Have you ever felt a deep, unexplainable connection to a certain time in history or wondered if the challenges you face today have roots in a life you lived long ago? In this profound episode of Supernormalized, CeeJay Barnaby sits down with John Koenig, a seasoned hypnotherapist, past life regression facilitator, and author with decades of experience exploring the mysteries of reincarnation. This conversation is a deep dive into past life exploration, spiritual evolution, and the fascinating idea that our time on Earth is a form of ‘Spirit School’.
John shares how his own journey into past life exploration began with a startlingly vivid experience of being a soldier in the American Revolutionary War. This single event ignited a passion that has since helped countless individuals find healing and understanding. We discuss the incredible benefits of this work, from resolving deep-seated psychological issues that years of traditional therapy couldn’t touch, to completely removing the fear of death by understanding ourselves as eternal souls on a continuous journey of learning. John explains that we, as souls, choose our circumstances to learn specific lessons, and nothing that happens is truly an accident.
Beyond past lives, John introduces his unique creation, the Universal Mind Map Oracle Meditation System, a deck of cards born from a collaboration with AI to distill 64 core principles essential for human evolution. He explains how this system serves as a direct line to divine guidance, offering a curriculum for personal growth that can help you navigate your daily life with greater purpose and clarity. This interview is more than just a discussion; it’s an invitation to look at your life through a new lens, to see every moment as a lesson in Spirit School, and to embrace your own spiritual awakening.
Chapters List
- 00:02 – Meet John Koenig: Hypnotist & Past Life Explorer
- 01:58 – The “Spirit School” Card: What Is Our Purpose?
- 03:36 – Why Are We Here? A Spiritual Perspective on Life
- 05:11 – The Profound Benefits of Past Life Exploration
- 09:23 – The Vivid Experience That Sparked It All
- 12:10 – How to Access Your Own Past Lives
- 14:59 – Are Past Lives Real? Alternative Explanations
- 18:51 – The Universal Mind Map: An Oracle for Your Soul
- 23:31 – Earth’s Role in Our Collective Evolution
- 25:00 – Uncovering Your Soul’s Mission in This Life
- 28:03 – Has Science Already Validated Reincarnation?
- 32:11 – How Creating the Oracle Deck Fueled Personal Growth
- 36:33 – How Psychology Informs Spiritual Coaching
- 40:08 – Powerful Advice for Your Spiritual Awakening
Transcript
CeeJay Barnaby (00:02)
Today on Supernormalize I talk with John Koenig. We had a lot of trouble with technical issues in the past, but we finally got there and the episode turned into being a deep one. We had to record on Zoom, so I apologize for the recording quality in comparison to the other episodes that are out around now. But all up, it was a great interview. He actually is a trained hypnotist, and he…
works as a past life regression facilitator, author and instructor who has dedicated decades to exploring the mysteries of reincarnation and personal transformation. He’s also created a deck called the Universal Mind Map Oracle Meditation System. And during each time that we tried to set this up, we kept on getting patients because like it was like, have to stay patient with this because.
for whatever reasons, was just really odd tech issues. So it all worked out in the end. It’s a great interview. We talked deeply about hypnosis, hypnotherapy, how that can help you when you actually do past life regressions and the benefits of doing hypnotherapy for basically any sort of issue whatsoever. So I’m sure you’ll enjoy and on with the show.
Speaker 2 (01:13)
Welcome to super normalize John Koenig. John, it’s been quite an adventure to get here and I’m really looking forward to our conversation. You’re a decades experience, hypnotherapist, hypnotist. You’ve worked with so many people.
You’ve done past life exploration hypnosis, and you’ve also created a card deck that actually helps people to find their way in life. I’m gonna ask you to start the show with pulling a card so we can see how this one’s gonna go.
Speaker 1 (01:38)
I did randomly before we started. Before we, we’ve gone back and forth trying to set this up. This is our third attempt to record. And the first one, I think the last one was Patience that I picked before we discovered. So what I picked today was my card number 10, which is Spirit School.
Speaker 2 (01:51)
That’s right.
Perfect
Speaker 1 (01:58)
The way I got these is I went on Chatchi BT, one of my friends these days, and I asked for 64 principles that human beings have to master if we’re to evolve individually and as a species. And I took these principles, made cards out of them, and I wrote the text. But these are 64 principles. They’re pretty basic things. But spirit school is the notion that our purpose here as souls is to grow.
Yes, and this came from philosophy, psychology, self-help, religion. And most religions have the idea that you have to grow spiritually. you do acts, you pray, you connect. So that’s fundamental to what humanity has this term is best for people individually and as a whole. So and everything in our context today is spirit school idea, we’ll learn and growing that everything literally that happens, in my opinion, is
kind of meant to be divine. There are no coincidences many people believe in in God’s world, which we live in, ⁓ including our exciting drama, Getting Here.
Speaker 2 (03:01)
Yes. Well, I find that, you know, that is just right on point for what we’re going to be doing today. Now I was going to ask you around about the understanding of spirit school and our personal evolution itself. You’ve seen a lot, you’ve been through a lot. You also had a chance to, what’d you say, like digest the understanding over time. Now, one thing that’s confounded me about how we’re here is that
Well, God, the experience of God or whatever you want to call that is all knowing anyway. Why would it even want to split up into little sections like us and then re-experience itself? What’s the point?
Speaker 1 (03:36)
That is fascinating. I had had the perspective for a long time that who we are is little bits of deity separate from dinner. And I first got this notion, I don’t know where I got it from, I just covered recently that Edgar Cayce, that American psychic and spiritual person had the exact same notion. And, but I remember hearing from Werner Erhardt back in the old, if anybody listening remembers the S training.
That was huge here. I don’t know if that was big in Australia. But he said the idea was that God was lonely and a little bored. So God split itself apart and to create this game called life for entertainment and for evolution. And that kind of works for me, you know, that each of us is separate from deity, part of, most definitely, you know, if God is everything. I think it was Einstein that said God is either everything or doesn’t exist.
and to believe that God is all, all the theory.
Speaker 2 (04:32)
Yeah, look, I agree with that too. I believe God is everything. I’ve experienced that myself as going through meditation and deep connection and deep connective sort of experiences over time. And to me that seems like the only truth that there is. yes, but I still find it fascinating that it split itself apart and has this fascinating delusion.
Speaker 1 (04:52)
or we split ourselves apart.
Speaker 2 (04:55)
Okay.
Speaker 1 (04:56)
Well, I think you hear people talk about, they’ll say, my soul. Correct me if I you know, if I am soul, it’s my body, you my personality, my mind. Who I am is soul, having this, you know, experience as John Koenig, this elderly guy in America.
Speaker 2 (05:11)
Yeah, yeah. Let’s delve into your past life exploration and hypnosis experience. Now, what do you find the most profound benefits for someone who actually embarks on the journey of their own past life exploration?
Speaker 1 (05:24)
That’s a great, great question. And the card that I picked, I said we picked randomly, that as you begin to look at yourself, having been here before, I believe my experience, each of us as soul choose our circumstances. We choose to incarnate for lessons that we’ve been here many, many, many times. We’ll be here many, many, many more times. Each of us working on things. If a lesson is unfinished,
We get to come back if we choose and do it, do it. No, there’s no, there’s whack it up. So if you begin to, so this deepens in my experience, the perception that everything is, ⁓ divine serendipity, that everything is spirit school, that we’re here to learn that literally nothing happens in the universe by accident, you know, but a personal level, I have the experience. I’ve had many experiences. So I’ll skip the specifics where you look at it and say, was that a bad thing?
Because in time it seemed like a horrible thing, but it turns out there’s learning included in there.
Speaker 2 (06:19)
Yeah, yeah for sure.
Speaker 1 (06:20)
Plus, fear of death. I am not looking forward to the process of dying. There’s usually some discomfort involved. what’s on the other side of it has no fear for me whatsoever, because I regard myself as a spirit that’s right now that I’ve been I’ve been an African shaman. I’ve been a slave boy in Georgia. I’ve been females. I’ve been victims, victimizers.
And this is just one little expression of my learning. That’s what I look at at least. And I think most people that do what I do have that perception.
Speaker 2 (06:51)
Yeah, I agree with that perception. And in my experience of past life regression work that I’ve done, it gave me a greater understanding of who I am today because it put into perspective a lot of the core beliefs that I have that I live now. And I didn’t, when I was going through the experience, I’m like, what? This is so bizarre. I’m a French girl in, you know, the middle ages.
in an orphanage? What? How does that work out? And the experiences that she went through and how she experienced life is exactly on point for how I experienced parts of my life today. And I thought that was so fascinating. And I didn’t expect to have any visions like that whatsoever. I went in as a willing participant to understand it more and came out the other side of it with a greater understanding of myself.
Speaker 1 (07:42)
Now, if you look at the cover of my book, which is my autobiographies, you see three heads. One is my Black Shaman. One is, it not, my wife’s, in this current life’s wife. But even as a regular person, I have two heads. There’s the rational John. There’s the logical John. And there’s this other John. the logical has probably misplaced it. Skeptical John.
There’s no way to know if I really was all these things because you get corrupted. And this may have been my subconscious, like with your French girl. There may have been some part of you that developed a scenario, an experience, a rich experience that shed insight into what you’re dealing with currently. Same with me. I can’t really know. I always mention in these interviews the work of Ian Stevenson, University of Virginia Division of Perceptual Studies, who
studied 3,000 or so children, little people, under five, in different parts of the world, who had experiences that their parents brought to his attention. And he researched those. He documented them. He found things like you were a butcher in this village and you cut your fingers off one day. And autopsy showed that. You know, you were shot in a bar fight and autopsy of that person you identified on that street.
shows that. So Stevenson and people that are in Virginia kind of look as cancer what I do. And I have to agree with him. I believe my experiences were real. I’m inclined to believe yours are real. But I can’t really know. And as people get into this work, you go into it like it’s like it seems real. But you really at some level, you know, who knows? And yet I’ve had clients in the office get incredible
breakthroughs.
Speaker 2 (09:21)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It doesn’t matter. All that matters is the result. For sure. Can you share the moment or experience that first sparked your deep interest in past life regression?
Speaker 1 (09:23)
It doesn’t
is on.
I’m delighted to. I had done past life work with clients when they would ask me to. I never advertised it. I was getting medical referrals. I didn’t want to appear, you know, and I wasn’t that interested. literally was not interested, but a friend of mine’s wife was doing this work. And I went to her just out of curiosity. By the way, in spirit school, one of the fundamental principles of curiosity. You know, what is, what’s going on here? So I went to her and
I don’t know how she did it. She did not do a traditional hypnotic regression induction. But suddenly I am Private Riley in the First Continental Dragoons, the United States, during the Revolutionary War. And I felt my mouth. I introduced myself, started as Corporal Riley, but then I amended it. Private Riley was a pretentious little man. He owned a silk shirt like the officers. And the experience was so vivid. And,
that I had to be interested, you know, and I found myself, you know, one of the things about this, my first experience was telling, I had a message to bring to my captain and I was filled with self-importance. I’m going to go deliver this message and I went to this large sort of mansion, know, giving out a typical colonial United States, you know, columns and things, and I give the guard at the door, I didn’t talk to the captain.
And he says, no, I’ll take it. I’m crushed that that’s happening. This was my mission. Here I am, chosen for this. But looking around the room, there was something weird. In my life, in this life, I have never been in a large ballroom lit by candles. And there was something about the way the lights look. I said, my god, that’s what that is. That’s candles.
Many times in the work that I did, my own personal explorations, I had these experiences. I’m working on the pyramids. I was a landowner and I got in trouble with the authorities and I ended up being drafted to do the pyramids. And I’m pushing these huge bricks. Some people pulling, some of us are pushing, and we have tree work, tree trunks, rollers. And I noticed that something green on there. At the time, I don’t know what it is. It was palm leaves.
They used palm leaves, in my experience, to grease up the rollers so they were more smooth. And I did a little bit of research, and that is one of the possibilities, people, that’s they did it. So that kind of thing is telling. What is…
Speaker 2 (11:53)
Yeah,
it is. yeah. Yeah, we’re definitely connected to everything. So for someone that’s curious but skeptical, how would you describe the process of accessing past lives? And is that something that anyone can do or is that something that they should be guided and assisted in?
Speaker 1 (12:10)
That’s a good, that’s an excellent question. Recently I had somebody, they sent me an email, asked on Facebook, and they asked me for a recommendation of a book so that their son could do a past life with them. I teach a course in hypnosis, I trade hypnotists, and it’s only a hundred-hour course, but we don’t even discuss regression until the last 20 hours. By yourself, it’s possible.
I have people that have spontaneous experiences, or something that they’re there. But I would find somebody who does what I do, and there are lots of us, including this wonderful woman in Australia called Toni Reilly. There are people that do this work. So you go to somebody like me, or her, or somebody else, and you sign up, and you’re guided into it typically, through an induction to tramps. And in tramps, you’re alert.
You know where you are, but it doesn’t really matter. And your subconscious is accessed. The definition of hypnosis is to bypass the analytical mind into the subconscious. Past life memories live probably in the superconscious, at a level below. So what the hypnotist does is it guides you, and there are different protocols that we use. And then, suddenly, we ask you to look around. Where are you?
Are you alone or with somebody? Is it day or night? What does your body feel like? Are you male or female? Are you healthy or young? Are you old? And what’s going on emotionally? And from that point, you then move the client toward events that are significant. And it’s a… I’m in awe whenever I do this with somebody.
because suddenly they’re there. They’re back in France and they’re a young woman in an orphanage. And it’s like, oh my God. And you can tell that they’re getting something out of it. I have seen miracles. People have been, by the way, here’s another benefit of this work. People have been in therapy for years and years and years and something’s not moving. Sometimes it’s a past life. Usually it’s your current life. Usually it’s what happened to you in childhood up to age seven or so that
You created who you are, but sometimes it goes back and I’ve had people pop You know 10 20 or more years in psychotherapy Pretty much getting nowhere and then suddenly one session and everything comes together That’s another benefit for doing this thing You know another benefit is finding out there are people in your life that that were you’ve been with before a lot of that is just curiosity though that you know that
It’s either maybe the main ways of benefiting our spiritual growth or psychological healing.
Speaker 2 (14:42)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, no, mean, it seems like this tool in itself, when you’re ready for it, it’s like you become aware of it. And then when you use this as a method, it puts more understanding around the puzzle pieces that make us up.
Speaker 1 (14:59)
now in a bit of reverse interviewing, you’ve had more than one experience, i think, i listened to several-
Speaker 2 (15:04)
Like you said, you know, spring chicken, none of it. So now if these experience aren’t literal past lives for some, what alternative explanations might there be for these vivid recollections? I think that maybe this is, it could be spirit talking to us just in a way that helps us to, like I said, build that.
to make us more whole, come towards an understanding that guides us down to the next step of what we need to do.
Speaker 1 (15:30)
I never thought about that, but you’re absolutely right. It could be, you know, divine help. You know, like John needs a little bit of help today. Let’s give him this experience. Another explanation. There’s a thing, I’m sure many of your ⁓ listeners will be familiar with, the Akashic Records. And it’s the notion that all human lives are experienced gets stored. it’s a divine library. And so I’ve heard people think that possibly
Speaker 2 (15:39)
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (15:55)
You’re just accessing an Akashic record of a life that seems to match up with what you need. That’s another explanation.
Speaker 2 (16:02)
Ooh, I like that too.
Speaker 1 (16:02)
Another explanation, by the way, is that spirits have taken you over for a while.
Speaker 2 (16:06)
I’ve had that and it can be quite interesting and also quite like I’ve experienced both sides of that story and one that I worked with was fantastic and taught me so many amazing things and then a lot of time I got infested with two spirits and they were nasty and they were out to actually take me out and like until that moment I didn’t believe there was such thing as a negative position so it was was horrific to say the least.
Speaker 1 (16:28)
How did you know that was occurring? If could ask.
Speaker 2 (16:30)
How
did I know? Okay. So I still had my sense of self and I still had an ability to observe what was happening and I could feel these two other beings that were inside of, I don’t know what to call it, my soul, my frequency of what I am. I, and I couldn’t get rid of them. And, ⁓ but they also brought with them.
Speaker 1 (16:32)
They weren’t
Speaker 2 (16:52)
extra abilities that I didn’t have prior to that. And I could actually, had clear audience and I had like an extremely enhanced intuition for events. And I was connected to reality in such a way that if I got upset, it started raining because I started crying. But then if I tuned myself into being focused in harmony, the sun came out and everything’s beautiful.
Speaker 1 (17:14)
My- my- my- my- my- my- my- my- my- my- my- my- my- my- my-
Speaker 2 (17:17)
Yeah, I did. It took a while to get rid of them. But first it took a while to recognize they were there. once they were recognized, I found a way to kick them out. And I actually got help from another shaman, which also appeared inside me to tell me what to do. And I didn’t believe that that was even possible again. But he had a bizarre sense of humor and taught me a way to do it.
And at the time that he told me the method that he told me, I was like, I can’t believe that. That’s just crazy. I’m not going to do that. And he said, look, I know that you don’t believe what I’m saying, but there’s a book show on at your local hall this Saturday. Go there and I’ll show you. I didn’t even know this book show was on. went, rode my motorbike down on that weekend to that hall. And long behold, there’s a book show on. I go in and I’m walking around and he says, there’s the book there. And I went and pick it up.
book was exactly what he was talking about. And I read that book in four hours, went, okay, I agree, I’m going to do this. And within four months, I’d kicked out most of their energetic frequencies, which were affecting me. But until that moment, all these things, I didn’t believe were possible.
Speaker 1 (18:22)
You know, it’s I got the little shivers listening to that. A skeptic, I don’t know what a skeptic would think, but that to me sounds amazing. What a wonderful bit of guidance. And the other spirit, the benevolent one is still with you.
Speaker 2 (18:34)
No, that’s gone. That’s far kicked out. Yeah. Yeah. Because of the work that I did with the Mexican shaman that was working with me, it cleared out all of my system. And I was amazed at how that worked.
Speaker 1 (18:49)
I’ll go back to letting you do the interview.
Speaker 2 (18:51)
All right, well, let’s move on to your Oracle system. So the Universal Mind Map Oracle Meditation System. Can you tell us more about that? It’s groundbreaking. how you said that you worked with AI to make that happen. How did it shape the system that you’ve come up with?
Speaker 1 (19:06)
It was so, you know, the way I phrased it was if anybody has worked with chat GPT, which I find a great tool, it matters what you prompt in. And what I prompted in was I wanted 64 principles that individuals as well as humanity have to master if we’re to evolve to our next level. And I happen to believe that humanity is in the process of evolution. They were moving into something new. I call it homo deus.
We’ve been homo sapiens for quite a while. Homo Deus is more connected, more co-creators, which by the way is the Edgar Cayce notion. They were co-creators with the big deity. And so I got these, within 18 seconds, I got these 64 principles. I double checked it a few more times. But there’s nothing anybody, they came from, and I asked them look at all philosophy, psychology, religion, self-help. I think that was what I did. Motivational.
And I cross-checked it a few times, kept getting the same ones. The things that nobody, like for example, last time we tried to do this, I randomly picked patience. you know, patience, compassion, helping others, empowerment. These are things that you can really argue with. Interesting though, about the way the system works is,
you randomly access it. The principles in my deck, and that shit is Universal Mind Map Oracle Meditation System, is on Amazon, is based on, as I said, all of human experience. There are thousands of Oracle decks. There are Oracle decks like the Rabbit Lovers Oracle Deck. There are all kinds of Oracle decks. can get, you know, the Grateful Dead Oracle. But all these Oracle decks come out of the one
human mind. So the best you can hope for as you go through the 64 or so cards is what that human mind has to offer. If that human mind is enlightened, you’ll benefit. If there’s something amiss with them, you you go down a rabbit hole. With the universal mind map, it is what all of us think. So then you allow deity, that which creates this, to, in a universe where there’s no randomness, to choose for you.
what to work on today. I just randomly pick another one just for the heck of it. See if it relates to this conversation. Huh. Sure. But I got this empathy.
Speaker 2 (21:11)
Nice.
Speaker 1 (21:12)
And I think that’s relevant to this conversation.
Speaker 2 (21:14)
Yeah, I think so. That’s perfect.
Speaker 1 (21:16)
But to every human, know, empathy is a virtue worth cultivating because we’re not alone here, you know.
Speaker 2 (21:23)
Do you ask any questions when you pull from the deck or is it just like what’s this story?
Speaker 1 (21:27)
I
call it the God Spirit Mind. I ask whatever creates this, the universal mind, as I call it, for something that would be appropriate for our interview today.
Speaker 2 (21:36)
Mmm, yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:38)
Spirit school, which is now I think about it, the core principle behind the deck, behind religions that we’re not here just to survive. We’re here to grow in the likeness, most of us, in the likeness of deity, you know, for a purpose. We get lost in our way all the time, but that’s our purpose, I think.
Speaker 2 (21:55)
Yeah, so people could use this as a method of curriculum for their own self-teaching.
Speaker 1 (22:01)
a lifetime. I find what I pick on a daily basis is remarkable in terms of what I am going through. like I get something, there’s one I keep getting, and it always motivates me to call somebody that I think is hurting. know, I don’t know which one it is, but I get that, I gotta call somebody. And I’m always glad that I do. I think about who amongst my friends acquaintances I think might need a little cheering.
telephone call. I called them. So if you work with the deck, you’ll be schooled over the course of however long you do it in what humanity has decided we need to master if we’re to grow.
Speaker 2 (22:36)
Yeah, the way I see it is that spirit in co-creation with us is something that we are realigning with and everything is working towards that greater sense of consciousness and to put it plainly, the infinite self. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (22:52)
That’s how I see it. And by the way, you know, I am nearing the end of this incarnation. I am going to be 77 years old in two weeks. nobody gets out of this alive. I did a lot of this stuff. One of the principles is authenticity. You want to grow, you need to actually be and express who you really are. And along the way, you know, I didn’t talk about any of this until
Speaker 2 (23:06)
Yes.
Speaker 1 (23:15)
about four years ago when I published my autobiographies based on all the private explorations I’d done. And then the deck. I don’t care anymore. And the truth is, you never should care. If you’re listening and you’re 19 years old, you should be yourself and the best you can without fear.
Speaker 2 (23:31)
Powerful
message. Yeah, yeah. Let’s get into some spiritual philosophy and human evolution. From your perspective, what is Earth’s role as spirit school in our collective spiritual evolution?
Speaker 1 (23:43)
Interesting question. Let’s see what I’ve got here. I have all these little things on top of my desk. Gaia. A lot of people believe that there’s a spirit of Earth, and I’m not sure where I fall out on that thing. But I do know that we don’t always incarnate here. I did a past life group at my professional association. did a two-hour workshop training hypnotists to do what I do.
And one of the people there had an experience on a different planet, a different domain. And that happens, you know? Generally, people that do what I do think we generally incarnate on the same planet. You know, if you’re from Pleiades or something, you tend to go there, but sometimes you come here. but really and truly, I haven’t thought carefully about the role of Earth, you know?
whatever she is, Gaia clock in terms of our evolution as a whole. And by the way, I don’t claim to be advanced. I am, you know, called an enthusiastic beginner in this world. And I’ll mention Tony Riley, who is an Australian. There are many, many people that are are they can speak with certainty about things that he, you know, I question.
Speaker 2 (24:40)
You
So then, what is your soul’s mission in this incarnation and how has that shaped your work with hypnosis and oracle systems? What do feel your soul purpose is?
Speaker 1 (25:00)
I am a teacher. And one of my past lives was, as I mentioned, as my wife’s wife. I was doing a training in Santa Rosa, California with a fellow, beautiful guy called David Quigley. And he was talking about how you can go back and you can see, you with somebody in a prior life? And I volunteered. And suddenly I find myself in a blacksmith shop in rural Russia. It was open to the street. The street was muddy.
And suddenly there’s this guy with this big beard and he’s banging on the anvil. And I am so proud. That’s my husband. And I’m bringing him his dinner and I’m the luckiest girl in the village. I have a husband that has a good trade. He doesn’t even beat me like my mother said he would. Doesn’t even beat me. And it quickly says, what does he say when you bring him his dinner? And I start laughing. said nothing. He’s a man of few words. And my wife,
I talk all the time. wake up talking, I go to sleep talking. She speaks French, has something to say. She’s a woman of few words. But, so I’m having a great life with Victor, my husband, and quickly he says, let’s go to the next event. And I find myself, I’ve heard in the village that the Cossacks are gonna come, they’re gonna draft the men. And in our village, when they take the men, you don’t see them again, maybe for 20 years, you’re a widow.
with the husband who still lives somewhere. So I tell him, you know, we got to hide, we got to get out of here. And he says, uh, Lena, you’re being foolish. I thought you had more sense to listen to the women in the village and I can’t get him to listen. They take him, you know, as you can figure out, I spend the rest of that life raising three children, working like a fiend to my dying day though. I never regretted being married to Victor, but
I came into this life with a mandate to be listened to, to be heard. That’s my thing here. That’s why I chatter. In fact, there’s a, each of my little stories is a poem where he calls me the magpie. I always chatter. And I became a college instructor and I became a madman. I became a TV commercial writer and then I became a hypnotist. And when you’re a hypnotist, you do all the talking. They just sit there generally. And I became a writer.
So it’s my mission in this life to be authentic and also to be listened to, to be heard. That’s how I see it at least.
Speaker 2 (27:09)
Mm-hmm.
Speaker 1 (27:11)
I don’t know
if my wife ⁓ is skeptical. I don’t know what people around you think about you, but some people think I’m just out of my mind.
Speaker 2 (27:18)
I’ve had that for a long time. ⁓ I sort of got used to it to the point where I don’t care anymore.
Speaker 1 (27:20)
haha
Yeah, but you also can’t convince them.
Speaker 2 (27:27)
Nah, can’t convince them in the least. you I, you get to a point where, people, can feel their, you know, rolling eyes when you’re talking to them. You’re like, well, I don’t care if you don’t understand this. I’m here to actually help people to understand that all of these things are normal for us.
Speaker 1 (27:45)
Wait, call my wife Victor occasionally and her eyes go right up into the-
Speaker 2 (27:51)
Excellent. Yeah, sometimes it’s good to be the stirrer.
Do you ever believe that science will ever fully validate concepts like reincarnation? I mean, there’s stacks of information out there now about this. And what does your current research suggest?
Speaker 1 (28:03)
I believe the work of Ian Stevenson at the University of Virginia, he has a great book, 20 cases suggestive of reincarnation. He’s an academic, he uses that word. He also has a couple of follow-up books where he talks about the biology of it, where he shows autopsy photos based on a child’s experience and birthmarks. A birthmark where it’s exactly where the guy got shot.
per the autopsy, I think it’s been proven to date. don’t think it’s been scientifically demonstrated. I don’t know how they would do that yet. I think it’s been proven. I think that to look at his work in the 3,000 plus, and it’s ongoing research, they call them solved cases, I think, solved cases. And they’re so well documented.
with a skeptical mind going into these things like, this person trying to be fanciful? I had the experience of meeting… We have a thing in the States called… Carol Dewey runs this, called the Reincarnation Symposium, and they have annual meetings. In the last one I was at, I met one of Stevenson’s kids, and now he’s like in his 50s, and he told us… He’s a little tiny guy, and he tells us the experience of…
And his village, he’s a Druze. The Druze have a strong, small little offshoot of Islam, small little bunch of people, but they have a belief in reincarnation. And it’s very common for them to discuss it. And as a little guy, he told his parents that he was, he lives on three streets over another village or something. And he’s five years old and they take him there. And he says hello to his wife. He’s five, she’s 40.
and he knew where things were in the house. He had a cousin and the cousin was very skeptical and the cousin said, how do I know who you are? In his life, in the prior life, he had thrown a large rock and hit the cousin in the eye and the little five-year-old said, I promise this time I’m not going to throw a rock in your eye.
And I sat in the same room with this guy. So I believe it’s been proven. If anybody bothers to do the reading or the research, you have to bend over backwards and say, that is not the way it is. Too many documented cases, too many to believe it is what? mean, would you rather believe what you get out of set of religions?
that more credible than the… By the way, every religion has a huge problem. How do you explain bad things happening to otherwise good people? How do you explain why a child should be born with spinal bifida and why that child’s parent should have to deal with a child perhaps who’s crippled? No religion explains that adequately, in my opinion. They say, it’s God’s will. God is mysterious. A tornado comes and wrecks a village, kills everybody.
It’s an act of God. Really? Well, what about you choose to come here to learn things? You choose as a soul to come as a child who’s got terrible, terrible palsy, is crippled, not only to go through what you go through, but to give your parents the chance to grow by taking care of you. Doesn’t that make a lot more sense?
Speaker 2 (30:56)
Certainly does to me.
Speaker 1 (30:57)
Anybody who doesn’t agree, read Ian Stevenson’s work and listen.
Speaker 2 (31:01)
Well, I would even go as far to say is that doubts on the reality of these spiritual experiences and these past lives and all of these abilities that we all have come from an atheistic point of view, which denies co-creation.
Speaker 1 (31:16)
⁓ really? Can you run that money again?
Speaker 2 (31:19)
So to…
to take it to a point, if you were to deny reincarnation, deny karma, deny spirituality in any form that it’s taking now that we’re actually starting to get to the point where we’re being pushed to understand it and become awake to it, that denial is atheism.
Speaker 1 (31:37)
Yes, you deny deity. In which case you choose to, just, I mean, believe, which is a belief structure, then nothing makes any sense. Hi! Yeah. Where do we go from here? Well, it’s it’s high spirit.
Speaker 2 (31:39)
You deny deity.
Yeah.
Well, letting go of atheism, I think then the opposite of that is it enriches your life.
Speaker 1 (31:53)
Yeah. I’m people who are atheistic. The idea that it’s a belief structure is like fingernails on a blackboard to them. it is structured.
Speaker 2 (32:03)
Yeah, yeah, it is a belief structure. In fact, I would go as far as to say it is a religion, an anti-religion.
Speaker 1 (32:09)
It’s a religion of anti-religion.
Speaker 2 (32:11)
Yeah. So looking at the channeling or downloading of the card texts, how did they influence your own growth during the project of bringing them out?
Speaker 1 (32:24)
During the project, it was intense. I felt it was all channeled. Anybody who’s done writing knows what it’s like to be in the zone. And I was clearly in the zone. But in the years since, it’s been a year and a half of extraordinary personal growth for me, because I work the deck. I work the deck every single day. And to the best of my ability, play attention to the lessons that humanity has provided. I do not do it perfectly.
anybody in the planet does it perfectly, but I have noticed a lot of personal growth along with incredible adversity. I was driving along two months ago with my wife and she went into full seizure.
I was able to get to an emergency room. I can tell you, I was not thrilled in the moment, but I accepted it as part of what it’s, and there is peace in that. Not, why did this happen to me? This isn’t fair. You know, there ain’t no fair. It is what it is. It happens as it happens. And then you get to grow from through and from it. she’s well, by the way, she’s fine. And I’m blessed to have her.
But, you know, when you look at life as being spirit school, divine coincidences as well, everybody, I’m sure, was listening to this, had the experience of thinking about someone and they call, you know, things coming out of the blue when you least expect it. Maybe not as dramatic as going to an event and having a book you’re sent to find, but people had similar things. I know I have. You know, that is the nature of this planet and this experience.
We’re all here to learn and magic happens every single day.
Speaker 2 (33:52)
Every day is magic when you’re co-creating and recognising it.
Speaker 1 (33:55)
no one’s
Speaker 2 (33:57)
Perfect.
Just do your best, enjoy it.
Speaker 1 (33:59)
And be miserable for some reason. I can get a bad phone call or something. They say people, you married, live happily, you live happily and unhappily and happily and unhappily and happily and unhappily. That’s how it goes. But hopefully the curve’s on the up.
Speaker 2 (34:12)
Yeah, yeah, I think the trick is to live the spiral ever expanding outwards towards infinity. Ooh. Or a bit of Is it the same thing? I don’t know. I’m trying to. When someone draws a card from the Universal 9 map deck, what would you encourage, how would you encourage them, I should say, to do some deeper work on that experience?
Speaker 1 (34:18)
Yes. Inwards into your true nature. ⁓
Well, at the end of every card, there is a suggested action. And let me pick another random card for you. Let’s see what I for you. Simplicity. So your card is Simplicity 55. And let’s see what that says. So in the text of it, it ends with, pick an area of your life that could use some decluttering. Break the task down to manageable chunks.
and start the process. So I don’t know if that resonates with you or not, but that’s what I picked for you. Simplicity.
Speaker 2 (35:05)
I think I’m reaching towards simplicity in this time in my life right now. I’m actually going through all of the things that I earn and thinking, wait a minute, what am I holding onto that for? And I’m starting to sell stuff, so.
Speaker 1 (35:16)
That’s where the car is. That’s exactly. And it’s not just physical stuff. It’s mental stuff. It’s habits. It’s people. Decluttering.
Speaker 2 (35:23)
Yeah, Yeah,
I’ve done the decluttering with the people. So can you share an example of a particularly meaningful lesson or principle from the deck that shifted your own perspective?
Speaker 1 (35:35)
Let me see here.
nothing is coming to mind. Okay. When I have trouble with one of the principles is environmental awareness. The best thinkers of the planet think that we should be stewards of the planet, that we should be environmentally conscious. And the best I can do when I get that is to make sure I recycle that day. You know, that is the one that I know it’s true.
you know, if humanity is going to evolve, we got to take care of this planet. And as individuals, to be part of the solution, rather than just be, you know, polluters, is part of evolving for us as individuals and as species. But when I get that, I go, crap, you know, I’ve got to try to do something to be a steward. And like I said, I am not perfect. There may be some much bigger thing that I could be doing, maybe should be doing.
But it hasn’t occurred to me yet. And for me, it’s not been a great like one, aha. It’s been a daily series of lessons pushing me in a better direction.
Speaker 2 (36:33)
How does your background in psychology and literature inform your approach to hypnosis and spiritual coaching?
Speaker 1 (36:41)
That’s a very good question. One thing is I know what not to do. I have a bachelor’s in psychology, a master’s in Irish literature, all things. For the graduate work. And so people that do what I do, we have to know our limitations. I don’t work with people who are severely psychologically.
Speaker 2 (36:51)
right,
Speaker 1 (37:03)
ill. And that’s a mistake. And that’s one thing I know enough about psychology to know when I should leave something alone. The literature, you know, as an ad guy, know, I’ll tell you this, including the universal mind. As a kid, I thought I was just too weird. How can I ever, you know, communicate what’s inside and what’s outside?
And suddenly I’m on Madison Avenue in New York writing 30 second commercials where you have to simplify things and you have to connect with people. So I took on the mission, certainly with my book, it’s called an introduction to past life exploration for personal and spiritual growth. I am a beginner in that sense and I invite other people to join me in the process, but I’ve learned how to communicate simply.
That was the big, I even, I had my own agency. I left Madison Avenue when that time was finished. And I started an agency where I did industrial advertising, where I took complex situation problems, issues, product lines, processes, and condensed it to train salespeople how to sell it. I did early on before these days in 1982, 83, 84.
a program on neural network artificial intelligence to train software engineers how to talk. I knew nothing about it. And I try myself to grab data fast and process and simplify it. working with clients, know, sits there and tells me their life in 30 minutes. I’m able to take that 30 minute engorging of information and condense it and play it back in an empowering way.
Speaker 2 (38:31)
Nice.
Speaker 1 (38:32)
Yeah, that’s my training, know, mad man. Duncan Hyde’s cakes. Let’s go to shortening.
Speaker 2 (38:36)
Did you ever study the works of ⁓ James Joyce?
Speaker 1 (38:40)
my God, yes.
Speaker 2 (38:41)
Finnegan’s Wake.
Speaker 1 (38:42)
You know, I did a master’s in Anglo-Irish Literature in College Dublin in Ireland, and nobody amongst my colleagues in school read the damn thing.
Speaker 2 (38:56)
I got halfway through it, just blew my mind. Because seriously, it’s like experiencing a movie like you’re in it by reading, which is so disturbing in a different sort of way. How did I write that book? It is, it’s definitely hypnotic.
Speaker 1 (39:10)
hypnotic a little bit.
There’s a hypnotic technique called the confusion technique.
Speaker 2 (39:15)
Yes, I’ve been trained hypnotist too, so yeah.
Speaker 1 (39:18)
And, and, know, the, the, ⁓ the references are so obscure as well. had a wonderful time writing it, but like I said, these are people I knew from all over though. And we had a kid from a kid. We had a young guy from, ⁓ Japan. We have people from different countries in Europe. We had someone from New Zealand. Nobody read it the whole way like you. We got a certain way and then,
Speaker 2 (39:41)
pleasure mind. I actually intend to read the whole thing. mean, it’s in my to do list.
Speaker 1 (39:45)
Ulysses is a good place. I got as far as loving Ulysses, but beyond that, I couldn’t get much into Finnegans Wake. Except the song. The song is great. know, Tim Fakker, The Walking Street, General Irish, Mighty Addicts, a beautiful song. Every double nurse had done it, and Clancy Brothers. Finnegans Wake is a great listen to that song. It’s delightful. Maybe it’ll motivate you to go back to the book.
Speaker 2 (40:08)
Yeah. What advice would you give to someone starting out on their own path towards spiritual awakening who might feel overwhelmed or uncertain?
Speaker 1 (40:17)
⁓ my goodness. Let me think about that a little bit. I don’t think people start out on the journey. I think they’re drawn into the journey. And I would just say one step at a time, you know, trust your instincts. Beware of fools and false paths. I don’t know if anybody actually, maybe they do, decides they’re going to.
Usually people come into this through adversity.
You know, like I’m reasonably involved in the recovery world here in Rhode Island. And most people who get into a spiritual program is, in that program, come in as a result of tragedy. you know, suddenly you, religion’s not answering you, psychology’s not answering you, and people turn to, ⁓ my God, literally God. So if that’s occurring for you, know, trust your instincts, I guess would be my…
What would you say to someone like that? Trust your instincts would be my best coaching, I think.
Speaker 2 (41:06)
Yeah, I would say trust your instincts. And I think just even for a simple thing you can do is just find a way to pause. Like stop, just stop.
Speaker 1 (41:15)
That’s very good advice.
Speaker 2 (41:17)
Yeah, and I mean, there is so much reward and reverie, like literally sitting there and letting your mind run off. Just let it, just let it chatter its bullshit. Let it all out. You know, and then once all of that seems to get out of the way, then you get to that, that state of peace. And from there can come real truth.
Speaker 1 (41:34)
I think that’s my takeaway from this interview. Of course you’re right. Call it meditation or call it just stopping.
Speaker 2 (41:41)
Yeah, I had interviewed a guy the other day, he was talking about meditation and he was saying to people that they just are afraid of meditation, I think they can’t do it. And he pointed out that that was probably the easiest way to get there is to literally just let it run, let your mind run off.
Speaker 1 (41:59)
When I first started or restarted meditation, I did it with one of these, a timer. Start with five minutes. Just sit five minutes. And the timer is helpful. If you were to go to a meditation, to an ashram or something, somebody would hit a gong. If you don’t have the timer, you sit there wondering, am I spiritual enough yet?
Speaker 2 (42:06)
Yeah, cool.
Love it. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (42:21)
You know, you don’t worry about it. And when I first would start, would open my eyes and say that I set the timer right. But after a while, you know, it becomes I still use the timer, but now I’m up to half an hour. And, know, I different protocols that I follow. But even even that, I am only human. And some days I forget any day.
Speaker 2 (42:24)
Yeah, you just let it be.
Speaker 1 (42:45)
meditate and pray, which is a different thing. to start my day, I regret it. To start with the stopping is a good way to live, I think. So I think that you just summed it up. That’s the best advice to anybody listening. Stop and just sit and be with yourself. and I would say use a timer.
Speaker 2 (43:02)
Yeah, I like the timer idea. Yeah, makes it easier because like you said, you can’t be sure whether you’re a spiritual lover until you get that ring. Yeah, exactly. John, we’ve come towards the end of the podcast. Thank you so much for everything you’ve shared here today. there any way that people, you’d like people to come and find you in your work?
Speaker 1 (43:09)
Am I done yet?
Well, let me see here. My website is possibilities.nu. N like Nancy, U like Unicorn, possibilities.nu. My book, my autobiography is on Amazon, a hardcover, but also audio. did an audio version of it. And the Universal Mind Map also I would look on Amazon or just go to Amazon and look for John Koenig and look for those two books.
for it.
Speaker 2 (43:48)
Awesome.
Yeah, look, I’ve appreciated all that you’ve shared here. Thank you so much, John. It’s been a really good talk.
Speaker 1 (43:54)
It’s a mutual feeling of thank you and thanks for your patience and persistence.
Speaker 2 (43:59)
The universe works in its own mysterious ways. All right. I just say goodbye to the listeners.
Speaker 1 (44:02)
It does.
CeeJay Barnaby (44:07)
That was a great episode with John and I really appreciated the time that we actually got to spend together and share and discuss different things to do with consciousness and hypnotherapy, past life regression and a deeper understanding of what all that means. So if you’ve enjoyed today’s show, remember to like and subscribe. That’d be really nice. And if you’re on a podcast app, please give us five stars and say something nice. And if you think a friend would actually benefit from this, share the show. That’d be really nice.
And until next episode, it’s bye for now.
Speaker 1 (45:26)
if you’re interested, look down there, right down there and get in touch.
