What Are Spirit Guides

According to the Wikipedia a ““Spirit guide” is a term used by the Western tradition of Spiritualist Churches, mediums, and psychics to describe an entity that remains a disincarnate spirit in order to act as a guide or protector to a living incarnated human being.”

These entities are not always people who have lived on earth and crossed over to the other side; some live as energy or take the form of light beings otherwise known as angels for which there is a hierarchy of importance and archangels for managerial supervision. Everyone has a guardian angel to help and support them however; they are a different entity from your Spirit Guides.

Various cultures have Spirit guides as part of their faith such as Native Americans, ancient Egyptians or the Tibetans as a source of perceived ancient wisdom, spiritualist churches also recognise spirit guides from these cultures. One of the concepts of the New Age Movement is of ‘being guided’.

Most Common Types of Spirit Guides

• Ascended masters. Those who are of human decent and have no need to reincarnate as they have paid their Karmic debts of wrongdoing in past lifetimes, messages are ‘channeled’ to mediums under deep trance.Ancestral guides. These can be a family member you knew or long dead ancestor who is there to watch over you and help you on your journey and purpose in life.
• Teacher guides. They are with you to give advice or deal with a specific task and then move on. They appear for a specific purpose and take the form relevant to the issues that you are dealing with or need to learn about on your path.
• Lifetime or common guides. As the name suggests they are with you all your life and are always with you to guide you on your path, it hat this is the guide that we are more likely to be able to communicate with.
• Animal guides. Are usually there as companions to give comfort during troubled times rather than give any form of guidance. In Native American culture, a person may have an animal totem to give teaching or protection.

How do these Spirits Guide Us?

• By sending signs. This can be something that makes you stop and look at something, or do something spontaneously. It can also be something with a message that keeps cropping up unusually often in a short space of time.
• Gut feelings. They are the eerie feelings you have in your stomach about people or situations that something is going to happen which needs your attention. These feelings can be positive but they are usually a sign that something negative is going to happen.
• Intuitive insight. These can be flashes of insight with important information, which come into your head out of nowhere telling you to do something or pay attention to a particular issue.
• People suddenly come into your life. Guides sometimes get together and create a chance meeting between two people that are more than just coincidence, this maybe someone new or that you new previously.

How to Connect with Your Spirit Guides?
Some psychics are able to communicate with their guides as a natural talent, for others it is not so easy but here are some tips that may develop your own ability. However, guard against wishful thinking or denial especially over emotional issues.

• Listen to your intuition. That little voice that comes into your head, its your own voice but it tells to do something or suddenly take notice of a situation you were not previously aware of.
• Go with your gut feelings. Try to identify that strange feeling in your stomach that you have about someone or a situation that concerns safety for yourself and others, you are being told something, the hard part is finding out what it is.
• Watch for signs. Look out for anything that suddenly draws your attention, it could be something you hear on the news, read in the newspapers or see in the street that suddenly appear in your life with some kind of connection.
• Write things down. Try writing down some questions to which you would like some guidance then write down answers the answers as they come into your head if they come from outside what you are aware of you could be getting a message.
• Meditation. Some people connect with their guides through meditation; take notice of the things that come into your head when you ask some questions. If you are not sure on how to meditate just relax with some music and clear your mind of any concerns.
• Dreams.  Take notice of your dreams, you may be getting a disguised message that may need analysis from someone experienced in dream interpretation.
• Dowsing. You can dowse with a pendulum and alphabet wheel to connect with spirit, it safer than an Ouija board but need to be careful about picking up something negative. See this article here How to Contact Your Spirit Guides by Pendulum Dowsing
• Consult a psychic. If you consult a psychic then be wary of direct answers or if they tell you what to do, they can however, a good psychic can give you invaluable insight into your situation from which you can make you own decisions.

If we all have Guardian Angels or Spirit Guides, Why do some People do Bad Things.
Not all contact with spirits is positive; if something is having a negative influence on you then it’s not a guide but an entirely different entity that maybe out to cause you distress or lead you astray. There are many who have picked up negative spirits from the Ouija board see the warning here Dangers of the Ouija Board.

Are they for Real?
Some spiritualists do not advocate the concept of spirit guides, as it is dis-empowering and something of a contradiction, if we are being told what to do by something otherworldly it takes away the fundamental concept of free will. While spirits may support us, some spiritualists advise us to stay away from the concept of ‘being guided’ unless there is definite evidence to that effect.

Spirit Guides and Christianity
Christians dismiss the concept of spirit guides altogether, the new age movement argues that this is propaganda to keep the faithful; however, they do give a warning that should be heeded. The Bible refers to ‘familiar spirits’ Leviticus 20:27, NKJV posing as something is helpful but evil in nature. To quote Second Corinthians 11:14-15 ‘Even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. So it is no surprise if his servants, also, disguise themselves as servants of righteousness.’

How do you know if it’s Your Imagination or a Positive Influence?
Does the advice you are getting feel, or sound right, and does it make sense? If you act upon it, do things work out for the better or worse? Irrespective of what you are being told either by your spirit guides or by a psychic, always believe in yourself first and trust your own intuition. If that works for the benefit of yourself and others then you are obviously in tune with life, then you can trust that it is real and it does not matter where the insight comes from.

Trevor Mayes – Owner of the New Age Blog.