Party of Twelve: Post 9/11: Second Edition

Barbara With Sunglasses

Introduction: Barbara With

In 1987, a journey begins that will take me places I never dream possible. Becoming a psychic channel is not on my agenda. And as far as being any kind of spiritual leader not only is it not my bag, but also darn near impossible, since I want to be a rock star.

I’m a musician, and since high school I’ve been performing music all across the country, singing for my supper: sometimes traveling alone to strange towns and performing solo; other times as the girl singer in a rock band. From Iowa to Pennsylvania to Texas and back again, life on the road in the tour bus is as close to heaven as it gets. No matter what the gig, my posse is always there over steak and eggs after the show and during the days to entertain each other until we go back to work the next night.

Music is a passion since I am old enough to remember. At four years old I climb up onto the stool of the old piano my father pounds on daily. An injury he got in Burma in ‘44 damaged his hearing and he bangs that little Betsy Ross Lester spinet like he is going off to war again. Somehow I piece together the relationship between the black and white keys and their correlating sounds. Soon, through the influence of my mother, the church choir director, and my father, the amateur jazz pianist, I am reading music and able to translate those strange notations into songs.

Even at a young age I have my own mind. I look at the sheet music and decide I don’t want to play what I’m told. Knowing the rudimentary structure of chords, I will decide what notes to play, thank you very much—inevitably different from what the sheet music indicates. So begins my career as an arranger.

Along with my piano studies, I hide out in the basement singing into a hairbrush, my make-believe microphone, and imagine I am an international sensation, as I tell myself. Crowds around the world go nuts as we rock out to Heat Wave or weep when I do my special inspirational rendition of You’ll Never Walk Alone. Fueling this passion is a deep longing to flee the abuse I am being subjected to daily in our chaotic household. Why can’t we all just get along?

During these years of childhood I write poetry as well, to relieve stress. Eventually I somehow figure out how to add the music to the poems and at 14 years old I compose my first song, Sailing On a Ship:

We are sailing on a ship

That’s bound for muddy waters but we are together

We’ll guide her clear of reefs and rocks

And we’ll anchor in the harbor of my soul

Kind of heady for a 14-year-old, but honestly, I think little of it. I don’t know any other way to be but a girl who can close her eyes and magically pull music and words out of thin air and form them into a song.

What I don’t know, nor can I imagine, is that the process of writing music is laying the groundwork for allowing Albert Einstein to talk through me.

I know. Now I’m just being nutty. Trust me, it’s insane.

By the time I reach high school, I’m world famous for my music in the foyer where we all gather between classes. Soon I begin recording, learning the ins and outs of multi-tracking and music beds. With my extensive list of originals, I’m playing at parties; people know my songs and have their favorites. Music is more than a pastime; it’s a voice from the deep that releases the pain that lives constantly inside, the pain that drives me to perform, pushing me mercilessly like some really bad momager (when your mom tries to be your business manager). For whatever reason, with every fiber of my being I long to be a rock star.

After high school I’m out the door and on the road. For 15 years, I travel and sing in bands, as a soloist, in duos, trios, quartets, and big bands. I play concerts, weddings, funerals, coffeehouses, dance halls, nightclubs, country clubs, biker bars, gay bars, fine restaurants, street corners, and everything in between. With hundreds of original songs, I long to put out a record like all my singer-songwriter friends on whose albums I’m singing back up. But in 1987, several music awards and a strong regional following later, after years of living my dream of being a rock star, I’m exhausted, broke and hung over.

Coming in off the road tired and discouraged, I’m addicted to a lifestyle that’s killing me. And yet, it’s the only life I know. At the time, my dear friend and mentor Ludlow is in the last stages of throat cancer. In March of that year he finally passes quietly in his sleep.

No one close to me has ever died. The gaping hole of death certainly is deafening and undeniable, but I’m surprised to find gifts amid the devastation of the loss. Death opens a door within and I can’t fool myself, I’ll be headed through that door someday. In my mourning, I see wonders I can’t yet interpret. Imagining passing through that door is a whole new world of possibilities.

Shortly after Ludlow’s death, I am working for my sister in her tiny graphic arts company. At my computer one afternoon, I hear him speaking into my left ear. Startled, I look around the room. Grief still envelops me; I assume this is imagination. But again I hear his voice, clearly telling me that if I think he helped me in life, I’m to watch and be amazed at how he’s going to help me now.

What? Quoi? as Jon Stewart says. How can someone who passed away possibly help me in life now? And where is this voice coming from? Surely I must be hallucinating. Certainly that is not outside the realm of possibility. I am by nature fairly imaginative.

A week or so later, I’m penning a letter to Leslie, my current partner-in-crime. In our tumultuous friendship we rarely sustain harmony for long before another fight breaks out about something. It’s my turn to be self-righteousness, so I’m taking it upon myself to let her know all the things I think she’s doing wrong. That particular day my letter explains how judgmental she is and how bad it is to be that way.

Suddenly in the middle of that sentence there’s a noticeable shift in energy. Something else besides my brain seems to be impelling my hands and I begin writing decidedly more profound information that appears to be addressed to me:

When you make judgments you close off the flow and only a small amount of information can get through. Open up, the universe is waiting for you.

This is clearly not me, nor is it what I intended to say to her. And I can’t believe it’s Ludlow. But I go with the flow and end up writing my first official psychic channeling.

That letter, instead of informing Leslie of all her shortcomings, is a message to me from my guides who claim they are sound and have been working with me my entire life. These sound guides have apparently been waiting for that particular moment to reveal themselves to me. Really. Sound guides? That’s rich.

In high school, Junice McCoy gave me readings and for many years afterward I returned to her for guidance. She did trance channeling: she went into a meditative state and delivered information she said was my higher power speaking through her. So this automatic writing is familiar; I am not surprised by it, rather greatly astonished that I myself am now capable of it. Performing this mysterious act of reaching into the unseen world and bringing back information greater than my conscious mind is aware of in such intricate, intimate detail feels much like song writing.

At this point, Einstein does not announce himself to me. I explain my private readings like Junice did: by saying it’s my higher power allowing the client’s higher power to speak through me. Nor does Einstein show himself years later when in 1993 two clients, Teresa and Kim, join me in a study as we organize groups and channel information. We call ourselves the Psychic Sorority. In that work, the sound guides now want us to call them angels and say they have a specific mission to accomplish with us. We record the sessions and then transcribe them and use the information as kind of a road map into an entirely new perspective.

The angels say they have come here to give us step-by-step instructions for world peace, one person at a time starting with each individual. The six master sessions we record are a step-by-step process of how to inspire ourselves to look within to resolve conflicts that might be present there as a way to influence peace on the planet. Find peace within and it will reflect outwardly in how matter manifests, we are told. The angels work with Teresa, Kim and me as a triad, teaching us to take their information and apply it to the conflicts in our own lives. All along the way, they remind us they are also here to help us make our wildest dreams come true, and encourage us to dream big.

We work together from 1993 to 1998, holding regular groups, triads, and individual sessions. We are told to keep meticulous records, as we are their lab rats. For five years we record, study, and archive our own diaries as a way to lay down the record, like a scientific experiment. Some evenings 25 or 30 of us gather and take in the words of these mysterious angels who seem to have a revolutionary approach to human life.

But just as important as those nights we gather and listen is applying the information to the conflicts amongst the three of us. As you might suspect, there are many. Together, we grope our way through the first initial steps of changing our perspective and responses. Whenever we find ourselves in a fight, we refer back to the instructions. It’s grueling work, but somehow we inspire ourselves to do it.

What helps is the pay-off, the miraculous aha moment that comes every time we do it their way. When we take the time to stop and align ourselves to their perspective, we find the root of the conflict and the resolution to the conflict manifests all on its own. It’s crazy and yet, it makes sense.

Kim, Teresa and I often confirm our gratitude that there are three of us. This way, we each have witnesses because this whole thing is so nutty. This continual stream of steady, profound, and consistent information that comes out of my mouth when I close my eyes and get out of the way taxes our sanity. We often say all we need is a padded cell with a couple computers and a piano, as long as there are three of us. With three there can never be a tie, and when one of us is mad at another, the third holds the peace/piece in the middle with compassion, as per these crazy step-by-step instructions.

Each time we apply the new principles to a conflict, a miracle happens. Quite literally. Step by step, Teresa and Kim heal their relationships with their ex-husbands without the guys even having to participate. I use it on my own anger management issues. Manifestation of our greatest good seems to be tied directly to the resolution of these inner conflicts as per the instructions of the angels.

Also around this time I begin to have extraordinary perceptions of being able to talk to the dead. For the most part, dead people reveal themselves to me as something of a hologram. The best I can say is, I hear a sort of swoosh and it’s as if I see a memory of them in my mind. The hologram of their bodies that appears in my imagination gives them a platform from which to communicate and allows me to see where their gravitational wave is emanating from in the room.

They usually come with a request to help someone they left behind—a child or wife or parent. Ludlow certainly bugs me to help with his son, Luddy. Teresa’s mom sneaks in one night as Teresa is describing how much she misses her. Working in this way, whereby the dead person appears with a message for their loved one, is an amazing, mysterious dance between two worlds. It never ceases to amaze me.

The angels repeatedly urge us, Tell your story and get out of the way. In 1997, we publish first book, Diaries of a Psychic Sorority: Talking with the Angels, the true story of our work in those first few months of bringing this information onto the planet and how it impacted us when we used it on ourselves.

In 1997, the publishing world is beginning to accept self-published authors as something more than vanity presses. James Redfield just became famous by driving around the country selling copies of his book The Celestine Prophecy out of the trunk of his car. After selling 100,000 copies in this fashion, he signed a big deal with Warner Books based on those sales.

After careful consideration, the three of us decide to design, print, and distribute the book ourselves, but also get an agent to shop it to a major house.

Enter Tina and her one-woman literary agency. After a whirlwind trip to Manhattan to meet her, we sign a one-year contract to see if we can really get published. She begins sending Diaries out to her contacts, but no one’s biting. At least we are selling it at events and on the website, thanks to my work to get us online bookstore listings and arrange book signings around the area. So begins my career as a publisher.

After the book is released and our tour is over, we split up and sever our business relationship: Kim goes her way and Teresa and I go ours. It’s just so rock and roll for a band to work for years to achieve recognition and break up after the first hit song.

Teresa and I continue doing world peace one person at a time starting with ourselves in the form of