Anesthesia (Saints & Haints, Chapter 21)

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A chapter from Saints & Haints; which is my second autobiographical work, and a true story from the life of a Christian psychic medium.

Strange dreams afflict me, as a group of spirits and I continue our readings of The Gospel of John and The Gospel of Thomas. 

Chapter 21
Anesthesia

As the second-most-weird month of my life ever, August 2022, faded into September, I was aware that there were more people on this party line than usual. A was mysteriously absent, most of the time. My demons began telling me that they could be "made to tell me that saint's words." I didn't believe them, because they'd lied so much in the past. I reasoned that even if that were true, he would never use that method of communication, because he would know that I wouldn't trust them completely.

I have been careful to take what they say with a grain of salt. Still, I knew that at times they had been truthful; and I also knew that sometimes I'd been able to sense when they were lying. Other times, they'd had to tell me the same thing, over and over, for a long time, while I decided whether or not I was going to believe it. For instance, in August, I had only recently accepted their explanation for their bipolar behavior; which was that, when they were being assholes to me, it was because they were under the influence of the aristocratic demons. I finally decided that this had to be the truth. What else could their problem be? They don't work. Their death is better than my life!

I had noticed, in hindsight, that they had, on occasion, seemingly hinted about some things before they took place; as if they'd known about whatever it was in advance, but they'd withheld most of the information for some reason, choosing to only drop hints. For example, after I got the "Two Jesuses" message, I remembered that, at times, in the past, they'd said "Some Jesus," or "Same Jesus," when referring to Jesus. That would have been a much stronger hint if they didn't tend to speak in rhymes and riddles; but as they do, I'd brushed it aside as nonsense.

They love to use nicknames for people to make me question who it is they're really talking about. For example, during that time, when I wasn't hearing from A, they said things like,
"That Hot Shot," or "That Action-Jackson," "loved you a long time ago, and he loves you still."
I thought they were talking about A, but they made it seem as if they might've been talking about S. They could have sent me thought-transference confirmation along with that message, like the confirmations I received about my tarot card interpretations, but they didn't. In fact, they probably chose to send confusion, in the form of thoughts about both A and S, along with those messages. They love to do things like that.

One day, as I was walking in to work, I was pondering whether or not it was A who "loved me a long time ago and loves me still." As soon as I entered the computer room, where the hustle and bustle of the busy shopping day was no longer drowning out the music, the first thing I heard was Steve Winwood singing,

"Think about it... there must be higher love..."

I had that feeling, of knowing, that A was drawing my attention to the song as a response.


One morning, in early September, I woke up late, having slept through all my alarms. Unfortunately, that's not a rare occurrence. It was one of those mornings when I awaken feeling drugged, as if I'm waking up from anesthesia. (For the record, I do absolutely no drugs, nor do I drink; not ever, not even a little bit.) I'd been having some stupid dreams, but I had the feeling that they were significant somehow; that there was a message within them.

In the first one, I'd had to go all the way back through high school, for some reason. In the second one, I was killing lizards with an axe, while riding in an antique convertible car, up a twisting, treacherous mountain road. I was in the back seat, with Jorge, of all people, and some other man was driving the car. As we traversed narrow passageways, outcroppings of rocks nearly brushed the sides of the vehicle, and there were lizards on the rocks. I was reaching out of the open top of the car and chopping them with the axe.

In trying to decipher this, I first asked myself, "Why was I going back through high school? Because I had missed something?"
As soon as I thought that, I knew I had answered my own question. The message in that one was,
"Go back; you missed something."
The second one was harder. I was killing lizards. With Jorge. And someone else was driving the car. Those were the things that stood out to me. Jorge, I'd reasoned, would represent a demon in this tarot reading, because that's how I'd come to think of him; and killing lizards seemed like a reference to fighting Satan. I could not, however, work out the symbolic meaning of the other man who was driving the car.

My demons, who were monitoring my thought process, said that they had sent me that dream, the one about chopping lizards. They said that it was a message from A, and that he was speaking through them, but I didn't believe it. Sometime later, it came to me that the images in that first vision from A were what I was supposed to go back and review. That was where I'd missed something. I began to wonder if A had been training me, with the tarot cards, to interpret his symbolic communications.

During this time, in early September, I was receiving a lot more downloads about religion and the scripture; clues, things to consider, passages to look at, and answers to questions. I was also seeing the number sequences again; 10:10, and so forth. I read those as a sign of approval; they seemed to come with the thought confirmation that I was doing exactly what I was supposed to be doing.

Meanwhile, my demons and I were completing a very close reading of The Gospel of John. I was jotting down notes on everything. I finished filling the notebook I was using, and switched to Post-Its, and then, when I ran out of Post-Its, I wrote on used envelopes. After one of our study sessions, we found ourselves beseeching Saint John to guide our understanding; and jokingly, sort of, to send us more Post-Its, and more plastic forks, so we could scrape what was left of our brains off the floor!
That night before bed, my demons joked,
"Wouldn't it be hilarious if there was a bunch of Post-It notes and plastic forks on your back porch when you wake up? It wouldn't be all that surprising!"
I laughed and added,
"...sealed in an envelope, postmarked 1857?"
They laughed, and agreed,
"That wouldn't be all that much more surprising!"

For a short while, we took a break from John and read a little bit of the apocryphal book, The Gospel of Thomas. We found some enlightenment there also. One passage in particular which stood out to me, was this:

Thomas 1:17
"Yeshua said:
I will give you that which no eye has seen,
no ear has heard,
no hand has touched,
and no human heart has conceived."

I read that as,
"Jesus will give you something you didn't even know you wanted."

Eventually, however, I began to experience a sense of dread surrounding the things we were discovering. I couldn't really explain why; I just had an ominous, foreboding feeling. I felt "weight." I had a sense that, for all our joking around and goofing off, what we were doing was serious; dangerous, even. It felt like a warning, and I was scared. I was reminded of another passage from The Gospel of Thomas.

Thomas 1:2
"Yeshua said:
Whoever searches
must continue to search
until they find.
When they find,
they will be disturbed;
and being disturbed,
they will marvel
and will reign over All."

By the time we'd finished our notes on John, I was, for the second time in my life, sitting in my kitchen, rocking back and forth, staring blankly, completely freaked out. At least this time demons were comforting me, and it wasn't them that I was afraid of.