SACREDsouljourns

Ann offers 1:1 and small group sessions by appointment as a medium to connect with and convey messages from those who have transitioned. These sessions are usually donation-based unless travel is involved.   

 

 

My Mediumship Journey 

 

Mediumship has been an evolving journey and gift in this lifetime.  Starting with an early childhood vision of Jesus, it has unfolded through encountering valuable teachers, healers, guides -as I grew older, as well as extra-ordinary energetic and visual experiences.  Learning meditation in the 1970’s was a game changer for me.  I continue to meditate and believe it is perhaps the largest factor that opened me up as a spiritual intuitive and psychic medium  Equally important, however, has been a succession of supportive influences, such as Therapeutic Touch, the Theosophical Society, healer priests, and studying energy medicine and paranormal phenomena as the subject of my doctoral dissertation as a psychologist.  Recent studies with experienced mediums have deepened my abilities so that I can now embrace, understand, and share this innate ability for the benefit of others. 

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Early Beginnings: 

I was raised a Catholic in the Bronx, NY to American Italian parents.  The Bronx neighborhoods afforded me multicultural and multi religious exposure.  We had many different types of Jewish and Christian-based lineages and I was comfortable talking with Rabbi’s, Priests, Nuns, and other religious in our community.  A smorgasbord!

 

As Catholics, my sister and I attended an elementary Roman Catholic school and we were taught not to engage with anything the Church did not approve of.  The mystery schools, which were never mentioned, were definitely off limits. Even reading the Bible was not encouraged, but only the version from Catholic Sunday School was taught to us.

 

Fortunately, as I look back, my mom had to withdraw us from Catholic School as, my father died suddenly at the age of 42 years while at work one afternoon, and my mother was unable to afford the continued high costs of the school.  My father's death was also a huge turning point in my life.  At age seven, I was introduced to the reality of impermanence and spent many years since then meditating upon death and the afterlife.  But, as I entered public school I actually found it to be more freeing and a healthier environment for me to learn without all the strict Catholic rules and religious requirements. 

 

I still don’t understand this entirely or why it occurred:   when I was about 4 or 5 years of age, I had an apparition experience of the child Jesus, AKA the "Infant of Prague". My mother may have thought I had a dream but I know it wasn’t a dream even now to this day that I write this.  Mom didn’t believe me when I told her about it, so I didn’t think I should tell anyone else.  I recall thinking, why is my sister still asleep?  Can’t she see this beautiful intense light?  It was unworldly.  I watched as out of the light came an emanation of the child Jesus who did not speak but I could see it floating in the light and we made eye contact.  The eyes were so deeply loving and I was not fearful.  It stayed a very short time but I recall it vividly and it is still with me powerfully to this day.   Even though I wanted to talk with people about this experience, , given the reaction from my mother, I didn’t feel safe exploring it or sharing it with others until I was much older.  

 

While I have not had any other apparitions of the Infant since that time, I always felt connected to Jesus throughout my life. When I practice Therapeutic Touch, Reiki and other healing modalities,  I feel his presence.  I am sure that because both my parents were fairly religious this has had a bearing on my journey towards the spiritual realm.

 

Influences while an Art Student at Pratt, The Beatles, Meditation:

In the late 1970’s, I was an art student privileged to be accepted to and attend Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, NY.  Artist friends and a boyfriend I was dating at the time were very excited when the Beatles, returning from India, brought back knowledge about meditation they experienced with the now famous guru Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.  We all started meditation with the Transcendental Society (TM) while studying art at Pratt. 

 

Meditation was a game changer for me and I took to it like, "fish to water".   I continue to meditate and have taken many advanced retreats with Eastern and Western teachers and now have over forty years of practice.  Some of these teachers I have listed elsewhere on this site.  With respect to mediumship, meditation has been in large measure, perhaps even the largest factor, contributing to the development of gifts obtained as a spiritual intuitive and psychic medium in that it seems to open one up to many deep subtle levels of possibilities through the meditation portal of going within.  

 

Boston influences, Theosophical Society and Therapeutic Touch:

In the early l980’s, while a graduate student in the Boston area I occasionally attended lectures at the Boston Theosophical Society. While there,  I had met two amazing ladies. We became friends and they invited me to their homes to learn and practice Therapeutic Touch (TT) with a small group of students.  We practiced monthly, developing our skills as energy based healers, dowsing with our hands to notice how and where energy could be stuck or unbalanced. We learned the importance of intention and centering. This was before, at least in the Boston area, Reiki became popular.

 

TT was a secular form of laying-on of hands utilizing “universal energy” and it appealed to me.  In this group we studied the teachings of a Nurse Healer, Dolores Krieger, PhD, RN, and a gifted clairvoyant Dora Kunz who had co-founded The Therapeutic Touch organization. Dolores or “Dee” as she is called by her following, taught this healing modality to her nursing students at NY University and authored several books and studies, mentored many research projects and established a foundation which today still continues her work with credible research.  I have continued to practice TT monthly with a group, taking workshops and have achieved a “Q” or Qualified TT Practitioner status.  I am mentored by Sylvia Weber, PCNS, RN and TTTP (Therapeutic Touch Teacher) as well as other TT teachers over the years.  

 

Influences Continue: Seeking and Finding Blessings:

Looking back, I learned at the Theosophical Society that I was a spiritual seeker and healer. I often attended the Vedanta society too and listened to talks at the Hebrew Institute.  I started reading the Old and New Testament and I became intrigued by the Mystery School “esoteric” teachings while there, as I had not been exposed to these teachings as a Roman Catholic. 

 

While studying Psychiatric Rehabilitation in a Masters program at the Sargent College of Boston University (BU), the Theosophical center was located nearby.  I would find myself taking classes on weekends and evenings when interesting speakers would come.  Eventually I became a member there and met many people.  I was fortunate to meet folks interested in subjects such as the Gnostic Gospels, extraterrestrial encounters, and mediumship.   I guess I was intrigued by it all.  I started taking an interest in working with energy healing through my new friends and read some books popular at the time: books written about trance medium Edgar Cayce, books by the medical intuitive author and former NASA physicist Barbara Brennan, by Caroline Myss,Ph.D. and many others.  

 

In addition to all of the above, I had a, literally, eye opening experience (likely the “third eye” in hind-sight.)  It occurred when I was living in a neighborhood where a famous healer priest would often come to performed faith healing services at St Patrick’s Church in Cambridge.  I wasn’t a believer in this type of healing, but at one point, as a member of the choir, I was asked to sit for a healing. As soon as Father Edward McDonough, C.Ss.R touched my shoulders, my entire body felt like it was vibrating very powerfully.  At the same time, an image appeared in my forehead and was transmitted to my inner eye, an image of a luminous woman dressed in a white head scarf and blue and white tunic.  I believe this was life-changing and literally opened my eyes.  Afterwards I wrote a letter to this priest about my experiences.  I learned from others in the church ministry that Father McDonough had a very special devotion to Mary, Jesus’ mother, but at the time that I had the experience I did not know this. That was my first experience of a powerful energetic transmission, both visually and sensorially.  Again, I was exposed to something profound that to this day I still ponder and feel in awe of it.

 

Studying energy and faith healing for a Doctorate degree:

As a result of this experience and many others, I was fascinated and felt I was being guided to pay attention and not repress what was unfolding. I wanted to research more of how these experiences were possible. I even attended anointing services with other healing priests who did the “laying-on of hands,” healing services and also a form of healing known as “being slain in the spirit.” With this type of healing,  people actually fall backwards from the force of the “holy spirit” energy coming through the priest.  This actually happened to me totally unexpectedly.  At the time I did not have any expectations for any outcome, but it was to lead me to a research project and Doctorate to explore further what occurred.  I wrote and completed a phenomenological dissertation on the topic including faith healing and universal (TT) energy methods.  My dissertation was accepted by the doctoral panel at my APA accredited professional psychology school (which is now William James College in Massachusetts).  

 

While in my doctoral program, I was pretty hesitant to share my experiences with psychology colleagues.  For many of them parapsychological phenomenon, books and research and anecdotal reporting were not considered credible in the psychology field.  Thank goodness, since that time, more credible research has established findings, even by medical doctors and well know researches so that this has changed somewhat.  

 

More Family Background and Early Messages:

I had three maternal aunts, and a mom, who had who were highly intuitive and likely I inherited some of the abilities from them.  One of my aunts the family used to call, “the witch” because she would know things well in advance.  And, since I inherited from my father his artistic and musical abilities, I never really gave too much thought anything of being naturally extremely visual in receiving messages.  I thought everyone else was this way too, until I learned otherwise in years to come. And I guess I didn’t really know what to do with what I saw or the messages that I had, nor did I have the language to express them to others.  Consequently, I didn’t know how to share them, or was afraid of sharing with most colleagues or to “come-out” even to family and friends as a medium.  I wasn’t yet convinced that this was just in my own mind and being an artistic type, I doubted and thought to myself, maybe it just was my imagination.  

 

Death of a Loved One Brought Me Out of the Shadows of Self-doubt:

As the journey continued, in the course of learning about energy medicine and faith healing, which opened up a whole other conscious awareness portal, I was attracted to and attended several “gallery style” spiritual medium readings with friends.  However I never personally sought readings until years later after the unexpected death of my mom. When my mother died suddenly from a congestive heart event, I was notified while in grand rounds as I was working and interning at a hospital at the time.  I was not there to support her when it happened. She died within twelve minutes in an ambulance on the way to the hospital.   I felt completely helpless. Even though I was running programs to support stroke caregivers, grief and loss support groups and I was a psychotherapist working with catastrophic illness, when death of loved one happened to me so suddenly, I was blown away.  

 

Several months went by after my mom died when I was talking to a friend who told me about a respected and gifted medium.  This is when I decided I would call Cindy Gilman, a medium in my home town, to seek answers and closure about my mother.  Cindy gave me information about my mother and several evidential messages from transitioned friends, family members and others. It was information no one knew but me.  Not even my husband.   It was astonishing, healing and compelled me to research further.   Soon after, and still practicing as a clinical psychologist, I began sending her clients.  Cindy had a particular gift with giving healing messages to people who had lost young children and grandchildren.   Many clients I sent to her gave witness to her mediumship abilities and were grateful to have closure in a way that psychology alone could not achieve for them.  It also further solidified for me that there was more to this mediumship thing than meets the physical senses and scientific perspective.  Even my self-doubts were starting to dissolve, especially when I started giving messages from loved ones to the mediums with whom I became acquainted. 

 

More Confirmation:

There have been so many other truly unexplainable experiences such as these over the years.  Now they all seem like stepping stones for awakening and guidance. 

 

For instance, a number of years after my time in Boston, I recall seeing two native American Indians walking on a road in Sedona Arizona.  They, a male and female, approximately middle aged, were dressed in beautiful Indian clothing.  When I saw them, I was excited to tell my husband who was walking several feet behind me.  I turned around to tell him to look ahead, but when I turned back to where I saw them, they were gone.  I looked all over the area to see if they had gone off to another trail, but there was no evidence of them. I found out later that we were walking in an area where there were many extra-ordinary sightings as the land was rich in Indian sacred burials. That experience really changed my world view and opened me to further transcend my doubts.  I feel blessed that I was able to see these amazing spirits.  

 

Another experience made a deep impression when I attended a public reading by another medium.  “Gallery style” is when a medium will be on a “platform” or stage to do a reading, or sometimes they walk off the platform to folks attending in the audience to whom the mediums are drawn.  This is because the spirit is directing the medium to this person.  Most of these gallery style readings draw large crowds, especially if the medium is a well known person or a TV or radio celebrity .   I never went expecting to be chosen in any crowds.  However, on one occasion it did happen to me, even though I was in the back of a highly attended event.  I was completely taken aback by this experience as it moved me deeply and was an important message given to me by a friend who passed that I wondered a lot about, as well as a spirit guide of mine who made its presence known to the medium that day.

 

Acceptance of what was led me to where I am now:  

I feel all of these experiences, and many others too numerous to explain here, led me to mediumship development.  My studies of energy modalities helped me to understand the subtle human body, which together with meditation and prayer, advanced my awareness and opened portals to understanding how to listen and communicate with spirit.  Then as time went on, there were too many contacts from spirit requesting they give messages to loved ones – I could not ignore this any longer. I received evidential validation from people and teachers to whom I gave messages.  I began to research on my own to understand how this could be happening.  I read several books by respected spiritual mediums and psychics. Additionally, I began to see that I have a responsibility to share the messages I receive with the people they are meant to be given to.    

 

I have now taken steps to work more in depth with certified teachers.  My most recent formal mediumship development training began in 2018 with certified medium Jean Mandeville at the Blue Dragonfly Wellness Center in North Kingstown, RI where we practice different formats of reading messages and where Jean has started with a cofounder the Spiritualist Center called Harmony Circle. I have been a healer as well as messenger there.  In addition, Jean has encouraged me to be a “platform gallery style” practitioner there. As it turns out, when I meditate, when I offer TT and other treatments, such as sound therapy and sometimes Reiki, wherever spirit has been persistent in asking me to share messages, amazing connections have and continue to be made.  

 

Recently, I have offered myself in prayer to be helpful in assisting with criminal investigations of “cold cases”, meaning unsolved cases of murders, abductions and other horrific crimes that leave family members, friends, coworkers, colleagues and other significant others with the burden of unanswered questions, heartaches and pain without their needed closure.  If it is meant to happen, it would be a blessing for me to be able to do this for the greater good of all.  

 

Mary Magdalene and the Divine Feminine Spirit Guides: The Journey Continues:

I want to share that my journey has led me to Mary Magdalene and other divine feminine spirit guides who have blessed me with their wisdom, compassion and support.  I am grateful that I literally felt urgently pulled off a highway in the South of France to find her.  In 2006 my husband and I were taking a ride to visit the Carcassonne area by ourselves and then went to visit the Camargue  and to Sts Marie-de-la-Mer because I read a book about St Sara, revered as a black skinned saint by the Maries, Martha, Lazarus and others landing there on the shores of France with Mary Magdalene. I wanted to see if we could find the church with the St Sara statue, which we did.  Then, as we were driving back to meet our American friends staying in Cap d’Antibes, I noticed the top portion of a large basilica in the distance near St. Maximin.  I felt very strongly compelled to visit there and asked my husband to please take the next exit.  Well, when we found the basilica, much to our amazement, we discovered that it contained the skull and some bones of the Magdalene, according to the Catholic Provencal legends. Her bones were buried in a stone ossuary beneath the ground in front of the church and a basilica was erected to honor her and her remains.  

 

There is much written about this online now.   We were both very shocked and it really took some time for all this to really settle in, but I felt so blessed to have been pulled there to visit.  I had the feeling I must return someday to not only St Maximin and that basilica but to the area where the Cathars lived and to explore the legend further about Mary Magdalene being a healer, yogini and living in the cave for 30 years in Sainte Baume area.  

 

As a result of this trip, I was intrigued to read about the Cathars, a religious sect who were horrifically slaughtered, while their homes and wealth confiscated by the Catholic Pope during the Inquisition and Albigensian Crusades. The Cathars were persecuted for challenging the Catholic church with their Gnostic beliefs. Men, women and children were burned, tortured and slaughtered.   Pope Innocent III called for a full military campaign against the Cathars for their beliefs.  These inquisitions occurred not just in France but also in Northern Italy and many places throughout Europe.  The Cathars were considered heretics for believing that Jesus had a bloodline with Mary Magdalene, and they honored the divine feminine principal. I was intrigued by this possibility. 

 

Sacred Sites in France: St Anne and a Mystical Mediumship Experience:

My husband and I have since returned to those places to celebrate Mary Magdalene's feast day and South of France tour with author and the relic tour guide Paula Lawlor, who is passionate about teaching the Catholic tradition and sharing Mary's journey to Gaul from Palestine ( http://www.magdalenepublishing.org ). We met amazing people in the towns of the South of France and were part of the beautiful procession up to the cave at Saint-Baum (holy cave) and the mass at the church and in the cave to personally honor Mary Magdalene. Paula's website gives many beautiful photos and a great deal of information from the Catholic perspective. For myself, I respect the Canonic gospels, but  feel more drawn to investigating the Gnostic gospels. 

 

While on that trip, I was also blessed to have the experience of visiting St Anne’s tomb in Apt where a mystical mediumship experience occurred while I was praying to her. A spirit visitation appeared for me and it became clear it was for the mother of a family who came to visit the tomb while I was there.  It was the mother’s grandmother who showed me many evidential details which were confirmed when I revealed them to this Welsh woman. As anyone knows, sometimes spirits can be quite persistent and the timing, in my experience, is not predictable. 

 

Prior to my sharing about her grandmother, with whom she had been extremely close as a child and young adult, this woman admitted to me she didn’t believe in life after death. But as her grandmother was persistent in pleading with me to share a message of love to her, reluctantly I asked the woman again if she would like a message from a loved one. Initially she had been suspicious and resisted because she explained to us that she was trained as a medical doctor and basically was a non-believer.  I told her I was trained as a doctor of psychology and I understood!  She then agreed to receive and listen to the message, and as she did tears came to her eyes and she was astonished by her grandmother’s message that I was blessed to transmit to her.  She and her daughter and spouse validated the details relayed from her grandmother and she said it made a deep impression on her that day. 

 

I never met this family ever again, but I have the sense that St. Anne was working with me there to help me gain confidence as well as open this woman to release her doubts.  I remain to this day, grateful to St. Anne who I was named after as my birth date is one day after her feast day.  

 

Back in the USA:  Next steps on the Journey:

My dear friend, Julia Reuger, is an amazing doll artist and painter whom I met on a woman’s artist retreat in Taos, New Mexico. She has since become like a sister to me. It was Julia who introduced me to the talented author and brilliant divine feminine mystic researcher, Kathleen McGowen ) (www.kathleenmcgowen.com).  While talking at the retreat and thereafter, Julia and I shared a love for Mary Magdalene and we both bonded even more.  

 

Immediately I gobbled up Kathleen’s historical fiction mystery, The Expected One and the rest of the trilogy she wrote. Since then, I was fortunate to have a chance to meet Kathleen and be with her and her tribe of followers in her Santa Fe retreats and trips to Malta to sacred feminine sites. On these journeys, I learned a great deal from her, her books and the people she attracts to her retreats and tours. While Kathleen has I great love for Jesus and Christianity, she is open to the Gnostic perspectives and even embraces them.  I feel more drawn to this because it exposes history that the Catholic tradition doesn't share.  

 

While on the retreats and tours, I was even blessed to have channeled her deceased husband who gave me symbols and messages for Kathleen.   I hope to be part of future journeys with Kathleen:  a future trip to the Holy Land is planned as well as to the South of France in 2021 to explore the sites where the Cathars were slaughtered and to pray there for peace for all the souls that were murdered there.  

 

Kathleen's tours tie into the mysteries still surrounding Mary Magdalene’s relationship to Jesus, her critical role as the disciple to the disciples, and the slandering of her reputation through the conflation of her with women of adulterous repute. The latter has resulted in over two thousand years of destruction of her rightful place as Jesus’ most significant confidant, student, and the possibility of a blood line with Mary, whom I now believe was more than a follower and loyal supporter.  Although in 1969 the Catholic Church acknowledged their mistake and now revere her as a saint, she still has not received the justice she rightly deserves as a high priestess and most knowledgeable teacher of Jesus' Book of Love.  

 

What Lies Ahead: Mystery and Willingness to Serve:

While I am in awe of how things have and continue to unfold, I do not know how my work as a medium with play out. Will I serve as a forensic medium or in some other role?  It remains uncertain. I have recently had experiences of people coming through my dreams with full names from cold cases who were likely murdered.  I have to believe I am being guided on a mediumship journey by Mary Magdalene, Jesus, St Anne and other spirit guides.  I trust now that all I have to do is stay ethical, honest and humble and if I am blessed to do this it will reveal itself further to me. 

 

It is my aspiration to embrace, understand, and share this innate ability for the benefit of others.  May we all find peace in the knowledge that we are all loved for the divine beings we all are in our true nature.