Broadly speaking, the “Otherworld” is the umbrella term to refer to the energies, planes of existence, and sentient beings that exist beyond the physical world. There is no clear boundary however, as things which many people associate with science- such as magnetic fields and quantum mechanics- connect with the Otherworld and also have a basis in the mundane domain. It is these bridging skills that the subconscious uses as a gateway to activate the spiritual aspects of intuition.

Before doing this it is vital to be aware of the mechanics of intuition that occur in the physical and psychic planes or confusion may happen. I experienced a classic case of this when my wife and I visited a Spiritualist Church in a nearby town. It was a cold day, the church had minimal heating, and I was still a bit achy from martial arts training during the week. As a because of these factors I ended sitting hunched up in bulky clothes, and wearing a baseball cap, at the back of the church. After delivering a few homilies the medium on the stage began to contact the spirit world in order to deliver any messages from departed relatives to people in the audience. “I see an old man in a coat and flat cap, with a walking stick” She informed the audience. There was no reaction to this description. I looked around slowly to see if I could see anything with my peripheral vision. Immediately I became aware of a walking stick belonging to another member of the audience resting on a chair to my immediate right but no impressions of the being the medium said she was seeing.

“He’s looking around the audience now” She continued “He’s very old, wearing a flat cap with a peak. From Yorkshire perhaps?” Slowly it dawned on me that she was seeing me in her peripheral vision, and possibly hallucinating a figure prompted by what she was unconsciously seeing. To check this I nodded minimally. “He’s nodding” said the medium a few seconds later “Does anybody know him? Anyone?” She looked around hopefully, but no-one replied. I quickly took my hat off and that seemed to break the contact as she declared the ‘old man’ gone and moved on to another subject.

This incident showed how important awareness of all the information channels that connect with your intuition. I wonder how often that particular medium had ‘seen’ or felt the presence of a spirit that was actually a hallucination based on someone in the audience she was seeing with her peripheral vision, which is strongly connected to the subconscious. Unless you are familiar with the sensory and psychic channels that are key facets of intuition it is easy to mistake information coming in via these inputs for something from the spiritual realm.

The main channels for spiritual perception are connections with the Etheric and Astral Bodies, and the bioenergetic fields surrounding your physical form. Some people can perceive more of the electromagnetic spectrum than the average person and see the Aura around people along with information encoded in it. I have heard accounts of this - sadly only second or third hand so far - my favourite one being one about a Native American being sensed or perceived as a spiritual guide around a particular person.
Eventually this person met a Witch who had this ability so asked him if he could see their spiritual guide in greater detail. The Witch looked around the person and saw nothing but, when the Witch looked at their Aura, he saw a poster-style picture of a Native American almost as though it was pasted onto the outside of the etheric body. Careful questioning of the person consulting the Witch revealed that at an early age they had been a big fan of stories set in the “Wild West” and one of the first books they read had almost this exact image on the cover. For some reason this picture had had such an impression on the person that it had become imprinted on their aura as a thoughtform. Regarding who could sense, rather than clearly see, the thoughtform they interpreted what they sensed, rather than ask any questions of the person, which is what the Witch did before saying what they saw. Checking what you intuitively perceive is one of the key aspects of discriminating what you are picking up via your intuition and can help you improve your instinctive skills with positive feedback.

As your skills develop you may start to have experiences where time and space are transcended. One of these happened to me when I was messaging a fellow author at Bellaonline in the Western USA when they said they could see a UFO in the sky. They termed it a UFO because it wasn’t moving in a way a fixed wing aircraft or helicopter would. On impulse I found my Mythic Tarot cards, and the first card I drew was the Page of Swords. This card depicts a young man seated on a cloud floating above a mountain range and blowing along another cloud. As I looked at the card I saw in my minds’ eye a vehicle that looked like Thunderbird 2 from the old Gerry Anderson TV show. Except this was a combination of balloon and jet aircraft called a hybrid aircraft. It was very strange both being aware of sitting in my living room in Portsmouth UK, while at the same time apparently being conscious of events over a quarter of a planet away. As I ‘watched’ the craft climbed, hovered, and did a number of other manoeuvres using its’ engines and the air currents and jet stream. I was aware of the crew, a combination of civilian and military people, checking instruments and making observations as they put the craft through its’ paces. Even when I replied back to my friend to say what was happening I was still aware, albeit faintly, of what the craft was doing.

It was a fascinating experience, showing what may be possible when you use intuitive tools to contact the Otherworld and transcend the physical plane. In the next article we will look at a number of techniques which can enable you to become more intuitive on all levels of perception to help you in your daily life and personal development.