An Interview with Catherine Richardson

We first came into contact with Catherine when we reviewed her book The Starfleet Messages - A Galactic Guide to Spiritual Expansion. Very soon it became clear that we had something in common when I came into contact with the very same council she mentions in her book whilst preparing for my Soul Portrait. It was then that I asked Catherine if she would like to tell us a little more about herself and how she came to write the book. Luckily she agreed, so here it is, I hope you enjoy.

Colin.

Colin: You mention a near-death experience led to a profound change in your life. Can you tell us a little more about how this happened?

Catherine: Happy to, Colin. And thank you for the opportunity to share my story and more about my work here in Magic of Being E-Magazine.

I suppose I’ll start at the beginning. . . . I was raised in the Episcopal Church, but much of what I was taught about God and religion stopped making sense to me at an early age. My dearest childhood friend died when I was eight, and much of my faith died with her. I had prayed fervently to God to allow her to survive open heart surgery, and she did not. For me, then, the scripture “Ask and ye shall receive” became a lie. It seemed to me that religion and the idea of a God were concepts that we as a species made up in order to make to make life seem meaningful, much the way parents make up stories of Santa Claus in order to make the holidays feel more magical for their children.

I gradually grew into an ambitious, outgoing, and extremely competitive adult—a typical overachiever. If the totality of my existence was to be this one biological lifetime, I wanted to give it my very best shot. The obvious career for me was practicing law, where I could constantly compete against other attorneys.

In my last months of law school I abruptly developed severe, chronic pain in my jaw, face, and neck as the result of a routine dental procedure. I went from health care professional to health care professional seeking relief. Many promised relief, but their treatments seemed only to worsen the pain. In the past, I had been able to get just about anything I wanted through tenacity, discipline, and sheer force of will; this, however, was something totally new.

Nonetheless, I graduated magna cum laude and accepted a job in Washington, D.C. with a large, multi-national law firm. By the time I began practicing law, the pain had become excruciating. I felt that life was not worth living while I was in this much pain. I also wanted a quick fix because I wanted to keep my legal career on track. While in severe pain, I was working 12–16 hours a day, seven days a week, and had lost a lot of weight. I was exhausted, and my life seemed out of control; but I was enjoying the rush of the competition, and the challenge of practicing law at a very fast pace and at an intellectually sophisticated level.

When I looked at the big picture, I wasn’t particularly proud of the type of legal work I was doing; I was defending large corporations in employment and labor law disputes. But I doubted whether I would ever be able to force myself to leave what was feeling to me like a rat race to nowhere.

I finally took a medical leave-of-absence, and then travelled around the country in search of a cure. I underwent three surgeries. Each procedure only worsened the pain. I spent a month at the pain clinic at Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles, to no avail. I began to very seriously contemplate suicide. And, although I had initially resisted taking them, the only significant pain relief I obtained was from narcotic pain medications, and benzodiazepines such as Valium. These medications began to affect me in ways I did not realize, and I gradually became gravely addicted to them. I even underwent major abdominal surgery due to their effects. I believed that, without the pain relief the medications provided, I would have no choice but to end my life.

I eventually moved to San Diego, California, for treatment by a specialist who had successfully treated several celebrities for similar pain issues. The treatment, which was extremely expensive and not covered by insurance, did not work out as I had hoped. Ten years after the pain had begun, I was alone in San Diego and living on Social Security Disability. I had almost no contact with family or friends.

For pain relief I was taking morphine, anti-depressants, anti-seizure medications, muscle relaxants, and excessive amounts of Valium. Despite the dramatic alterations these medications caused in my personality and my ability to reason, I looked upon them as my only lifeline. And, of course, I was too drugged to recognize most of the changes they caused in me.

Finally, I completely ran out of money—for food, drugs, or anything for that matter. In the meantime, I was basically starving and undergoing serious drug detoxification. After a few unpleasant weeks, I ended up in the emergency room with a grand mal seizure brought on by Valium withdrawal. Apparently my heart had to be jump-started with a defibrillator in the emergency room.

It was after this near death experience that new and exciting things began showing up in my life. It wasn’t that life suddenly became simple and easy. But I was different, and suddenly able to recognize and benefit from all the new people and new energies around me. I felt different. Even though my life seemed to be an absolute mess, I felt pretty happy. A bird’s singing mesmerized me. Art moved me in a way it never had before. And new information—the proof of something more—was suddenly everywhere.

After the hospital I transferred to a drug-and-alcohol recovery home, where I was assigned to work with a therapist. After a couple of traditional therapy sessions, the therapist and I spent an entire session discussing the existence of God. I didn’t believe in God yet, but I trusted my therapist as she recounted her own remarkable spiritual experiences to me.

After that, our sessions took a new direction. In her office, under her gentle guidance, I was able to observe a new type of energy in the form of small golden orbs and spirals of light that would appear from time to time. She introduced me to muscle testing, pendulum testing, and energetic healing. She began to teach me techniques for identifying issues and transforming them energetically. During one particular session, as we were doing some energy work, the electric fan in her office came on by itself—and it wasn’t even plugged in! I felt like the Universe was shouting at me, “Hey, there is another way to live. There is a way for you to be happy!”

I was still experiencing severe physical pain. One day my therapist began working in my energy field with her hands. She began sort of pulling out the pain by making motions in the air. By the time she had finished, the pain was gone, and I had only an odd sensation where the pain had been. Within several hours the pain returned, presumably because my reasons for having it in my life were still present; however, from this experience I learned that pain, like everything, is just energy, and that it is possible to relieve pain simply through working with energy dynamics.

As I have focused on increasing my spiritual awareness and doing what I really want in life, the pain has lessened over time. When I work with very high frequencies, I don’t even feel it. I now have gratitude for my experience with pain, because it has set me upon this unexpected and deeply fulfilling path.

Along the way I realized that I no longer wanted to return to practicing law. I had changed, and my goals had changed as well. I realized that I wanted to continue to raise my vibration, and to work as a counselor and a healer. I learned more and more about various healing modalities, and began to develop some of my own tools and techniques to assist with transformation. I eventually returned to school to study transpersonal counseling.

Colin: You have a PhD in Transpersonal Counseling, which is quite an unusual subject to study, and quite new on the curriculum I imagine, how did you come to choose this particular course?

Catherine: Well, first let me explain a little more about what transpersonal counseling is. Transpersonal literally means beyond the personal, and transpersonal counseling and psychology incorporate the realm of spirit into the process of helping people to realize their full potential. This philosophy maintains that human beings areboth spiritual and psychological in nature; we are all spiritual beings on a journey of human experience. It isthe spiritual essence which holds the potential for transcendence of the self as currently experienced. Consciousness is a vast, multidimensional existence in which new aspects of being are manifested while on the path to discovering our true spiritual nature.

Transpersonal counseling does not view life as a series of random events that happen for no reason. Events in our lives are rich with purpose and meaning, with the goal of learning about our true essence, and transcending fear and separation to find love and Oneness with the Universe.

Knowing that experiences in our lives have a purpose can help us to get through tough times. From the transpersonal counseling perspective, difficulties that are encountered are not seen as problems to be fixed, but as indications that a greater potential within is unfolding. The intensity of symptoms relates to the intensity of the healing process. The goal of transpersonal counseling is not merely to stop symptoms, but to discover what they have to teach us. These symptoms are pointing the way to healing and growth in our lives.

Transpersonal counseling and transpersonal psychology are perhaps not as new as you might think, Colin. The term transpersonal was first used by philosopher/psychologist William James (younger brother to Henry) during a lecture at Harvard in 1905. James was the first academic to suggest a scientific study of consciousness within the context of evolutionary biology, and was a pioneer in founding the field of parapsychology. He also studied comparative religion, and was likely the first American psychologist to work with Asian meditation instructors. He was also one of the first people to write about the psychology of mystical experiences.

The first actual transpersonal psychiatrist was Carl Jung. Jung studied trance channeling, yoga, Native American spirituality, African shamanism, the I-Ching, alchemy, Gnosticism, and even the UFO phenomenon. Jung studied aspects of conscious experience, mystical disciplines, and other cultures from a psychiatric perspective. He incorporated these into his psychoanalytic theories, as well as into his private practice.

In the last four decades, transpersonal psychology and counseling have grown by leaps and bounds. The respected Journal of Transpersonal Psychology began publication in 1969, and the Association for Transpersonal Psychology was established in 1972. There are now several esteemed universities in the U.S. which specialize in programs in transpersonal psychology, such as the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology in Palo Alto, California; the California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco, California; and Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado. More and more mental health practitioners are specializing in transpersonal psychology, while others are incorporating transpersonal elements into their practices.

When I first began exploring the possibility of becoming a counselor, I quickly realized that the therapist with whom I had worked at the recovery home had practiced transpersonal psychology with me. Before meeting her, I had lived in intense pain, deep anger, and frustration—at my healthcare professionals, at my own body, at myself, and at life in general. I had sunk deeper and deeper into depression. It wasn’t until I started working with a transpersonal therapist that I was ever shown the possibility that something greater might be at play.

It was through working with a transpersonal therapist, through non-conventional means, that I had my first truly mystical experiences—experiences which demonstrated to me the existence of something beyond the observable, physical world. It was also through these experiences that I opened to the possibility of there being more at work in my life than what appeared on the surface. It was the first time anyone had ever suggested that what had happened to me was a good thing—that perhaps practicing law was not exactly following my bliss, and that maybe I had chosen this challenging path in order to discover my spirituality.

Chosen. That was a big word. It implied that I had played a role in all of this, and not necessarily from a place of being at fault. Maybe I and others—healthcare professionals included—had set this up as a way for me to increase my conscious contact with God and to discover my truest, highest path. As my therapist demonstrated her unshakeable faith that all of my pain, suffering, and stumbling along the way had contributed to my becoming an emergent spiritual being, I began to feel this faith as well.

What liberating ideas these were! And I felt the truth of them! Instead of being trapped in bitterness about the past, I became grateful for my experiences. And because my experience with transpersonal therapy was so profound, I absolutely vibrated with joy at the idea of playing the role of transpersonal counselor to others—guiding and supporting them on their own unique spiritual journeys. I still cannot imagine a more important or rewarding path for myself.

Colin: You also utilize ‘sacred geometric flames’ in your practice, is this a technique you have developed yourself? What does it involve?

Catherine: Let me first talk a little about sacred geometry. Each and every pattern found in nature conforms to one or more geometric shapes; likewise, the mathematical ratios of geometry are integral to music, physics, art, architecture, and cosmology. Sacred geometry is an ancient science that explores the geometric patterns that create and unify all that is. Sacred geometry has been described as the blueprint of creation and the genesis of all form. According to Plato, "Geometry existed before creation." For centuries, people have studied and meditated upon sacred geometry as a pathway to enlightenment. June Elleni-Laine, whom you featured in the Magic of Being, discusses this to some extent in her new book, Mandala: The Art of Creating Future.

A colleague and I developed Sacred Geometric Flames on the heels of her attendance at a workshop on Marie Diamond’s Tubes of Light. The workshop was facilitated by Norma Feldman. Tubes of Light involves visualizing light of various colors filling tubes surrounding the body and energy field.

Ms. Feldman referred to the colored light as a flame, and explained that the each flame brings in a distinctive and divine frequency, depending upon the specific flame’s color. For example, the royal blue flame was described as the flame of Divine Will, while the golden yellow flame is Divine Wisdom. My colleague brought home a list of twenty-four such flames from the workshop.

A number of other metaphysical teachers and practitioners, such as Patricia Cota-Robles, invoke flames in their work as well. I am certain that many readers are familiar with, for example, the Violet Flame of St. Germaine.

Anyhow, when my colleague and I started using the Tubes of Light technique on ourselves and in groups, the energy didn’t feel quite right to us. I believe it is a very effective technique, but that my colleague and I simply were meant to take this information in a new direction. We began to use these flames in creative ways—at first visualizing spinning orbs of the various colors in our chakras, and then in spinning geometric shapes of increasing complexity, both in our chakras and around our energy fields. My colleague began channeling additional flames from Spirit, and I soon followed suit.

As I used this evolving technique on myself, I was able to reach some of the most blissful states I have ever experienced—within a matter of seconds. The absolute power of Sacred Geometric Flames was impossible to ignore. I used them in order to perform powerful transformations, healings, and DNA upgrades. I also began to understand a little more about how they work. Each flame carries distinct frequencies for addressing specific issues or invoking specialized and supportive energies. The lines, planes, and curves of geometric shapes serve to further refine, enhance, and direct these frequencies where they are needed most.

I currently work with over 500 flames and dozens of geometries, all channeled by my colleague and I. These are remarkably effective tools for transforming and transmuting energy blockages and traumas, as well as for creating optimal conditions for forward movement and spiritual growth. And they just plain feel good.

If you’d like to learn more about this technique, you can contact me at www.TruthJoyLove.com, or the co-creator, Lumenaria Goyer, at www.AwakenUnity.com.

Colin: One area I find particularly interesting is where you use Intuitive Channelling to help people. When did you first start having ‘conversations’ with spirit guides and light beings?

Catherine: Around the time I started working with the transpersonal therapist, the therapist herself began channeling for the first time. This was a person who was not given to imitating the accents of other people or any other type of “actress-y” behavior. So when she would occasionally start speaking in strange voices and accents—sometimes even in foreign languages—I really felt as if what I was witnessing was authentic. If I hadn’t been introduced to channeling in quite this way, I might never have believed that it was real.

I also have to say that, even though I thought that my therapist’s channeling was authentic, I still found some of the accents and voices to be quite humorous. There was one particular entity who sounded like the Martian character on the Looney Tunes cartoons. I couldn’t help snickering a little. Fortunately, I have found Spirit to be difficult to offend.

I also knew almost immediately that channeling was something I wanted to be able to do. I had already begun meditating on a daily basis, and it was through this practice that I began to “hear” my first messages. At first I would ask a simple question at the beginning of a meditation session. During the meditation I would receive a one or two word answer. These messages gradually expanded into longer and longer messages, sometimes in the form of rather beautiful but somewhat cryptic poetry. The more I meditated and remained open to receiving information, the clearer the messages became.

Thus far, I do not trance channel—meaning I do not go into a trance or lose my conscious awareness while something else speaks though me. Often I just sort of hear the information in my thoughts and then I repeat it. Sometimes I do find myself saying the words aloud rather than merely hearing them; but I never feel myself leave while other entities take complete control of my body. I am always conscious of what is happening.

Colin: In your book ‘The Starfleet Messages’ you encounter the Galactic Frequency Council who have a compelling message for us all, can you explain a little more about how this came about?

Catherine: I began to be contacted in the early summer of 2006 by the Galactic Frequency Council. In contrast to my earlier channelings, the messages from the Council were specific, technical, and very easy for me to hear. I didn’t consciously understand the meaning of everything I was being told, but I felt the expansive energy of it.

Later the same year, the Council told me that I was going to write a book with them. I was excited. I enjoyed writing, and had hoped to pen a book at some point in my life. I assumed that the book the Council spoke of would be about my own experiences, perhaps interspersed with some of the Council’s messages. I never imagined that they would channel the entire book to me. Looking back, however, I must say that this is by far the easiest way to produce a book that I can imagine. Many channeled books are a collection of channels arranged by the author/channel or an editor into a logical sequence. This book, however, was given to me chapter by chapter, more or less in chronological order, complete with chapter titles. Aside from some very minor editing, this is pretty much the form in which it was given to me.

Colin: During the making of my Soul Portrait I came across the Galactic Frequency Council myself, which I found quite amazing. I asked myself if this was an overactive imagination on my part (having just read your book) but the energy and the love that I experienced from the Council, then and now, is very real and tangible. Do you keep in contact with them or has that phase finished for you now?

Catherine: I am so glad that they paid you a visit! They do have a very supportive, loving vibration. In The Starfleet Messages, the Council states that they hope to use the book as a tool through which to connect and directly communicate with more and more people. Looks like it’s happening already! I fully expect other folks to begin channeling them as well.

And yes, I do keep in contact with them, Colin. In fact, we have already begun a second book. Furthermore, Sedona Journal of Emergence! has begun publishing the Galactic Frequency Council, so we have to get to work on more messages. (I mean, if you can call it “work.”)

Colin: What projects are your involved in now?

Catherine: I'm traveling to Las Vegas on September 26th to be a guest on the monthly Virtual Light Broadcast at Lighworker.com. In addition, I am doing radio interviews, channeling for groups, channeling a second book, and developing a workshop of Energy Psychology "mini-techniques" for rapidly healing emotional trauma. I also teach a workshop on pendulum testing from time to time. In my spare time I like to get to the beach as much as possible. 

Colin: Thank you Catherine for such an ‘enlightening’ interview, it has been such a pleasure talking with you.