanne Giesemann. As always, I’ll be linking to her website from her page on batgap.com, and also to some of her books. She’s written quite a few of them—I think 11 books, you said.

So if what we’ve been talking about appeals to you, check her out. If you want to wait a year and a half, you can have a personal appointment with her, right? But there’s all sorts of interesting things in her books and on her website.

And as she mentioned, there’s that daily email you can get, a message from Sanaya. And so I hope that people have enjoyed this. So thanks for listening or watching, and thanks again to you, Suzanne. And Irene, thank you, Irene, and your whole team. Yeah, we do have a good team, and there are all kinds of interesting people helping with this.

Summary

Questions This Interview Explores

Key takeaways

Transcript

🕊️ From the Navy to spiritual work

A life-changing loss

Learning to connect with the other side

How mediumship began

✨ Is mediumship necessary for awakening?

✨ One consciousness, many expressions

❤️ When loved ones do not come through

The cost and blessing of the work

✨ Channeling higher consciousness

Testing channeled information

👁️ Living as the light

Downgrade your demands to preferences”

✨ Mediumship, awakening, and personal calling

❤️ Signs from loved ones

Free will and a higher perspective

Talk to those who have passed

The purpose of being human

Closing thoughts

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