Talking To The Other Side: Spirit Communication In The Modern World w/Sterling Moon

0:00 What if spirit communication isn't rare but misunderstood? Tonight we're asking the questions most people are afraid to ask. Are signs from the other side real? Can anyone communicate with spirits? And how do you explore this safely without inviting fear or chaos into your life? Welcome we well do para Truth.

0:55 What's up everybody? And welcome to Paratruth Reborn. My name is Eric and I'm Justin and today we are talking to Sterling Moon about her book Llewellyn's Little Book a Spirit Communication. Now. Sterling Moon is a full time heals on the ground, tarot reader, second medium, folk magician, animal communicator, published author, podcaster and educator on the mystical and the strange. She's the author of Talking to Spirits, a Modern Medium's practical advice for Spirit Communication, which came out in twenty twenty three, and of course Llewellyn's Little Book a Spirit Communication which came out just this past year in twenty twenty five, which was of course published by Llewellyn Books, and you guys all know lluwell In Books. She has several self published works as well, and more formal titles on the way. Sterling has been working with clients and teaching professionally since twenty thirteen. She started a school called the Sterling Moon at Divination Academy in twenty twenty one.

1:54 It offers classes around the country. Sterling also spent twenty years as a professional advocate for victims and survivors of crime in Wyoming, Minnesota, and Colorado, and she holds a master's degree in advocacy and political leadership. Sterling, Welcome to Paratruth Radio, or so glad to have you. Reborn to be bornety born. I always we always make that mistake. We will forget about that. Transition we made of a year and about I think it almost threw the one. Yeah, we're excited to have you on, and we we've been Uh, I've had this in our calendar for quite a while, so I'm always looking for Okay, this one's gonna be an interesting one. But before we get started, kind of want to just give you the opportunity to kind of tell people beyond what I already shared, the just who you are and kind of what you do on a daily basis.

2:48 Well, I mean that's kind of you. You got the highlights of what I do professionally. But you know, I live in Colorado, I'm a I'm a mom. I you know, I'm a partner. I I don't know. I'm just kind of like, I'm a professional weirdo, professional weirdo. And I always say that even if I weren't doing this as a job, which this was never the plan. I mean I kind of always joke that I thought I was going to be running a nonprofit by now, and it just this work just kept getting bigger and bigger and kept getting more and more of my heart. But even if it's there comes a point where it's not my job, I'm still just going to be really passionate about spirit communication and magic and wandering around haunted places with my friends and oh, thank goodness, there's a cat here. I'm assuming that was a mat I'm not digging of that, or we have some really spooky stuff already happening.

3:42 I mean, Eric has a lot of spooky stuff in his house too, So. Yeah, I love it. I absolutely love it. I'm very grateful. I have a little black kiddy named Poe. She is a kitten still, and she's an absolute menace. But she tired herself out and so she's sleeping, which I'm really grateful for. Otherwise we would have a whole other set of problems here. But yeah, I don't know that. Probably that pretty much. Covers it all, right, Well, it's always awesome to like, you know, have a passion and be able to make a living off of that. That's pretty cool. So congrats on that. Hey, thank you. It's grateful every day. Yeah, and you do a lot, like more than a lot of people do.

4:23 So the what I put I corruct I attribute that to is I want to have a lot of energy. And you know, I will say my parents growing up I were silversmiths. They were hence the name Starling. But so I you know, watched my parents. They were professional artists, and you know you kind of just having that as a model of like watching them do all the things until my dad passed away in two thousand and one. But it definitely kind of like gave me an idea of like, oh, that's what running your own business is like. But also I spent so long, like getting up at like thirty in the morning to practice magic or practice spirit communication and you know, or take classes with you know, teachers from around the world, and by the time I got had the privilege of being able to do this as a job. I was like, I don't want to waste any more time, Like I just want to hit the I want to do all the things I want to do as much as I can while I can.

5:19 So well, I'm a huge fan of the show Archer, So when Sterling came up, and Sterling Archer, I'm like, oh my god, I get this woman. Yeah, so yeah, Sterling Archer was the best character. Love that. M So, what made you want to write this book? Well, this one, I will say, was kind of this opportunity was handed to me. I which that's like not the fanciest of explanations, but uwell and asked me if I would write the Little Book of Spirit Communication for their Wonderful Little Book series. I think there's twenty or twenty one books in the in the series so far, and had I wrote Talking to Spirits like I love to write, Like this is like being able to be a published author is like my fulfilling a childhood dream.

6:07 And Talking to Spirits was like that that book that I was like, if this is the only one I get to write, I will be happy. And I've heard other published authors say that your first book is kind of like the first pancake. You know, when you're making pancakes, they're kind of like the first one is always a little too buttery, and it's a never quite perfect, but you love it anyway. That's kind of how I feel about talking to spirits, and so I was really excited to, you know, have I was really excited at the idea of writing a concise introduction to spirit communication until I sat down to write it. Thirty five thousand words is pretty short for a book, and because it literally is a very little book, and it turns out being concise is hard, especially because I wanted it to be something that would be a good fit for somebody if this was the first book on spirit communication they ever picked up on. And I talked about this in there that I often see that there's kind of four doors that people come through when they are interested in talking to spirits.

7:08 And so you have people that they had their survivors of grief and lost, you know, they they've lost someone and they want to try to talk with them. You have like, you know, magical folks you have call it, I call us natural mediums. Where you couldn't avoid the presence of spirits if you tried, and then you have the paranormal folks. And I really do think that all of us can benefit from a pretty like a good well rounded baseline of information. So that was the tactic that I took with little book, and I'm pretty happy with it. Cool. So, so this book really is for across the spectrum of beginner, experienced practitioners and just those sort of curious. It's really for anybody, right, I mean, that's the that's the goal. I mean.

7:49 One of the things that I really enjoyed was getting into like some of the history, like telling a lot of my favorite stories, getting into some of the lore and some of the terms that we all use, and kind of discovering maybe some of the ways that things have gotten misconstrued or little mixed up over time. Like one of the examples that I gave was like this the stone tape theory, which I had always grown up hearing that you know, oh, that's like the idea that brick or limestone or quartz can really you know, soak in and amplify energies, right, and so, but then to find out that it actually was the name of a BBC special in the seventies that came out on Christmas Day, and uh yeah, just to find out that and and to see that this is like something that kind of it is morphed into something different, and so little little stories like that have been kind of fun to bring up to.

8:50 Now for those that don't know what is spirit communications, Corey, you know, beyond of you know, the fictional movies and TV shows and stories and stuff like that. I mean, that's a good I mean, that's kind of like a hard one to put in. It's like such a simple question and it's also kind of hard to like say succinctly. I mean, it's the idea of first you have to talk about what is a spirit? So first of all, you have to talk about what is a spirit? Right? I think most of us, like when I first, you know, started getting curious about these weird experiences I was having. I I really started thinking about you know, it was like for me, it was like guides, like spiritual guides, gods and ghosts like those I was I say, the three g's were like the only things that I was really interested in. And as I started getting deeper into this, I'm like, wait, it seems like there are you know, there's all this folklore and these different types of experiences that people are having out in nature.

9:55 You know, there's there's also the darker spirits. I mean, not everything is. I am of the belief that much like much like everyone that is out in the in the world, most folks are pretty good, some aren't, and that includes the spirit world. So there are those darker energies. There's also I think that there's room within this like spirit communication bucket for you know, cryptids and you know, incidents of high strangeness and extraterrestrials and things like that, those types of visitations and so kind of like first of all, it's like thinking about what is a spirit and then really it's just figuring out how to talk to those spirits. And most of the time it's not going to be through our five primary senses. It's also going to be involving our psychic senses, which are also sometimes called the Claire's.

10:44 There's this for decades, people who believe that cryptids and primarily we'll talk about Bigfoot in this case was it physical or is a physical being? But it almost seems like because we have yet to find any true hard evidence, people are starting to shift to this, well, maybe it's spiritual or maybe it's extraterrestrial. Do you think that that is a legitimate belief or possibility or do you think that people who have been so strong hung on the physical aspect because of not getting it, they have no choice but to be like, oh well maybe in that case it's this, even if they don't really believe it themselves. So I'm going to apologize first to the flesh and blood community out there, Like, I know that probably what I'm gonna say is going to really tick you off.

11:30 But I here's the thing. I don't know if it's I just think it's all really fun, Like it's so fun to think about the possibilities and my favorite So I will also back up and say, so my mom and my stepdad. My stepdad is a hoot. So he worked and he did like financial consulting, and he lived and worked in something like seventy two different countries over the course of his career. And one of the things that he was really interested in was the monster of the world. And so he would you know, he's in Africa and you know, learning about a nanci and you know, like this the spider god and you know, he's getting to be in Nepaul and getting to learn about the Yetti and so anyway he ends up he and my mother end up getting together in like the mid two thousands, and my mom is also my parents were silversmiths until my dad passed away, but my mom is also a visual artist. So they get together and they start like doing illustrations of all kinds of like monsters. So that's also like another and as a family, we really love to go to like you know, we love to go to haunted places and stuff like that, and so I kind of came up with just uh, cryptids were always a part of my life for the past, like you know, twenty years. And my favorite like just to use uh, just to use Bigfoot as an example. My favorite story or theory with Bigfoot is that he they're realm walkers in a very similar way that the Fay are realm walkers or you know Tommy Knockers or which you know those are. We have a lot of lore of those

13:01 in Colorado out in our minds, and so I just, I don't know, I think that's a very and I also love the theory that what if Bigfoot is like these are just ghosts of like really really old beings. Like that's again, who knows. It's very fun to think about. Though again I'm very sorry to your flesh and blood community out there who is possibly seething. So Tommy Knockers did something more than just a Stephen King book, then oh. Yeah, oh my god, I would love to tell you about the time. So so yeah, out here in Colorado, you know, in our gold and in our gold mines, which you know, Colorado has a very bloody, hard history, like a lot of like I mean really our country has a pretty for We have a very interesting history in this country. And so you know the mines. We had the gold rush in the late eighteen hundreds, and we have these towns that were like nothing and then they you know, blew up to you know, tens of thousands of people and then it was this boom and bust type of thing. But we had a lot of immigrants that came over from Cornwall and from Ireland, and so one of the things that you know, the first incidents that I've heard of of Tommy Knockers being referenced in the United States were Cornish miners in the Pennsylvania Coal mines, and by the time, you know, they start coming out to Colorado, you start hearing about these stories of these beings in the minds and if you're nice to them, they'll be helpful. They you know, there's stories

14:32 of the miners that they would give like a little bit of their food as an offering, and you know, stories of getting tipped off when something was wrong in the mines. But if you were a jerk, sometimes the Tommy Knockers were not so nice. And you know, it's kind of that interesting theory too, of like, you know, worthy spirits that were here that are just similar to maybe what the you know, these immigrants from Cornwall were experiencing in their homeland, and you know, you just bring a familiar name over to like these, you know, to what you're finding in your new country. Or do we bring our spirits with us as we travel? You know, that's another fun thing to think about. But yes, much more than a Stephen King novel. And there's also a brewery called Tommy Knockers in one of our towns. Well, now, shifting back to the book, I will say that was then both of those are in there, so I technically didn't take it's off too far.

15:34 Well, now we have, like just in the people that we've talked to, you know, there tends to be a grand number of people who tend to experience signs of the spiritual, and yet they continue to doubt themselves on what they're seeing or what is actually out there. Why do you think that so many people who experience with these signs do continue to doubt themselves despite those signs being so prominent. Well, I mean, especially if it's like I mean, it sometimes depends on who the sign is coming from. One of the examples I gave in the book was from a friend of mine named Mandy, and Mandy and I worked together for god like twelve years. She always toad.

16:14 She'll still introduce my meetings be like she was my supervisor, and I'm like, no, babe, you were unsupervisable. She's like, absolutely unsupers. But I knew her kids from the time that they were little, and heartbreakingly, her son Jaden and his best friend Ryan died in a car crash. God it'll be four years I think this coming October. And one of the examples that I put in the book was for Bandy, you know, was coming up with kind of a language of when she because I mean her those boys are strong like they are, they are loud, but it took her a really long time to believe because you know, she went through the I mean, there's few griefs, there's few kinds of grief out there that are deeper than that a parent that loses a child.

16:58 And the the thing that she will often experience is a heads up dime. And she she started to give it like a I'm doubting that you can hear me. I want to find a heads up dime within like a certain timeframe. I can't say that there's ever been a time that he's left or hanging. And it's pretty funny because when I ask permission to include that example in the book within like I think it was like fifteen minutes I found a heads up dime, like and like on the floor of a hotel lobby. She was was really strange experience. But so I think sometimes it's just that deep grief and that you know, worry of like and also two people start to worry like am I going to turn into that person that see signs in everything? Because that's a different kind of problem, you know, like not every song that comes on the radio, is maybe a sign from your loved one. I think that signs sometimes, like you know, from guides or people that work with like deities. You know, sometimes I work with a lot of students who sometimes it feels like a deity or a more divine spirit is trying to like, you know, get their attention, and that can be also a true So I don't know, it's I think sometimes it's like that. Also, it's hard to open yourself up to that life might be more magical and mystical than we want to believe, because it's hard out here, you know, it's hard out here in the day to day.

18:24 So I don't know. That's a really good question, and I don't have a simple answer. Yeah. So we've asked people, a lot of people about this, and the majority of the time we get the same answer. But I do feel that it has to do with your belief system and whatnot too. But you know, can anybody communicate with spirits or do you have to be like, as an example, a medium or a psychic. I'm probably going to tell you something you've heard before. I think some of I think there are some of us that we just we come into this world with those senses dialed up. I also, I do. I've met a lot of other people who do what I do, who also have been through some stuff, you know. I it's an interesting thing, like the number of people who have these You know, it takes a while sometimes before you can think of them as gifts. Sometimes it just seems like a lot a liability. Oftentimes, you know, we're a crew of people where we've been through some things, and sometimes these gifts are fairly hard one. But what you probably have heard the most is that yes, anyone can train, you know, right, like it's a it's like going to the gym, and like, you know, do you build up strength over time? Anyone can start with psychic development work, and I think everybody should start with psychic development work because number one, it's can be really fun.

19:55 And also those are the skills that you need to have strong in order to be able to have spirit communication is really nuanced, and so you really do want to be able to like perceive those subtle cues. But so I think psychic development is the thing that anyone can start with. And then of course you can always try mediumship, and you know, for some people it's tougher. It's a tougher road, and for some people it's a lot easier and I don't And that just seems to be in the same way that some people have just a knack for playing the violin or for athletics, and we all come in with, you know, some level of baseline talent. But that's that's what I that's what I think.

20:38 Okay, fair enough, and yeah, that's typically the answer we get. But a lot of people don't believe in this stuff, so they think that it's oh, you know, a medium or a psychic. They've been training for years or they were born that way, and I can't do that. I can't, I can't go in, or I don't want to, And that is more of a common one is I don't want to. I don't want that, and fair enough to a lot of those people, I. Don't want to open that door. That's that's the thing that I probably hear the hear the most, and it always cracks me up to when like my like some of my tarot students or you know, people who they read tarot cards and maybe they have their ancestor altar in their house and do a little candle magic here and there. But when it comes to talking with spirits, I don't want to open that door. And I always saying, I'm like, I need to tell you, but the doors, you're already already doing it.

21:37 A lot of people believe those tools are are nothing more than just that, and in reality is yes, they are tools, but there's more to it. What's you're thinking, Yeah, absolutely? Do you find some when it comes to your students. Do you find that they don't want to open those doors because it's like a burden or because it's out of fear that they want to try to keep those things closed. So a lot of people come to me because they had a lot of like spooky experiences when they were younger, or they've had experiences over the course of their life. And it's funny, I have like a few different camps of people that often find me. So I have a lot of students who will come to me that will say I was really really open when I was younger, and then usually it's either something happened or it got too much, and so I actively worked to shut it down.

22:26 And now I feel like there's something missing in my life and I want to try to open that back up. So that's kind of one group of folks. I often have a lot of people who are, you know, getting over some spiritual wounding. I have a lot of people that you know, grew up in really haunted houses when they were children, but they also lived in a deeply like monotheistically religious home, and we're told that's not real or it's all demon like, it's demonic, even though you're telling me that you saw Grandma and it was really nice and you know, so it was a confusing experience. So sometimes people come to kind of like re establish what they believe spiritually, which I think that's pretty cool to be able to kind of make your own way and kind of figure out what you believe as an adult.

23:11 I think that's a pretty neat thing. And then sometimes I have people who come to me where they're like, this stuff is happening all the time, and I just I feel like I can't get any peace, and I need boundaries and I need like I need to be able to figure out what to do with this. So those are like the three kind of main groups of folks that I get as my students. Okay, it's always interesting, like to meet different people and see how they react, especially to past circumstances. So then you have like me and Justin who've experienced some pretty scary things where you're kids, and instead of being afraid, we're like, dive deeper, let's go far, Like what's happening. We've done some or had some scary things as adults too.

23:53 I yeah, I'd love to hear about it, like what's your like, what's your favorite? Like what got you guys into this? Well? I I got started, and me and Eric kind of have a similar situation where, you know, I always had a a interest in this stuff. I got into Ouiji board at the very I shouldn't say very young age. I was a teenager tarot cards, and then you know, I was doing Ouiji board sessions with different people in my family, and we eventually got some really dark answers. So we're like, nope, nope, nope, we're putting that away. We're not doing that anymore. And then, uh, later on in life, Eric and I started talking about this stuff regularly.

24:42 You know, we'd have a beer on the campfire and just start talking about this stuff. And we were watching shows like Supernatural, ghost Hunters stuff like that, so we're like, you know, what maybe we should start a paranormal investigation team. And on top of that, there's got to be somewhere where you could do like an online radio show. We had never heard the word podcast ever at that point in our lives. So we started Night Soccer's Paranormal Society and Nice Soccer's Paranormal Radio and it eventually turned into this. But in the meantime, I opened myself up to psychico mediumship. And you know, over the years, I've kind of felt certain family members were that way. They just didn't realize it or didn't talk about it.

25:29 Yes, yeah, oh that's so awesome. I've heard Okay, that's I love it, love to hear it. Yeah. And then on my side, like very similar to j Justin grew up with Wiji board and you know, playing around mostly you know, not knowing where Wigi board really was. But I also grew up in a haunted house. The houstin I'm currently living in is a family home. I grew up here. My mom grew up here, so my grandparents owned it. It's sixty years old and when my mom was growing up here and we didn't I didn't know this until I was already about sixteen years old before her and my uncle finally spilled the beans, if you will, Because you know, growing up, me and my sisters had always witnessings. We'd hear footsteps, you know, someone walking upstairs in the middle of the night, or would see shadows, light, flickering, doors being opened and shut by themselves, and my mom was always no, no, it's nothing.

26:19 It's not really to welcome parents, there's nothing there. And then when we were sixteen, it was like in the year's eve and my mom and my uncle were talking. They started talking about dose encounters in this house when they were children, and like my me and my sister's overheard. We what And I was like, oh, yeah, like everything you've been seeing the same thing. We've seen weird kids growing up. So I grew up in a notoriously haunted house. And then when I moved, we moved out of here in two thousand and four, went to another city and we had a little haunting there when my family had always see this blue orb floating around the house. We never knew where it was or who it was, but we would all witness it at the sand exact time or at different times, and so that was kind of like the introduction to like this is interesting. But then right before, right around the time we started the podcast, I dimped into a little book known as the Lesser Key of Solomon.

27:14 Just that just a little, just a little something, a little night tall and you were wanting to be a demonologist at that point too. I was, but I didn't know what I was getting into. I opened some doors that got fit, just burst wide open, and I fell into three months into modical pressure. I started off with some just typical visions, like just not typical but hoopy visions as I'm falling asleep, and then that turned into nightmares, then shifted in the night terrors and like I remember seeing these giant, like seven foot shadows that would walk around my house midday and they would just stand in the hall and stare at me.

27:54 Or I'd wake up and they're at the bottom of the you know, the end of my bed. And one night, like I it cost so vividly. My parents had a dog who was she's like a like a black lab and they have wood floors and you would always hear her walking because you could hear the nails clicking on own wood floor. So I was laying in bed and there's like, my door is always shut, and there's a little night light on the wall outside of my door in this hallway, and so I hear the clipping, the clicking on the door on the floor, and I'm like, I lean over to see her shadow pass by, but it stops at my door, and I'm waiting, and I'm waiting, a wait, she doesn't pass And then all of a sudden, there's just this deep guttural growl in my face at the side of my bed, and it was like from there, thing's just escalated real fast. But yeah, it kind of got moved deeper into this whole understanding of the dark side of the paranormal and the spiritual world. Yea. And it took, you know, some overcoming. It took some intervening of the Lord to step in and help me out with some things. Yeah, you know, but it opened my eyes.

28:59 It helped me realize that there are people who've gone through things. I've met some more people since then who've gone through very similar things, who can't explain, who don't understand that Easter, were fearful of it. But I've been able to use my story to help them overcome their own You know. Yeah, so then that's where I kind of step in on this show. It's like I kind of have this whole not a whole different, but slightly different viewpoint where it's like I very much believe and have witnessed the good. Yeah, but I think some people, unfortunately, some people focus so much on the good that they kind of let the guard down the. Love and light. You can't let love and light just kind of like, you know, make you stupid, is the way that I often think about it, and you know, and that's man, I always like, I think that's one of the things that I do caution people with is that, like I do think that you know, keeping the more joy you can bring into this type of practice, I do think there is an element of that that does keep you safe, you know, because if like the way that I often will go in to like at Haunted Space, like I have a retreat that I will hold for people that have studied mediumship with me for at least seven weeks, so you know, we have like a shared foundation of of you know, knowledge and kind of like a shared language. That program is called Modern Mediums, but then usually annually so far I'll rent a Haunted Space I'll rent like a haunted hotel or you know, something like that. Like this past year we were at the Oliver House in Bisbee, Arizona. The year before that we were at the Stanley and their their lodge. But you know,

30:30 it's it's one of those things where I kind of will go into these spaces, whether it with you know, I want to make friends, but I also have good boundaries, like in the same way that if I'm going out with my friends for the night, I'm not going to just be like, you know, telling everybody that I meet where I live. You know, this is like here's here's how you find me. Here's like, oh my god, let's keep in touch. And so you know, there is like you do have to like have some street smarts and some common sense and also like intervening quickly, you know, because that stuff can get That's one of the things that I if there's probably one bit of pro bono work that I do the most, it's people that will they have those types of attachment issues. And the number of people that I've met who are walking around with things that have been going on for ten years, fifteen years, and it just breaks my heart, you know, because it's like it doesn't have to There are remedies, So I thank you for sharing that, both of you. Those are I love hearing your stories.

31:24 Yeah, I mean there's so much more, but yeah, obviously we have limited time. So I mean, yeah, I've had those different encounters of seeing what I thought was my dad in the doorway and to give him a hug Banish. We've told this story multiple times. We have the opportunity to do a investigation at Jeffrey Dahmer's home in Bath, Ohio. It's where he grew up. Had some interesting experiences there which where I was touched, somebody saw a floating torso not on our team, another team. So there's been I mean tons and tons since we've started this journey.

32:11 It's never your life is never boring. When this is your hobby or your job, you know, whatever, it is like never you will never be bored. That's actually one of the things that I did put in Little in the Little Book is like you get into this like you have something to do anywhere you go. Well, and I'll tell you what it's like Justin and I. Over the years, so we've been doing this what like twenty some odd years total, two thousand and six, Yes, two thousand and six, one of years. Right. So, but it's like we've at times have walked away, we shut down the podcast, like we're done, we don't want to do it anymore. And it doesn't take long, a couple of months a year at tops, and then some somehow we get drag right back in and we have a new podcast about it. And said, every time we walk away, there's something that pulls us back and say, you know, let's just stay this time.

32:56 Say your work is not done with you. Right. Well. I think the big issue though, too, is when you're doing something like this, especially just a podcast, you're not in the field, the the topics start to get stale and stagnant, where it's kind of the same thing over and over again. It's answers over and over again. So it our ultimate goal with coming back was to try and not let that happen again. Yeah, and there are and I mean the good news is there's a lot of there's a lot of weird stuff and weird people doing cool things, and so I hope you find all of them. I'm grateful that I get to be one of them.

33:38 So well, you appreciate you Yeah, So getting back to to the the stuff in the book again, probably heard the same thing from everybody, but I'd love to have your take on it. What is like the common or most common mistake people make when trying to communicate, even more so when they open themselves up. I think a lot of it is like it starts with a like you've got to know what you're bringing to the table. So I I think that, like and I see this like, I'm gonna also draw some parallels with like divination. You know, I always like joke that like taro was like the gateway, it's like the gateway drug, like the gateway drug for all the spooky stuff. But you know, I will and I've been guilty of this too, Like when you sit down to do a taroor reading when you're like hyped up or you're you know, you're mad, you're you're upset, or you're excited, you often just get reflected back like what you're feeling, and then sometimes what you see it doesn't come to pass. And one of the things that I like have found really helpful with divination that I think translates really well to spirit communication is like taking like it like taking stock of what is going on around me, what is like, how is that?

34:53 How? What's going on in my body? What's going on in my mind and in my emotions, and then doing something consciously to release that. So I'm like a new It's like I want to be like beige, you know, I want to be like neutral canvas. And because I think that with spirit communication that gives you the ability to like be really, you're gonna notice, like if I really take stock of how my body is feeling, and then I notice that, Like for me, one of my tells is that my head starts buzzing, like I get like an itchy feeling in the top of my head, and then I notice that like my back is hurting or my throat is tight, and it what And I can tell it wasn't like that before. That tells me something. And so I think one of the things that I see most common is folks just like not noticing themselves before they start. I also think sometimes like not being specific about what you are looking at, Like I see so many people that will get together for like a saying I love hosting seances. I think seances are so fun.

35:53 And also you want to make sure that you like have a conversation before you start the seance. If somebody's wanting to talk with like a murder victim that they've never met, and somebody else is like I want to talk to my grandma. You know, there might be some I think sometimes being thoughtful about what you are looking for and what you want to happen. But probably more to your point, the thing that I think is most common is folks will just throw open the doors and then they forget to close them, and it's like you just like, you know, just opening your doors to like anyone that's coming in, and then you just walk away and don't bother, like purposefully shutting things down. Those are probably the things that I see the most.

36:38 I still make that mistake. I'm constantly open, and I tend to leave it that way just because I feel like I'm gonna miss something if I don't, huh, But I like, as an example, I've lost a lot of sleep at times where I feel something's trying to communicate with me. I'll get the flashing light like bright light in my eyes, which I've heard is a common one for communication, and it's like leave me alone. I'm trying to sleep, and then it all stops. So I just have to kind of set that in rule when I go to bed. Look, if you want to community come with me in my dreams, that's fine. Let's not do the flashing lights in my eyes so it wakes me up type of thing.

37:23 I like to think of it as like it's like I have office hours. There's a so there's a root worker. He's this old he's this old time conjure man named Professor Charles Porterfield, and he lives down in Denton, Texas, and he is that man knows so much stuff. And he was like the first person that I like, the first like really bad ass, Sorry if I don't know if I can swear, really awesome magical practitioner who also would talk about like being sensitive to spirits, and he gave this an example of he puts a chair out by his front door and so and he will go and like he'll just kind of, you know, make a point of spirits or welcome to come and rest, like it's a it's a designated spirit chair. And he wants to want a day he'll go out and check and like if anyone's sitting there, he'll have a conversation with him.

38:07 But uh, but yeah, I I A would like to think of it as like turn a volume control knob that you I just I try to turn it down so I can live my life. And but then I, you know, you want to be able to turn it up pretty pretty easily. But I understand what you're saying for sure. Yeah, I'll say like, also when it comes to a terror reading, for example, how important if the ease were like neutral you want to remain beage. I think sometimes people don't realize how much energy plays into a reading, because I know personal from personal experience. If if I'm in a stressed state, if I'm angry something, that I will read something in a negative way rather than in a positive way or the right way, if you will.

38:49 And it's interesting how much of a difference it makes when you take the time to meditate prior to doing a reading, or even just to clear your aura or the energy you know in your space. And so when it comes to that though, like, what are some other ways that maybe someone can ground themselves or create boundaries or intention Like is there a you know, like one specific way or we have all the ways that we can. Get Oh my god, I mean there's so many ways. I'll tell you the ones that are in the book, and that'll or you know, and kind of like they're they're a riff on very closely like what I do for myself, what I teach my students, what I do with my clients. You know, some people are like deep, slow breath people and like you know, meditative, you know, they enjoying like those meditative breaths. Other people hate that stuff, like I have. I know some clients that they're like trying to you know, calm down and take four deep breaths is like anxiety inducing to be so for those folks, you know, maybe like shaking out your limbs might be a more effective way. But I always like to start with, you know, taking a few breaths, do doing a little bit of that body if you're just doing this on your own, doing that body scan, you know, checking in with like literally what's around you, what's going on within you, checking in with your thoughts, checking in with your emotions, and then you know, maybe taking three big breaths, big wooshing breaths where you're shaking your arms or big steady, long breaths and just imagine that all of that energy

40:20 is just like dumping out into the ground, like any excess energy that you don't need is just dumping out into the ground. I really love the I'm a big visualizer. I love to imagine that I have roots growing from the lower half of my body down through the soles of my feet. I often like to think that I have like a little tether from the top of my head, you know, bringing you know, connecting all the way up with the heavens or whatever lies beyond. And then I'll end with a big, big inhale and then I envision that I'm held in a bubble of protection and that everything that I need can reach me with these but anything else that's unhelpful just bounces away. I also, like, you know, if I'm sitting down to do a tarror reading, I am very very specific about like who I'm asking for that insight to come from, because you know, you could get a terror reading where you're using it as like a spirit communication tool, like I want to, you know, talk with my my most venerated ancestor, or if I want to talk with my highest spiritual guide, I want advice for my highest spiritual guide, or I want advice for my highest self. But those are some things that you can take to just study yourself, and I do that with all of my clients. Before a session, we'll just do a really quick grounding and that really does help to bring down the energy even if people come in very heightened, and it always seems to help almost always. Yeah, I think it always seems to help many a single time that it made things worse.

41:43 So, now, again we've probably heard this quite a bit, but everybody's. Kind of got something different. What are the most common ways spirits communicate to living or is there a common way? Well, so I'll tell you what is most common for me. I'm a big like the I get the mental images. It's like a movie playing on the inside of your minds, like you're replaying a you know, replaying a movie, or you know, thinking of how like a novel feels when you're reading it. I get Claire audience messages pretty frequently, and so like it's that's the similar feeling that you get like an earworm, like you get a song stuck in your head. I will tell you some of the ones.

42:30 You can also if you are like somebody who you want to like cultivate your psychic senses and you realize there's some like, you know, we have Claire sentience, which is the feelings and the you know, the images and the sounds and things like that, but there's also smell and taste Claire Ghostin's and Claire aliens. I had never had those experiences, and so for a whole year I would I would do my own personal spirit communication practice, and I say, send me a message through a smell or a taste. Worst decision ever, because that can disgusting. So I think it's really interesting when I meet people that they're like, I can smell ghosts, and I'm like, that is sound awful. But also every week, you know, I mean, I feel like everyone is a little different.

43:15 I think a lot of people will come in and say, well, I don't know what my Claire is, And I'm like, you've got a whole You've got like eleven different senses. You have your primary senses, you've got your like it's all a big mish mash. Don't think you just have to have one. But I think a lot of people, you know, you get we all know, like the crawling out of your skin feeling, Oh yeah, oh god, that that feeling when you're like everything in you is telling to telling you to like run, but you're like, I'm here for this. Here's the fun one. So those are some of how things work for me. And I think I feel like I've heard everything under the sun. I don't know, that's just yeah, that's what I got.

43:55 I experienced a lot of the Clays myself, So it mean i've I think it's more so like for the common person that doesn't necessarily think that they have that communication or whatever. Oh okay, I mean I think a lot of people are very I think most people have had the experience of because I will ask this of people like kind of your your average your average person out there, Like have you ever heard the voice, like you know, the voice that comes in and it's like get the heck out of here, or oh my god, you should go do this thing. I think a lot of people get that kind of really powerful Claire audience sometimes. So I think that sometimes is something that I see. I think the goosebumps, like the creepy crawley on the flesh is something a lot of people are familiar with. I think most people are pretty empathic if they allowed themselves to be, And so that's an aspect of Claire sentience, like feeling what others are feeling, feeling, what has like soaked into a space? What's that classic example of like walking into a room where somebody's just had to fight and you feel like uncomfortable. So I would probably say most people have had that I have met, have had Claire audience.

45:08 And then different kinds of Clare sentience, whether it's emotional feelings or like creepy crawley like skin crawling, goosebump feeling. I also wonder too if a lot of us are seeing like apparitions more frequently, but we think that they're people, you know. I wonder that all the time. It's I find it really interesting because like it's like I'm one of those and this has been the way, this way for many, many years now. But it's like I can't always just discern when there's a good spirit around, Like I can't walk into a house like, oh, this is good energy or a good spirit. But as soon as I'm near or somewhere close to the facility of something dark, whether it's a dark spirit, dark energy, it's like everything shits. Uh, you know, I get that head, like this heavy headache right in my third eye. You get this tingling, this almost instinct that's like you know, you stip into a room and instinct says, oh, nope, nope, we're going back, and this is this is too heavy, you know, and it's it's weird because like I've tried to focus in on that good energy. Not that I can't feel good energy per se, but most times it's like, can I discern the difference? It's like, oh, I know when it's dark. I know when there's something dark. I wrap buy a house and look at it like there's something there and it's not a happy spirit, that's for sure, you know, and it's it's really interesting, and I don't know if that's like if it's something that I can kind of change, or if that's part of like my story, like when it comes all the way back to opening that original door and like once they're coming back and meeting these people who kind of experience those same things

46:40 as dark things, it's like, maybe that's just my track, that's my pasth. I mean, you went through a really intense experience and so that like that does seem like you would be really poised to recognize danger, you know, Like I mean because it's like a form in the sorry. This is like some of my old victim avicants speak coming in but like that hypervit lens. You know that a lot of people who've experienced a trauma, and I think that's something that people sometimes forget, is that even though I have a pretty like I'm a pretty light hearted person, which I'm proud of, you know, I'm like, you don't. You don't fall into twenty years of being a victim advocate without a story that gets you there, you know. And so I, even though I come into this stuff with a lot of joy in my heart, I'm not a dummy like and you know, I know a lot of people who have had wildly traumatic experiences with spirits and we I think that's something that also has to be like acknowledged. But my suggestion for people, and this is something that I will tell because I have a lot of people who've had really bad experiences and then they come in trying to find that joy. Going to places that have like really lighthearted haunts can sometimes be fun.

47:47 Like I man, I it's I know it's expensive, but I really I can't say enough good things about the Stanley Hotel out Nesta's part in Colorado, where you know, Stephen King famously wrote or came up with the idea of the Shining But it's so much more. I mean, it's like that place is so special and it really I don't know. I just can't even tell you what's going on there. There are so many it just delivers. Like it's almost like a place that's like it's showtime and it will deliver what you're looking for. And uh and it's loud too, where it's you're not just like, oh, maybe this is just me thinking that I'm having an experience. It's like, oh no, this is so I don't know.

48:28 Sometimes going to places that have like fun haunts, I know, I feel like those are harder to find though, because not everybody wants like a fun haunt. I don't know, right, So. I feel that a lot of people wonder this. You know, is there a responsible or ethical line that people just should not cross when it comes to spiritual menfation? You know, I guess everybody would have a difference. I think for me personally, and this is kind of where I get into I have real mixed feelings about some true crime type stuff out there. I do I do think folks should examine like when they're going to, like, you know, connect with a murdered person. I just think that there's like a responsibility to think about like just to like maybe put your put yourself in the ghost shoes, you know, and just think about, you know, what's your outcome, and also like, you know, how could you maybe offer some kindness to those spirits. I think you see that a lot with like Southern plantations, where I'm like, really, like, are we are we like, are we really not going to like talk about like what this really was here?

49:43 Because that's a huge part of like those hauntings, right, And so I do just think maybe, like I don't know, historical context and like sensitivity is sometimes like a thing that should be considered. I don't know if it's a bright line of you should or shouldn't do it? You know, I you ask the wrong person this question because I will play Devil's advocate with you, and so we are completely out of time because I'm like I wouldn't do this, but then sometimes I would, you know. I Mean, it's just it's a tricky thing. I do think that you do need to just think about the consequences of your actions and also just like think about you know, like again just like thinking of like a lot of homicides.

50:27 Like there's a lot of like hauntings that are linked to homicides. There's a lot of like violence against women and kids that is linked to you know, hauntings, and you know, I think it's also just kind of think about not just those spirits, but also like if you're someone that you're an investigator and you're like, you know, putting out videos of your investigations out there, maybe also just think of, like does this person still have living descendants that maybe still kind of like following their names and like have like a little Google alert on their names, and maybe just think about it that way. You know. So there's that I to say this for you, Eric, because I'm like, oh man, you learned the hard way. Be thoughtful. Like if you there's I made a lot of like little like newer witches who are like I want to work with the infernals, and I'm like, Okay, let's think about this. So it's like you can do whatever you want, but who are you gonna call if things get out of hand? Yeah? I know, It's like I don't think ghost musters would know what the heck to do with that, But you know so I think too.

51:27 It's also just like if you're going to mess around, make sure that you know what to do if you find out, you know, Yeah, I. Think it's important also to like just being a person, Like if you're going to talk to another person, whether you know, living or deceased, consider your own triggers, Like what are some of the things that you've been through that is similar to ask you a very similar question, How would you respond? How would you react to that? Because like if it would make you angry OR'd make you upset in some way, maybe you shouldn't ask that question, you know. But of course still it comes down to one's a stream. And I'll be honest, there are some people out there that are just either they don't care or they're honestly just idiots and they do things without.

52:11 Yeah, and some folks just don't kind of you know, it's they they're wanting to go in to be like provocative or something like that. I will say, like a question that I always get really good reactions to. Number one, asking for song recommendations, like what was your favorite music? Or can I play you a song. That's something that we'll sometimes do the Stanley Hotel. That was so fun. We got more like there is there is a spirit in the Lodge Library at the Stanley Hotel that loves Carly Simon, You're so ain. And also and there were these and three Little Birds by Bob Marley. It was really it was real cute dream. A little Dream of Me was one that just kept coming up and everywhere by Fleetwood Mac was one that kept coming up at the Oliver Hotel and Bisbee. But another question I love to ask to you is what advice would you have, you know, if you're if you're a spirit that is like keeping tabs on what we're all doing here, What advice would you have based on what you lived through or have seen and what maybe you are perceiving us go through. And that's always really interesting too.

53:14 Yeah, for sure. Now, what's one thing that you hope that everybody takes away from the book or even this conversation today? Oh my gosh. So I think that one of the things that I get I find remarkably stupid in kind of like spiritual circles, is all the silos that everybody is is in, like the paranormal people, Like I get nervous every time, like anytime a paranormal show wants to talk to me, because I've had some tap terrible experiences with investigators that will treat me like I'm stupid because I identify first and foremost as a see er in a spiritist aka psychic medium, right, and so, but I also see like the witches think that the don't like the paranormal investigator or don't think there's value there, and the mediumship Like there's like the side the mediumship silo and the paranormal investigation side the silo and the witchcraft silo, and then the like the cryptos who the crypt you know, the cryptid people and the upologists, And I just think it's so dumb and we miss out on so many opportunities to like learn, because what if we're just all looking at different pieces of one gigantic puzzle. You know, Yeah, for sure that's a big part. That's a big theme throughout little Book of Spirit Community Communication, as is track down source text, look at history and look at context, and everybody should practice psychic development. Those are those are

54:46 those are like the five things there? Well, I think like overall those things, especially to beginning there really works well with our show because that's what we came in here with the Paratroop, but we're born to do that. We have so many different people from various difficulty of life, regardless of their the belief systems and religions, you know, et cetera. It's like we all come here, we talk, we share, uh, we build this little community, you know, and it's I think it's important to the best know yourself. It's important to know others and what they go through, what they be right, because you can't work with people if you don't know what they're like, Like, you can't know I've had a very there was a time where I had a very uh, I guess negative view on the quote unquote Satanist, all right, but there are certain things that some of them believe that they think about and they consider that. It's like, oh that's interesting, you know. It's like it helps build a different foundation, I think for us in our own belief system, even if we don't agree with them, you know.

55:45 And I think that's important and not have to call them on you know, satan this specifically. But in this case, we've got some interesting stories. We get this in the past, who who called themselves Satanists will put it that way. Yeah, well, I I mean, y'all have really interesting backstories too, and so I love that there's so much variety and like what you what you bring to the table, and that that definitely I appreciated hearing. I appreciated hearing that. But yeah, I just everybody just be curious and be open minded and learn as much as you can and practice as much as you can. And because I don't know, I just figure, like what do we have to lose, you know, just half fun for sure.

56:28 Well, we're gonna go ahead and let you go here from now, so to stay on the line with us while we close. Go, But just thank you again so much for joining us. It's been a blast. Yeah, thank you so much for having me. It was lovely to chat with you. Well, and real quick, where can everybody find y'all? Oh that that old thing. So my website is sterlingmoon Taro dot com and just go to Sterling Moontaro dot com and you'll find all my social social media links and all the all everything is housed there. Sounds good. All right, thank you so much. All right, everybody, Well, now that we're here at the end of the show. I think we're warding Willie out of time there, so so until next week you'll find us, same time, same channel.

57:14 My name is Eric and I'm justin peace.