For years I’ve pondered the question of so-called “spirit guides,” which go under various designations of helpers, “angels,” or teachers. It’s a favorite New Age topic with reams of speculation. But in my daily experience, as I’ve encountered challenges and have paid attention to synchronicities, I’ve concluded that the basic concept—that each incarnated person has a guide of sorts—may well be a universal truth, part of the cycle, omnipresent, but invisible.
I’m convinced that I have a guide, or guides, of a sort. Over the years of my life I’ve had enough “interventions” when something, or someone, stepped in to fix a blunder I had made or prod me in a different direction. Still, I’ve never seen or heard my guide or know who they are. Their work is subtle, and if you don’t usually pay attention to these sorts of experiences, you will miss them.
With these caveats, here’s my speculation on spirits guides, accumulated from years of observation and research.
*Guides exist to ensure that we follow our life plan. I think that’s their primary duty. It’s not to give us everything we want or tell us every answer, but to make sure we stay (roughly) on our designated path. This obviously causes some frustration with people who think that it’s the duty of “God” or various spiritual entities to bend reality to our pleasing. Books have been written to explain why prayers are not answered or why bad things happen. But it’s not a guide’s job to give us what we want; it’s to make sure we learn from what we get.
I believe that a guide intervened almost thirty years ago when, seemingly stuck in a job and wanting change, I drove to a local park and “meditated” for a new job. A week or so later I received a call out of the blue from a supervisor that I vaguely knew, asking me to work for him. He had been struggling to fill a vacancy for weeks when my name suddenly popped into his head (his words).
Per Michael Newton: “Guides assigned to different souls do work together relaying urgent mental messages for each other. People unable to help themselves in critical situations may find counselors, friends, and even strangers coming to their aid at just the right moment.” (Journey of Souls: Case Studies of Life Between Lives)
*We likely interact with a range of spirit beings throughout life, and guides are only one specialization. Since I have no working knowledge of the spirit world, I have no idea who these beings are or what they do, though I’ve seen evidence that they intervene. However, guides are probably our more regular contacts and also the least obtrusive.
I’ve read reports that non-physical beings have appeared to people during times of crisis or in emergencies, providing aid, and then vanishing. Probably these are beings who have been alerted to a person’s predicament, or are otherwise monitoring our lives. These interventions may be by guides or other entities. It doesn’t happen frequently or regularly, but it does happen. Why are some people helped sometimes, but most people are not? The answer is probably unknowable on our level, but it may come back to the life plans of those involved. Unplanned things happen, and some accidents can have far-reaching ramifications that aren’t easy to fix. The most vivid example of this is the near-death experience, where a potential death is prevented because the timing is wrong. Spirit interventions are often witnessed during efforts to prevent a premature death.
*Guides appear to influence us by seeding ideas and alternatives to our problems and challenges, working within the range of probabilities to find the “best” solution—and they do so by making it appear that we thought of it ourselves. One of the “rules” of guidance that I’ve noticed is that any help or influence has to be unobtrusive, and not appear to be from an external source. (In other words, “I thought of it!”) This requires a certain finesse on the part of the guide.
My experience: When I’m confronted by an problem with no obvious solution, I let it rest. A few days later, a possible solution will pop into my head, seemingly out of nowhere, one that I hadn’t really considered. How do I know that the idea is from a guide, and not my subconscious mind? I don’t know, and that’s apparently part of the game. Occasionally, however, the solution is so novel and original that I strongly doubt that “I” thought of it, even though the thoughts were generated by my neurons—mostly because I’m very process-oriented and keep a narrow focus. During my IT years, this bailed me out of literally hundreds, if not a thousand or so messes.
Michael Newton: “During troublesome times in our lives, we have the tendency to ask for guidance to immediately set things right. When they are in trance, my clients see that their guides don't help them solve all their problems at once, rather they illuminate pathways by the use of clues.”
How often does this happen? I would go so far as to say daily, if we seek it out. While pondering a series of choices, I leave myself open for ideas and alternatives rather than jumping at the most obvious choice. I find myself deciding to take an action hours, even days later than I planned, of going to one store and avoiding another. Is this simply neurotic behavior on my part (something I’ve never denied) rather than some imagined cosmic influence? It is true that my anxiety quotient is probably diagnosable, but paradoxically I’ve been able to navigate all of my imagined dangers by following this inner guidance.
*Guides offer, but we’re free to reject. Although it’s always a good policy to accept any spiritual help offered, we don’t have to. We learn from any mistakes. We have the option of disconnecting from spiritual guidance for periods of time, or even for an entire life. What usually happens when we do is that we spin our wheels, make unnecessary mistakes, and waste time in our learning process. We have to make up for this in our allotted time remaining.
Guidance doesn’t end when we are “disconnected”—we just aren’t aware of it, and our guides have to work harder to get their information across—at least, this has been my experience, as I went through agnostic phases years ago. We still have a life plan, with commitments, agreements, and learning modules, whether we acknowledge it or not.
Newton: “Our teachers really don't get perturbed with us to the point of alienation, but I notice they have a way of making themselves scarce when disgruntled students avoid real problem-solving. Guides only want the best for us and sometimes this means they must watch us endure much pain to reach certain objectives. Guides cannot assist in our progress until we are ready to make the necessary changes in order to take full advantage of life's opportunities.” (Journey of Souls)
Help is always proffered in a way that we are free to choose. The choice is always ours to make. This limits the nature of help that we get. We are presented with the best available information from which we make our choice, but we still must choose. This is why we are allowed to (or not prevented from) making stupid choices. Which leads to…
*Guides offer suggestions and information, but rarely influence us to take specific paths or give definitive answers to direct questions. We are meant to try different solutions to problems and to find many answers ourselves. To constantly rely on the decisions of others, even a spirit guide, defeats the purpose of living.
