Spirit Guides vs. Angels What's The Difference? with Michael McAdams | EP 504

Close your eyes and imagine. What if the things in life that caused us the greatest pain, the things that bring us grief, are challenges. Challenges designed to help us grow to ultimately become what we were always meant to be. We feel like we've been buried, but what if, like a seed, we've been planted. And having been planted, we grow to become a mighty tree. Now, open your eyes. Open your eyes to this way of viewing life. Come with me as we explore your true, infinite, eternal nature. This is Grief to Growth, and I am your host, Brian Smith. Hey there, everyone. Welcome back to Grief to Growth. I'm Brian Smith, and in case you're new here, this show is about making sense of life, especially when life doesn't make sense. We talk about grief, loss, and the questions that keep us up at night. Who are we? Where do we go when we die? Is it possible the people or the wisdom that we're searching for is closer than we think? I bring on guests who help illuminate that path, no matter how dark or uncertain it feels. Today's guest is Michael McAdams. He's a man who spent his entire life being pulled towards something larger than the faith he was born into. Michael grew up right here in the Cincinnati area, where I am now, in a family soaked in spiritual conviction. His uncle was a fiery Pentecostal preacher who planted churches across three states. His grandmother was called the ministry at the age of 30 and was convinced that God spoke straight into her heart. And Michael observed all this and still felt there had to be more. He discovered along the way that he could pick up information just by holding an object, a ring, a set of keys. It's a gift called psychometry. And then he watched his own mother, Wilma Jean Jones, a devout Bible-reading Christian, sit down at her typewriter one day in 1977, light a candle, say a prayer for protection, and begin receiving messages, words appearing in her mind three or four at a time for what she came to call spirit teachers. She kept doing this for 22 years, and what came out of the sessions became the three volumes called An Angel Told Me So. In this episode, we're going to start with the question of what it actually means to be spoken to. What spirit teachers are, how they differ from the angels that most of us grew up picturing, and whether this kind of communication is a rare gift or something that's actually dormant in all of us. Michael's going to walk us through how his mother's ability unfolded, what it was like to receive a message written specifically for him, and how a man raised on scripture came to see the Arantia book sitting comfortably next to his Bible. We talk about how you tell a real message from wishful thinking, how to protect yourself if you're opening the store for the first time, and what any of this has to say to someone who's simply afraid of dying. So if you've ever sat in a pew and felt like the words were true, but somehow weren't reaching the actual ache in your chest, if you've ever wondered whether the people who taught you about God left anything out, this conversation is for you. And if you want to continue this conversation after the episode, head over to GriefTheGrowth.substack.com. You'll find an article there written about today's discussion, where you can comment and connect with me and with other listeners. So with that, I want to welcome Michael McAdams. Well, hi, Brian. Thank you very much. And I have to tell you that is the best introduction of all the interviews I've ever done. That is the best introduction I've ever received. Well, thank you. I appreciate that. We have a lot in common. You probably don't know this about me. My grandfather was a Pentecostal pastor. I grew up in his church. His parents were both preachers as well. So I grew up in that kind of a family, grew up in the pews. And I always felt like something wasn't really, you know, quite right, didn't sit quite right with me. What was your experience like? Almost identical. Almost identical. Even when I was young and my mother would, you know, would play piano for a number of the church services and my uncle fired, like you said, a fiery Pentecostal pastor, preacher, John W. Sullivan. And he pastored the full gospel tabernacle church in Middletown. And long before the huge mega churches, you know, with thousands of people, it was a pretty good sized church. But on a Sunday, they would have 12 to 1300 people at this service. And it was standing room only. And we would normally sit third pew back right in front of the lectern. And you would just there was just things that, you know, that just doesn't sound right. That just doesn't seem right. And all my life, even when I was young, I felt more spiritual than religious. And I've always had questions about heaven and hell, heaven, where we would go to for all eternity and do what we the human soul requires choices and decisions. We need to make we need to have challenges to be able to progress in our in our lifetime. And then eternal punishment and damnation with no chance for a reprieve based on, you know, either choice, bad choices, bad decisions, bad parents, bad friends. So I was always open. And I think just having an open mind is what has guided me more than anything else. Yeah. So for people that don't know, explain to them what Pentecostal means. Well, I Pentecostal is pretty strict, literal interpretation of the Bible. They believe in speaking in tongues. They believe in laying laying on hands, which I believe is a real thing. Even in nursing schools, they say that they are are teaching nurses to project energy from their hands on their patients. And they, I don't know how often the nurse would do it based on their potential belief, but they, you know, Pentecostal was pretty much literal interpretation of the Bible, a definite belief in heaven and hell, one shot existence. And that's it for all eternity. Yeah, that's exactly what I grew up with. And by the way, my mother played piano in our church as well. So we have that in common too. Are we brothers from another mother? You know, it's, it's, it's really wild, the, the, the things that kind of, you know, that are, that are coincident similarities. Yeah. I mean, it's an amazing to me, uh, how similar, but, and there are a lot of people just like we are who've had these same life experiences, same questions, same faith, but questions and wanting to know, you know, is there really more and these messages and teachings from these spirit teachers and spirit teachers are the same thing as angels just viewed from a different perspective, one spiritual, one religious. So when you were, when you were this little kid and you were having these questions, did you, did you talk to your teachers about it, your Sunday school teachers, your parents? Did you, how did you, how did you express your questions? I wasn't really that involved with the questions and the questions themselves were more in thought in my mind, as far as relating to the information that, that was shared. Uh, like I said, my mother was extremely religious, went to church on Sundays. I went to Sunday school, you know, five, six, seven years in a row, uh, was about probably 13, 14 years old when I finally decided that, that I didn't really want to go to church anymore. I had learned what I could go as far. I had gone as far as I could go with organized religion. And so, and my mother accepted that she would still go to church. Um, my, my father, uh, wasn't extremely religious at all. He rarely went to church, but that wasn't really a factor, but it was the expression of faith, the healing. I thought that just came into my mind when I was really young, my, uh, I had a ward that showed up on a middle finger on my left hand and my grandmother, again, extremely religious, had prayed over it, anointed it with oil. And within about three or four weeks, the ward fell off. It just fell off. And, you know, I was impressed by that. Right. So I was young. So anyway, uh, that was, that's my foundation of faith. That's my background. But as we open ourselves up to information that is readily available, it's really more of a perspective of existence in, in my humble opinion, a perspective of this existence and why we're here, where we have been, how far we've come and what we have to do once this physical existence ends. So I know at some point you started picking up the ability to touch objects and get information from it. Was that before or after your mother started receiving messages? It was before, uh, quite a while before. As I grew older, I started, uh, I was interested in spiritual material, um, and I was led, uh, on my website, spiritspeaks.com. It says when the student is ready, a teacher will appear. And for me, that has always been applicable because as a seeker for all sincere seekers of truth, that vibration, that thought that you put out there will attract to you a book, a movie, uh, an event of, uh, you know, an individual and these, that information was made known to me. And I would make it a point. I started looking up spiritual festival, spiritual and psychic festivals, books, that sort of thing, and was led in a, in a, just steps to find the material that has led me to where I am today. And I ended up finding a, a late, a psychic lady in Cincinnati. Her name was Patricia Michelle. Did you ever hear of Patricia? I'm not familiar with her. Yeah, she, she actually, um, spoke, are you familiar with Victor Perruta's victory of light show that he does in Sharonville used to do in Sharonville at the Sharonville convention center? Yes. Yeah. I've been to that. And I had booths, I had a booth there for a couple of years. I knew, knew Victor well, and then after COVID, COVID shut him down for a couple of years, and he ended up selling that show to a company called body mind spirit. Okay. They have shows all over the country and he, they do two shows a year at the Sharonville convention center, one in April and one in November. And I thought Victor shows were better. They had, um, let me shut this. They had, um, they had a, just a better clientele, a better group of mediums that would come in from all over the country and they would attract 6,000 people over a weekend. Yeah. I mean, you couldn't hardly find a parking place. They were busy from 10 o'clock in the morning till eight o'clock at night. So that was, that was again, my background. And when we, uh, we would do the presentations and book signings, I had met Patricia and she was doing a series of classes at her home. She lived in, uh, it was a Liberty township. Oh, Liberty township is where she lived. And she would do classes at her home. And, uh, one of the classes was on psychometry. And I believe we all have that ability. You know, we all are spoken to, and I would just hold an object and in thought I would get a message. And I ended up having a table. She had a group called psychic world in Norwood in Cincinnati at the quality courts motel. And I had a table there for about a year and a half. They met monthly and I had a legal tablet. People would sit down at my table. I wouldn't pump them for information. I would just ask their first name and they would give me something to hold. I would relax my mind and start to get a message page, sometimes page and a half. When it got to the end, it would stop. I would read it to them. Sometimes they would cry and it was more confirmation as to what they were going through rather than actual prophecy. But again, I believe that we all have this innate ability to receive. It's really just a matter of calming your mind, dropping down in level and tuning in. Wow. So I'm curious to anybody from your Pentecostal background, anybody push against this, say this was you were messing with the devil or something. I had actually separated from the church. I was older, spent two years in Germany in the army and got involved in this really after I got out of, out of the army. All right. And so I didn't really have an association with any of the people in the church. There are, you know, a lot of people, especially Pentecostal who would, who don't really understand that spirit guides, spirit teachers and angels are the same. And Pentecostal, especially, you know, they frown on, on, um, psychics and mediums and being able to receive any information at all, but yet they're still open to guardian angels and the parking spot angel. Yeah. The parking spot angel. Well, yeah, I have a parking spot angel. Well, you know, that's really your own spirit guide, spirit teacher that is helping you when you ask for that help. Yeah. I remember I was attending an evangelical church here in Cincinnati, the vineyard. And, uh, I was going over there and we were talking about, we were doing an introductory class for people that were coming into the church and stuff. And they said, well, what we're going to do is we're going to all like think of a neighbor's name that we want to bring to Jesus. We're going to write their name on a piece of paper and we're going to pray over it. And then we're going to like burn the paper. And I thought, if you saw pagans doing this, you would call it witchcraft. You know, and I, and you were talking about the laying on of hands, right? That's, that sounds a lot like Reiki. Um, so these things are the same things with different names. But I also remember when I started doing yoga, someone, they're saying, well, if you're opening up your mind and demons can come in, you know, bad things can happen to you. Right. Well, and then with yoga, you're dealing with the chakras. Yeah. Right. Which is just, and then the third eye, you're opening up that third eye and you're, you're, this stuff is just coming into my head here. So you're good influence on me. Um, yeah, it's really just having an open mind, you know, establish a filter. People say, well, Michael, how do you know, you know, you're, you're opening your mind to this information you're willing to receive, but how do you know that you don't, that you're not going to allow negative energy, negative information, information from, from negative entities, your mind. And I tell people, I say the best way, the best thing that you can do is establish a filter, an aura of protection around your mind. And the best way to do that for me, and I think for many people would be to establish a, um, uh, this established this filter is to establish a, um, the, the, the word is escaping me. Um, anyway, it's, it's a, um, not a proclamation, but it's a filter. And then this filter that they came to me years ago, it just came into my mind. And it said, let no thoughts, ideas, or information be made known to my mind that does not come from God or his direct representatives. Let that be your filter. Yeah. The word for some reason is escaping my mind. Can you think of the word for that? No, I, well, I don't know if you're, um, I wouldn't call it an affirmation, but that's it an affirmation, an affirmation. Yeah. You're affirming that you're not going to allow that for some reason, it just wouldn't pop into my mind. Yeah. Yes. You're affirming that you are establishing that protection right off the bat. And so, and if, if a negative tip, negative thought or a negative vision, or even a negative phrase might come into your mind, uh, you can simply surround that with energy and, you know, send it out into the universe because it has no thought or no effect on your thought system, and we each have our own personal thought system, like a little mini solar system, swirling around in our mind, and we don't have to necessarily accept everything that comes into our mind. We can control the thoughts that come into our mind. And it's not a, um, you know, constantly being a, you know, a positive person all the time, because we do have negative things we have to deal with, but you can exert an aura of protection. Yeah, I absolutely agree with that. And I'll never forget when I was having this conversation with this person, I said, well, we're supposed to open our mind to the Holy Spirit. You know, so if I'm open, I have to open my mind at some point to something we're supposed to establish a connection with, with God or, you know, the Holy Spirit, you know, et cetera. And as you said, you know, we know about angels in the Bible, which is angels just means messengers of God. So there are, there are entities that are there, that are there for our help and our, for our protection. That's true. That's true. And it's, it's a shame, really, you know, the Bible, especially Pentecostals, it says, beware of soothsayers and they've always been afraid or, or unhappy, you know, with anybody that would visit a psychic or a medium. And I have told people, I said, any psychic, any medium that is doing a reading for you, if they're worth their salt, they're going to tell you that this is not me. I'm not doing this. This information for you is coming from your own spirit guide, spirit teacher, or angel, if that's your perspective, right? And they will admit that, although, you know, some may not, but that's the expectation that people should have. If they ever want to get a reading or get information about what should I do about this, ask your own spirit guide, spirit teachers, and they will let you know, they will advise you. Yeah. I, almost every medium that I know, and I know quite a few says you can do this yourself. You don't have to come to me. Most of us just don't know how to do it or don't have enough faith in ourselves or our own abilities to do it. But yeah, you're right. They always, they always say, this is not me. I was just talking one the other day, and this person is just one of the best mediums like in the world. And she's like, but it's not me. She said, it's spirit. It's not me. That's true. That's true. So I'm curious. So you, you develop, you not develop, but you found out you had disability, psychometry, and then your mother who was in the church, a devout person, she decides one day to sit down with the typewriter and start receiving messages. How did that happen? Actually, it took a little coaching from me, for her to even be open to this. She was really sure about all of this. I had introduced her to Patricia Michelle and she found, and she, they kind of hit it off. And then she ended up having a table and was doing readings. And she actually would do readings there. And then she started doing readings at her home and there were people that would come to her home in Middletown and they would come from Indiana, Kentucky, and Ohio to get readings from her. Okay. And she would offer, you know, offer recordings, but she was really, you know, skeptical more than anything else. And then after she, I kind of got into this information. She said, yeah, you know, I can see where this is valid. But as she would, when she was led to sit down in these dedicated sessions with an electric typewriter and these messages would be given personal messages to her and to me, volume one, do you have the book or have you seen the book? I have not seen the book, no. Okay. Here is, this is the book. Okay. An angel told me so. And that is Wilma Jean. That was Wilma Jean, my mother. Yeah. And volume one is pretty much all personal messages to Wilma Jean and myself. When she was led to sit down and receive an accession, she would receive a message addressed to her by name from her spirit teachers, and then she would receive a message addressed to me by name from my spirit teachers. And they had a different tone and a feel because they were different teachers and we were both going through different things. But when I, this material was just so deep and profound, and it seems to be so applicable to everyone that reads them, that I had told her, I said, you know, we really need to do this in a book. And she wasn't sure because some of the messages were personal. And she was working around the kitchen one day when she would see these words in dedicated sessions, she would actually see words in her mind three and four at a time. But when she was working around the kitchen this one day, she started receiving a message in thought. And she knew it was incoming. She picked up pen and paper. She had beautiful handwriting. And she took this, wrote this message out in longhand, and she felt this message was a confirmation that she should put these messages and teachings in a book. She had been praying about it. May I share this message with you and your audience? Please, yes. So this, this was what she received. Emptiness is part of fulfillment. Let your resources fill the void left so the distinction of your purpose can be found. Expression is always self-explanatory. Therefore, look inside and anchor all your beliefs beside those still waters that will take away your troubled view and renew your strength to recapture that which was lost, but is now found to be adequate to pursue the course set before you. And as you reconcile your being to represent those qualities that have been left intact, God will see to it that although circumstances have been trying to say the least, your weariness will disappear as clouds once removed, allow the sun to shine to dispel the gloom and darkness that has pervaded your countenance. And as once described before, a token of this presence will be deposited to your account and books recorded in his name. Wow. And again, she had been praying about it and she felt that was confirmation that she should indeed put these messages and teachings in a book. Okay. So there are three volumes of the book? There will be three volumes. Volume one is the only volume that's out right now. I'm looking for a new publisher. I have volume two ready to submit. I've talked to a number of different publishers and it's just finding the right, the right connection, you know, the right fit. So, but as these messages and teachings continued, it's like higher teacher, they started spreading the word on the other side. We found a willing receptacle in Wilma Jean and higher teachers started moving in, giving even deeper and more profound teachings. And it's like these messages and teachings, again, apply to everyone that reads them. And I tell people, I've said, when you get the book, read each message once, as it was given for Wilma Jean and given for me, then read that same message again, as if it's being presented to you and see what hits. It's amazing what hits. Yeah. It's almost a little spooky. It's like, how do they know? How did they know what I'm dealing with? How do they know what I'm feeling? How do they know what I'm going through? Interesting. Yeah. It's like, there's a personal connection with these messages for everyone who reads them. And what's really interesting to me, interesting to me. And I know in the introduction, we talked about the book, and I'm not sure how it's pronounced, the book of Arantia. Yeah. Urantia. Urantia. Okay. U-R-A-N-T-I-A. And Urantia is really their name for the earth. Okay. So it's really the earth book. The Arantia Foundation is in Chicago and they sponsor this book. The book has been translated into 16 languages, over 4 million copies in print. And Patricia Michelle actually gave me a copy of the book. I have a hardback copy. It's my light reading, 2,107 pages. And you don't read the book like a novel. Right. It's a series of papers that are numbered and titled. And I remember the day that she gave this to me and she said, here, you're ready for this. And I've never heard of it before. I didn't know anything about it, but it's an amazing body of material. It's different than the messages and teachings that Wilma Jean received. It was transmitted through an individual in 1935, first published in 1955. And the book is available. I have a link on my website, spiritspeaks.com to the Urantia book. The book is available to read for free on their website, but it's better to have the book itself if it's advanced information. And there's really only four parts to the book, but the fourth part is a 650 page section on the life and teachings of Jesus. That sounds like they were standing beside him with a microphone for 33 years. Oh, wow. The detail is amazing. And it agrees with the Bible about 98%. Little twists on stories and stuff. But not enough to get your pants in a bunch. You know, and it's just an amazing body of material that I think that for people with the foundation of faith, they will not be disappointed in reading this section on Jesus. Yeah, I think, you know, it's really interesting to me. I grew up, as we talked about, you know, and some people revere the Bible as being infallible, as being complete, as being whole. It's like, you know, you can't add anything to it. There's even like a thing in the book of Revelation, anybody who adds to the teaching is cursed or something. Um, but this, this really closed system that a lot of Christians have. And once like you, I started looking outside, I'm like, why couldn't other people receive messages also? Why couldn't people receive messages today? You know, if Paul was inspired to write, you know, the Gospels and John was inspired, why couldn't, when would Gene be inspired? Oh, I agree. I've thought the same thing. And then look throughout the Bible. Angels, you know, we'd come to various people. Why did it stop? Right. You know, why is it that we don't hear anything about that anymore? And then I even think about, you know, the, the witches, the witch trials in Salem, and these witches were supposedly receiving information and guidance and direction. How do we know that a lot of that information wasn't coming from their own spirit guides and spirit teachers? Exactly. And they were interpreting that or sharing that information and the people around them, because of their foundation of faith were saying, well, you can't be listening to that. You can't be receiving that. You're receiving it from demons, you know, not, not positive entities. Yeah. And so that may have been, you know, a lot of that receiving, and then they got so scared and people were afraid to even receive or share the fact that they had received, and then we went all this time without people being open to it. Well, I want to remind people that Jesus was accused of getting his power from Satan by the, by the, by the church leaders of that day. So this, this goes back. This goes back over 2000 years where people, you know, some people were trying to control the information that we receive. So when people say, oh, you shouldn't do this or do that, you have to understand what's the motivation behind the people telling you not to trust your own spirit, not to read, you know, to reach out and receive messages. It's because they want to, they want to give you the messages to you. Well, that, and they're protecting their power and influence over the masses. Organized religion, I think has a benefit. You know, it's, it's a, it's a social foundation. It's a reinforcement, but so, so many people are afraid to go any further. And there is, there's an outstanding documentary. Are you familiar with A&E, the arts and entertainment channel? They did. And it's been years ago, they did a series called mysteries of the Bible. Okay. And I think it might still be available in some libraries. It was in some of the public libraries. It was an 18 part series and they would take, there's a DVD on each, each, each program. They would take characters and stories from the Bible and, and create a, like an hour long documentary or explanation of how this went down. But the very best two were the very last two, and they were titled, who wrote the Bible. And there's a DVD on the old Testament, one on the new Testament. And it really talks about how the King James version of the Bible came to be. And it's an, it's an amazing documentary. Yeah. And that's, I think that's really, really important because when I started stepping outside of the church that was keeping me bound and start understanding who wrote the Bible, what languages wasn't written in, what were the political motivations for who decided what books were going to be included, which books wouldn't be included. And, and why, you know, a lot of people think, well, the Bible just dropped out of the sky and it was bound in leather and had red letters. That's not how the Bible came to be. And so when we understand all that and we understand it was written by dozens of people over hundreds of years that there, there is no single author or even single type of writing, for example, in the Bible, some things are meant to be taken literally, some things are not meant to be taken literally. So once you understand all that, that's when you start to break outside of this, right? And that's when you say, if God could speak to those people, why wouldn't God speak to the ancient Hindus? And you read some of their writings and you're just like, these are just amazing. That's true. That's true. And again, it's from a different perspective, but it's all like a universal truth, universal information. And that documentary talks exactly the way you just spoke about how the King James version of Bible came to be. And, you know, there are people who will say, well, it was inspired by God. Well, inspired doesn't mean written word for word. You know, we have been inspired to receive, I was inspired to receive information and answers that have been dictated to my mind. But I would love to share that documentary with you sometime. If you still have a DVD player. Yeah, yeah, I do. It's actually not connected, but I cannot get connected. Yeah, go old school. That one you can't find online. But, yeah, and if not, you can find DVD players at pawn shops for fifteen, twenty dollars. Yeah, I mean, you can still find them and, you know, game consoles, all the Xbox is and stuff. Yeah, those are all DVD players. Yeah, that's true. That's true. So, you know, I remember when I was again kind of moving outside of the thing I had been in and started finding out there are other, you know, other things that people are saying have been saying for the last two thousand years. The guy didn't stop speaking. So I was going to the UCC church and one of their slogans was never place a period never place a period where God placed a comma. And I love that because why would God stop speaking and why would God not keep, you know, it just doesn't make any sense that, you know, once Paul died, that was it. God's like, I'm done. I'm done talking to you. If you want to go look at the Bible and figure it out. That's true. That's true. And that's interesting that you mentioned punctuation because these messages and teachings from the spirit teachers, not only do they repeatedly refer to themselves in first person, you know, we feel, we believe, we advise, but in these messages and teachings that were dictated through Wilma Jean, they get punctuation. Now, one of the messages on my website, spirit speaks dot com, there are tabs at the top left bio for me, bio for my mother. And there's a tab. Have you been on my website? Okay. Did you see the tab for the television interview that Wilma Jean gave in Cincinnati? I did not see that one. It's tab at the top left. And so you can scroll down, watch her interview. She's the pretty lady in white on the left. And below her interview is a message from volume two of the book, again, which is not out yet. This was the only time in a session where she was led to sit down and receive two different spirit teachers moved in in the same session, gave two different messages and signed two different names. Oh, wow. And it was obvious that the second teacher was a different teacher than the first, because the the entire cadence and phrasing of the message is different. This first teacher's message was a little more than a long paragraph. May I share this with you and your audience? Yes, please. This will give you an opportunity to hear how they speak. And like the teaching is just so applicable. So this was the first teacher's message. There is a resurrection period through which man must travel in order to come into the realm of things God like you are to consume and digest all that is given here as this comes from one highly qualified to meet the needs of this generation. You are not the sole property of yourselves. God still holds the everlasting command over your being and in him must one take refuge. You are to be considered as one who has been stripped of all the longings and left to die by the wayside. In this manner, are you then open to any help that would be forthcoming? You are by your very nature, ones who would depend on your own intellect to carry you through. However, by giving of your soul into the hands of God, do you prosper and develop more freely into that which denies the outcome of some situations, knowing full well that it is the hand of God leading and directing you so that you may arise victorious in the end. There is never a time when you will be without the Father, nor his ever loving approaches to see that you follow the path that directs you homeward. Take note that we say homeward as your heavenly Father so resides in that vast insurmountable environment of time and space, so shall ye abide in joint communication with him by the grace with which he covers you and by your ability to accept this grace and use it for your own development. There are others here who wish to make themselves known to you, so I will step aside for this time. My love of devotion follows you as you trod onward that ever faithful to your goal. That message was signed your loving guide. Wow. Now that next to the last line made me sit up and take notice. And he says, there are others here who wish to make themselves known to you. My question is who are the others and where is here? Yeah, yeah. What do you mean there are others here? Where are you in relation to us on this physical plane? Yeah, great question. The answer to that is they are in a spiritual realm that is adjacent to this physical plane. And we're separated by this realm from this realm by a vibration, a frequency. We don't really know what the medium is that separates us from the spiritual realm. But this spiritual realm is what those with the foundation of faith, Christians, would call heaven. Right. But I believe the spiritual realm is much more than just a place called heaven. Yeah, I do too. And again, it's really interesting as you start to expand out and you hear stuff like that, like teachings at your mother's channel. And I've heard other channel teachings. They have a resonance that you hear, you know, the same message in different and different language. I read the Seth books not too long ago, which I guess, yeah, Seth, Jane Roberts, Jane Roberts, exactly. Yeah, I talked to her one time. Did you really? You know, Myra, New York. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And yes, she had Seth speak. Seth speaks was was the one that I had read. And there was a series of those. Yes. Yeah. And they're really, really powerful, interesting teachings. And then there's a woman I know her name is Francis Key. I don't know if you may have heard of Francis. She wrote a series of books, their four books called The Team. And when her mother passed away, her mother started speaking through through Francis through Frankie, and she wrote this series of books. And they're just, they're incredible. They're really amazing the teachings so that when you hear them, they just they have like a vibration, I guess that you just resonate with. Like I can hear from the information at your mother's channel. Right, right. And we're all led, we're on a path, we're on a journey. And whenever the, whenever the person is ready to receive, I just met some people, a group here over the weekend that they were, as I was just sharing in conversation what we're talking about. And this one lady said, you know, I was meant to meet you. You have no idea how much I needed this. Yeah, yeah. Well, that makes you feel good. As you said, yeah, exactly. When the student is ready, the teacher will appear. And I, I totally relate to that because when I started, again, kind of seeking, I would just walk in. This is back before there was Amazon. This is back before you could read book reviews. I would just walk into the bookstore and I'd just go to the spirituality section and just pick up the book that I felt called to read. And that's the way I started, you know, it was just one thing led to another. And then when the internet first came around, I was on, I was on ALL, you know, American line. And I met a group of people that taught me about this Christian Universalism. So I realized that not all Christians believe that most of us go to hell. So these things just started coming around, you know, as I needed them. And even today, I meet people that I that I need to meet at the time I need to meet them. Well, I agree. I agree. And that that vibration, that seeking that desire to know is what will lead people to their next step, the next step on their journey. And we're all here on a journey, a path. Yeah. And as we're talking about this, the thing that just came to mind that saying, the only thing we have to fear is fear itself. That's really our enemy is fear that that holds us back from discovering who we truly are, from discovering really pretty much anything. And unfortunately, a lot of churches have have weaponized that fear to keep us to keep us controlled. And I hate to say that, but it's just it's true. Well, I have always felt that that heaven and hell is the ultimate carrot and a stick. Oh, absolutely. Yeah, it's just the ultimate. And the Pharisees, the San Hendron, the priests from the temple during Jesus's time, they did not want to relinquish their their power and control over the masses who exactly that, you know, the people of faith, who would come to them for guidance. Yeah, absolutely. Relinquish that, not only that, but they were greedy. And you're familiar with, you know, the story of the money changers. You know, originally, these priests and they were called money changers for a reason. But people would come to Passover in Jerusalem, you know, with their sacrifice, the animals and they would pick out the most perfect, strongest would have been great breeding stock, but they picked that out to sacrifice to God. And that was, that was the system that the priest had set up. And the priest said, well, why are we allowing these people to bring their own animals? Yeah. So they started finding fault, they were flaws and fault. And so the people said, well, why should I bring my own animal when they're just going to just just, you know, not allowed to be, it's not good enough to be sacrificed. So the priest started selling animals to the people that would come to Passover. Yeah. And then the people that would come would come from all over the realm with coinage with various monies from other areas. Well, the priest decided they were going to change that. And they decreed that any, any animal bought for sacrifice had to be bought, purchased in the coin of the realm. Right. So the money changers were the people that set up tables and would change the money that these people brought to the money, the coin of the realm. That's how they got the name money changers. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And, and, and at a favorable exchange rate to themselves, a small percentage was taken, they would take a percentage of the transaction. And, and that was, that was additional income for the church. Yeah. For the priests of the temple. Yeah. And that's why it's really important for us to understand the Bible, the history, the culture, and the verses that, you know, we don't really hear much about, like, I don't remember which, which part of the Old Testament is where God says, I never asked for your sacrifices. You know, the blood of bulls and goats means nothing to me. That, that was a system that was set up by the priests. Because it, again, as a little kid, that just never made sense to me. Why, why are we killing animals? Why does God, and then that leads to the sacrifice of Jesus. So it's like, that's the ultimate, you know, God demanding, demanding blood. So these are the things that we really, I think people need to really think about, you know, critically and say, does that, does that make sense? You know, if someone told you that outside of the church, when you were five years old, would you ever believe that? Really, really. And you know, Jesus, Jesus his death, that was brought about by the Pharisees and the San Hendren who felt he was a threat to their power. Yeah. Not that he'd done anything wrong, you know, and he, he didn't proclaim himself King. He wasn't looking for power. He was just teaching a new truth. And they, you know, they just worked up the crowd and they were able to, to have him crucified because of it. And they, they presented him as a threat to Rome. There is an outstanding movie. Are you a movie person? Oh, yeah, absolutely. Have you seen or heard of the movie called risen? I don't think I've seen that now. It came out in 2016. It's really well done. I believe I was led to find that movie more of a foundation of faith movie, but it's the story of this Roman Tribune, serious Roman soldier who was tasked by pilot to find the missing body of Jesus that disappeared from the tomb and the San Hendren, the priest from the temple had come to pilot and said, we have a problem. We believe that Jesus's followers broke into the tomb and stole the body so that they could claim he was, he was resurrected and pilot said, we can't have that. So he dispatched his number two, this Roman Tribune said, you go find me a body. And the movie, what I like about it is a lot of it looks like it was shot on location, rather than the back lot of the moody movie studio. Some of the shots are obviously, you know, studio shots, right sets. But it's really well done. And it will hit you hard at the end. Yeah, yeah, I will definitely check that out. I again, I encourage people because I am not and I know you're not we're not bashing religion. We're not bashing Christianity. But we want what I want to do is encourage people don't be afraid to understand your faith. Don't be afraid to understand the history. Don't be afraid to understand the motivations. And they will tell you certain things like never consult with a medium or don't speak to the dead. And I'm like, Jesus talked to the dead all the time. You know, Jesus, he did the transfiguration where, you know, Moses and Elijah were there with them. You know, so when, you know, Jesus, he raised Lazarus, he raised several people from from the quote dead. So this idea that we shouldn't consult with mediums and stuff is just again, it's a matter of control. It's it's go through us. That's true. That's true. And if I if I can, people in a number of interviews that I've had, people say, well, your grandmother received my grandmother would receive sermons dictated to her mind and thought and even verses to songs. And in the book in volume one in the photo gallery, there is there are six verses that that Mary, my mother's mother received lying in a hospital in Columbus. No, I didn't think she was going to make it. And she was in a room by herself. She was praying. And these words, verses to a song came into her mind. She had pencil and paper on a nightstand. My sister who lives and just below Monroe, she still has the original paper where Mary wrote this in pencil at a longer nightstand in the hospital. And those six verses will almost bring you to tears. Okay. But I've had people say, well, your grandmother received your mother received, they said, do you receive? And I said, yes, I said, I've been spoken to repeatedly. And when I was first looking for a publisher, I was on a number of different publisher websites. One of the websites asked questions about your work. One of the questions was, what makes your material unique? Why would anyone want to read this? Yeah, great question. And I was sitting where I'm sitting right now at my computer. I didn't really even ask for an answer. I just relaxed my mind. And an answer started to be dictated to my mind. It was 12 lines long. When it got to the end, it just stopped. May I share this answer with you and your audience? Yeah, boys. So the question was, what makes your material unique? And this is the answer that I was given. The uniqueness of any material is in the manner in which it touches the soul. And open and searching mind pulls the soul and the body in which it inhabits onward and upward with hunger and determination in its quest for spiritual nourishment. Ever mindful that the path upon which we walk is the path toward God. Lives lived, experiences endured, goals accomplished and loved ones lost are all encounters upon that path. Strive always for the highest possible communication with our heavenly Father. Believe in yourself as the Father within you is guiding, leading, directing and comforting you upon this journey that we call life. Blessings be upon you as you walk your chosen pathway. Wow. Wow. That was not me. Yeah. That was not me. Yeah. So so Michael, for people that are listening that might say, I mean, we've talked about it, that we can learn or we can open up our ability to receive these messages. What advice would you have for someone that's going, how do I start receiving? Well, just have the confidence and that affirmation, whatever affirmation you choose, establish that filter protection protection around your thought system. Know that you are a positive person and that you will only receive positive information. Yeah. And, you know, start out small. I mean, we have our own spirit guide, spirit teachers, recognize information and thoughts that will come into your mind that just come into your mind when you're not even thinking about anything. You know, I wouldn't buy that car if I were you. I wouldn't go out with that person if I were you and or I've received thoughts, you know, I'd slow down up ahead if I were you and you find out that you're approaching an intersection and you didn't get hit by that dump truck that ran the red light or I've been on the freeway. I'd slow down a bit ahead if I were you and you just lift off the gas a bit. I'm an aggressive driver and you top a rise in the freeway and there sits a state highway patrol. Yeah. And that's the way it works. And I mean, we still have free will that pesky little gift called free will and we can choose to accept or reject any advice, guidance, direction, or support that we're given. Right. And then test the spirit, you know, the Bible says test the spirit, the Bible, the spirit guide, spirit teachers, they don't mind taking a quiz. Yeah. You know, feel free to, to test their information and advice. And we have a choice. We can, we can be advised to do something or not do something and we can follow their advice or we can go with our own gut instinct and then see what works out for the best. You'll find out that most of the time, if not always, they were right. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you're right. I think we, we all have that. Well, the thing is, I know we all have that. I think there's a lot of thoughts that are coming through us that we don't realize are not our own. And once you start to fine tune your, your sensitivity and understand that you have spirit guides and you have a higher self, et cetera, you can start to maybe differentiate a little bit, um, and really start to trust what you've already been getting. Like you said, we, we all have that gut instinct that says, I don't know why, but I don't really feel like this is the right thing to do right now. You know, I'm not going to go to that event or I am going to do this. And then it turns out to be a pivotal point in our life. Um, so what I hear is like, have more confidence and more, more, uh, reaching out, you can ask for help. Right. And be open to it. Yeah. But establish the filter and life is distracting. You know, we all have so many things that we're dealing with. Emotions are distracting. People take offense. That's distracting. Yeah. There's just so many things in this existence, in this physical existence. And I tell people earth may be a punishment planet. You know, we don't know why we're here and you know, we exist in this physical vehicle. I tell people, there is no death. We never really die. It's just graduation. Yeah. We ride around in these bodies, the way we ride in that round in our cars. These bodies are just a vehicle to negotiate this physical plane. And when we graduate, you know, when our body wears out, you know, we may step out of our body, glance back, say, thanks for the ride. You served me well. And they will move on to, to, uh, into the spiritual realm to what an evaluation center where we get to take a look at how we lived our life, what we could have done better, how we treated people and then what move on to the next assignment. Yeah. And if you're open to that, you're open to reincarnation. Yeah. Well, and speaking of reincarnation, we're going to touch on this right here at the very end. Again, a lot of times what Christians will teach, well, we don't believe in reincarnation because that's not biblical. First of all, a lot of that was stripped out of the Bible intentionally in like around the year 500 because they said we don't want people to realize they might have more than one chance because again, we have that control thing. And also, if you study the early church fathers, they did believe in things like reincarnation. So some of the stuff we've been handed is not even true going back to biblical days. Right. I agree. And to think there was a number of years ago, I knew a lady, she was Baptist, extremely religious, went to church every Sunday and Wednesday evening, carried a Bible with her everywhere she went. She had a son that was constantly getting into trouble. From the time he was 14 till he was 28, the money that that her and her husband spent on attorneys and fines and court appearances. It was just just a real hardship on her. And she knew the spiritual information that I was involved in and what my thoughts were. And that she knew that she was going to heaven because she was a good person. Right. And she knew that definitely hell was real. And I asked her one time, I said, is there anything that your son could do, anything at all, that would cause you to want to not give him another chance? Right. And she just put her head down and said, no. Right. And I said, what makes you think God loves us, loves us any less? Yeah. I said, do you really believe that based upon this blink of an eye existence, that we're going to spend all eternity with in damnation and punishment with no chance for a reprieve, no chance for a do over because we were stupid, because we had bad friends, bad parents that made bad choices. I mean, it just doesn't really even make any sense that we would suffer eternal punishment just for this one existence. Yeah. Yeah. And not be given another chance. Yeah. And what you just said, I realized, I mean, I knew it was wrong the whole time, but when my daughter was born, my first daughter, I looked at her and I had that same thought. It's like, is there anything that she could do that would make me torment her for even a moment? And the answer is absolutely not, let alone for an eternity. And I think people really think that through when they say that they believe in that. I just I don't see how any any thinking caring person could really think that through and say that they believe it's true. But that is what the Bible, you know, that's what the church teaches the church. And the people are caught up in in the almost the rules of the faith that just came into my mind. There are rules to to the Christian faith. Right. One of them is you must believe in heaven and hell, and you can't deviate from that. Right. Right. There is, like I said, for people who are movie people, I I shared the the the the documentary on the Bible. But there is an outstanding movie called Defending Your Life. Have you ever seen that movie? Yeah, I have with Albert Brooks and Meryl Street. It's a great movie. Yeah. The true story about what really happens when you die. Yeah, it is. It is a great movie. And there's there's a lot of there's a lot of good stuff in the movies that really that I believe is channeled. And that one and another one is called Always with Richard Dreyfuss and Holly Hunter. Have you ever seen that? I think I've seen that one. It's a similar theme. Yeah. About the two firefighters that fight force fires with, you know, they're they're dropping fire retardant from airplanes. John Goodman's in that one, too. Yeah. Those are both a similar theme. But defending your life is really good. I found that years ago and I have recommended that for years. Yeah. Well, we're coming to the end of our time, Michael, but I really enjoyed speaking with you today. Is there anything I didn't get a chance to ask you that you'd like to like to share with the audience? No, I think that we've covered it quite a bit. The book itself is available on the website spirit and speaks dot com. Yeah. Barnes and Noble has it in their system. Any Barnes and Noble can order it. Ingram is my national distributor. If people have a small independent bookstore that they deal with, they all deal with Ingram. Okay. And everything it's available on Amazon. Everything's available on Amazon. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I'm looking forward to volume two. And what do you think that'll be out? I don't know. I'm again, I'm trying to find the right fit with the right publisher. Right. And I also offer on my website, spirit speaks dot com. If any of your listeners would go to the contact page, I offer three preview messages from volume two, including the message where the two spirit teachers moved in in the same session. Okay, cool. And if they want to contact me, they can remind, you know, they can tell me that they heard, you know, this on your show. But I will send them three free messages. They're Microsoft word documents. So I recommend to people, I said, when you get these, it's better to open these and print them rather than just read them off your computer monitor. Okay, I tell people, I said, when you're holding these messages in your hand, know that you're holding proof, real proof of the existence of a spiritual realm on the other side of this physical plane. Yeah. Wow. That's a great way to end our time together day. Thanks for doing this with me. Thank you, Brian. I appreciate it. Nice meeting you. All right. Have a good afternoon. Thank you. Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey,