I'm A Believer...Not.

I didn't question my mother's abilities until she was almost gone. At that point, she'd had some mini strokes and just wasn't up to counseling anyone. She drifted and struggled to convey clear visions, and even had to give the money back or not charge someone, a couple times. I was there, so I heard the end of her career very clearly. It was sad.

I'm nearly 70 now and my religious views have merged with philosophy and experience to the point of—what I consider—healthy skepticism. I don't believe in any religious teachings anymore. Not that I don't see some worthwhile values in them, sometimes. But their mythologies, their justifications for being the "true" religion, are all bunkum. Invented by man, corrupted by man. 

I no longer believe in an afterlife, either. I wish I did. I watch family members cling to this, counting on being together after death or hoping fervently that they will. Any skepticism on their part focuses on the details (streets of gold? mansions? bull!) but leaves open the question of it happening at all.

I've probably said this elsewhere. When I realized that men only gave heaven to themselves, and that none of the biological beings we share life with were allowed to experience an afterlife, I threw up my hands. I've known dogs more worthy than people! I don't want eternity with only human beings. Barf!

I live under the stress of deprivation from my family unit. I saw them twice last year—but with COVID, it will be two years before I see them again. Abby will be on the brink of teenage-hood. I will have missed so much. So I'd love to think we share our afterlife, where I could make up some time. But don't believe that's in the stars.

Speaking of which...I also am very divided on the world of psychics. The only reason I bought into it so wholly was that my mother wasn't faking. I watched her in action. I asked for her counseling and predictions. She sometimes got the info wrong (not me, but someone close to me) but she also got some things right. 

I guess I believe in our innate intuitions. That we can feel how others feel is a trait of empathy. We cry at movies. We laugh at characters in books. Our emotions are stirred so easily. We align with our friends and feel their joy, their pain. We can pick up unsaid feelings. And if we work at it, distance makes no difference. We can "tune in" to how they're doing. We can feel if something is wrong, far away.

I also think, since we are born pattern recognizers, we can blend our intuition with a look down the path and get a sense of what's coming. I use Tarot to reflect back to me what my intuition feels. This process is mostly checking internal signposts, but the intuition can make it predictive.

These are subtle traits, available to all human beings, I believe. My mother worked hard at refining them, and did it for a living for decades. Perhaps she was uniquely gifted at the craft.

But seances, materializations, crystal balls and cards? They're shows and extensions of innate abilities. I don't believe they pierce the veil of death and see into another life. I think, with skill and imagination, they can perceive how someone was in this life. But it is looking back across time. It's not speaking to the current life force. They're dead.

Mother used to say the key to success in her field was the ability to translate what she was seeing, feeling. I think that's true. I think many psychics are vague about what they perceive because they don't bother to impose a translation. So their info is largely emotional and useless. Mother's was practical and concrete, at least as much as a shrink's would be. 

So. I'm extremely skeptical, even dismissive, about religion. And I no longer accept that psychics have special access to the dead. We can all glimpse our futures, darkly, briefly, vaguely—but whether that future will hold or not is still a question. Better to live out our days. Chart our course by what we feel is right for us and looks the brightest. It's the best we can do. Astrologers are vague and mutable. Psychic predictions change over time (Trump will definitely win! Trump will definitely lose!)

My mother was an authentic something. But what, I'm not sure. I cared way too much for her insight, and it was often manipulative. Losing it was leaving behind a dependency. It was growing up.

There is less consolation without religion and an afterlife. I'm often more keenly aware of my finite existence. But I can't go back to bullshit.