Wisdom Notes on Spirituality

My Experiences

The links in the table on the left take you to sub-headings on this page.

b). Contact with the person’s Higher Self
This is the main way of having spiritual contact when the person has been following a spiritual path for a long time. Contact is either symbolic or intuitive. The intuitive connection occurs when we have been studying something deeply, and the intuition leads us to the answer to a present problem. The intuitive contact is the main way that we develop our creativity. I think of it as the higher self juxtaposing together two or three ideas that have been floating around my mind so that the answer seems to pop out of my head. This is the same technique as the association of ideas in psychological therapy. My higher self does not speak to me directly in words.

c). Contact with Spirit Guides
These are human guides and teachers that are not currently living on Earth but are residing in heaven. This is the main way of having spiritual contact for the beginner. The guides offer advice and comfort. Or perhaps the person may become a channel for other sources, such as extra-terrestrials. These contacts use words and language, and can speak to us as though they were right next to us. Contact may also be from angels and these may use symbolic contact, and perhaps language occasionally.

My belief is that neither God nor my higher self uses language and words when making contact. So when someone claims that God has spoken to him, I believe that it was only a spirit guide or perhaps an angel that spoke to him. In all cases, we have to make interpretations about what has occurred to us and to other people.

When the person is not evolved enough to have direct conscious awareness of his or her higher self, then the higher self ’s influence has to come indirectly through the subconscious mind. Then the higher self has to use dreams, intuitions, and coincidences in order to influence the person. Such communications can be hindered by mis-interpretations by the person.

Contact with the higher self is always on the higher self ’s terms. And the means of contact is primarily through intuition, not rationality. Unfortunately, this process of contact has been mis-represented by all religious metaphysicians and mystics. They have all said that rationality is a barrier to spiritual contact. This is not true. The downgrading of rationality allows bias and bigotry to embed themselves in the religious interpretations of reality. The ideal state of mind for the seeker is neither that of an intuitive mystic nor that of a logical positivist; the ideal state is one where we use either intuition or rationality as the situation demands.

Spiritual experiences mainly occur in order to inspire a person so that he can look beyond the sorrow or drudgery of his current situations. Sometimes they inspire faith in the person, or sometimes a sense of wonder about nature’s beauty – these are fairly obvious. Sometimes they open doors to new experiences, but also they sometimes close doors to existing experiences – and these are not always obviously the result of spiritual influences.

I give some illustrations of my spiritual contacts and landmark events and choices that shaped the direction of my life up to 2020. From 2021 to 2025, I spent my quiet time exploring the jhanas of Buddhism - this time is related in my book Landmarks of Spirituality [¹]. Buddhism explores the psychic content of the jhanas, whilst I explored the psychological content of the jhanas.

Early Experiences

1). The first Contact that I can remember
I lived in the Hampshire town of Aldershot when I was around 7 years old. To get to school each morning I had to cross a main road, but since this was around 1951 there were very few cars on the road. One morning, going to school with two or three other children, I reached that road. I looked left and right and did not see any cars. The road looked empty and so I started to walk across it. I felt something on my chest, rather like a hand, and it stopped me. Whilst I was puzzling over this strange phenomenon, a jeep whizzed past me. For some unaccountable reason I had failed to see the jeep when I looked to the right. If I had stepped into the road I would have been hit and killed. So I believe that one of my spirit guides had placed his astral hand on my chest in order to prevent me from stepping in front of the jeep.

2). Closing a Door
My father was a career NCO in the army and so I was expected to follow in his footsteps. When I was 18 years old I applied to join the army by way of the army’s prestigious Welbeck college. This would lead to a training which was the equivalent of a college degree. All went well till the interview came up. At first it went fine, and then the leading questioner asked me what were the qualities of leadership. My mind went blank, and I could not even think of a single idea. After a couple of minutes the questioner went on with other questions, and my mind became functional again. But I knew that I had failed the interview. I was aware that it was my higher self that had blanked my mind. So my higher self closed the door to an army life for me – my life was to go in a different direction.

3). Enlightenment at College
I recount my experience of enlightenment in the next article.

The Attraction of Yoga

4). Alchemy or Yoga
In my late 20s I contemplated the way that I was going to direct my life. My main interest at that time was alchemy, which was a product of my interest in physics and chemistry. Many of the books I read on alchemy treated it as an allegorical tale, that is, it represented the transmutation, or refining, of the person’s character from imperfection to perfection. Whilst this view has some validity, nevertheless it misses out an important feature of alchemy. When materials are refined to a great extent, their properties can change. This is illustrated by the computer – the chips that are the basis of a computer are based on ultra-refined silicon being infused with minute amounts of a different material. The silicon we meet everyday in its most common variety – sand – can never run a computer, but when ultra refined and made into chips it drives the modern world.

What drove my interest in alchemy was that I knew what the metal was that had to be refined. But I did not know what the other ingredients were. However, there was an insuperable problem facing me. The old alchemical texts have to be read in the original language of each author. Translations miss the secret indicators hidden within the text. Since I am not very good at learning foreign languages, I could never hope to master alchemy. So I turned to my backup option and decided to follow yoga.

5). Change of Lifestyle
I was precipitated into the beginnings of my spiritual journey by a specific event. In my late-20s I was squatting in dilapidated houses, houses that had been abandoned and were due eventually for demolition. This lifestyle was one of minimalist possessions for me and incurred very few financial expenses, even though I was living in the middle of London. I often found it exhilarating not being encumbered by materialist trappings.

When I was nearly 30, I was searching another derelict house for anything useful, such as electrical wiring and sockets. All at once my higher self induced an intense feeling of guilt (in self-hate mode) in me [²]. The immediate effect was that I felt a comparison between myself and my surroundings. The derelict state of the house mirrored the derelict state of my mind. I was devastated. Soon afterwards my mother’s divorce became final; it had been traumatic for her and she was full of bitterness towards my father. So I ended my world-weary lifestyle, said goodbye to my friends, and went back to live with my mother, helping her recover from the divorce whilst I too recovered from my own devastation. My higher self had closed the door to my old way of life.

6). Yoga Centre
A few months after I returned to live with my mother, I saw an advertisement for weekend holiday retreats incorporating yoga teachings. On the spur of the moment I booked a weekend retreat, which was held in Lenham, Kent. The yoga centre was run by two Englishmen, Jack Bolton and John Moore, who were disciples of an Indian yoga teacher, swami Dev Murti. Jack was the extrovert and John was the introvert, so they complemented each other.

After the evening meal, Jack gave a talk on any aspects of yoga or theosophy that came to mind. At the first talk, two things happened to me. He talked about reincarnation – I had never heard of this theory before and when he explained it a flash of lightning seemed to go through me. It was a flash of intuition but seemed like lightning, it was so powerful. From that moment onwards I embraced the theory because it offered a complete explanation for the joys, sorrows and trials of life. The next effect was that a little later Jack’s face seemed to change for me – a kind of white halo appeared around his face and head. I immediately accepted it to be a sign from my spirit teachers. From that moment Jack became my teacher and I gradually developed blind faith in him, as well as in the other teacher, John.

Searching

7). My Soul Search
My blind faith lasted for six years. Then on one weekend at the yoga centre I sensed that John hated me. I understand now that this was a mistake on my part. What I realised many years later was that John, like me, was an introvert and so had strong feelings of hatred in the subconscious mind. I had detected John’s subconscious hatred and had thought it meant that it was John’s feeling towards me. Again I went through devastation. My blind faith evaporated and I was left confused. I still felt some attachment to the two men, but now I changed that attachment from follower to friend.

What was I to do now?  Thus began my soul search. Over the next few years I explored various groups that claimed they had the answers to life’s problems. None of them, except the Buddhist society, left any lasting impression on me. In 1985, I felt a strong internal imperative to cut my links with all the groups that interested me. From now on I was on my own. From now on I went my own way on my spiritual journey. This was the prelude to the beginning of my self-analysis (which was a psycho-analysis that I did on my own, without using any therapist to help me), which began rather sporadically around 1987, when I was about 43.

8). The Silent Watcher
How is the reality of the higher self verified?  High states of consciousness cannot be seen in their nature from the outside. Everything is understood only from within. The higher self cannot be seen, but the individual may so attune to the higher self that he can look out at the world through its eyes. This is an experience familiar to many people; it sometimes happens during an extreme personal crisis, when it may be accompanied by psychological distortions such as de-realisation.

My experience of my higher self ’s perception was independent of any crisis situation and therefore I had exceptional clarity of vision. This event happened in June 1984. An alternative description often given is that the ego is observed by a Silent Watcher.

At the time I was reading about Gurdjieff and Ouspensky. What did Ouspensky mean by the phrase “self-remembering”?  Did he mean that the ego could detect the presence of the higher self ?  This idea of self-remembering puzzled me. There was nothing in my experience to which I could relate the concept. So my higher self gave me that experience.

One day, on my way to work, I gradually became aware of another part of my being. There was me, the ego, walking to work, and another part silently watching that ego from what seemed to be a visually higher viewpoint. I could alternate between either viewpoint whenever I chose. The phenomenon lasted about three hours. At work I talked to people, did my work and all my usual routine; yet I could be in either of these viewpoints at any time. If I switched to the ego, then as I carried on my work I was aware of the Silent Watcher observing me. If I switched to the Silent Watcher then I could share its perception of the ego (that is, myself ) and how that ego related to its social situations. At no time did this dual viewpoint cause any inconvenience to me, the ego. The Silent Watcher was neutral and did not judge whatever I did or thought, nor did it advise me in any way. A most curious phenomenon.

The higher self is absorbed in a perpetual contemplation of the ego. The higher self seems to be in a state of complete equanimity. At the time my experience reminded me of the ancient Indian parable of two birds on a tree. One bird was continuously active, hopping from branch to branch and tasting all the various fruits, seeking pleasures and avoiding pains. The second bird, perched on the topmost branch, remained passive, absorbed in the silent observation of the other bird.

9). The Flow of Divine Love
One psychic event that dazzled me occurred when I was about 40, before my psychological explorations began. I was in a psychic development group, and as part of my activity, I tried to imagine being a channel of love whilst I was at work. At that time I was a porter in a hospital, and I imagined channelling love to the patients who I transported to various wards. Then one day it really happened. At work a tremendous current of divine love flowed through me for about a quarter of an hour. I was bemused. All the usual difficulties and irritations of the job disappeared like magic. The experience was never repeated.

Buddhism

10). Buddhist Society and Idealist Philosophy
In the early 1980s, I was a regular visitor to the Buddhist Society’s headquarters in London, where they had a bookshop and library. I read mostly the Pali versions of Buddhist theory, along with some theosophy. On one day, on impulse, I borrowed a book by Paul Brunton, about whom I knew nothing. The book was called The Hidden Teaching Beyond Yoga [³], and was an account of the theory of philosophical idealism – this teaches that reality is just a mental phenomenon, that reality is only an expression of mind. Hence materialism is just a mental product. I had never come across this view before and it amazed me. Over the next few months I read the book several times. I found it so unusual to look at reality this way that it took me about 9 months to understand the theory, and I embraced it totally. Subsequently I realised that there are problems with such a worldview, and eventually I was to form my own version of it. It still dominates my thinking even today.

11). Buddhist Summer School
In 1986 two of my friends were going to a Buddhist summer school and so I decided to go as well. On the second or third day, during morning meditation in my room, I was suddenly transported to the realm of formless space. Buddhist theory divides reality up into two main spheres, that of reality with form and reality without form. The material world we live in is one of the five levels of reality where matter has form (the worlds of form). Beyond the worlds of form lie four ethereal levels without form (the formless worlds). So, in total, reality consists of nine different levels of consciousness, and each level has its own kind of consciousness. Or, more accurately, as a meditator ascends the levels his consciousness gets more and more refined and delicate. One of the formless levels is that of space, without any connotation of time. I have always needed plenty of space in my life; I cannot function well in crowded or restricted spaces or houses. So during the morning meditation I was transported to the level of reality that I most desire, that of endless space. The experience did not last long and was not repeated.

Psychic Influences

12). Shamanism and Totems
Shamanism is the forerunner of all religions. An example of a religion emerging from shamanism is that of early Egypt, in the school of Osiris and Isis. For the spiritual admirer, the important figure here is that of Anubis, the guide of the dead and the guide of initiates. He wears a jackal mask as his symbol, so that the jackal is the totem of Anubis. In England there are no jackals but there are foxes. During my long psycho-analysis, whenever I saw a fox the event usually signified that I had to make some crucial decision, or some significant event was going to happen to me, or some understanding of a deep puzzle was about to be attained. The spiritual tradition that I come from is the Egyptian one, and so Anubis is my inner guide, using a fox as a totem representation of himself. The theme of the Egyptian religion was Man, know thyself – so the religion was a forerunner of modern psycho-analysis.

13). The Shining White Light
In 1988, I had my dream experience of the shining white light, as I recount in the article Beliefs About God and Reality.

Hell on Earth

14). Dark Night of the Soul
Sometime in 1993, when I was about 49 years old, I experienced the greatest level of distress that I have ever gone through. I was relaxing in the bath when I had the distinctive impression that my higher self rejected me. My world collapsed in ruins. I was devastated. Then I became angry. I shook my fist at my higher self. I became determined to go my own way, irrespective of what my higher self thought.

From that moment I hated with all my passion the higher self and God. This hatred lasted, on and off, over twelve years. My spiritual interests evaporated, and to find a way forward I focused exclusively on the pursuit of wisdom. Truth became my watchword. For many years I concentrated on analysing spiritual presentations and ideas in order to discover where misunderstandings and limitations misrepresented spiritual “truths”. Psychology became my tool for doing this. I learned to see where psychology repudiated the validity of various aspects of spiritual ideas.

A lot of spiritual ideas are enshrouded in mythology and symbolism, and not actual truth. I rejected such ideas. My own test of truth became my own experiences of life, and so I had to analyse myself and my subconscious mind just as deeply as I analysed spiritual topics.

15). The Hand of God
Everything changed in 2012, when I experienced devastating punishment from God. I was climbing down a ladder from my loft. I  slipped and fell about four feet to the floor. It was not a great distance but I broke my left heel bone. As I collapsed onto the floor, I damaged my lower back. The physical  pain was horrendous. As I lay on the floor, I knew that the fall was orchestrated by God. It was several months before I could walk normally again. 

The shock and the pain eventually led me into the fetish world of BDSM (bondage, domination, submission, and masochism).  Now I began to explore the psychological nature of dominant/submissive relationships. What I soon realised  is that the nature of such relationships can be generalised to all kinds of relationships, whether political, religious, social, or sexual ones. In most relationships, someone is dominant and someone else is submissive (for example, in a traditional marriage, usually the man is dominant and the woman is submissive). Hence BDSM is simply an extension of all other relationships.

Then once again, in 2020 the year when covid began, my life changed again. My higher self gave me the ability to enter the mental states of jhana. These are high states of mind, and are usually unknown except to students of Indian spirituality. Again I used psychology to analyse these states, and the results are in my book Landmarks of Spirituality [4].

It seems to me that a condition for being able to access high spiritual states is that first the person has to experience low states of hell.
The lower you go into the depths of the mind, the higher you can rebound up to the spiritual heights.

[¹]. See the Introduction for a link to Landmarks of Spirituality. [1]

[²]. Guilt is an emotion. I have three articles on Emotion on the Home page. [2]

[³]. Brunton, Paul. The Hidden Teaching Beyond Yoga. London, Rider and Company, 1941. [3]

[4]. To browse the articles of Landmarks of Spirituality, click here for the Table of Contents. [4]

Copyright © 2026 Ian Heath
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