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I Am Who I Was
Who I Will Be
by
Michael Guarino
The content of "Imagine That" is pulled from a lifelong journal of dreams, meditations and psychic experiences. I could never surrender to the idea that identity is bound by time, or that personality is void of mystical or metaphysical influence. In creating the book I realized that I could not separate my homosexual orientation toward life from my spiritual curiosity and psychic development. I also discovered that I could not relate to an age based identity when looking for meaning in psychic experience. Psychic experiences are continuous, connected and interrelated. The only thing that changes over time is the meaning one attaches to these experiences, as one's understanding of truth is ever evolving.
Looking back on my journal of psychic experiences and dreams, I noticed trends and a very definitive process. From these observations I created experiments so that I could revisit and even continue psychic experiences. The experiments are included in the book, along with an evolving creed or set or beliefs on a number of spiritual topics. The reader is presented with a process to experiment, explore and challenge these beliefs, and establish their own evolving creed.
One of the truths that I delve into in the book is the truth about death. What really happens when a person dies? In the past 10 years I lost my partner of 23 years, as well as my mother and father. Although these individuals no longer have bodies and live in the material world, their personalities and their influence continue. In the book I share my personal experience, and compare it to what I have read and studied about the afterlife, and the astral and cosmic planes. In the process I discover that truth is relative to the information and experience the self has acquired. What is true for one individual may not be true for another, and what one individual believes is true today may no longer be true for the same individual tomorrow.
When I was 15 I discovered spiritualism and conducted séances. I thought I had the answers to my early questions about what happens to people when they pass on. After years of inquiry and study about the psychic body, I came to understand that what I thought was true was misleading. My knowledge opened a door to new experience and understanding that was far different from my earlier experiments with the spiritualists. All of these truths morphed again when I lost my father, then my partner of many years, and then my mother. In the book I tell these stories, and explain how my understanding of truth about the afterlife evolves.
Each of us have mentors and teachers us who inspire and sometimes guide us. One of my teachers is a 19th century gay activist, mystic and social reformer. His name is Edward Carpenter and he has been a major influence in my life since I was in my teens. Many of the stories in the book are dialogues with personifications of this influential man. The dialogues are about the nature of being, the nature of energy, and the levels or degrees of consciousness. Also included are dialogues about past lives, karma, and the metaphysical and spiritual components of personality.
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