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The
Journal of Alan Howard
Monday - 22nd
April 2002 -
11pm
Faith lost...
Since Thursday night, I've been fighting the flu, and pretty
much failing. I've had Friday and today off work, and the way
I'm still feeling, I'll probably have tomorrow off as well. It's
horrible. This is probably the worst cold/flu I've had in a long
time.
I was writing to someone today, who asked me to describe my
spirituality. I surprised myself with the following:
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Up until 1991, I was an atheist. Then I
went out with a girl called Katie. She was a Wiccan, and one of
the most wonderful people I've ever met, even to this day. She
was a very powerful Wiccan, and it was through my involvement
with her that I was forced to change my attitude from one of
being a 'sceptical atheist' to one of a 'believing
spiritualist'. Things happened that I couldn't explain, and
things were explained by her which made so much sense to me. I
only knew her for about 3 months before she moved on, but it was
enough to change my entire life around. She had wanted me to
become a Wiccan, a Warlock, saying that I was very powerful and
had all this untapped energy. I, however, wasn't interested in
following a religion. After she left, I researched Wicca and
psychic abilities and spirituality, and I realised that in many
ways, Wicca was a religion which taught psychic abilities. I
chose to follow the path of spirituality though, which was more
about freedom and individuality, rather than the rules and
traditions of Wicca. I wanted to be me, rather than just another
Warlock following just another religion. <smile>
By 1993, my journey into spirituality had brought me into
contact with my spirit guides, and a lot of helpful information.
I decided to use my knowledge and help others, so I started a
spiritual development group which went well for about 6 months,
before I realised that the people within the group were having
trouble applying many concepts of spirituality to their lives,
in ways that could be of benefit to them. I changed it to a
personal development group, as I realised it was more important
to teach them how to handle their physical reality before I
could teach them how to handle their spiritual reality.
It was around this time that I also realised that my ego was
really enjoying this position. Once I realised I was becoming
all egotistical about my role, I took a severe step backwards,
and stopped running the group. Then, my partner at the time left
me, and this was a devastating blow to me, emotionally and
spiritually. I'd been with her for nearly 2 years, and
everything I had felt, learnt and understood had convinced me we
were to be together forever. I spent almost a year and a half
waiting for her to change her mind, but it didn't happen. By
1996, I was forced to move on from my feelings for her. This
experience really damaged my faith in everything that I had
taken for granted, in terms of my spirituality, and what my
guides had related to me. I stopped listening to them. I lost
faith in my ability to hear them, read their words (that I
wrote), and believe what they had to say. I stopped all
spiritual activity.
Instead, I moved on into personal development, but with a
spiritual foundation. I still believe in everything I had been
part of, and everything that I experienced, but I have no
contact any more with my guides or the angel who had been
working with me. No conscious contact, at least. I focused on
personal development, reading books, talking to people, learning
from my life rather than from spirit guides.
Where am I now? I've been aware for a couple years now that I
really should restore the contact. But I've just never gotten
around to it. There's that matter of faith always lingering in
the back of my mind. What if I'm fooling myself? What if
everything that I learnt from my guides was just the delusions
of a misguided egotistical fool? I know that the psychic
experiences I had were real, because they were confirmed by
third parties, but what about everything that my guides told me,
that couldn't be confirmed by others? It was all mine. And the
most important thing they told me was wrong. I know I'm still
not over that. The problem is, if they were wrong on that, they
could have been wrong on everything - everything I 'heard' could
have just been made up by me.
It's been something I haven't dealt with yet.
I know all about choice, and how choice creates different paths
and realities. I know that no future is set in stone, and that
what is real now could be different tomorrow. That's why I
stopped telling people's futures, 'cause I didn't want to be
thought of as a fake if what I saw turned out different or never
happened. (Experiences with that proved it real for me, where I
saw something in people's future and it either never happened or
turned out slightly differently.)
But regardless of what I know about choice, I think I would have
felt better if I'd have had some sort of warning from them.
You're the first person I've actually talked with about this
since it all happened. I've just tried moving on in a different
way, and you're the first person in 8 years to know how much my
faith had been damaged.
So you want to know about my spiritual side? Basically, I know
all about spirituality. I've been part of it, I've helped others
learn about it. But I've avoided it for 8 years now. I call
myself a spiritualist, but I don't practice it. Instead, I
practice being a good person, and doing the best I can with what
I do in this life. Spirituality in my life is my beliefs, and
how I live my life.
When I started this letter, I never thought that it would be
about what I've written above.
I also believe everything happens for a reason, including the
things we write when we never planned it, the people that we
meet, and the things that happen to us.
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What was interesting about all that is that for the past 8
years, it's been something that I was aware of, but never talked
about or really thought about. Believing
in the words of spirit guides and then losing what they had
confirmed would last forever just made me lose faith in the
concept. It made me feel betrayed by the reassurance they
had provided. You see, suddenly there became the
possibility that I hadn't heard them telling me it would be
forever. It was possible - and likely - that I had clouded
my perceptions by what I really wanted to hear, and so their
confirmations were just my own deluded mind helping me believe
what I wanted to believe. It's that which has caused me
the greatest loss of faith in myself.
I wonder if I'll ever talk to them again.
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