Mary Grace on parapsychology, spirit communication, and the communion of saints

Awake. Shake dreams from your hair, my pretty child, my sweet one. Choose the day and choose the sign of your day, the day's divinity, first thing you see. Hello and welcome to Psych One-on-One. This is Julianne Good and welcome. We are here to make psychology more understandable with tips for you and your family and friends to make your lives easier. Tonight, I am going to be speaking with Mary Grace. She is from New York, and we're going to be talking about parapsychology. Hi, Mary, how are you doing? I'm great, Julianne. Thanks so much for having me on. Well, thank you, because I know it's a little bit late in New York, so I appreciate you staying up. Well, that's okay. I hear the saying, I do believe in life after death, but I don't believe in life before noon. Exactly. I am a night owl, so it's okay. Perfect. Okay, wonderful. Thank you. So I would like to tell the audience a little bit about your background. Mary Grace is a spiritual counselor, parapsychologist, and founder of Gifts of Grace Ministry. She provides educational workshops and inspirational talks on paranormal, supernatural, mystical, and near-death phenomena. She holds a BA in psychology from the State University of New York and is a retired mental health professional. Mary Grace is trained in mediumship in Lillydale, New York, and Plymouth Spiritualist Church in Rochester, New York. She is a member of the Spiritist Christi Catholic Church in Rochester and a member of the International Association of Near-Death Studies. She is the author of The Communion of Saints, Talking to God and Grandma, and conducts spiritual programs and lectures nationally. Mary Grace lives on a huge state forest in western New York, and she shares a home with her husband of 34 years, and her two cats, Mercy and Stinky. I love that. So, Mary Grace, what can you tell us about parapsychology? Well, for those of you who aren't familiar with what a parapsychologist does or is, we basically study the phenomenon that are outside or beyond the normal paradigm of science. The prefix para- in parapsychology, simply means beyond. Therefore, the events or phenomenon we study are called beyond normal or paranormal. So that's where that word paranormal comes from. Parapsychology is also the science of spiritualism or spirit communication. And what a lot of people don't realize is that spiritualism is the foundation of all major religions. And I'd like to clarify the definition of religion. Spiritualism is seeing a belief in a supernatural supreme being and how we live our life in accordance with that belief. And so, spiritualism, or just communication with non-physical beings, is the foundation of all major religions. If you're going to have, you know, communication with our loved ones in Heaven or the saints in Heaven, we also call that spiritualism. And now, spiritualism is seeing a belief in God, Spiritualism is also practiced in the Catholic Church, which is my background, only it's done under the doctrine known as the communion of saints. And that's what a lot of people don't understand. And I probably should get that other definition out of the way, besides what a parapsychologist is. Okay. What the communion of saints is. Yes. A lot of people, you know, wonder what is it, what does it mean, and why did I write an entire book? I'm not a title. And the reason I wrote the book is because of my spiritual and supernatural experiences that I had, which kind of got me in trouble with my church and my religion. But basically the communion of saints is the cosmology of the church. Many listeners may have a Catholic background and are familiar with a prayer called the Apostles' Creed. And in this prayer we say, I... I believe in the communion of saints. But a lot of people don't really understand what it means, and I have to admit I never thought about it until I started giving my own experiences. So in this church doctrine, the Catholic Church actually acknowledges the eternal relationships that exist between members that live in three states of what I prefer to call dimensions. And these three states are simply earth, purgatory, and heaven. And it's through this teaching that the church recognizes and encourages a relationship between the living and the so-called dead, or between ourselves, and it could be our grandmother, our parents, children, anyone that's deceased. A lot of people think of the word saint being the most holy, canonized people, but actually it dates back to Judaism, and it just... It just means all followers or believers in a supreme being or God. It doesn't matter whether you live on earth or in heaven. So this is a little clarification of the communion of saints and how it relates to my work and my mission is helping to keep people connected with loved ones that have crossed over. Yeah, which is wonderful because I, you know, I think a lot of people, when they have a loved one die, they feel like there's this total separation, and that person is gone forever, and they're never going to see him or her again. And just to have that comfort of being able to connect spiritually with them is amazing. And I don't know how many people actually tap into that. And now when you're talking about connecting with the spirits and the saints, you know, you're talking about the saints and the saints, and the saints, and the saints, and the saints, and the saints, and the saints, and the saints, and the saints, and the saints, are you talking about like an energetic feeling? Are you talking about what people would perceive to be as ghosts? Well, I describe ghosts as more earthbound spirits. So most people, they want to connect with their friends in heaven that have crossed over. And most of us can know or just be, satisfied with the fact that it's mostly what happens when our loved ones do pass is that they do go into a higher state uh what we may call heaven um rarely i think that people do get earthbound but it does happen and we are all familiar with the shows on tv the ghost hunters and all that but for the most part um what i help people do is communicate with their loved ones that have crossed over to be considered the higher realm um i kind of call the the ghost the homeless people of the universe because they really they're kind of stuck in between two worlds not exactly at home in either one are would they be considered to be stuck in purgatory then well i i don't like um to say that um you know usually people get earthbound for several reasons and one may be that they're really attached to their land um they don't want to leave their land because it's a family farm or whatever um sometimes it's because they're very attached to a person that's still living they may have unfinished business and one of the other sad reasons why people are remain earthbound after they've crossed is um because sometimes it's the grieving people they left behind that aren't willing to let them go emotionally so one of the the three objectives that i have in in all my workshops my presentations in my book is um part of it is to teach not only how that anyone can communicate with their loved ones because we all have a sixth sense but secondly the more important thing is how to stay um the importance of staying connected because this is when healing takes place healing when we're grieving the loss of a loved one and part of the healing can be in learning how to communicate with them is whether it's meditation or classes that you take um so it's very important to to move on with your own life and so our loved ones in heaven can move on also it doesn't mean that they're not still a part of each other's life right but it does help with the grieving process and the my third objective in the work that i do is to teach that spiritualism or spirit communication is not an evil force of the devil as many religions teach but a natural god-given gift that can be better understood through the science of parapsychology so i i am mainly in my work i'm bridging science and religion and helping people to understand spiritualism in a better way so when you are giving these workshops how do you teach people to communicate with their loved ones well one of the classes i teach in a very form form form form form form form form form form form form form teach a class called spiritual sign language and um and one of the reasons i do this is how to you know we can learn how to communicate through signs we don't necessarily need a medium we can just do this ourselves and many people are familiar with um maybe smelling the odor of a maybe a cigarette that a loved one has smoked and you can smell an odor yes cigars and pipe smoke yes maybe a rainbow or roses or something connected with that person you're looking at the picture and it falls off the wall there's a light flash when you're thinking of them these are all different physical signs that are just simple you know ways that our loved ones can communicate but we can use these signs consciously to actually set up set up a sign a form of communication with the picture of a loved one that's crossed over yeah and from a personal note here and we discussed this on the phone last night mary um i've had uh my grandfather and my great uncle who were very close to me uh when they died i would know when they came to visit me because i could smell either cigar smoke which my great uncle was a cigar smoker or cherry pipe tobacco for my grandfather so i knew you know and i don't risk risk risk risk risk grandfather so I knew you know and I'd always look around say okay well is anybody smoking here let's let's get some some physical reality check here right and most of the times that's not the present I'm going okay you're coming in to check on me and it's comforting and it's good to know that they are communicating with me on a different realm and it's it's beautiful I love when they come and visit me yeah and we could also exactly and it's part of the healing but we can also facilitate these communications by what I do in my spiritual sign language classes is teach people all the different ways that there can communicate with us through can be appliances going off and on or clocks that stop at a certain time or photographs that we take with words in it all different ways I think there's probably about 30 different ways and I mentioned in the book also but one of the exercises that I do is very simple all you need to do is think about and I'll do this exercise with you Julie as an example I'll use you as an audience guinea pig okay I asked people to think of one person that you would like to get in touch with and Julie could you give me an example of one person that you're close to I'd be my guest Julie I'd be my guest great uncle again yes it'd be my great uncle okay now I know you mentioned the cigarettes or the cigars but what other hobbies or interests did he have because when we think of a sign that we want to set up with someone that's crossed over the best thing to do is think of something that they had a favorite hobby interest something that they really get a concentrated investment of psychic energy basically and whether it's a favorite football team or knitting or sewing now what's your favorite thing that you'd like to set up with someone he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he I knew him when I was little. So, yeah, he was quite the social man, which was wonderful. Now, there's a couple different things there that you mentioned. I'll season on the poker one. Never heard of sheephead poker, I got to say, and I love poker. Yeah, that's a Midwest thing. Okay. Now, what you can do, and the audience can, the listeners can go along with this. So tonight when you're laying in bed, you relax, you close your eyes, maybe do a couple deep breaths, meditate, and then you're going to ask your loved one, in your case, you're going to ask your uncle, what's his name, his first name? Bill. Bill. So you say, Bill, I like to say the name three times, you know. Bill, I would like you to communicate with me. I'd like to get a sign from you knowing that you're around me, and I would like it to be something to do with, I would like it to be poker. Now, I would be very specific, and perhaps say, make it a poker chip, okay? Or you could say a playing card. But the more specific you are, the better. Because then when you do get that sign, now, you've got to be very open as to how you get it. Say your sign is a poker chip. Okay. And, you know, it might be something that you see on a billboard, somebody's license plate, a card. Commercially, it comes on TV, something that you read. But when you get that sign, you're going to look for several other things to happen. So number one, you get the physical sign. You wake up in the morning, and, you know, quite possibly a poker chip could be laying in the middle of your kitchen floor, right? These things do happen. Yes, they do. These things materialize. Yeah. Or something gets your attention that has to do with the poker and your uncle. And then the other thing you look for, is often you will feel a presence. And what I mean by that is many people are familiar with the feeling of somebody hovering over you. Like either if you're on the computer or if you were in a dark alley and there was someone only inches away from you, even if you didn't see them, you would have that feeling. Because what you're feeling is your electromagnetic energy. And often, this electromagnetic energy will make the, you know, hair stand up on your arm. And maybe you'll feel a tingling in the back of your neck, like a prickly feeling. So you get the physical sign. You feel a presence. Maybe you see the hair stand up on, and then also you may get very emotional. There's another thing that will happen. It could be tears of joy or tears of grief, depending on how long that person has passed. So these are a few things to look for. And then I always tell people, with all that said and done, because I actually have an exercise where I have people write down the different, maybe a couple different hobbies or interests. Now, the other thing that brings to mind with your uncle, because this is a popular one, is if he played, he played jazz music. Did he have a favorite song that he liked to play? Do you know? I don't know because, yeah, he did that before. He did that before I was, yeah, he did that when he was younger. And, you know. Since he was my great uncle, he was pretty mature by the time I was born. So, yeah, I never heard him play sax, which is too bad. So for people who know that their loved one had a, you know, maybe played music, he had a favorite song. It's just, you know, a very specific song. Ask for that as a sign because maybe that song will come on the radio or something will pop up. But then with all that said and done, when I do this exercise, I have people write down different signs. And then I take them on a guided meditation to get in touch with that loved one and set up a sign. But then after all that, I say we also have to be on the lookout for a totally different sign to come. So say you set up a sign for a poker chip, but then, like I said, you're looking at a picture on a wall and then it falls off. So you know, again, you get the just knowing. That was the part I left out. You get what I call the just knowing. And that's when. And you it's usually that person shouting at you from the other side saying it's me, it's me, it's me. And, you know, without a shadow of a doubt, and no one can convince you otherwise, that that was a sign from your loved one. Right. Like the smell of cigar smoke. You can do. Yes. Perfect. I love that. That's a great exercise. I will. I will try that tonight. It'd be nice to touch base with him again. He was a wonderful person. One more thing I wanted to mention. I'm with that. Sometimes we want to get in touch with a loved one that has not lived very long on this earth. Maybe they passed as a child or before birth, you know, or maybe one or two years old, and they weren't able to have a favorite hobby or interest. They didn't live long enough. So in that case, I say you can still set up the sign with them, knowing that they're probably very old souls on the other side. But instead of using their favorite hobby or interest, just use one of your own. You know, whether it's a favorite, again, a favorite sports team or author or son or whatever. So you can just, you can still get in touch with someone, even though they may have passed when they were an infant. That's comforting. Well, Mary, we're going to take a little bit of a break and then we're going to come back. And I'd like to talk to you about how you ended up getting into parapsychology. Oh, okay. All right. Thank you so much for having me and I appreciate you and all the family and family and family and family and family and family and family and family and family and family and family and family and family and family and family and family and family and family and family and family and family and family and family and family and family and family and family and family and family and family and family and family and family and family and family and family and family and family and family and family and family and family and family and family and family and family and family and family and family and family and family and family and family and family and family and family and family and family and family and family and family and family and family and family and family and family and family and family and family and family and family and family and family and family and family and family and family and family and family and family and family and family and family and family and family and family and family and family and family and family and family and family and family and family and family and family and family and family and family and family and family and family and family and family by caring, confidential, and affordable psychological services to individuals and their families. For more information, visit thechicagoschool.edu. Thank you. Are you searching for answers in... Thank you to the Chicago School of Professional Psychology for sponsoring Psych 101. And this is Julianne Good, and we are back with Mary Grace, a spiritual counselor from New York. And before the break, I was asking Mary, how did you get into practicing parapsychology and get interested in doing the research? Well, it's a pretty easy question to answer because I grew up in a haunted house, which sounds a little strange, but I did. Only the spirits I was surrounded by were actually very scary and negative to me. I lived in a house that was owned by my grandmother. And she used to take in elderly boarders. And many people died in the house growing up. So it was more than unusual for me to... And I'm one of six children. You know, in hindsight, it was kind of a bizarre childhood. It wasn't unusual to hear footsteps going up stairs at night, you know, only to stop mid-ascent. Or, you know, footsteps walking down the hallway. And we had a ping-pong table in the attic. And, I mean, this sounds really bizarre, but it wasn't unusual to hear ghosts playing ping-pong in the attic. Wow. What time of the day did that happen? It was always in the middle of the night. Oh. And, you know, if we had friends spend the night at our house, it was at never again. They would have... It's like, that's a little creepy. I'm going to go, yeah. But the only stranger scene than that was being one of six kids. We always... We were always playing practical jokes on each other. And trying to scare each other in different ways. And you never knew whether or not it was the ghost that was scaring you or one of your brothers or sisters. It was like this cackling noise. If someone laughed on the other side of the house, they scared you in some way. So... But I was always surrounded by very... You know, I always thought it was very scary. So, scary ghosts. And I was... I always called them ghosts or sound spirits. And so I was always fascinated with the paranormal. And I delved into it when I was in college. There was courses offered in parapsychology and hypnosis and studying ESP. So I took all the courses I could find. Now, back, what I would say, a hundred years ago when I was in college, you could not get a degree in parapsychology at that time. So you got your degree in psychology and took courses in sports work on parapsychology. But it wasn't until my mom passed away in 2000. It was two months after she died, she came to visit me. And I had what is known as an after-death communication from my mother. And it was a very beautiful experience. You know, a very real experience. Which I often share. It was the first time that I felt love and comfort from a non-physical being, from a spirit. So that really changed the course of my life. And that's why I delved deeper into parapsychology and learning how... I wanted to maintain that relationship with my mother and learn how to communicate with her. Because it was so healing for me to be able to do that. And how long did it take you to learn the techniques to be able to communicate with your mother? I just started seeing books. I'm kind of geographically isolated. I'm raised in a small town. I'm a physicist. I'm a physicist. Are you getting a lot of static? Yeah, maybe we're getting a little bit of visitation on your end. You know, I thought it was very interesting because that had happened about maybe a minute or two ago. When you were actually talking about living in that haunted house. So, yeah. What's happening over on your end, Mary? The house I'm in now has three spirits. Man, woman, a little girl, and a little boy. And a little ghost cat. Nice. So, maybe they're acting up over there, huh? They're like, we want some air time, too. They could be. Very well could be. So, I need to be back on track of where I was. It was... I was talking about just feeling a positive, you know, effects from a spirit after my mom passed away. Mm-hmm. And so, that really changed the course of my life. Oh, you would ask me how long. I was... I just started reading books. I mean, there's a lot of books and guided meditations you can get. I mean, The Idiot's Guide to Spirit Communication, believe it or not. The Idiot's Guide to Psychic Awareness. Guided Meditations. Then I did start taking developments, what's called psychic development courses. If you find like a spiritualist church or sometimes metaphysical bookstores. We'll offer classes. We'll offer classes. And psychic development mediumship. So, probably, I would say, it really didn't seem that hard to me once I started meditating. And that's the very... The key to spirit communication. All the books I read said the same thing. And that was to meditate, meditate, meditate. Mm-hmm. So, the big thing was taking up meditation and learning how to quiet your mind. Because spirits can't get through to you if, you know, your mind is in a state of mind. It's full of chatter. Unless it's through the physical side. You know, and that's a good point, Mary. I mean, how many people that you've talked to have had spirits visit them when they were sleeping? And then first they think it's a dream and then they wake up and they feel like... It's a different feeling. Because I've had actually two people visit me right after they died. And I could tell it wasn't a dream. It was... Because it would... It would wake me up and snap me on a bed and I'd be like, whoa, okay. Because it was almost like they were coming to visit me and say goodbye and then they left. And when they left, I had this chill run through my body. And then I was snapped up out of deep sleep. And I'm sorry about the static. I don't know how big it is in your... It's interesting. We'll just work around it. We're okay. Okay. Okay. And there's... There's ways to tell the difference between a dream and what's called a visitation. And one of the... A couple of things to look for. Usually in a dream, you're watching a scene like you're watching a movie. And with a visitation, there's usually like interaction. Like either you hug the person or you're talking to them or you're... Someone told me once they were in the kitchen baking with their mother. You know, there's interaction. It's not like you're just watching. You're watching it. And because there's interaction, the visitation is imprinted on your long-term memory because it was an actual experience. So the other way to tell is a lot of times dreams people forget about shortly after they wake up. But with a visitation, it could be years later and you can recount the details. So those are a couple of different ways to tell the difference. Interesting. Yeah. Wow. Wow. So when you're teaching the workshops, what kind of participants are coming to your workshops? Well, mostly people that are, you know, open to, I would say, you know, new age, metaphysically minded people, but also like I'm doing a workshop next week and talking to a Catholic church. It's been kind of difficult to break into that. I bet. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. sister church of the one I go to now in Rochester. It's called an ecumenical Catholic church, which means it's independent and not under, it's not Roman Catholic. So sometimes there's, you know, there's actually, people don't realize there's over 50 denominations of Catholicism. Yeah, I didn't know that. And there are many independent churches out there that are more open-minded. And hopefully, you know, I was thrilled when I was in Orange County for the last two weeks that I did get the book. And it was a milestone that I got my book into my first Catholic bookstore out there in Fountain Valley, Catholic Books and Gifts. And then actually I got it in two Catholic bookstores because it's also available at the San Juan Capistrano Mission store. So I'm kind of starting to break into. You know, the book was written for people, it's for anyone who's lost a loved one, but it is geared for people who have a Catholic background because of my experiences with my mom in my after-death communication, learning to communicate with my mother. When I went to share these experiences with my priest, I was told that I was dabbling with the devil and it was evil. And I was eventually excommunicated for maintaining relationships. So I was very happy to have this relationship with my mother, who is now in Heaven. You think that now that she was with God, it would be better. But, you know, I couldn't understand. It really didn't make sense to me why I had to make a choice between my religion and my mother because if anyone's choice, you know, who are you going to choose? Your mother. Yeah, don't put anyone in that position. But I didn't want to have to make a choice. So I ended up doing 10 years of research and writing on why spiritualism is so important. I was told that Catholicism was banned in the first place and Christianity in general, but I also found out that it actually is not banned in Catholicism. It's just put, done under the auspices of the communion of saints. So when I teach in my workshops, I'll get a lot of people with Catholic backgrounds. They say, now, you know, when you leave here, don't tell anyone you were practicing spiritualism. Tell them you were practicing the communion of saints because it's okay. Yeah, it's all. It's all a matter of how you phrase it, correct? It's how you phrase it, which is a big point of my work is bridging science and religion that science and religion are, they're often saying the same thing, but using different words. So for example, the scientific word or what I call the parapsychological word, clairvoyance means to be able to see things without your physical eyes. And in the, the theological or biblical term they use is visions. And another example, what we might call clairaudience, the theological word is locutions. And, you know, what we call prayer, actually, theological terms, every time you pray, you're actually practicing your very natural ability, telepathic ability, because we're all practice telepathy and that's just mind to mind communication. So we think nothing. It's nothing of praying. But then if you, someone says you're using your psychic ability, they say, well, we can't do that. It's against our religion, but you do it every time you pray. Yeah, it's interesting. You just don't call it that. That is very interesting. Well, Mary, let's come back to that. We're going to take a short music break and we're going to continue our conversation then. Okay, thanks. Are you searching for answers and insight to life issues? Is the behavior of family or friends questionable or concerning? Find tips and possible solutions from the convenience of your own PC, cell phone or tablet at therapycable.com. TherapyCable has the most comprehensive library of contemporary therapy videos online. Help may be as easy as a few clicks away. TherapyCable offers comprehensive therapy videos ranging from addiction to self-care and contact information for qualified providers. Find the answers to your life challenges at therapycable.com. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I love you, I do. No karma, I. Sweet red earth will hold you like the strength you bless. To me, true, we engage humility. Watch me struggle with your words. I'll wear the truth. Oh, baby, we'll see in time. Opening our hearts and nurturing our mind. To shine, I love you. Love you, I. Love you, I do. Love you, I. Love you, I. Love you, I do. Oh, it's sad how hard to find. Sweet you and I. Honey, don't you know. It's sad how hard. To find. Sweet you and I. Honey, don't you know. It's true. We're pulsing through this light. And welcome back to Psych 101 with Julianne Good and Mary Grace, a spiritual counselor from New York. Mary, we were talking a little bit about the bridge between psychology and spiritualism and science. Can you talk a little bit about that? Yes. I was talking about, you know, often we're using the same language, religion and science, and it's just using different words to say the same thing. And there's a lot of work being done out there now, especially, you know, when you get into quantum physics and the God particle and all these different things that are really, you know, more and more bridging science and religion, especially, you know, the work of people like Deepak Chopra. And many other kind of spiritual scientists that are out there. But also, you know, in the book I delve into what's almost actually considered paraphysics, which is a whole other kind of similar to parapsychology, and getting into different levels of reality. What I call the transcendent church model, I kind of compare it to the communion of saints. It's just a paraphysics. There's different levels of reality. It's just a simple, simplistic way of looking at the universe by breaking it into three different levels of reality. And the levels I use are physical, the metaphysical, and the mystical level of reality. And I talk about in a chapter called Mystics, Mediums, and Muggles, and I use the term muggles, I borrowed that from Harry Potter, J.K. Rowling, to refer to people who are not actively using their psychologies. And I say psychic ability because we all have the psychic ability. So I apply that to, you know, people in the physical lower level of, and I say lower, I mean lower vibration in the physical world. A lot of people would be considered muggles. They don't use their, you know, 90% of the world don't actively use their psychic ability. And then we have the metaphysical reality. Now those are people like psychic mediums, a lot of people that work in the supernatural and do metaphysical work, work in the metaphysical reality. And then there's the mystical level, and that's kind of the highest level of reality where we have, of course what we call our mystics, but that's where you have, you know, miracles occur, things like stigmata, levitation, things that you read about like in the life of Jesus Christ or many of the other saints and mystics. And I use examples, a lot of examples, in the book of different, not only saints and mystics from old, but also modern day mystic saints and even mediums that I interviewed and even priests I interviewed for the book to describe, you know, I use parapsychology to describe the supernatural events that happen. For example, in the life of Jesus, you know, he walked on water. We call that levitation. And we can use all these different examples, and we kind of, apply parapsychological words or scientific words to it and say, yeah, it brings validity to our religions and to our faith when you know that there's science kind of backing it. You know, we don't, for those that are believers and have faith, you don't need science to prove your belief, but for those that maybe are on the cusp or not really sure about what they believe in or maybe they need something to believe in, they need hope, and that scientific proof or evidence they have, it kind of points the way to, yeah, there is something to that. Maybe that will help some, you know, a lot of people to give them faith. Right, and it's nice to be able to blend the two and contrast and compare and, you know, from whatever belief system that you are coming from. Because sometimes there are some people that can, you know, practice religion with purity, or faith, and there's other people that, like you said, they need a little more proof because, you know, they're a little skeptical. And so it's good to be able to, you know, do that research, get that information out there and put it forth. So I really commend you for writing this book and getting that information out there. It's got to be a tough sell for some of the churches and some of the priests that are out there. That you're talking to, right? Oh, yeah. One of my things that I like to say is I feel it's my job to take the woo-woo out of the paranormal in general. And even the word paranormal, I mean, paranormal is a scientific word. And the theological word is supernatural. You know, so the paranormal and supernatural, they're really basically, again, you're saying the same thing. It's okay to have a supernatural experience for many religions, but it's okay to have a supernatural experience for many religions. It's not okay to have a paranormal experience. But, you know, when someone has a vision of the Virgin Mary, well, they're experiencing a clairvoyant event. And, you know, they're also seeing an apparition. They're also seeing a vision. So there's many different words, but it doesn't make it less sacred just because you have a little scientific, you know, words that you can put to it. Now, this just came to my mind. What do you think about people who see visions of the Virgin Mary and, you know, like on sides of buildings or, you know, I mean, we've seen that in the news over the years that people like, oh, here, you know, here's a sign. So have you done any research on that or talked to anybody who's had those types of visions? Well, you know, it's funny. I, you know, I have. I was actually in search for people, some of the noted mediums who've had to see if they had had any. In fact, I had the opportunity to interview James Van Praag about that. To see if he had had any holy apparitions. And a lot of mediums get saints. And, in fact, I had a, yesterday, I was at a psychic fair and someone said, I see the Virgin Mary around you. You know, that's not unusual at all for mediums to have saints or holy visions come through to them. And often it identifies that person's, say, religious background or their beliefs. People like James Van Praag, John Edwards themselves have a Catholic background. So that's another way for spirits to communicate with them. And whether it is, you know, the Virgin Mary or the specific saint, that comes through. As far as masses, seeing, you know, the Virgin Mary on the side of a building. I mean, I've seen some very amazing photographs and amazing things. I think these things happen all the time. And it helps people. I think it gives faith to a world that is often faithless. You know, a world that we live in where we're always looking for hope. And a sign that we're not alone. And I think we continually get these signs all the time. From our family and friends in spirit or from messengers, spiritual teachers. You know, just constantly, I think, I believe that we're getting affirmations that we're not alone. And to have faith and to hang in there because this incarnation is only temporary. So we decide to do it again. And there's help available. There's always help. We're not alone. So do you think that certain people are more open to receiving these signs and communications than other people? Well, a big part of it, like in my spiritual sign language class and all my workshops are based on different chapters in the book, is becoming aware. Now, once you're, for example, once you're aware of the different ways spirits can give us physical signs, you know, whether it's a rainbow or whatever, we just talked about earlier, an odor, a favorite song, you're going to be more on the lookout for those things. The same way, the other big thing, again, I'm glad you kind of asked this because I wanted to bring you back to this, is meditation. Now, a lot of our saints and mystics are, had paranormal, supernatural experiences because they spend a lot of time in meditation and prayer. So when you do do that, it opens you up. It opens your third eye. You become more psychic. You become more easily available to receive information. And a lot of times we just start having psychic experiences once you start meditating on a regular basis. So this really is the key to be able to quiet your mind because it's something that really takes practice. I have a lot of people say to me, well, I talked to my mother. I'm in heaven all the time, but she never talks back to me. I never hear anything. And I say, well, how often do you really take the time to listen, to sit and meditate and quiet your mind and listen? Because it does take practice. And the thing is not once you meditate on a regular basis, you will not only get messages from loved ones that have crossed over, but you're also going to get guidance from your angels. You'll get guidance from God and you'll be more connected with your spiritual self. And you'll know more about what to do in situations. You know, we always have questions. Things come up. And when you meditate on them, you get answers. And the answers are all within. Yes, you just have to be open and available to be getting those messages in. What do you recommend to somebody that is receiving? This information, but is fearful of it? Well, one of the lines I like the best in the book is that and I found this in research is Those that are afraid of the power of evil or the devil Do not understand the power of love for God Because their power is so much stronger So when you have the intention A positive intention of getting in touch with the loved one that's crossed over someone that's in heaven someone that's a positive person That's exactly what will happen You know intention is everything and having good thoughts and positive intentions are very Important I tell people I don't you know someone will say to me. Well, how do you know you're not contacting the devil? I had a woman come up to me and say, you know, how do you know you're not contacting? the devil Because everyone knows the devil's and comes in disguise And I said to this woman how I know that you're not the devil Because it's intention Now if we want to you know, can't take positive spirits we do it with positive intentions for people that want to contact Evil or negative spirits they have what might be called a black mass or you know do practice Satanism And that's what you will get you will get negative spirits. I tell people I don't hang around with negative people Therefore I don't hang around with negative spirits negative spirits would not want to be around me because I'm just I'm not fun to be around. I'm at a higher level of vibration and I get a lot of light around me It's just the same way that a lot of people you know Alcoholics don't want to hang around me because I'm no longer part of the update so Does that make sense? It's like it's the company you keep yes, it does like attracts like Like it tracks like and that's everything a little you know high vibration Attracts a high vibration and a negative vibration and the low vibration So we can raise our vibration in many different ways and just by putting on music or having positive thoughts being around positive people reading spiritual books and You know doing spiritual practices Whether it's yoga or she gone or going to a church service And there's so many many ways to do that and it's what part of the spiritual path And being a spiritual seeker is all about We're searching for ways to raise our vibration to move from the physical reality to the metaphysical reality and Eventually to the mystical levels reality where we have mystical experiences. It's all about this We're searching for higher levels of vibration and once you get those higher levels of vibration Then the more paranormal supernatural things will occur for you and they'll just be a part of your daily life Mm-hmm Yeah, and then you get to live a multi-dimensional life too. It's just so much richer Yeah, yeah, I mean I Take all the help I can get I don't care what side it's from exactly just always it's positive, right? Right. Yeah, and when you tap it? Into you, you know, there's so much out there. There's you know, all the levels of reality that you can tap into There's so much more help that you can receive. So why not utilize all the help you can get exactly exactly So Mary, can you tell the listeners on how they can order the communion of saints talking to God and grandma? Yes my book is available through my website and The address of the website is www.gifsofgraceministry.org www.gifsofgraceministry.org and gifts of grace ministry is my nonprofit organization or program and There's a direct link right to the book. You can get a right from the publisher from my website It's also now available in Orange County in four different locations I'm going to try and remember what the names of the Towns I did mention the Catholic bookstore. I think it was in Fountain Valley The same on campus trial mission store Awakenings bookstore and I can't remember what town it's in and then the school of multi-dimensional healing of arts and science and Irvine interesting And awakening awakening's metaphors. That's pretty sure that's a pretty big metaphysical bookstore They have classes there. They're not hard to find So yeah, just yeah, it's not available through a distributor yet I have a small independent publisher out of Phoenix Right now just basically through my website gifts of grace ministry org And it's a beautiful book way. Yes Wonderful. Okay. Thank you so much Mary. I really really appreciate you being on especially from New York Well, I appreciate everyone I my visit to Orange County was a Amazing I had met so many amazing people They opened their arms to me and shared their stories and it was just a magical time And it was so nice to be able to meet you Julianne and you too that you're able to come to one of my presentations Yes, thank you so much Mary really appreciate it So have a good evening and I will talk to you soon, okay Okay. Thank you so much. Thank you Mary. Take care Have a good night. You too. Good night and Thank you for listening to psych one-on-one if you would like to contact me my emails J G o o d e 8 at Verizon dotnet and please indicate on the on the bar that You heard me on psych one-on-one on skid row studios.com. I Have an office down in Irvine, California the phone number is five six two two three four four six five zero if you'd like to contact me, please contact me about anything and in a psychology realm or if you need counseling and please stay tuned for the Coomber on report on right after me and Thank you so much for listening and Take care of yourself. Take care of each other and thank you so much to Jenny Guzman I'm so happy to have her on board for my board op this evening So and thank you so much to Jeremy Hansen our executive producer Take care of yourself. Take care of each other Bye now Great creator of the Oh! We need great golden calculations When the true kings murderers are allowed to roam free a thousand magicians arrive in the land Where are the feasts we were promised? Where are the feasts we were promised? Where are the feasts we were promised?