Theresa Cheung Transcript: Dreams, Angels, Mediumship, and Forgiveness

Theresa Cheung Interview

Summary

The discussion explores dreams, intuition, angels, precognition, and life after death, including how these experiences might be studied without dismissing them. It also considers how crisis can prompt spiritual reflection and why personal discernment matters when engaging with spiritual claims.

Questions This Interview Explores

• How can dreams help us understand ourselves?
• How can I explore spiritual experiences without accepting every claim as true?
• Can intuition or precognition be studied scientifically?
• How can I connect with angels without putting spiritual authorities on a pedestal?

Key takeaways

• Dreams can offer symbolic insight into our feelings, patterns, and need for change.
• Spiritual claims deserve both open-minded investigation and careful discernment.
• Study unusual experiences rather than dismissing them, but do not treat experiencers as authorities.
• The most useful spiritual practice begins with direct experience and everyday acts of care.
• Periods of crisis may turn attention inward and make deeper questions harder to ignore.

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. I’ve done nearly 600 of them now. If this is new to you and you’d like to check out previous ones, please go to batgap.com, B-A-T-G-A-P, and look under the Past Interviews menu. This program is made possible through the support of appreciative listeners and viewers, so if you appreciate it and would like to help support it, there’s a PayPal button on every page of the website. There’s also a page about other ways to donate if you don’t want to use PayPal. My guest today is Theresa Cheung. Welcome, Theresa.

Theresa: Hello, Rick. Hello.

Rick: Theresa’s in the UK. She says she lives near Windsor Castle, which is not entirely relevant to this interview, but it’s something she told me. She said she did an interview yesterday with some outfit in Australia, right? And they wanted to know about Harry and Meghan the whole time.

Theresa: They should ask me to be their royal correspondent.

Rick: Yeah, maybe you missed your calling. Anyway, Theresa was born into a family of spiritualists. She’ll explain what that means. She has a master’s degree from King’s College Cambridge and has written numerous bestselling books and encyclopedias about dreams, the afterlife, angels, rituals, and spirituality, including two Sunday Times top 10 bestsellers. She’s been a guest on Russell Brand’s Under the Skin, which I listened to the other day. That was pretty funny. It must be hard being interviewed by him. He’s bouncing off the walls.

Theresa: The two of us were bad.

Rick: I’ve listened to a lot of his podcasts. He’s a very funny guy. Theresa has also been on Coast to Coast AM and has been featured in numerous newspapers and media. The titles of some of your books are The Truth About Angels, Dream Dictionary A to Z, The Premonition Code, The Afterlife Is Real, and The Sensitive Soul. Those are some of your books. We’ll be talking about all those things. This will be a free-flowing conversation. As I always tell my guests, Theresa, don’t restrict yourself to what I happen to think to ask you. If something comes to mind that you’d like to talk about, just launch into it. People will be sending in some questions, too. So we’ll just have a lot of fun for the next couple of hours. Where would you like to start? I’ll let you decide among all the things we’re going to talk about. Where would you like to start?

Theresa: At the beginning?

Rick: All right, let’s start there. Yes.

Theresa: You want to know why I do this?

Rick: Sure. How did you get into all this?

Theresa: I was kind of born into it. My mother was a professional astrologer and medium. That’s what our family was like. I grew up believing everybody could talk to dead people, consult tarot cards, or whatever. Then somehow I was blessed to get a place at King’s College Cambridge to read theology because I’m interested in spirituality. Of course, when I went to Cambridge, I realized that not everybody talks to dead people or believes in astrology and crystals and all that.

It’s been a—I hate that word, “journey”—lifelong journey now of trying to understand the spiritual, the esoteric, and writing many, many books about it. All of my books, actually, if you go back in time—because I’ve been doing this for 20 years, and, as I said, I’ve been blessed to work with all the publishers writing about this—you can see it’s me trying to learn along the way. My intuitive understanding of it, because it’s what I was born into, and my doubt have played a huge part in it as well. Where I am now, which is really interesting, is that I doubt a lot. I think, “Well, don’t believe everything just because you’re told it.” I’m alarmed at the moment by how many people in the world are so very gullible and willing to follow so easily.

So that’s where I am. That’s where my latest book, The Truth About Angels, comes in. It looks at this: What is going on in the New Age movement at the moment? All these gurus we have everywhere, all these people—I’m looking into that. As you can see, I’m a serial writer, a serial spiritual writer. In some ways, I was looking at you before I did this interview. You’ve interviewed so many people, and you’ve kind of got to a place where you don’t feel you belong anywhere now. You’re too much of a rebel to be—I read somewhere that you felt you were a kind of rebel and had your own individualistic view of spirituality now.

Rick: Kind of.

Theresa: I found that interesting.

Rick: Yeah, I don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater. I respect all kinds of authorities and traditions and whatnot. But, like you were saying about doubt, there’s a famous quote from the Buddha where he says, “Don’t believe anything just because somebody says it. Even if I say it,” the Buddha is saying, “check it out with your own thought processes, with your own discrimination, and determine what veracity it may have.” He didn’t use those words, but that was the kind of point. I think spirituality should be a scientific enterprise. I think a scientific way of thinking is extremely helpful to a spiritual aspirant. I also think spirituality has things to offer science that science will be very impoverished without. I know that you’re very interested in that, and you’ve been involved with folks at IONS, the Institute of Noetic Sciences, and so on.

Theresa: Well, I actually co-authored a book with Dr. Julia Mossbridge when she was still a scientist at IONS. I believe she’s a fellow and has moved on.

Rick: Yeah, I met Julia. She did a HeartMath test on me one time.

Death, rebirth, and karma

Theresa: She’s a force, isn’t she? That book was wonderful, actually, because, as I said, I’d written book after book on spiritual topics, but I wrote about them from a believer’s perspective. A lot of my books were collections of true experiences of people who’ve had near-death experiences, afterlife experiences, and precognition. I wasn’t aware of the science out there. I mean, I was creating all these books for the converted, if you will. It was only when I stumbled across the Institute of Noetic Sciences about six years ago that it blew my mind: There were scientists out there looking at the inner world in the same way as the external world and analyzing it as data.

I’ve stalked them ever since, and they very kindly awarded me a landing page because I talk about them so much now. If you’ve read a Theresa Cheung book like The Afterlife Is Real or An Angel Called My Name—that was my Sunday Times top 10 bestseller, for people who believe in angels—and you want to learn more about the science, go to this landing page. There are three free gifts from the Institute of Noetic Sciences on there, like a chapter of Dean’s book and a lecture.

Rick: Dean Radin. He wrote the foreword to The Premonition Code, the book Julia and I did, which was wonderful. Going back to that book, it was wonderful because you had someone like me, who the scientific community would probably think, “There, there,” and laugh at me in a way, because I come at it from a very—I lived it, I was born into it, and here are stories, non-scientific—collaborating with someone like Dr. Julia Mossbridge.

We created this rather strange book, which has now got a kind of cult following of its own, called The Premonition Code. I go through the book feeling a bit like the comic relief, saying, “But Julia, I don’t understand. Tell me about the physics.” And she’s sort of like, “Okay, Theresa, here we go,” and explains it. She’s created this sort of scientific system to test precognitions. But what she needed for that book was my database. Maybe it’s because I’m accessible, I don’t know, or because I’ve simply been around so long. People, especially in the UK, have got a Theresa Cheung book if they’re interested in the paranormal. They write to me; I leave my email address in all my books. So I’ve got this database of stories from people who’ve experienced precognition, intuition, or afterlife encounters, and that played into the book as well.

So it was a wonderful combination of science meeting spirit, actually happening together. That book has now been translated into so many languages. We had a website. It made the front page of the Daily Mail over here. I went on Russell Brand to talk about it. It was a wonderful combination. Since then, I’ve continued to stalk the Institute of Noetic Sciences, and I’m still in regular touch with them. I really enjoy that. I’ve had all of them on my podcast, talking to me: Arnold DeLorme, Helena, and Garret Yount, the whole team. Dean, of course. I think if there was a movie about a scientist, they would have to cast Dean. He’s just how you would imagine a scientist studying the paranormal to be. But he was terrific fun on my podcast.

Rick: He actually has such a sense of humor.

Theresa: Yes, yes. So they’re all on my podcast, and my interviews with all these scientists formed the basis of season one. But I also had Penny Sartori on there, and Eben Alexander, who has become a kind of friend. I met him when he came to the UK. We had a coffee together, and he was fascinating to listen to on the podcast as well. He talked about his near-death experience. Since then, I’ve gone on to do more and more interviews with practitioners, experts, and authors on my podcast.

Rick: Yeah, that’s good. I listened to a few episodes of it. It’s called White Shores, is that what it’s called?

Theresa: Do you know why it’s called that?

Rick: Why? I don’t know.

Theresa: Lord of the Rings.

Rick: Oh, really? I forget that reference.

Theresa: Ian McKellen as Gandalf. I think it’s in the second or third one. I can’t remember. I’m not that good at remembering. Basically, the Hobbits think they’re going to die because the Orcs are attacking, and Gandalf says, “I fear death.” He turns to him and says, “You needn’t fear it,” and then he has this beautiful speech. It’s on YouTube. He says, “It’s White Shores. It’s a far green country under a different sunrise.” And he says, “Well, that’s not so bad, is it?” He’s comforting him, saying that there is life after death, and it’s called White Shores. Of course, there’s that beautiful scene at the end when Frodo goes off in the boat. I love Lord of the Rings, and so it was my kind of tribute to that.

In the first episode, it was great fun because I asked all the scientists, if they could be a character in Lord of the Rings, which one would it be? Guess which one most of them chose.

Rick: Probably Gandalf. Yeah?

Theresa: Yeah. Some of them chose the ring.

Rick: Oh, the ring itself.

Yeah. In a way, what I’m trying to do—because we talk about really paranormal topics, the science of consciousness, but to do that in a lighthearted way seems to have worked. The podcast has proved quite popular, probably because it is so surreal when you listen to it.

Theresa: Yeah. In a way, what I’m trying to do—because we talk about really paranormal topics, the science of consciousness, but to do that in a lighthearted way seems to have worked. The podcast has proved quite popular, probably because it is so surreal when you listen to it.

Rick: That’s nice. Your Lord of the Rings reference reminded me of a scene from Star Wars where Obi-Wan Kenobi is fighting Darth Vader, and he says to Darth Vader, “If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine.” Then he ends up getting struck down. But then he’s kind of working from the other side after that.

Theresa: But you see movies, these iconic movies like Star Wars and Lord of the Rings? I firmly believe the reason they have touched so many lives is the underlying spirituality. It’s a way to teach these spiritual lessons in a way that wouldn’t necessarily reach people through earnest podcasts or books.

And I had this idea, actually, and that’s how I ended up talking to Piers Morgan, because I had this idea about the Force in Star Wars. I teamed up with the head of the Jedi Church to write a book called Become the Force. That was an interesting project. I mean, I’m not an obsessive Star Wars fan. I just thought, all those people queuing up in the theater to see Star Wars, what they’re queuing up for really isn’t the special effects and all that, or the actors. It’s the spiritual theme, the Force. We all understand what that is. So that was an interesting project to work on as well.

As I see it, I’m trying very different ways to bring spirituality out of just talking to the converted all the time. I really love engaging with skeptics, too. That’s why I went on Russell Brand. He’s not a skeptic; he’s actually very spiritually inclined. But that’s a fun episode to listen to, because you’ve got him going, “What?” when I’m talking about life after death and all that.

I’ve also sparred with Michael Marshall, who’s a well-known Guardian critic and skeptic over here. And I love doing that because I’m not trying to convert anyone. I’m just trying to talk to people who normally wouldn’t engage in spirituality, because I do all the festivals and talks and everything. But nine times out of ten, the people who listen are inclined to believe anyway.

I think it’s really interesting when people from totally different backgrounds come together. That’s why I love The Premonition Code with Julia. You had a scientist, a neuroscientist, with a general spiritual writer. It was an interesting mix, and I like that. I like pushing the boundaries, if you will, and getting dialogue about these issues: What’s the meaning of life? Why are we here?

Rick: Yeah. Well, as you know, there are many scientists who aren’t really scientific, as Dean often discusses, and David Lorimer with the Galileo Commission and people like that. They basically have the attitude, “Well, you say you’ve got all this data about premonition or life after death or whatever, but that can’t be true, therefore I’m not going to look at it.” Now, that’s not a scientific attitude.

To my way of thinking, anything could be a viable hypothesis to investigate. Angels, for instance—you’re going to talk about angels today. Do they exist? Well, you may doubt it, you may believe it, but you don’t really know, and you can investigate it. Maybe there’s some evidence that ought to be looked at.

A couple hundred years from now, maybe people will look back and think it was ridiculous that there was this schism between science and spirituality. There’s just reality, and both bring different tools to the table for exploring it.

Theresa: Absolutely. It’s part of the human experience since man-woman began. People have had these supernatural, these supernormal experiences, and they’re part of the human experience. Why on earth deny them? I’m very much—I don’t know the reason for them, but why not study them? Why not understand them?

Seeing Angels Through Compassionate Action

I don’t think you should put people on a pedestal who have these powers or these visions, either. I don’t believe that. How is that going to help you? I think it should be all about your direct personal experience and activating that angel gene within you, rather than following someone who says, “I’ve seen angels.” That’s what my latest book is about. If you want to see angels, start behaving like one. Start activating it. Look in the mirror and smile at yourself with eyes of true love, because most people struggle to love themselves. That’s where you start, with a bit of self-love. And, you know, grow your own wings.

That’s what I’d like to see more of as I move towards the latter part, the twilight part of my writing career, because I really am a serial writer. You know, you have serial killers, but I’m a serial writer. I’ve written so many spiritual books now. It’s a blessing to be in that position. But what the pandemic—

Rick: Theresa the Scriptor, instead of Jack the Ripper. You’ve got Theresa the Scriptor.

Theresa: Right, that’s my new tagline. But, you know, what COVID, the pandemic, has done is, in a way—it sounds kind of like it’s unleashed me, because I was getting ready to wind down. And then suddenly, in early 2020, I got these major companies, like Beauty Bay over here, or Anthropologie, the clothing store, suddenly saying, “Look, everybody’s dreaming, right, because of lockdown, the furloughs. Can you explain? Can you help us understand what’s going on?”

For me, in a way, that was like, “Oh, my goodness,” because dreams are the door to the unconscious. They’re the first step, the opening, the beginning. Most people who are rational or logical, or who discount spirituality, are still interested in their dreams, because they have them. My husband, for example, is very logical and rational, but he’s very interested in dream interpretation because he gets that.

What I found I was able to do, through all these requests to go on radio, TV, or whatever, to talk about the meaning of the most common dreams, was actually get people to think spiritually, and to think beneath the material, beneath the surface. For example, if you dream you’re falling, are you unsupported in your life? What is your unconscious, your intuition, trying to tell you? You get people thinking like that, and that opens the door. Then you can start bringing in other concepts. It’s been incredible, spirituality. But I guess that tends to happen in times of crisis: people seek deeper meanings. We’re talking life and death here, so we’re seeking deeper meaning.

Rick: I think there might be something else going on, too. I noticed I started dreaming more when the pandemic set in, and I wasn’t radically changing my lifestyle, since I’m not really a social gadfly anyway. But then I heard a story about it on the news, where they were asking some doctor about it. She said, “Well, it’s just because people are sleeping more, therefore they’re dreaming more.”

But I think there’s something more to it. I think perhaps there’s some kind of enlivenment of the field, of the force, if you will, taking place in the world. That’s kind of stirring things up for people more, and therefore they’re dreaming more. What do you think about that?

Theresa: Well, I think it’s your intuition, your internal therapist—your intuition, it’s in the name—speaking to you and trying to help. It’s the part of you that wants to help and heal, because it’s been so chaotic, filled with grief and loss, over the last year.

Through this awakening of dreaming, it’s called the lockdown dream phenomenon, and I’ve been asked about it so many times. Yes, there is a biological reason: people’s sleeping patterns have altered. And, of course, when that happens—if you have altered sleeping patterns—it’s not that you’re sleeping more. It’s often the altered sleeping patterns. That’s why you tend to dream more on holiday: you’re a bit jet-lagged and you get more REM, rapid eye movement sleep.

Also, our mornings have slowed down. Instead of rushing off to work or your chores, you’re at home, so you have longer for these images to come to your consciousness and to recall them. There are biological, rational reasons, but I think there’s a deeply spiritual reason. I’m trying to say so much that I want to say, but everybody dreams, right? Whatever your age, your race, your culture, your political belief.

Rick: Whatever your species—even dogs dream. You can see them kicking their legs and making little noises.

Theresa: Absolutely. Dreams illustrate our shared humanity, and isn’t that what we need to be reminded of right now? That we are all shared humanity; we all share this consciousness. I think that’s why dreams came to the fore. It’s a powerful spiritual wake-up call. We are all linked. Whoever you are, you’re going to dream.

But also, it’s connecting you to that part of yourself which knows the bigger picture of your life, which has your best interests at heart. I think in the modern world, we’ve disengaged from that unconscious, intuitive part of ourselves because our lives are so busy, so fast, with so much materialism and so much passive consumption of what’s on our phones and in the media. We’ve switched off that inner guide. But the pandemic forced us all back onto it, and it expressed itself through dreams.

And, of course, right now, dreams are never more at the fore, because Netflix, number one over here, is this paranormal thriller Behind Her Eyes. I don’t know if it’s over there in the States, but it’s absolutely huge over here, and it’s all about lucid dreaming. People have become so interested in it, in what’s going on, because it’s a psychological thriller, but it takes lucid dreaming as the doorway into your dream. I’m sure—it’s a New York Times bestseller—so I’m sure it’ll be over there on Netflix, too. It’s a big talking point online, Behind Her Eyes.

Rick:Behind Her Eyes. Irene says it’s a great series on Netflix. We sort of have an erratic Netflix subscription: unsubscribe and resubscribe.

Theresa: It’s very dark, Rick, so I wouldn’t advise it. But that’s what I try to do: remove the fear and woo out of the supernormal. If you want a really positive recent addition, it’s, of course, the Disney Pixar movie Soul.

Rick: I’ve heard that’s great, yeah. Heaven.

Theresa: In 2019, I interviewed Dr. Loren Carpenter, who is an IONS Fellow. He was co-founder of Pixar and a science director at Disney before he became an IONS Fellow. So it did not surprise me at all that Disney was going to serve up the afterlife and a near-death experience for children in animation, because of talking to Dr. Loren Carpenter, co-founder of Pixar. There are so many spiritual concepts, actually, in Disney movies, if you look at it.

Rick: Well, if you think about it, a lot of people are talking about some kind of spiritual awakening taking place in the world, on a global scale, and some of them have rather strange interpretations of how it’s supposed to play out. But people have been talking about this for a long time and anticipating it. Maybe it’s really kicking in now.

If anybody’s ever been on a spiritual retreat, you’ve probably experienced your dreams intensifying incredibly. You’ve had all kinds of vivid dreams, profound things. So the whole world is, to a certain extent, on a spiritual retreat now, if you want to call it that—or on a retreat, whether you make it spiritual or not, I guess, is another matter.

But there’s definitely kind of an enlivenment taking place, I think, in global consciousness, and it’s impacting everyone’s psychologies, the way we function in our dreams. I guess you might say that we’re more open during our dreams, during sleep, than we are in the waking state generally. So naturally, we might notice more profound things happening during sleep than in the waking state. It’s more likely.

Theresa: Well, we’re meeting ourselves in our dreams. We’re understanding, and that’s the goal of therapy and counseling, actually. The goal of a good therapist and counselor is to get you to understand yourself better, and I think that’s the journey of our lives: self-understanding. But we do that every night in our sleep. We’re going into this symbolic world, where everything’s represented symbolically, and we’re understanding aspects of our own personality. As I say, it’s like that—the movie references will come in with me. That’s what I’m like. I’m a real movie buff. Inception, of course, you know, when everybody stops and stares at the dreamer, right?

Rick: Is that with Leonardo DiCaprio?

Theresa: It is, of course. I also follow Leonardo DiCaprio, as well as IONS. But, you know, that’s what I love: these big movies. They can awaken interest in these concepts in such a way. But what I hope, once the pandemic is over and we go back to a sort of normal, is that this love affair the world has had with its dreams won’t go away, and people will keep recording and recalling their dreams and looking at them. I do think it’s extremely powerful.

Reading Dreams as a Series of Messages

If anyone gets anything out of this interview, please don’t think your dreams are nonsense and random. Write them down, and look at what the dreams are trying to tell you. And don’t just think one dream has a message. Often it’s a series of dreams, a bit like a Netflix series. You know, you’ve got to look at them all and see what you are trying to tell yourself, what your intuition is trying to tell you.

If anyone gets anything out of this interview, please don’t think your dreams are nonsense and random. Write them down, and look at what the dreams are trying to tell you. And don’t just think one dream has a message. Often it’s a series of dreams, a bit like a Netflix series. You know, you’ve got to look at them all and see what you are trying to tell yourself, what your intuition is trying to tell you.

But there is also a category of dreams, a very rare category, which I believe have psychic elements, because I get so much mail about it. Or precognitive elements. That’s another area that suggests there’s so much within us that we have no idea about.

Rick: And would you say there’s a category of dreams that aren’t really dreams? I mean, for me, the most profound experiences I’ve ever had in my life have been during sleep. You know, just counting on the fingers of one hand—and I’ve been meditating for 53 years—but there are some really profound things. They didn’t seem like dreams, because they were just so significant and profound and intense and whatnot. Irene, too—she’s saying over there.

And it’s probably because of the innocence and openness of the condition you’re in when you’re asleep. You can kind of be receptive to levels of cognition or experience that you are not so receptive to, even in a meditative state when you’re awake.

Theresa: Well, your conscious mind is so controlling, isn’t it? And it won’t allow the intuition to surface. But, of course, when you sleep, your intuition reigns. It has free rein to express itself. Yes, and I call these rare kinds of dreams night vision. They’re marked often because most of our dreams, I would say about 99%, are symbolic. They’re just as valuable, because they’re all really helpful messages, where your dreaming mind expresses itself through symbols and metaphors—but personal symbols and metaphors that you’ve got to learn the language of.

I always say when you dream, it’s like going to another country. If you want to understand the culture, you need to understand the language. So, you need to go on a crash course in understanding your personal symbols. Like everybody, you know, if you dream of a cat, for example, everybody has a different personal relationship with cats. Some people love them; some people, not so much. So, you’ve got to interpret dreams not so much from the universal interpretation, but from your personal one. That’s where often a lot of people fall down. They think, “Oh, I dreamt of this, and it’s going to mean X, Y, and Z.”

But also, just a little bit more before we go into the rare kind of dreams: these symbolic dreams also often tend to have a lot of fear in them. And people say, “Well, why is that?” That’s because the dreaming mind wants to get its message across. Sometimes being gentle and giving you nice dreams about a holiday in Hawaii is not enough. Sadly, it’s like being cruel to be kind. Sometimes nightmares and fear will come in. For example, if you’re being chased in your dream, what are you running away from? What aspect of yourself do you need to turn around and deal with? And all that.

Also, if you have a dream of death, a lot of people have dreams of death. This is where the symbolic interpretation is so important. If you dream of someone dying, and you know that you know them, it does not mean to say they’re going to die. You’ve got to look at the symbolism. Death is an ending, but a new beginning. So perhaps your relationship with that person is going through a transformation.

How Night Vision Differs from Symbolic Dreams

But to go back to what you were talking about, night vision, which I believe is a small category, there is a difference. Symbolic dreams tend to be a bit like a music video: a lot of shifting images that don’t really make sense. But night vision tends to have a beginning, a middle, and an end, and feels very vivid and realistic. I think that’s like a door to somewhere. If you believe in the spirit, the afterlife, the unseen realm, it’s a door that you’re going there through.

I’ve had a few of these night visions in my life and, my goodness, they typically tend to be when I meet departed loved ones and have a very vivid, realistic conversation with them. When I wake up, it’s like I have talked to them. It felt so, so real. I did a lot of research into this, and I actually found that the research shows that in over 90% of cases, people who dream of departed loved ones recover better from grief. It’s a very healing thing to happen as well.

I call them afterlife signs, afterlife visitations, and I think these experiences should be studied. I just, you know…

Rick: I’m tempted to tell you some of my night visions, but I don’t want to talk about me too much.

Theresa: Oh no, please do. I’d love to hear. Tell me, please.

Rick: Well, I’ll start with the most profound one, and we’ll see if I get into any of the others. But the most profound one: I was asleep—my body was—and I was ushered into a room and asked to lie down on my stomach on a pallet of some sort and hang on to a couple of handles at shoulder height. Some being came in with a trident or a spear and started stabbing up and down my spine, stabbing, and it was the most excruciating, intense thing I’d ever experienced. I’m summarizing here.

When I woke up from it, I woke up kind of in a sweat, but as I gained ordinary consciousness, I felt the greatest bliss and sense of liberation I had ever felt—like I had been bound by steel bands for all eternity and they’d been broken. I just walked around in a state of awe for several days because I felt so transformed by that.

When I woke up from it, I woke up kind of in a sweat, but as I gained ordinary consciousness, I felt the greatest bliss and sense of liberation I had ever felt—like I had been bound by steel bands for all eternity and they’d been broken. I just walked around in a state of awe for several days because I felt so transformed by that.

Then I later discovered, just a few years ago, that—this happened back in 1980—Tibetan Buddhism or something has a practice where you’re supposed to imagine Lord Shiva stabbing your chakras with his trident. I think maybe somebody had the experience that I had and then tried to reverse-engineer it into a practice. So that was one of them.

Theresa: Incredible.

Rick: If I’ve had any significant awakening in my life, that was the biggest one.

Theresa: Did you know about this ceremony or practice before?

Rick: No. I just heard about that tradition a couple of years ago, that there was some such tradition.

Theresa: I mean, that is such an incredible scenario to just come out of nowhere. And the fact that you felt bliss, awakening, but literally transformed, just like, gosh. It’s basically the darkness before the dawn. It’s the pain before birth.

Rick: It’s a huge release.

Theresa: Yes, it’s about—and sometimes, I always say in my books, you don’t go to heaven, you grow to heaven. Growth hurts, and the only way to grow is out of your comfort zone.

Rick: I’ll tell you another one quickly. The experience was just complete unboundedness, you know, just unbounded awareness. Then gradually, gradually, a thought started coming, and I started thinking, “Holy mackerel, I am having one heck of a meditation. I don’t even remember starting to meditate. Oh, this is beautiful.”

Then I kind of experienced that I was sitting in lotus, and I became aware of my body. I was sitting up in lotus, having this meditation, this unbounded awareness. Then, again, summarizing, I realized, “I’m fast asleep. I’m lying on the bed. This whole thing was happening just sort of on some…”

Theresa: So you became lucid, so you knew you were dreaming. That’s lucid dreaming. You knew you were dreaming while you were dreaming. That’s a wonderful skill that you can learn. Have you practiced lucid dreaming techniques?

Rick: No, I haven’t ever practiced. It just comes or it doesn’t, no.

Theresa: Wouldn’t you want to? Wouldn’t you want to wake up in that dreamland state? You can role-play, you can be anywhere, you can go up to space, you can fly, you can visit every country.

Rick: Well, I remember when I read the Carlos Castaneda books, Don Juan told him to try to see your hands in your dreams. So then, I thought, “All right, I’m going to try to do that.” And eventually, I’m dreaming, “Okay, I want to see my hands. Yep, did it.” And then after that, I just didn’t keep, you know, messing with it.

Theresa: Oh, I mean, with me, that’s my next big journey: lucid dreaming, because I’ve written so many dream dictionaries and encyclopedias now, and that’s where I want to go now. I’m learning techniques and potentially writing another book about it, actually, because there’s so much interest in it. How do you do it? How do you become lucid in your dream?

Because, actually, we do need it at the moment, because the way our waking life is not great at the moment for a lot of people. So, let’s go and explore and have fun in our dreams. So many of us limit ourselves in our dreams. We have these dreams, either they’re boring or they’re not very pleasant or whatever, but actually, you can make your dream life wildly exciting.

Rick: Oh, yeah.

Theresa: You can role-play, you can be or do anyone and anything. I’m telling you, when people are able to control their dreams, become lucid in their dreams, the confidence boost it gives you—I’ve had one or two times in my life, maybe three, where I have been aware that I’m dreaming and I’ve controlled the dream. I can tell you, the next morning, I’m just flying. Literally, you know, the world—I feel I can do anything.

Often, it’s before something amazing happens in my waking life, because what we don’t realize also is our dreams are a commentary on our waking life.

Rick: Yeah.

Theresa: Right. It’s just a continuation. And if you want your dreams to be more exciting, if you want creative ideas for the next novel or your next project to come in your dreams, as many great geniuses have actually had inspiration from their dreams—the plot of Frankenstein, for example, was a dream.

Rick: I read that section in your book. Paul McCartney and all kinds of other people have had that. He dreamed the song “Yesterday.” Yeah, all kinds of stuff.

Theresa: Yes. I mean, Christopher Nolan, the director, is very much a lucid dreamer. But what I’m saying is, if you want to have more interesting, creative dreams, it starts in your waking life. Become more mindful, become more curious in your waking life. A lot of us go through life with our blinkers on, in a kind of routine. If you could actually treat each day as the precious gift it is, full of wonder and awe—that’s not always easy, because life can be tough—but if you can become more curious about everything in your waking life, that’s going to have a knock-on effect on your dreaming.

There are certain techniques you can do during the day to increase the likelihood of becoming lucid in your dream. One of them is, on the hour or every two hours, saying, “Am I awake? Am I asleep?” Like right now, maybe I’m dreaming I’m having this conversation with you, Rick, but no, I’m awake. That hurts. So keep asking yourself that, because the thing is, what you do in your waking life will somehow carry over into the dream, and eventually you’ll be in a dream and you’ll be asking yourself, “Am I awake or am I asleep?” Then when you know you’re asleep, you can do anything. It’s amazing.

Turiya and Awareness Across the Three States

Rick: You know, dreaming is considered, both by moderns and by ancients, as one of three ordinary states of consciousness: waking, dreaming, and sleeping, right? In the Vedic tradition, they identify and define a state they call “fourth,” which they call turiya. Turiya means “fourth.” The idea is that if pure consciousness is developed—if one becomes aware of the field of pure consciousness, which is one’s own essential nature, to a sufficient degree such that it’s no longer overshadowed by anything—it becomes a continuum throughout the other three states: waking, dreaming, and sleeping.

So that’s an interesting consideration. It’s like the movie screen, you know; it’s always there, no matter how the movies change. So it’s really, we could say, almost a fifth state of consciousness, where the fourth state becomes a permanent feature of life throughout the other three.

Theresa: Fascinating.

Rick: Yeah, I mean, I have friends who say they haven’t slept in decades, although they’ve slept—they snore, they sleep—but pure consciousness remains fully illuminated throughout the 24-hour period, including deep sleep.

Theresa: That’s true for all of us, but for some reason we don’t recall.

Rick: Right. It’s there; it just gets blotted out, you know. But it can be enlivened to the extent that it can no longer be blotted out or overshadowed by the depth of sleep.

Okay, okay. But I do think that everybody, when they’re asleep, their consciousness is going places. I find it very interesting, actually, people who write to me and say, “I don’t recall my dreams. I don’t remember. I don’t recall.” I think there’s a whole psychology there about what’s going on, about why it is that you don’t want to understand yourself at that deep level.

Theresa: Okay, okay. But I do think that everybody, when they’re asleep, their consciousness is going places. I find it very interesting, actually, people who write to me and say, “I don’t recall my dreams. I don’t remember. I don’t recall.” I think there’s a whole psychology there about what’s going on, about why it is that you don’t want to understand yourself at that deep level.

Rick: Don’t want to, or is it just that people are kind of dulled out, you know? There’s not enough clarity to remember the dreams?

Theresa: Well, that’s why so many more people are dreaming right now, because life has got a bit simpler, especially if you’re on furlough or you’re at home. I mean, when life is in full swing, there’s too much stress. Immediately when you wake up, life—your unconscious is too gentle; it can’t compete. So sometimes it’s stress and being way too busy. Or if you’re someone who has a really, really active waking life that’s fulfilling you, maybe when you sleep, you just want to switch off.

There is a psychology behind it. Or you’re a very rational and logical person who doesn’t really feel comfortable talking about what is irrational, who doesn’t really want to suspend disbelief. So there are all sorts of reasons for not having dream recall. But I love working with people who say they don’t remember their dreams, because usually after a week or two of working with them or setting them exercises, they dream.

Rick: You know what happens to me sometimes—not all the time, but maybe once a year? I’ll suddenly remember a dream that I had 30 or 40 years ago. I hadn’t remembered it then, but all of a sudden, boom, it comes to mind. I think, “Oh yeah, that dream. Isn’t that interesting?” Then I go on with my day, but it just comes up.

Theresa: Yeah. What’s the lesson there? What’s your dreaming mind, what’s your intuition trying to tell you? As I say, it’s your internal therapist, and much cheaper than a real one. We’ve all got this resource, and I wish we would all connect with it more and fall in love with our dreams. I hope we continue this love affair with our dreams that has happened in 2020. Dreams are huge at the moment.

Rick: Yeah, I think they’re a blast. I mean, I look forward to going to sleep every night because not only is sleep blissful in its nature, but it’s entertaining. Yeah, I wake up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom or something, and I’ll just chuckle about what I’ve been dreaming.

Theresa: Because there are no limits in dreams. You can actually, you know, in waking life we have restraints, we have norms of society or whatever, but in dreams there are no limits. Other people are frightened about that, but wasn’t it the Dalai Lama—correct me if I’m wrong—who said that the best meditation is sleep? I’m sure he said that. And what happens when you sleep? You dream. So, you know, but yeah.

Rick: Somehow that triggered the Hamlet soliloquy there. Oh, you know: “To be or not to be, that is the question, whether it is nobler in the mind. And then… to sleep… to dream—ah, there’s the rub… what dreams may come…” Yadda yada yada.

Theresa: Yeah, dreams can fuel our waking life. They can, as I say, help you understand yourself better. You can role-play scenarios. So, you know, you can actually face the worst-case scenario in your sleep. For example, the things many of us fear, like being attacked or dying or being lost or unprepared—you know, that classic thing of being late for an exam. And what your dreaming mind does is take you to that worst-place scenario.

And there’s this idea in the self-help movement that you’ve got to imagine the worst case. Most of us won’t allow ourselves to imagine that, especially if you’re a perfectionist or a successful person. You won’t allow yourself to be that unprepared or to walk around nude in public.

Rick: I’ve had that one.

Theresa: But your dreaming mind takes you there, so the worst thing has possibly happened. You have exposed yourself in public. You have forgotten your lines on stage. You have messed every single thing up. And it’s okay because you’ve still woken up the next morning. It’s a memory. It’s gone. It’s in the past. You’ve been there, you’ve done that, you’ve got it out of your system.

Rick: You know, another one that I’ve had for years, and a lot of people say they have, is you’re in high school or something in the dream, and you suddenly realize there’s some class that you were supposed to have been attending and you’d totally forgotten about it. Now it’s the end of the year, and you’ve forgotten to go to it, so you’re going to flunk this class. Did you ever have that one?

Theresa: Oh yeah. Well, school-themed dreams are among the top five most common, actually. And the reason is that school is when we are forming. It’s such a formative time in our life, like it or loathe it. It’s when we meet people or get influences that create our personality. School forms us, and most of our lives are spent working out issues that we had at school or in our childhood, trying to really understand what we think, not what others do.

So that’s why we have school-themed dreams, and being late for an exam shows testing situations and not feeling you’re up to it. A lot of people suffer from imposter syndrome or whatever and think, “Am I up for it?” Your dreaming mind is just expressing all this for you so you can cathartically get it out of your system.

Rick: Yeah. Another one I’ve had a lot over the years is I’m swimming underwater, and that’s nice, but I can breathe. I think to myself, “Wow, I’m underwater, but I can breathe. Isn’t that interesting?”

Theresa: That’s a beautiful dream. Water, of course, is a universal symbol of emotion, and a lot of people are underwater but drowning.

Rick: Yeah.

Theresa: The fact that you can breathe suggests that your emotional management is an important part of life. You are managing it. You’re okay. You’re not being submerged by emotions; you are navigating them. I’d be more worried about that dream if you were drowning and couldn’t breathe. But that’s a beautiful dream, showing the sea of emotions. You’re swimming through your own emotions and other people’s, and you’re understanding it. You’re being a natural psychologist. That’s what that dream would express to me.

Rick: For some reason, I’m into telling you all my dreams now. I guess this is the time to do it.

Theresa: Everybody does. It’s great. I’ve been on so much radio and TV recently, and I’ve actually started a podcast with a Sky presenter called Alex Morgan. Actually, I’ll talk about that. We’ve got some UK celebrities coming on—not U.S. celebrities—and it’s a bit like an interview, but then they share a dream and they wheel me on as the dream catcher. Then it gets really deep.

We had a politician talking about being in an opera and not understanding the words. That’s so deep. People will reveal things, because the thing is, with celebrities, they have this mask on, but then they think it’s okay to share a funny dream about being nude or their ex chasing them. You can go right in with the psychology there in a really safe way, and it’s doing really well, actually. It’s called “In Your Dreams.” It’s kind of an interview, but we go deep with a dream, and I think, what a wonderful development. This would never have happened five, ten years ago, especially here in the UK, which does tend to be quite cynical. And here we are in mainstream media, talking about dreams and taking them seriously. I mean, I just feel my work is done. I’m so pleased, because what we’re doing there is spirituality. It’s understanding ourselves from the inside out.

Rick: Yeah, here’s another one where some egotism comes into the dream. I’ll have a dream where I’m levitating or flying or something like that, and I think, “That’s cool,” but at the same time I think, “Oh, is anybody watching? Can anybody see that I can do this?”

Theresa: Well, that’s good because every— I mean, dreams are a hall of mirrors. Most of them are a hall of mirrors. You’re dreaming yourself, and, you know, levitating, you don’t take yourself too seriously. You’re rising above the situation. Also, you’ve done so many of these amazing interviews, by the way. I’m so glad, and I’m actually really grateful to Tim Freke.

Rick: Yes.

Theresa: I always laugh when I say that name.

Rick: That’s where I first discovered you. I was listening to his podcast, because I listen to it regularly.

Theresa: Oh, he’s great, isn’t he? So thank you, Tim, for connecting me, and I’m absolutely going to recommend this podcast everywhere now. But you’ve interviewed so many people that, in a way, you must get a sense of, “I know what this person is going to say before they do it.” Do you feel that you’re at that point now? I mean, what is it, 600 interviews?

Rick: Nearly.

Theresa: Wow, yeah, you’re like a sponge. You’ve taken it all on board, and there’s a point now when you think, “Is there anything new that I’m going to hear?” I think that’s what that dream’s about.

Rick: Well, I never get bored. Everything seems new and fresh, and each new guest is like opening a Christmas present or something. You don’t know what you’re going to get, and I really enjoy each week: preparing for the guest, listening to their stuff, and reading their books. And, you know, certainly there are repeating themes. We actually have a categorical index on BatGap where we cluster people into categories, so you can see all the…

Theresa: Oh gosh, what were you going to put me in?

Rick: We’ll start a special category for you. I don’t know. I think it’s—I love it. It’s kind of like everything in my life led up to doing this.

Theresa: Well, it’s the best job in the world.

Rick: Somebody else said that to me just the other day. It was a brain surgeon in Dubai or someplace. He said, “Oh, you’ve got the best job in the world.”

Theresa: Well, it is. It’s fascinating, isn’t it, because you never know what you’re going to stumble across. All these people, and it’s a wonderful platform. Thank you. I’m going to take this opportunity to thank you as well.

Rick: You’re welcome.

Theresa: It makes accessible and gathers together names that you maybe wouldn’t find out otherwise.

Rick: That’s part of our mission, actually: not just to interview well-known people, but to interview people who are just leading ordinary lives but have had some significant spiritual awakening. That was part of the initial motivation for starting this. I was talking to friends around town, and some of them were having spiritual awakenings. Then other friends didn’t believe it because they just seemed like ordinary people. So, how could they have a spiritual awakening? They’re not floating two feet off the ground. I just wanted to showcase such people so people would realize that it’s possible for me, too. If it can happen to Joe Schmo over here, I could do it.

Theresa: I’m sorry, I was just—I have this habit of talking too much.

Rick: Me too, me too. Irene flashes a sign to me during interviews, usually every time: “You’re talking too much.”

Theresa: No, no, no, it’s great. But is that Irene? What was I going to say? I forget now. Okay, yes. What I loved about this, and I was so excited to be asked, is that you put the emphasis on ordinary. I have been invited onto certain podcasts or whatever, and I’ve actually sometimes declined because they billed the person as “this extraordinary awakened soul,” and I can’t go there. Maybe I do suffer from imposter syndrome. I consider myself very ordinary. I have my moments of spiritual awakening and clarity, like everybody else, but I consider myself very ordinary. I consider myself just simply lucky that I’ve been in the right place at the right time and opportunities have come my way. I’m very curious about the spiritual journey because I was born into it, but I don’t like being presented on a platform as some kind of—“Oh, she’s got angels jumping out of her shoulders,” or whatever.

I can’t do that. I don’t bless my readers. I know I have seen people in this movement blessing people, and this is, as I say, where I am right now: I’m getting concerned about all that.

Spiritual Credentials, Mediumship, and Scientific Evidence

Especially online now, we have so many light-worker courses. I have people writing to me, “I’ve just done a certified angel course,” and I think, “Who certified it? Is there—what certification?” The certification I’m into, and that’s why I collaborate with IONS, is scientific endorsement. And certainly with mediumship, I’ve done a lot of study of mediumship and people who—you know, because it was what I was born into, a family of spiritualists. Spiritualists believe you can communicate with the other side, and I can’t do it myself. I connect with departed loved ones in dreams and through my feelings and my heart, but I wouldn’t say I see dead people in the sense most people think of mediums, like the Whoopi Goldberg kind of representation from Ghost. So I’ve studied it.

Rick: I interviewed the guy who wrote this, who got the Oscar for the screenplay for that movie. What’s his name? Bruce Joel Rubin.

Theresa: Oh gosh, yeah.

Rick: He’s a real spiritual guy. We stay in touch. He sends out a nice little Christmas email every year with his family news, and we always chat a bit. Anyway, I’m sidetracking you. Sorry.

Theresa: Sorry, no, but that is so interesting. Basically, with mediumship, as I say, because a lot of my books are about afterlife experiences or encounters, up until a few years ago I would avoid mentioning mediums because I think the opportunity for fraud is too strong. However, I realize that so many people do get comfort from visiting mediums, so I explored that scientifically as well. I went around the country, actually, to try and find an honest medium, someone who was doing it from their heart, not their ego and their pockets. And there are people who do do that.

They’re rare, but there are some. I came across the Windbridge [Research Center]. I don’t know if you’re there.

Rick: Julie Beischel.

Theresa: Yeah, yeah. She wrote the foreword to the book I wrote about my search to try and find an honest medium. I love what she’s doing, using all the scientific protocols for testing. On her website, she lists mediums who have been tested and passed, who have a code of ethics, don’t charge, you know…

Rick: An arm and a leg.

Theresa: Right. I think for a mediumship or a psychic reading, you should pay no more than you do for a good haircut.

Rick: That’s good.

Theresa: You shouldn’t. And if there’s any celebrity hype around it, steer clear, because this is about creating a spiritual superstar, not the real deal, in my humble opinion. As I always say, my opinion could be wrong. There’s a difference between opinion and a fact. But that was an interesting voyage that I went on, looking at mediumship. It was… I do think there are some honest mediums out there, people who genuinely seem to connect with something. What’s going on—whether it’s telepathy, but even that’s worth studying, isn’t it? That’s fascinating, that someone can actually read someone else’s thoughts.

Rick: I just want to comment on a couple of things you said. Firstly, for some reason, when I hear the word “light worker,” it makes me feel mildly uncomfortable. There’s something pretentious about it, or holier-than-thou, you know. “Oh, I’m a light worker.” What does that make you, like chopped liver or something?

Theresa: Well, do you know what I found? I think there are more light workers now than there are actually people seeking that light, because there are so many of them. And it’s not enough to just be spiritually awakened; you’ve got to be a light worker, and you heal, and you have a… Usually there’s a certified course and a workshop—in pre-COVID times. It’s quite frankly ridiculous, a lot of it, and almost funny if vulnerable people were not being exploited.

Actually, in my latest episode of my podcast, I talked to—I think I emailed you about this—Christopher Johnson, who was in the Netflix documentary Holy Hell.

Rick: Yeah, and I emailed you back about this Association for Spiritual Integrity that I helped…

Theresa: Yeah, I’m so glad, because it was after I interviewed him. I had an hour-long interview, and the interview is going up around now. In my introduction, I actually mention you, and what synchronicity, because I didn’t know about that organization. So I list the website, and I’ll put it in the show notes for people who are concerned. It was a riveting interview. He talked about how he was 18 years old and how he got sucked into this cult, and what was going on—the dynamic between this guru. Have you watched Holy Hell?

Rick: Oh, is it on Netflix, you say?

Theresa: Netflix, yeah. It was very acclaimed.

Rick: I’ve heard of it.

Theresa: It’s about the Buddhafield cult.

Rick: Oh yes, I heard of it.

Theresa: Yes, it’s very…

Rick: I think B. Scofield did a whole article about it.

Theresa: Absolutely fascinating. It’s a Will Allen film. I do highly recommend it because it’s a warning of how easy it is to get your whole life given over to a cult. Christopher Johnson plays a leading part in that. He was one of the guru’s favorites, and he talks about how he was sucked into it and how he escaped. I’m blessed for that interview. It was actually, again, through someone who Tim Freke knows, Richard Cox, who kindly connected me because he was hearing me talking on my podcast about, “Look, why are you following all these people? Have you checked their credentials?” I was talking a lot about that, and so I got this interview. It’s a really, really helpful interview. I would love to put him in touch with you, actually.

He has a Holy Hell Facebook page for people who have been sucked into cults or whatever, and it’s so relevant right now because the theme of being fed lies or untruths has gone mainstream.

Rick: Yeah, it really has.

Theresa: Because media…

Rick: Yeah, let’s dwell on this topic for just a few more minutes because it’s important, and then we’ll switch over to angels. I think that discernment, discrimination, and ethics are critical components on the spiritual path. If one is deficient in any of those, you can be meditating for decades and just go way off the rails and get yourselves totally stuck and deluded. You can’t just sort of do a spiritual practice or this or that, or follow a teacher, and relax in all those important areas and expect to just cruise along. They’re all…

The Intoxicating Pull of Spiritual Celebrity

Theresa: But it’s so easy, so easy, Rick, to get caught up in it. I know when I started and I got my first Sunday Times Top 10, this was all nearly 20 years ago, I suddenly got deluged with mail from people saying, “You’ve changed my life!” or whatever. It’s very—I’m going to be honest—it’s intoxicating.

Rick: I get that too. People tell me that they were contemplating suicide, and then they listened to BatGap, and, you know…

Theresa: Well, that’s wonderful, and I’m sure that is the case. But then you are in a position of responsibility, because you can either take it to the… I can see why people would love that and take it further, because then when the media started to come in—the media plays a part as well. My first feature in a newspaper was a lovely feature, and of course you have no control over how the journalists do it. But when it came out in a national newspaper, they called me “the world’s greatest psychic.” That’s what they called me.

Rick: But you’re not even a psychic.

Theresa: Yeah, yeah. No, I’m not. But I’d written a book about astrology where I’d given psychological profiles for each day of the year based on simple astrology or whatever, and a lot of people were saying the predictions I’d made were very accurate. I know that I’m not psychic. I was just using common sense, popular psychology, and putting in a bit of excitement with it. But at that point, I had a choice. I could have gone down that path, the celebrity kind of psychic. Maybe I have the odd intuitive hit. Maybe I am intuitive. I don’t know. I think we all are, but it’s a choice you have to make.

So ever since then, I’ve said, “I’m an ordinary person who, like everybody else, has extraordinary experiences from time to time.” When I do, I celebrate those and write about them, and I want to hear about them. But I can understand how it happens, especially as I’m a serial writer and I’ve worked with so many publishers. Publishing is a business, you know. If they’re going to publish a psychic, a healer, or a medium, they want that psychic, healer, or medium out there on tour. It’s a business.

It’s very difficult when, to go back to what you see a lot, there’s this term “light worker.” Somebody says they’ve had a vision of an angel, or somebody says they can see auras or had a near-death experience, and then you are automatically someone people want to worship and follow. There’s something in human nature that wants that, and that concerns me a bit.

Rick: Well, you remember what Jesus said. He said, “Whatsoever all these things I do, these miraculous things, you shall do, even greater things.” I think he was trying to tell people that there’s nothing really special about me that you don’t potentially have as well, and you need to develop it.

Theresa: Absolutely. I believe we’ve all got it in us, but it’s where you choose to put your focus. Also, when you do focus on it, don’t get obsessed with it, and don’t be results-driven.

Rick: Yeah.

Theresa: Expect the unexpected when you start developing your spirituality, and don’t think that spirituality is going to reveal itself in a very set, fixed way, like in the movies or whatever. You might think you’re suddenly going to wake up and see an angel, or suddenly wake up with a blinding premonition that saves your life. That’s not how it works. It’s much more subtle than that.

And if you’re a teacher, it’s not only for the sake of your students that you have to toe this ethical line and maintain humility and so on, because you can harm people if you don’t. It’s also for your own sake, because the bigger they are, the harder they fall. If it goes to your head, you’re going to crash and burn eventually.

Rick: And if you’re a teacher, it’s not only for the sake of your students that you have to toe this ethical line and maintain humility and so on, because you can harm people if you don’t. It’s also for your own sake, because the bigger they are, the harder they fall. If it goes to your head, you’re going to crash and burn eventually.

Theresa: As I said, this is a need within people—you’re right—to want to follow and to be told what to do. It is intoxicating, if you’re in a position of influence, to fall into that and give people what they want, which is certainty. If somebody’s grieving, “This is what you need to do.” If you fear death, “Here’s what to think.” It’s very intoxicating to fall into that.

But as I’ve said many times to people, I’m sure if there is an afterlife, when you go to the other side, you won’t be asked how much you copied or followed anyone else. You’ll be asked, “How much was Theresa Theresa? How did Theresa be inspired by the works of Mother Teresa or Gandhi or all sorts of iconic spiritual figures? How true were you to who you are?” That’s what I believe.

Rick: It’s interesting that some of my most popular interviews have been with channelers and healers.

Theresa: Oh, yes. Everybody wants that.

Rick: Because they’re doing it for you. I mean, I don’t have to do anything. I’m going to get this wisdom from this person, I’m going to get healed by this person, and so on.

Theresa: Yes, exactly. It’s much easier to see someone like that and worship them. Also, it’s sensational, it’s exciting. This person’s seen heaven. This person knows what death’s like. This person can talk to arcane… There’s a whole— that’s what I talk about in my angel thing, to go on about that. Apparently, according to angel experts, there’s this whole hierarchy. It seems like they’ve organized the other side like LinkedIn. It seems like there’s this whole hierarchy of ascended masters and all these things that happen on the other side, and I think this is madness.

What Angels Mean to Theresa

Rick: Well, let’s switch to the whole angel talk here, because we spent an hour talking about a lot of stuff, and let’s dedicate the rest of this interview mostly to talking about angels. You just alluded to angels somehow living on the other side, or in some dimension that’s not within our ordinary earthly perception.

Let me give a quick definition of what I think angels are, and you tell me how that jibes with what you understand. Then please elaborate to a great extent. My sense, intuitive and also intellectual, from everything I’ve studied, is that there are many dimensions to the universe, and we beings all have a certain range of perception and operate within a certain range. Human beings have the capability to—well, ordinarily they operate within a fairly narrow band, but they have the capability to expand their range of perception to incorporate subtler realms in which forms of life reside: subtle beings, angels, and all kinds of others, a whole menagerie of different types of beings outlined in various traditional scriptures.

There is a hierarchy, perhaps, in the sense that some of them have much greater power, are at a higher level of evolution, and have a much broader sphere of influence. Some of them might be very specific and localized, attending to certain individual people or plants or trees or whatever. There might be little angel devas or whatever, and then great big galactic gods or devas. Human beings—it wouldn’t be practical for ordinary human life to be aware of this stuff all the time, but some people, like David Spangler and others, are born with a natural capacity to experience this stuff, and for others it may develop later on in life.

I’ll say one more thing and then shut up. One thing that’s fascinating here is to imagine if extraterrestrials landed on the White House lawn or maybe the courtyard of Buckingham Palace. It would be a huge news story: “Wow, there’s other kinds of life that we never even realized existed, and here they are! We see them!” So it’s a bit ironic that we’re completely surrounded by forms of life that we don’t even imagine exist, and yet they do. They may or may not be aware of us. I think many of them are, and they’re all among us. Yet most of us are completely oblivious to that fact, and that’s fascinating. All right, I’ve said enough. You go ahead.

Theresa: I love your interpretation about angels. For me, whatever people think about angels is right for them. Personally, I’ve come to the belief that I don’t know these unseen realms. I’m sure they exist, but I have no personal proof. I’m sure there are people who say they can travel to these realms, but that’s their experience. That’s about—

Rick: The realms are right here. You don’t have to travel to them. All those subtle dimensions are right here and can be perceived in the midst of riding on a bus or something.

Theresa: Absolutely. Absolutely. That’s what I say: the angels are around there, they’re within. That’s my expansive interpretation about angels. What I love about angels is that they exist in every religion, even Buddhism. We have kind of winged figures. They can also exist outside of religion. Nobody went to war about angels. They’re totally universal, and they’re a wonderful way to draw people into spirituality. You can believe in angels without being religious. I love that aspect.

But increasingly, from all the research I’ve done—and I have been writing; I’ve written probably about 15 angel books now. This will be my 16th, you know—

Rick: You’ve written about 100 books, haven’t you?

Theresa: I have. I told you I’m—what was it you called me? You called me—

Rick: The Serial Scriptor or something. You must have really good time-management skills to write all these books.

Theresa: It’s my passion in life. It’s what I love to do. But a lot of these books are a collection of other people’s stories—people who write to me, ordinary people who’ve had angelic encounters. Then I collate them, edit them, and talk about them, bringing in some of my academic insight. As I said, I was blessed to study at Cambridge, to study religion and all that. So I bring all that into it, but now I’m bringing in the science.

Where I am right now, I think angels are within, as you say. They’re the mysterious, the unexplained, the intuition, and basically anything that makes you feel sublime, that makes you kinder, more compassionate, and more loving. This is what I have come to term angels.

Rick: Okay, let’s pick that apart a little bit. Angels are within. Please define “within.” And then the second part: anything that makes you kinder and this and that. Well, you can get kinder just by watching a good movie about kind people or reading a biography of Mother Teresa.

Theresa: Exactly. Everything is an angel sign, your angel sign—the biography of Mother Teresa. Why would you—

Rick: Why would angels have anything to do with that? It’s just an uplifting book.

Theresa: I know, but angels have inspired it.

Rick: Anything?

Angels as an Inner Force for Goodness

I don’t know, but that’s what I’ve come to believe. I believe that angels exist within us, and they are the force for goodness and compassion in the world. At the end of the day, that force for goodness, love, and compassion is all that truly matters. It’s what gives us deeper meaning.

Theresa: I don’t know, but that’s what I’ve come to believe. I believe that angels exist within us, and they are the force for goodness and compassion in the world. At the end of the day, that force for goodness, love, and compassion is all that truly matters. It’s what gives us deeper meaning.

It’s what people talk about on their deathbeds. I’ve had the privilege to sit with people when they were dying, when I worked in a hospice. They talk of love, they talk about kindness, they talk about their angels. That’s the way that I feel angels express themselves.

I’m not interested in angelology, or giving angels very human terms and names, or saying that because I’ve had a dream and, in that dream, I went to a realm and saw all these angel beings reading books, that that is real. I don’t know. All I know is that, at the end of the day, what gives our life deeper meaning is this spiritual understanding, this connection to the force within us. That’s where it’s got very simple for me, actually. My life has really got so simple. I’ve realized that all these years I’ve overcomplicated it with all this terminology, with all these groups, with all these systems, with all these people who have a set way of doing it. It’s very, very simple. I think spirituality can be summed up with two words: “Be kind.”

Rick: That’s great.

Theresa: That’s it. Let’s just end the conversation. That’s it: just be kind. Because through doing that, we make the world a better place. We also make ourselves feel better, and there’s scientific research, psychological research, to show that kindness is this force. Kindness can make you lead a beautiful life.

Rick: Yeah, it’s very important, and for so many reasons. Not only… it’s like what I said earlier about teachers. Kindness is important not only for the people you influence, but because there’s an immediate feedback loop. If you are unkind, you coarsen and degrade and undermine your own makeup.

So true. But the most important starting point for that is kindness to the self. Most people understand being kind to others, and I’ve met so many spiritual people who are endlessly kind to other people, helping, giving, giving, giving, but still unhappy. Of course, the proviso is: be kind to yourself and others. That’s the most important thing, and I think it is the hardest thing for people to learn.

Theresa: So true. But the most important starting point for that is kindness to the self. Most people understand being kind to others, and I’ve met so many spiritual people who are endlessly kind to other people, helping, giving, giving, giving, but still unhappy. Of course, the proviso is: be kind to yourself and others. That’s the most important thing, and I think it is the hardest thing for people to learn.

A lot of my books have actually become very simple: it’s a journey, the return to love, the return to being for yourself what you’re looking for in others. We’re seeking in others, in relationships, in our careers, and in spiritual teachings a feeling of being good about ourselves, but we’ve got to do that for ourselves. That’s the starting point: self-love.

A lot of my books have actually become very simple: it’s a journey, the return to love, the return to being for yourself what you’re looking for in others. We’re seeking in others, in relationships, in our careers, and in spiritual teachings a feeling of being good about ourselves, but we’ve got to do that for ourselves. That’s the starting point: self-love.

Every religious system encourages self-care, but none of them really tells us how to do it. I think people, especially if they’ve had a traumatic childhood—as a lot of people drawn to spirituality have, because the people who should care for them didn’t—seek a deeper meaning and an understanding of why. You need to learn the basics of self-love, that return to love. It’s the hardest thing to do, it really is. It takes a lifetime, but once you get to that point—not narcissism, I’m not talking about that. There’s so much talk about narcissism, although that’s a completely different category—it’s just nurturing yourself, body, mind, and soul. That’s the starting point, because when you do that, I believe you naturally attract people into your life who treat you the way you treat yourself.

Rick: Yeah. I mean, the way I would interpret self-love… I had a big epiphany when I was 18, and I had been taking full advantage of everything the late ’60s had to offer. I kind of realized—

Theresa: Experience is important too. I mean, we need to encounter our shadow, and we learn through that. We do.

Rick: I’d gotten pretty messed up, but I had this realization that if I continue on like this, I’m going to really damage this body, this nervous system, and this is my vehicle for living life, so I really better clean up my act. Then I changed a lot of things, stopped taking drugs, learned to meditate, and everything. I guess you could think of that as self-love: taking care of this precious gift of a human nervous system, not providing it with adequate sleep and nutrition, you know, things that make it healthier, make it function better—like you would take care of an expensive automobile that you want to keep in tune.

Theresa: Absolutely, absolutely. People take better care of their cars than themselves, but it’s a switch that’s got to go on. What triggers that? Because until someone’s ready to make that decision to take care of themselves, nothing other people say or do is going to help. It has to be—and that’s what I feel is the divine within. Some switch has to go on, where you actually get it. And, you know, it is heartbreaking when you tell people to do the right thing or to take care of themselves, but they’re not there yet.

Rick: Yes.

Theresa: It seems that their soul has to go through another journey, another tough-love experience. Typically, it’s during times of crisis, bereavement, loss, grief; they are catalysts for this: “Well, I’ve reached rock bottom now, so I’ve got to do something different than what I’ve done before.” That switch is a personal one; it can’t really be facilitated by someone else. That’s why, as you told me, we’re talking about light workers and gurus. That’s all great, but unless you’re ready to take that step yourself, make that decision yourself, take responsibility for yourself, it’s not going to help.

Rick: Yeah, I’m going to switch back to what we were talking about a minute ago. You were saying that angels are kind of within, and I was reminded of Lincoln’s phrase, “the better angels of our nature,” which I believe he said during his inaugural address. So you’re kind of defining angels there as positive attributes within our personality. But I just want to suggest—and perhaps you also believe this—that angels also exist outside of us.

For instance, one time I gave a panel discussion with a bunch of people who said they had subtle perception or celestial perception. People were talking about their different experiences of subtle beings and all that they have. One of the people didn’t have much to say, and afterwards I asked why. She said, “Well, they were in my face. They were saying, ‘You realize you can’t talk about this,’ and okay, I won’t.” That person also told me that she sees angels or something—she doesn’t even know what they are, really—but presumably guardian angels around people all the time, just routinely, as you and I would see people in the shopping mall. They just kind of cluster around and seem to be attending to people in some way.

Theresa: Absolutely, Rick. There are people who say that they can see that, and I say, good for them, if it makes you happy and it harms no one. However, the great majority of people, myself included—

Rick: And me.

Theresa: —don’t see that.

Rick: I’ve had a few glimpses, but not much.

Theresa: Where does that leave us? Feeling like failures? I mean, spiritual failures, because obviously if this person says they can see all these beings, why can’t we?

Rick: Well…

Theresa: And does that mean that we need to learn what they do or whatever? It sets up a cycle of dependency, like these people are on a higher spiritual level. I’m very much about equality in spirituality, and I don’t actually think it’s necessary, because I can see angels in a grain of sand, in the love of my pet, in the laughter of my children, or in a sunset or a sunrise. That’s how I see them with my inner eyes, when I close my eyes and think of beautiful things. I think that’s much more of a powerful message than to go out there and say to people, “Well, there are these beings. You can’t see them, but I can.”

Rick: Yeah, no, I’m not coming from that angle.

Theresa: Because I’ve been to course after course of spiritual—honestly, in my teens, I was such an earnest spiritual seeker. I really thought—I went to the College of Psychic Studies. I went, I mean, I literally was a junkie for courses. I was shopping for heaven, as it were. And I actually found myself in these groups, and they can be very smug spiritual retreats or whatever. I’m going to say that very seriously as well: humor is often lacking. It certainly was when I was doing it. All these people were saying, “Well, I had this vision,” or whatever, and I was thinking, “I’ve seen nothing.” I felt something was wrong with me.

Then I’d go to the guru, and they’d say, “Well, when you’re ready, they’ll appear.” That’s great, but I just feel that there are a lot of people like me who maybe have been on psychic development courses, have seen absolutely nothing, but feel they ought to have, and made it up. I don’t know.

Rick: I think it’s good not to compare oneself with others. I mean, I don’t feel bad that I can’t—

Theresa: When you’re young, you do. I mean, when you’re young, you do.

Rick: You tend to, yeah, you tend to more, but—

Theresa: I’m much older now, so I realize the only person I should compare myself with is the person I was yesterday, and the only person I should aspire to be is the better person I can be tomorrow. But back then, I was very impressionable.

Rick: Right.

Theresa: And I began to think, you know, why are we all doing all these courses and spending hours meditating? I mean, who’s got time for that anyway? Shouldn’t life be lived, you know, spending… And I typically find it—no disrespect, Rick—but it’s often men who meditate for hours.

Rick: Yeah.

Theresa: I just think, well, you know—

Rick: I love it.

Theresa: I know, but you know, I’m sure—

Rick: I mean, I do stuff the rest of the time, but, you know, a couple times a day.

Theresa: I know, but two hours to be able to switch off—and especially if you are busy and you’ve got dependents or whatever—to just take two hours out to go and… I’ve seen that happen a lot, you know, in couples, where the man—”Where’s he gone?” “Oh, he’s meditating,” and she’s rushing around doing 101 things.

Rick: I think Irene really appreciates getting me out of the room for an hour.

Theresa: No, that’s true. But if meditation’s for you, as I say, I think everybody has their own unique way.

Rick: When I meditate—she’s saying it seems like it’s mostly men who like to meditate, and I don’t know if that’s true, but, you know—

Theresa: Probably not. I’m going to get aside—she does change.

Rick: Irene doesn’t resent the fact that I’m not, like, bugging her for—yeah, she says, “You meditate and I vegetate.”

Theresa: But anyway, I’m not criticizing that at all. If it’s somebody’s path and it makes them feel good—

Rick: It saved my life, and it continues to enhance it, yeah.

Theresa: Yes, but I just think, you know, I would never recommend in my books, for example, “Go and meditate for two hours every day,” or whatever, because it’s simply not practical.

Rick: Yeah, I wouldn’t either. I mean, it’s just what I do. Anyway, to each his own. And this whole thing about comparing oneself with others—I mean, I can’t play basketball like some famous star, or write like you do, or, you know, all kinds of things that I don’t do. But I do what I do, and the world needs variety; it’s the spice of life. There are eight billion of us, and we’re each unique, and everybody has their contribution to make. So, you know, we have to—it’s called dharma, as you’re probably aware of this word—the course of action which for you is most appropriate, and through which you can be most effective.

Theresa: Absolutely. That’s where I’ve come to at the moment, darling. Yes, that’s where I’ve come to at the moment. Whatever works for you, as long as it harms no one and it makes you feel good about yourself, absolutely, it’s wonderful.

But to return to the angels, as I said, I have a very expansive interpretation of angels now, and it does tend to be connecting to your better angels, which I think is what the world needs at the moment. The more of us activate—you know, it’s in our DNA—the being kind, having empathy, is actually in our DNA. Cultures that take care of each other, societies that take care of each other, tend to survive, so it’s necessary for evolution. I think increasingly in modern times the empathy gene has switched off, for whatever reason. Switching that back on again, for me, is igniting the aspiring angel within you and, if you believe in unseen realms, bringing the angels closer to Earth. It’s like a magnet: empathy, compassion, love. If there are unseen beings out there, that draws them closer to you. That’s how they speak to you.

Rick: Yeah, there’s a saying in Sanskrit: “The means collect around sattwa.” Sattwa means purity, and by “means” it just means there are impulses of intelligence—we could call them angels—that are involved in the way things happen in the world; they orchestrate things. If you are more like them, then they’re able to align with you more, they’re able to resonate with you more and be of greater assistance in the fulfillment of your desires, because your desires are more in tune with divine intentions.

Theresa: Absolutely, absolutely. Beautiful. I love that. I love that.

Rick: So, you know, they—they’re—we’re not alone. They do exist within us, but they also, if we limit our—

Theresa: But do you not think that what’s within us is also without us? I mean, I’ve got to—you know—that bliss is when there’s that beautiful merging between the spiritual force within us and what is outside us, that it’s all one, that there’s a sense of interconnection. Because when I’ve spoken to people who’ve had peak experiences, or interviewed them for my books or whatever, they talk about this interconnection. And also with near-death experiences, people who say that they’ve died and gone to heaven—I spoke to Eben Alexander—but it’s this blissful understanding that it’s all the same. And that’s such a mind-blowing, mind-opening concept that’s hard to explain in human terms. But for me, what’s within and what’s without is one.

Rick: Yeah, no, you’re absolutely right. Great sages like Ramana Maharshi and others have described this beautifully. They’re not just philosophizing about it; it’s their living experience. They are the oneness, they are Brahman, they are the totality, and then there’s this little human body. I was just hearing a story last night from a swami I take classes from, named Swami Sarvapriyananda. Someone was saying to Ramakrishna, who lived back in the 1800s and had gone through a number of difficulties in his life—people giving him a hard time and various health things—“Why is it that such a soul as you should have to suffer all these outrages? It’s really not right.”

He said—I forget the exact wording—but if you think this little thing here is me, you’re really not seeing the full picture. He said the same thing when he was dying of cancer. People would say, “Oh, you’re suffering,” and all that. “No, no,” he said. “I am the universe. How could I suffer? I am the vastness.” You’re just identifying with this little entity, this little physical form, but that’s really not what I am.

Theresa: That’s a huge, expansive way to look at it.

Rick: Yeah. I mean, he wasn’t just philosophizing.

Theresa: That’s incredible. I mean, why bad things happen to wonderful, good people—eternal question, isn’t it? I’ve just come to the point now, when I get so much mail about this, where I just say, “Keep asking why. Never stop asking why.” Because in asking why, you activate your compassion and your empathy. Imagine a world where we knew why everything happened. We know why a woman screams in pain when she has a baby; we aren’t that concerned, are we? We just think, “Okay.” Imagine a world where we knew the reason for your friend having cancer or for a child dying. Imagine if we knew. We wouldn’t be kind or compassionate; we’d be nonchalant. And that’s not a world I think I would want to live in.

So I’ve come to that point, because these questions have been asked since the beginning of time. Who is Theresa Cheung to be trying to answer them? I get asked them a lot, and I’m sure you do as well. Big questions like, “What is life? Why are we here? Why do bad things happen to good people?” There’s a part of me that would just love to have a great answer, but I just say, “Let’s keep asking these questions.” The more we ask questions, the more we grow, because I think when something is known and certain and sorted, it’s almost stagnant, isn’t it?

Rick: Yeah.

Theresa: The growth stops.

Rick: Especially if you’re adamant about it, or if you’re insistent that it’s got to be this way, then that’s a problem.

Theresa: But we’re living in a world now where it’s so much like that, where it’s black and white, where people are just like, “It’s my way or the highway.” That’s the way the world’s come. “I know the answers. This is what’s happening. This is…” You know, we’ve lost this ability to be open-minded about other opinions that are different from our own.

Rick: Yeah.

Theresa: That’s sad. That is really sad. So yes, we’re all dreaming more and we’re awakening, but the sad part, as I’ve seen—and I’m sure you have in recent years—is this closed-mindedness that’s happening as well, where people have their fixed ideology, and that’s it. That’s the answer.

Rick: Yeah, there are so many things going on. I think there’s an increased polarity taking place in the world and in many people’s psychologies. And this thing about knowing things for certain—I mean, you and I believe certain things that we’ve been discussing today, and we believe that there’s an afterlife, for instance, but we’re not going to kill—

Theresa: I could be wrong, of course. That’s everything—

Rick: That’s the scientific attitude.

Theresa: I could be wrong about everything. I have an opinion, and I could be wrong about everything I’ve said to you. I’ll find out on the other side when—

Rick: That’s one of the principles of the scientific method: hypotheses should be falsifiable in order to be valid hypotheses.

Theresa: That’s why I love working with scientists. I’ve often asked them, especially ones like Dr. Beischel, the IONS crowd, you know, Dean, “Are you a believer?” They say to me, “That’s irrelevant.” They often say to me, “That’s irrelevant. The science matters. I’m a scientist first and a believer or a skeptic second.” I like that development.

Rick: Oprah was interviewing Eckhart Tolle, and she did this thing where she started little sentences and had him finish them, right? One of the sentences was, “I believe…” and then he said, “Nothing in particular.”

Theresa: I thought you were going to say Harry and Meghan.

Rick: It’s coming up. But, yeah.

Theresa: You know, I’m starting to say, “I don’t know.” And also, I do change my mind. Opinions I had 10 or 20 years ago—of course I’m a different person now. I’ve evolved; I’ve learned. I’ve changed my mind, and people find that very difficult. When I started out, I was collecting all these angel stories. Angels are real; they’re these beings with wings and whatever. It all evolves and changes. I think that’s something people who follow you, as we have in this world, struggle with if you become a public figure. I say, “Well, actually, that’s wrong. This is what I think now.” And that’s okay. It’s okay to change your mind, but changing your mind seems to be considered a crime these days.

Rick: Yeah. I was thinking of another Lincoln quote here. Someone accused him of changing his mind about something. He spun it around and said, you know, that was a good thing—that he could change.

Theresa: It is a good thing. It is a good thing to be open-minded, because that’s how the human race evolves, surely. If we all know all the answers—we don’t know. All of us are guessing here.

Rick: It doesn’t mean that we don’t favor certain bodies of knowledge that we accumulate. I mean, we’re pretty darn sure the Earth is not flat, although there are people who think it is.

Theresa: That documentary, “The Flat Earth”—I mean, I can’t believe it.

Rick: Where is that, on Netflix also? Oh, I gotta see that one.

Theresa: I’m spending way too much time on Netflix. That’s what you’ve identified here.

Rick: But, yeah, we know that people landed on the moon, but there are people who think we didn’t. So it’s not like we have to be total wishy-washy, not favoring one perspective over another. You just can’t take it to the point of absolute adamancy.

Theresa: No. Well, there are only two things we know: we’re going to be born and we’re going to die. Those are the answers—and taxes. But we do know those two things. That’s all we really know. Everything else: Why are we here? Why are we even alive?

Rick: We know we’re conscious, or we know that consciousness somehow is.

Theresa: But are we? You know, when you have a very realistic dream—

Rick: Could be. But then we’re conscious in that dream. There’s—

Theresa: What’s happening? Where do we go? Everything in this life is a mystery. If you have that attitude, I think it’s a wonderfully exciting way to live. I have come to expect the unexpected all the time.

Rick: Yeah. I could make a joke now and ask you to talk about something really crazy that you have no idea about, because that would be unexpected. But anyway, I won’t do that. So, let’s see—

Theresa: Would you like to know about Harry and Meghan?

Rick: No, I don’t care. I wish them well.

Theresa: I’ve been doing radio stations about dreaming or spirituality, and then they hear my accent, especially overseas, and they want my opinion on Harry and Meghan. It’s fun.

Rick: Yeah, I’d rather hear about the Beatles, but then you’re not from Liverpool.

Theresa: Oh, the Beatles, yes, yes. How many Brits have been on BatGap? I know you had Tim.

Rick: Quite a few others. That fellow I was listening to—

Theresa: BritGap? BatGap?

Rick: We have a thing called BritBox over here that you can watch British films on. Irene watches it, but maybe I should call it BatBox. Who is that guy who’s friends with Eckhart Tolle, who’s written the… Yeah, I’ve had Steve on. I was just listening to him.

Theresa: Yes, Steve Taylor.

Rick: In fact, I want to email him, because he mentioned something in your interview with him that I found fascinating: that he finds himself feeling blissful at funerals, and he thinks people would think that’s strange. But I want to say, “Me too.” It wasn’t so much funerals, but when both of my parents died, I felt a tremendous sort of upwelling of bliss. Not that I was happy they died, but in my father’s case, I didn’t even know he had died. I was just having this amazing day, thinking, “Wow, this is wonderful. I feel so good today. What’s going on?” Later, I found out he had died the night before. I think somehow we participate in their release, their—

Theresa: But they also return to you in spirit, don’t they? They can always be with you in your memories, in your dreams, and in your heart. It’s a kind of fuller, richer relationship in some ways, because when someone’s in their physical form, it’s limited by time and space—

Rick: Yeah.

Theresa: And when someone dies, that relationship in spirit… That’s the wonderful thing: You’ve lost someone, but eventually you come to a point when you enter into this new relationship in spirit and realize how rich and full it is.

Rick: Yeah. In the case of my parents, they both lived very difficult lives. My father had a lot of PTSD from World War II and alcoholism, and my mother had all sorts of psychological problems. But in any case, I felt with both of them that they must have experienced quite a delightful transition from what they had been experiencing to, boom, that release. Somehow, I partook of this.

Theresa: Well, if you’ve ever sat with people who have passed, it’s quite—you know, the peace, the peace. I mean, obviously not always, but when I was in my teens, I worked in a hospice, and that was a very powerful experience. Holding someone’s hand, instinctively, when I was with them, you just sense that something—the spirit, when the spirit goes, it’s a blissful release.

Rick: Did you ever hear what Steve Jobs said just as he was dying?

Theresa: “Oh, wow!”

Rick: Exactly. Three times.

Theresa: “Oh wow!” three times. He was such an intuitive man as well. He went, “Oh wow!” What was he seeing? What was he seeing? But you instinctively feel that the body becomes like a coat that they’ve taken off. That’s what it is; it’s no longer them. That’s why I’m not actually big on funerals, in a way. I’ve—because I know that beautiful Mary Fry poem I always love quoting: “Do not stand at my grave and weep. You know I am not there, I do not sleep. I’m the wind that blows.” It’s just such a beautiful idea, a way of understanding death.

Rick: Yeah. In the Vedanta tradition, there are what they call koshas, or sheaths. The physical body is the outermost sheath. It’s called the annamaya kosha, which means “food” kosha, because the body is made of food. Then there’s the breath, the pranamaya kosha; the mind, the manomaya kosha; the intellect; and the innermost one is the bliss sheath, the anandamaya kosha. When the physical body dies, it’s believed that you’re shedding the outermost sheath, and that the others still exist and function on whatever realm you end up in.

Theresa: These are beautiful representations of the same thing, isn’t it? Every culture has given beautiful interpretations of this release that Steve was talking about. I agree. But, you know, I don’t want to glamorize death in any way, and I’m conscious, when I’ve written afterlife books, not to deny that death is this great adventure you’re going to. We’re here on this Earth for a very important reason, because this Earth is almost a bit like school. We’ve got important things to learn, and you can have heaven on Earth.

Rick: Oh, absolutely. Yeah.

Theresa: People often say the afterlife is something you can experience right now through what you say, what you do, and what you feel. I believe, actually, that you create the kind of afterlife you will experience through what you’re feeling, thinking, and doing. We actually create it through our lives. That’s why the concept of, “Does a serial killer go back to that thing? Do they go to heaven? Do they have this blissful relief?” is another question I get. What happens to them in the afterlife? I think that in the afterlife, just as in this life, the learning continues. I believe that the spirit of someone who has been evil will have to feel what their victims felt, or what the people they hurt felt. So there’s empathy.

Rick: Have you ever heard Dannion Brinkley’s story? He’s one of these well-known near-death experience people, and he had four NDEs: twice after being struck by lightning and twice during heart surgeries. He had been a sharpshooter in Vietnam, killing people. What he experienced was a life review in each NDE, in which he experienced the consequences of his actions from the perspective of the people he influenced, the families of those people, and so on. He had to go through everything they experienced as a result of having their loved one killed.

Theresa: What an awesome thought.

Rick: Yeah. He’s dedicated his life to helping people in hospice situations and things like that now. It’s kind of interesting to hear him describe it, because it’s not like a punishment; it’s more like a learning.

Theresa: Learning. It’s growth, yes. So that’s not— I don’t believe in hell, but it’s the learning, I think, on the other side. But also, what an awesome thought, because near-death experiences classically talk about the life review, don’t they? Watching your life again, typically in reverse. I always think, “Well, do I really want to watch my life again if I’m doing something I’m not proud of? Am I going to have to see this again?” That’s often very powerful for me. If I do something that’s not in line with my values or my higher self or whatever, I think, “Well, do I want to watch this again?” You’re going to have to watch it all again. You’re going to live every interview again.

Rick: Right. Well, that’d be okay. They’ve been fun. But even now, don’t you have the experience—I do—that you often relive or dwell upon something that happened many, many years ago? Particularly negative things I’ve done that have hurt people. I just sort of go through it, and I feel like I’m processing it and reaching out for forgiveness from the person, and things like that.

Theresa: We’re all human. We all have a shadow side, and why we do, I don’t know, but we do. I think in those cases, especially if you’ve hurt someone and you can’t reach out to them, or they don’t want to communicate anymore, there’s great value in sending them positive energy—sending them the energy that you understand. A lot of people want to know how you made them feel. I think a lot of people want to be seen and heard. If they won’t communicate with you, just sending them that healing energy can have a dramatic effect, not only on yourself but also on them in an unseen way.

Rick: Yeah.

Theresa: I’d say this to anyone listening: if you’re feuding with someone, or there’s animosity or hatred—I hate that term, but, you know, we have it all within us—just try for three days to send them compassion. It makes a radical difference. A radical difference. It’s a big shift, a big shift, but you can do it.

Rick: Yeah. I heard a story on the radio the other day about this guy who, when he was 14, had killed another boy. He spent many, many years in prison, even though he was 14 when he did it. Eventually, the father of the boy he had killed came to the prison and befriended him. Or maybe he had written to the father—I don’t know—but they became dear friends. The guy who killed the other guy’s son now works for an organization that the father established. They’re helping people with forgiveness and helping people who have been through experiences like that. So, obviously…

I think forgiveness is a forgotten word these days. There’s not enough emphasis in spirituality on forgiveness. We talk about love and compassion and empathy, but forgiveness is something that’s a little bit neglected in the spiritual repertoire—forgiveness of ourselves as well as others.

Theresa: I think forgiveness is a forgotten word these days. There’s not enough emphasis in spirituality on forgiveness. We talk about love and compassion and empathy, but forgiveness is something that’s a little bit neglected in the spiritual repertoire—forgiveness of ourselves as well as others.

Rick: It works both ways. That father of the boy, if he had just continued hating this kid all his life, it would have been eating away at him.

Theresa: You give over your power.

Rick: Yeah. Instead, something beautiful came out of it. So, what haven’t we covered? You’ve written so many books. Shall we talk about psychic cats?

Theresa: Yes. Do you know, after I went on Russell Brand and did the most bonkers interview ever—actually, up until Russell Brand, which was a few years ago, I really hadn’t done much media. I do try and practice what I preach, and I very much feel that spiritual books are something people find; they don’t need to be marketed. I really do believe that.

Rick: Probably your publishers are bugging you to get out and promote more.

Theresa: Yes. Or I should stop doing what I’m doing and go on a retreat, or go to the monastery or nunnery, wherever I wanted to go. But that was one of the first interviews I did, really, and he mentioned psychic cats. Since then, it’s had a bit of a resurgence. It annoys me because Rupert Sheldrake wrote about the telepathic bond between humans and dogs, and he isn’t laughed at because he’s a scientist. But Theresa Cheung writes about it, and people say, “Let’s have a good old laugh.” I suppose it played into the stereotype of a woman of a certain age who lives with cats and thinks she’s psychic. But basically, it’s a beautiful book.

I had a cat when I was growing up who was my best friend. I had it for nearly 20 years, and it died just before I went to Cambridge. That beautiful cat was, I think, a fur angel, and that inspired the book. Then people write to me about how their cats have sensed how they feel. Cats are used in hospital settings, as well as dogs. I’m now very—I have two cats and two dogs at the moment, and there can be an apartheid in our house, you know, but it can work. I love them both, and I think you can tell a lot about a person by the way they treat animals.

Rick: We’ve had—Irene in particular, but I think I’ve also experienced this with a couple of our cats, or even maybe dogs—some kind of afterlife message or communication or something from them when they died.

Theresa: “Pets from Heaven,” yes.

Rick: Was that one of your books, Pets from Heaven?

Theresa: I was going to write it, but I changed it, actually, in the end. I get a lot of messages from people because the relationship between a human and their pet can sometimes be one of the most important relationships in a person’s life. I think pet bereavement is a big, neglected area. These are their best friends sometimes, and people do have afterlife experiences involving their cat, dog, horse, or rabbit. It’s not to be laughed at, because love in any form is valid. I believe animals have souls. I believe they have empathy. They’re natural empaths. Dogs are natural empaths, you know, and when that goes from your life, it’s tough. I think you can connect with pets on the other side.

Rick: Have you had Rupert Sheldrake on your podcast?

Theresa: I haven’t, actually. I must, but I do get annoyed that he wasn’t laughed at.

Rick: Oh, he gets laughed at, believe me. A lot of people think he’s a nutcase, yeah.

Theresa: Well, anyone in this area does. Even the IONS scientists get a lot of flak, don’t they? But that’s okay. That’s okay. I get laughed at, but, as I said, this year—not so much, Rick. It took a pandemic to unleash me, but now people are seeking out spiritual insight. I wouldn’t say guidance; I don’t think I guide. I just offer a perspective.

Rick: What are you saying? Irene’s saying something. He shows psychic abilities all the time. Yeah.

Theresa: Is that your dog?

Rick: Irene’s saying he shows psychic abilities. Like, yeah, right. If we even think about going someplace, taking a walk or something, we have to be really, really careful because even thinking the thought, he’s like, “Whoa!” His ears perk up. Maybe there are some kind of signals we’re letting out or something. I don’t know.

Theresa: It’s unconditional love as well, and that, to me, is an angel. I think pets can be angels, but that’s your next guest to see.

Rick: Yeah, Theo.

Theresa: You’ll have Theo for two hours. I bet that would get more…

Rick: I’d show you one of them, but she’s fast asleep. Irene can pick—maybe I should pick her up. Oh, what is—what is… Pick Luna up. What is Luna?

Theresa: Can I see you, please?

Rick: Yeah, here comes Theo. Yeah, you can hold Theo over her. Don’t actually give Theo to me.

Theresa: I think he’s got to be on there.

Rick: There he is. That’s Theo. Is it? He’s a psychic Chiweenie.

Theresa: So this is where I know that I’m wealthy, because I say to people, if people offered me a billion dollars or my doggie, I’d choose my dog. So I’m wealthy already. Beautiful dog you have. Theo is gorgeous. Theo, rock, right?

Rick: This is Luna. Isn’t she pretty?

Theresa: This is the future for BatGap.

Rick: Yeah.

Theresa: Oh, that dog loves you. Look at that, look.

Rick: Yeah.

Theresa: Oh, oh, oh, no, you go. No, I can’t talk about anything else. I’m thinking doggie. Oh!

Rick: We used to have a couple of cats. Sometimes one of them would walk in front of the camera like this. You’d see its tail going across.

Theresa: Oh, they’re lovely. They’re lovely. They’re great companions, and the way you treat animals says a lot about you as a person.

Rick: People like Gandhi and others have said similar things, you know. And Jesus, of course, said, “Whatsoever you do unto the least of these, you do unto me.”

Theresa: Yes, I agree. I think that we are creating a very negative energy and force in the world through the barbaric way that animals are treated. I mean, I’m not advocating, obviously—I’m a vegetarian, of course I would be—but I don’t have anything against people who aren’t, as long as the animals are treated humanely.

Cruelty against animals is one of the reasons—I think I said this on Russell Brand’s show—that I went off social media for several years. Some of the images of animal cruelty, I literally couldn’t cope with. I found them too upsetting because I’d replay them in my mind. I’ve managed to deal with it now, but I just cannot understand how anyone could be cruel to them. It’s the innocence, I think.

Rick: Yeah, that’s why people love them: it’s the innocence.

Theresa: Yeah, the trust.

Rick: Again, it all comes back to… Here’s an analogy: if you had a knife that was sharp on both ends and didn’t have a handle, and you stabbed somebody with that knife, you’d also cut your own hand. I think any kind of mistreatment of people or animals or anything else is like that knife. It hurts them, but it hurts you just as much, if not more.

Theresa: Well, it’s that beautiful thing: when you point a finger, there’s one—

Rick: Exactly. “There’s three pointing back at you.”

Theresa: Yeah, yeah. So it’s like, you know—God, yeah, yeah, exactly, yeah.

Rick: Yeah. All righty, so is there anything else we want to cover that you’re going to be unable to sleep and dream tonight because we hadn’t covered it, once we hang up and you—

Theresa: No, I just love it. I really am very grateful for the opportunity to talk to you, and I’m so glad I found your channel.

Rick: Yeah.

Theresa: I’ll spread the word about it, and I’m just very grateful. Thank you.

Rick: Well, let’s stay in touch. I can recommend some people to you who you might not be aware of, who might be good to have on your podcast, and you’re connected with all kinds of people that you can tell us about.

Theresa: Absolutely. Any guest on my podcast whose contact information you’d like, just let me know. As I say, Christopher Johnson is a very eloquent man, a former member of a cult. The Netflix documentary Holy Hell is very famous, and he makes a powerful and memorable appearance in it. He’ll get a lot of interest. You know, Eben Alexander—

Rick: We had him scheduled at one point, sort of tentatively, but then it kind of fell through the cracks. That was like five or six years ago. We should do that.

Theresa: Oh, yes, you’ve got to let me know, and I’ll connect you. He would love to. He’s at a place in his life now where that’s what he’s doing. He’s just spreading the word. I’m just trying to think, because obviously you want names that are going to draw—

Rick: We can do it afterwards, too. I mean, we can communicate about this by email. Irene chooses the guests and schedules them.

Theresa: Thank you, Irene.

Rick: She’s saying, “Thank you, Irene.”

She’s the power behind the throne.

She’s the power behind the throne. I don’t know; I think she’s on the throne.

Theresa: Oh gosh, no. But I’m just ashamed you don’t want me to do my Harry and Meghan commentary.

Rick: Well, if you insist.

Theresa: Well, it’s taken over over here in the UK at the moment. The media’s awash with it. It’s ridiculous. People are having opinions about it, and, you know, it’s—

Rick: Well, it’s almost that same principle we’ve been discussing, where people project something onto others and think of them as special, and that they should consume all the airtime because they’re so famous or whatever. We’re not princes and princesses, and they are. I don’t know; it just seems kind of like a form of entertainment, more than anything.

Theresa: It is entertainment. But what happened in your country, especially last year, is that your politics in particular became better than a Netflix series. I mean, over here in the UK, we’re watching it like the next installment, on the edge of our seats.

Rick: Like a horror movie.

Theresa: What do you think happened to America? What happened, in your opinion?

Rick: I don’t know. I’ve been following the whole conspiracy-theory thing a lot. I’ve interviewed three guys who have a podcast called Conspirituality, where they talk about the incursion of conspiracy thinking into the spiritual world and spiritual community. But obviously, whatever’s going on in America goes far beyond just spiritual communities. And you’ve probably seen the Netflix documentary—what is it called, the one about social media? The Social Dilemma, that’s it.

Theresa: Yes. Oh my goodness.

Rick: So everybody’s kind of going down their own rabbit holes and getting more and more polarized. As you were saying earlier, people are becoming more entrenched in their particular perspectives and not being broad-minded enough to see multiple perspectives. The whole social-media thing reinforces that, and it’s made politics unworkable. It’s made families unable—

Theresa: To divide—

Rick: To talk to each other. So it’s rather… We’ve got to move beyond all that.

Theresa: Obviously, I’m here in—I’m a Brit-based author, but, as I said, I had the opportunity last year to go on Coast to Coast for two hours. I did two hours of dream decoding. It was wonderful. They were really kind, but it was kind of going into that world because, obviously, being on the line for two hours, I was hearing the adverts. They were all about “China Virus,” and I was thinking, “Oh God, Theresa Cheung.”

It was really quite unsettling, you know, having the surname I do, although I’m not Chinese—my husband is. I couldn’t believe it. But also, what I found when I went into that two-hour Coast to Coast interview was that I could understand why people were believing this. There was a very family feel, a sense of belonging: “You believe this, and we’ll give you this, and you belong.” It felt very, almost weirdly, reassuring, because all the thinking had been done for you. So it was kind of a comforting experience, also, going into that world. I mean, they treated me very well. They were lovely, actually. I had no complaints, but I didn’t expect that.

Rick: I think another feature is that you get into a certain group, like QAnon or something, and you feel like, “Oh, now I’m kind of in the inner circle. I really understand what’s going on. Aren’t I special?” And all these other people are just sheeple who are being duped by the mainstream media. They’re blind, and it gives you a sense of superiority, or aggrandizes your ego. Then you get a hit from that.

Theresa: It’s very seductive, but it was an—

Rick: It’s like that with regular cults, too. “My guru is the best guru, and we’re also enlightened, and everybody else is subpar.”

Theresa: Everybody wants to feel special, but we can all feel special in our own unique way. We don’t need to belong to a group, you know. We can become… I think there are stages, aren’t there? There’s being, belonging, becoming, and bliss. I think of life like that, and I think we go through those stages in our life and catch glimpses of bliss along the way.

Rick: Yeah.

Theresa: But, you know—

Rick: Groucho Marx said, “I wouldn’t want to join a club that would accept me as a member.” [Laughter]

Theresa: Yeah, that’s brilliant. That’s brilliant.

Rick: All righty. Well, you and I could go on for another two hours, but—

Theresa: Oh, I love talking. You’re just a gracious host. Thank you, thank you. I love—

Rick: Thanks, Theresa. It’s been a lot of fun, and the number of people watching has remained fairly consistently high, up in the 200 zone, despite all of our frivolity. So hopefully they found this entertaining.

Theresa: And if you just want to skip to the end and say, “Watch the Disney Pixar movie Soul,” that says everything I want to say about life. You’ve got to see that.

Rick: Got to see that.

Theresa: Beautiful. You’ve got to, please, please. I’d love your thoughts on it, because it’s where I’m at now, actually. It’s wonderful.

Rick: Cool. I think I have to find out where we can watch that. Okay.

Theresa: It’s finding meaning where you don’t think you’re going to find it. It’s all about that—that meaning isn’t found where we all think it is.

Rick: Yeah, I’ve heard good things about it. Okay, well, on that note, let’s wrap it up, but we’ll be in touch, and keep cranking out the books. Maybe we’ll do another interview when you hit the 200 mark.

Theresa: Absolutely. I’m going to, and you get to a thousand.

Rick: Yeah, I’ll get to a thousand interviews, and you get to 200 books.

Theresa: Probably when you go to the other side, you’ll be interviewing all the angels as well. I can see it.

Rick: I probably will. You know, this whole thing started… I was in this group, and we met every Wednesday night for about three hours in a little living room in some guy’s apartment. Sometimes we packed the living room, and we just had this spiritual discussion that went on for about three hours. It was really kind of profound, and I really got a high off it.

I would kind of interview people, start probing them and asking them questions. The ground rule was that you were supposed to just talk about your own experience, so the guy hosting the thing kept saying, “Stop interviewing people. You’re interviewing people.” Finally, he was the one who pushed me to start this show. He said, “You know, you should really be interviewing people. Why don’t you start?”

Theresa: That’s your—yeah, that’s what you’ve got going, what you are… You’re a natural. That’s your curiosity. Curiosity is, again, another foundation stone of spirituality for me. Curiosity is a really important part of the spiritual journey.

Rick: Yeah, I think we both have that, and probably a lot of people watching this do, too. Life is so fascinating, and there are just so many interesting things and people.

Theresa: Once you dip your toe into this, you’re never bored again.

Rick: Yeah.

Theresa: Because there’s always more to learn and discover in this journey, isn’t there?

Rick: Yeah. Boredom—I don’t think I’ve felt bored for decades. I don’t know what it feels like, because everything is fascinating.

Theresa: It is, it is. Including sleep and dreams.

Rick: Absolutely. Yeah, yeah. All right, so let’s stop rambling.

Theresa: Thank you, thank you, Irene. I know she’s there.

Rick: She stepped out of the room, but—

Theresa: Oh, okay. Well, please thank her for me.

Rick: And thank you to those who’ve been listening or watching. I hope you enjoyed this one.

Theresa: Well done for sticking with us. Thank you.

Rick: Thanks for hanging in there. We’re both a couple of goofballs, obviously, so maybe it’s just the goofballs who stayed with us.

Theresa: Yes, thank you, thank you.

Rick: Anyway, next week I’m going to interview a guy named Rabbi Rami Shapiro. I’m going to try an experiment with it, because we send out a form to the people I’m going to interview and ask them, “What do you want Rick to watch? What do you want Rick to read?” and all this stuff. He said, “I don’t want you to watch anything or read anything. I want you to know nothing about me, and we’re going to have a conversation.” That’s the way Larry King used to do it. He didn’t want to know anything about his guests, so I’ll try that next week. I won’t know anything about this guy. I can’t tell you anything about him now.

Theresa: Rick, you’re going to Google him, you know you are.

Rick: No, no, I’m going to resist. I’m going to listen to other stuff all week and read other stuff. I have a lot to catch up on.

Theresa: You’re going to Google him, I predict. I’m going to be a precog. You’re going to—

Rick: Oh, now I can’t because you said I would. Anyway, that’s what’s happening next week. So thanks for listening or watching, and visit batgap.com and check out the menus, see what’s there. You know, you can sign up to be notified by email of new interviews, you can subscribe to the audio podcast, and if you’re watching on YouTube, which you probably are, please subscribe to the channel. If you wish, once you hit the Subscribe button, a little bell pops up, and if you hit the bell also, then they will notify you when a new thing comes rather than just sporadically. Anyway, thanks, and we’ll see you next week. Thanks, Theresa.

Theresa: Thank you. Bye-bye.

Rick: Talk to you later.