By Brad Steiger
It has been very exciting and gratifying to
receive correspondence from so many individuals who have
experienced their own interactions with a Spirit Teacher
similar to the benevolent being that I described in the
previous issue of Alternate Perceptions. Among the many
reports from readers were two oft-repeated questions:
1. Did the Hooded Entity who “gave” you
Revelation: The Divine Fire ever appear to you again?
2. Were you ever able to converse with him or did
he always place you into an altered state of
consciousness?
Thus far (December 2007) the Hooded Spirit Teacher
has materialized to me on three different occasions, and
on each of those meetings I was allowed to remain
conscious and to participate in meaningful
communication.
In 1982, a little more than ten years after
transmitting The Divine Fire to me, the Spirit Teacher
manifested in my office in Phoenix when I was working
late one evening. At this time I was the editor of a
small publishing company and manager of a recording
studio, producing other people's books and cassette
tapes--while striving to maintain my own career as an
author, lecturer, and paranormal researcher.
Most evenings, after having worked on my duties
for the company from ten to five, I would start work on
my own writing projects. On many nights, I would often
fall asleep at my typewriter--the same faithful 1923
Underwood-- and spend what remained of the night asleep
on the floor beside my desk. Every day, I was forced to
deal with the stresses arising from the financial
problems of the company, the individual temperaments of
the staff, the eccentricity of one of our principal
backers, and the fickle demands of the marketplace.
My Spirit Teacher’s materialization on this
occasion was in sharp contrast to his prior dramatic
arrival in a glowing green orb. I simply looked up from
my work, and he was seated across from me on the other
side of my desk.
He still wore the cowl, but I could distinguish
shadowed male features, a rather prominent nose of the
type commonly called “Roman,” and a salt and
pepper beard. During his prior appearances, his voice (or
the voice I heard) seemed rather androgynous. On this
visit, his voice issued in pleasant, rather deep, male
tones.
The purpose of this visit seemed entirely
focused on helping me to decide what my next move should
be in terms of furthering my career. He had come to help
me evaluate my options.
While the session had begun in my office, we were
suddenly transported to his study, a large room with
heavily laden book shelves set against stone walls. I was
now seated across from his “desk,” a large,
coarse wooden table.
It seemed as though we spoke for many hours, but I
cannot be certain if our meeting occurred in linear or
other dimensional time. Neither can I recall exactly any
nuggets of wisdom to share with others. It was very much
like being caught in a memory pattern, wherein one
recalls the essence of what was said, rather than exact
words.
During the course of our discussion, I was given
to understand that he was a member of an ancient order of
spirit teachers who manifested from time to time to
oversee the fulfillment of certain projects. Since we
humans liked to have names for our acquaintances, I
sensed that he would be comfortable with
“Elijah.”
Sometime before the first light of dawn reached
through the window shades of my office, he had gone, but
he had left me with concepts and information that were
acutely necessary to make an intelligent decision
regarding the dilemma that had faced me prior to his
visit.
Elijah seemed a fitting name for the entity. The
parentage of the biblical prophet Elijah is unknown, as
if he had just somehow materialized in a time of need. It
was said that Elijah could travel from place to place
with such speed that it was as if he traveled in a
whirlwind. And Elijah was said not to have died: He
ascended by fiery chariot. In my cosmology, I could very
much accept the proposition that the Elijah of the Old
Testament was a multidimensional being.
It is clear from an examination of many biblical
references and certain passages from the Dead Sea Scrolls
that Elijah was regarded as a helper, a guide, who would
manifest in time of need. In Matthew 11, Jesus says that
John the Baptist was more than a prophet, he was Elijah.
In Mark 9:11, after Jesus, Peter, James, and John
returned from the Mount after Jesus’
Transfiguration, the other disciples asked if it was true
that Elijah must return again. Jesus answered that Elijah
would return to restore all things. As he hung on the
cross during his crucifixion, observers stated that they
heard Jesus cry out to Elijah.
When I confided in a Rabbi acquaintance of mine
that I had interacted with a being that I considered my
Spirit Teacher and whose name was Elijah, I initiated a
great burst of excitement.
I want to make it very clear that I am in no way
suggesting that the Spirit Teacher who has appeared to me
was the Elijah of the Old Testament, but I do feel that
he does manifest in the Elijah vibration.
A little more than a year later in 1984, the
cowled being came to me at a time when I was truly
undergoing a dark night of the soul and suffering from an
extremely painful blight on my physical body. I had
become covered with painful boils and swellings.
When Elijah appeared that night, he gave me
specific instructions to ingest a certain combinations of
foods, which I protested would be liable to make me feel
even worse.
Rather than scold me for my ingratitude and
ignorance, the entity spoke soothingly and assured me
that I would get well immediately if I but followed his
instructions.
Lying naked on my bed, unable to bear even the
touch of a sheet on my painful sores and boils, it seemed
unlikely to me that I would get well immediately,
regardless of who told me to eat whatever concoction.
That, however, is exactly what happened. I
struggled to my feet, managed to mix the bizarre
combination of ordinary food items, ingest it, and within
two or three hours all traces of the swellings had
vanished from my body. Never to return, I am delighted to
add.
Although he did not manifest in any guise that I
was able to recognize in the next few years, it would
later become clear to me that Elijah had been working
earnestly behind the scenes of my life.
In October of 1986, I received an invitation
from the director of a Holistic research group to attend
an evening lecture. I hadn't given a firm commitment
about whether or not I would attend the event, but since
the metaphysical center was only a short distance from my
apartment, I decided at the last minute to go.
Just before the evening's proceedings were to
begin, an attractive blond lady asked if the seat next to
me was taken. I told her that she was welcome to sit
down. She introduced herself as Mary-Caroline.
After only a few moments, Mary-Caroline turned
to me and told me that she brought me greetings from our
very dear mutual friend, Sherry Hansen.
I had met Sherry only once four years before,
but I had thought her a beautiful and fascinating woman.
My curiosity aroused, I asked if Sherry was in
Phoenix.
Mary-Caroline said that indeed she was.
According to her, she and Sherry took a class together,
and when she mentioned that she would be seeing me that
night at a lecture, Sherry had said to be certain to say
hello to me and to give me her love.
I was suddenly so intrigued to learn that Sherry
was in Phoenix that my normally rational journalist's
mind did not pause to wonder how Mary-Caroline, who was
meeting me for the first time, could possibly have known
that she would see me at the lecture that
evening--especially since I myself had not known until
minutes before the presentation began that I would be
there.
What I did not yet realize is that when
benevolent beings really want to bring someone together
with that special person, they will make it happen.
After the lecture, I returned to my apartment, paged
through the Phoenix telephone book, and found the listing
for Rev. Sherry Hansen. It took me two weeks to muster
the courage to call her, and another three months of
remarkable telephone conversations before I asked her out
on a late-night coffee date.
As we grew to know each other more and began to
share confidences, I told her of my mystical experience
with writing Revelation: The Divine Fire and my
encounters with the Elijah entity. Astonished, Sherry
shared her own experience with Elijah in 1972, which we
ascertained, would have been precisely when I was working
most intensely writing the book.
Sherry had been meditating during a
prayer-healing meeting that was being held in her home
when she was startled by a voice and vision that was so
three-dimensional that she was momentarily confused. In
her vision, two sandaled feet began walking toward her,
and the closer they came, the more distinctly she could
see the edge of a brown, monk-like robe. Then she heard a
voice cry out, “Elijah!” Silence. Then another
call, this time louder: “Elijah!” And a third
call, louder still, a shout: “Elijah!”
The next day it was shown to Sherry how she
might combine her interests and backgrounds in nursing,
healing, the ministry, and counseling. She saw herself
establishing a place of education where one could
understand how the body, mind, and spirit functioned and
interacted. It seemed clear to her that people needed to
perceive the Oneness and the interconnectedness of all of
life, whether it was the relationship of our minds and
bodies to the environment, the planet, or to the
universe. In the early 1980s, Sherry gathered as many as
forty gifted faculty members and established the
Butterfly Center for Transformation in Virginia
Beach.
In the spring of 1987, Sherry and I established
a business and research association. One afternoon, I
received a call from Mary-Caroline who in the interim
months since our initial meeting had been away from
Phoenix, conducting insightful research with dolphins. As
we chatted, I thanked her for connecting me with a good
friend of hers.
Naturally curious, Mary-Caroline asked who.
When I told her Sherry Hansen, there were
several moments of silence. Finally, Mary-Caroline said
that she didn’t think she knew anyone named Sherry
Hansen.
I was stunned. "Of course you do. The night that
we met, you told me that you were bringing me greetings
from our mutual dear friend, Sherry Hansen.”
Mary-Caroline politely repeated that she was certain
that she didn’t know anyone by that name.
I persisted:. "You told me that the two of you
were taking a class together. Sherry asked you to say
hello to me, to give me her love."
Keeping her voice pleasant, Mary-Caroline said,
"Brad, I really do not know anyone named Sherry Hansen,
so I could not have promised her that I would bring you
greetings from her. Secondly, I have taught classes in
the Phoenix area, but I have never taken a class from
anyone in Phoenix."
After I said good-bye to Mary-Caroline, I decided
that I would solve the mystery of why she had denied
knowing Sherry, and I called Sherry at her office.
"I just had a call from your friend
Mary-Caroline," I told her.
"My friend, who?” she asked.
"Mary-Caroline. Don’t tell you don’t
remember. An attractive, tall blond lady. You took a
class with her in Phoenix just a few months ago."
Sherry was firm in her response. "I haven't taken
a class with anyone or from anyone since I've been in
Phoenix."
"Sherry," I said, deciding to admit something that
I never before revealed, “It was because you asked
Mary-Caroline to greet me at the lecture that I even knew
you were in Phoenix. It was because of her relaying your
message and your wishes of love that I called you."
"That is most interesting, Brad,” Sherry
responded, “because I do not know anyone by the name
of Mary-Caroline--and I know nothing about her meeting
you at any lecture!"
And then, for the first time, it became clear to
me. My Spirit Teacher had temporarily
“borrowed” Mary-Caroline’s body and her
consciousness in order to bring Sherry and me
together.
The third time that Elijah appeared to me was in
my apartment in Scottsdale, Arizona in May of 1987. On
this occasion, our meeting was very brief. He stood
looking down at a photograph of Sherry on my nightstand,
then smiled at me and nodded. With a final gesture of
blessing, he disappeared. He had confirmed that Sherry
Hansen was the one with whom I was to carry out the
fruition of my mission on Earth.
It is my conviction that I should never directly
call upon Elijah, nor should I ask him for help or
request his intercession. I heed the admonitions given in
numerous sacred works that advise against seeking to
summon one’s spirit guide as inadvertently creating
the risk of worshipping the being or encouraging undue
reliance upon one’s celestial companion. I am, after
all, supposed to learn how to accomplish my mission on
Earth with as little help as possible from other
dimensional allies. Then, too, there is the danger that
if I should seek to summon him, I could be opening the
portal to an astral masquerader to pose deceptively as
Elijah.
On the other hand, on many occasions, I have been
aware of Elijah’s subtle influence and inspiration
in my life and in my work. And who knows, I may even have
met him again in one of his many guises as I have
continued on my quest. He may have been the strong hand
that reached out from the crowd at an intersection and
pulled me back just in time to avoid being struck by a
speeding taxi. Or he may have been the stranger who
claimed to have been the victim of a pickpocket and
needed just the exact amount of money that I had in my
wallet to buy a bus ticket home to see his wife and
kids.