The lady in front of me was conversing with her deceased dog.
To be more specific, the deceased dog, which was a “German Shepherd with a spotted coat,” was communicating with a female psychic.
This was routine at the Mind, Spirit, and Body event in Sydney.
Ali Oetjen, a former Bachelorette and current meditation teacher, attended Sydney’s Mind Body Spirit Festival.
The professional medium, who was delivering a morning session on the event’s main stage, stated that she frequently channeled dead pets, such as guinea pigs and even horses, that were difficult to ignore.
On one occasion, she informed a group of approximately 50 people that the spirit of a horse crowded into her small hatchback and “nagged” her the entire trip home from a session because she had failed to “locate its family.”
For four jam-packed days, the essential awareness of the cosmos showed itself in nonstop fortune-telling, crystal gazing, chakra alignment, and herbal tea spitting – or maybe it was just me.
At the Sydney Mind Body Spirit Festival, there were approximately one hundred stalls displaying a variety of items that enhance the quality of life.
Ali Oetjen led a meditation lesson during the event while he was there.
The Darling Harbour International Convention Centre in Sydney was the epicenter of this outpouring of spiritual energy and consciousness-raising, with over one hundred stalls showcasing the bizarre, the wondrous, the wacky, and the joyful.
It was as if all the New Agers in Byron Bay, a bastion for alternative lifestyles, had been packed into one airplane hangar.
Even with a third eye, there was much to perceive.
There were three presentation sections in addition to the’soul kitchen’ cooking exhibition area, a workshop room, a’sound healing room,’ and what appeared to be a prognostication exam room, where approximately thirty psychics sat at individual workstations awaiting clients.
Perhaps it was the spiritual equivalent of speed dating.
With palm reading, tarot cards, astrology, and ‘angel guides,’ every conceivable method of predicting the future was on display.
Those who require more caffeine than tea leaves can provide could even have their coffee cups read.
Greek coffee that leaves a swirling sludge of grinds is required for this, not foamy Starbucks coffee.
When the cup is approximately three-quarters empty, the seer will spin it in such a way that a meaningful layer of sediment remains.
Through the thick aroma of incense, I entered a session where a woman was guiding approximately thirty individuals in “ancestral healing.”
She instructed them to imagine a scarlet chord running down the back of their neck and “extending down, down, down to Mother Earth.”
“Allow Mother Earth to hold you, surround you, (remember) that you are a part of the being, and allow the stars to remind you of the power that exists within you,” she intoned croon a calming manner.
At the Mind Body Spirit Festival, individuals had their auras photographed and analysed.
Those in attendance were instructed to visualize and enter a “quartz crystal healing chamber” as the speaker switched from English to “Light Language,” which she described as “the language of the soul.”
A melodious chant with phrases that sounded a bit like Japanese was then followed by high-pitched singing interwoven with’shhh’ and hissing sounds.
As best as I could tell, this was the “ancestral super consciousness” healing wounds caused by ancestors.
Another ‘healer’ by the name of Paul Williamson claimed relief from ‘past-life development,’ which he defined as experiencing manifestations of your soul’s prior existence.
“I assist folks in accessing memories from a previous life,” he explained.
At Sydney’s Mind Body Spirit festival, there were numerous individuals seeking enlightenment among the numerous booths.
Ability to perceive former lives varies greatly.
Mr. Williamson stated, “Some easy, good subjects will go straight into the experience, and they will be completely immersed in the feelings and thoughts of the character.”
And for some, it is rather laborious.
Some of us who are more analytical may have a harder time letting go.
Mr. Williamson stated that he had “several” former incarnations.
There were other opportunities to enhance health and appearance at the festival.
He has authored books about some of them, including one about Ilsa, a “powerful female Celtic leader” who lived in Britain more than a thousand years before Christ.
Mr. Williamson, in a more recent incarnation, channeled Marjorie Wilson, a working-class lady who worked as a machine operator during World War II and struggled with family and personal disease and misery in the years following the war.
Not far from Mr. Williamson’s booth was the $55-per-person location for aura photography.
The operator explained that an aura photograph is a computer-generated representation of the energy we emit.
This is measured by touch, or “dermal resistance” as the operator expressed it.
Some of the guidance provided during the Mind Body Spiritual Festival was a little more grounded.
A subject sits in a chair and places their hands flat on two side-situated sensors.
The metallic pads send a small electrical current into the hand and this determines which lights are turned on inside the camera and recorded digitally.
The colours above the head show current experiences, those on the photo’s right side indicating show how people perceive the subject and those on the left display ‘potential’.
Seeing ‘beyond’ the physical was also evident in Nia’s striking artwork, which typically displayed colourful eye motifs adorned with collages of glass, glitter and crystal on matte black backgrounds.
Nia, left, shows off some of her artwork. There was also scented candles galore at the four-day festival held at Sydney’s Darling Harbour (right) (right)
Nia, an electrical engineer by profession, explained her works show ‘the source energy within all the humans that most of us won’t really remember’.
She admitted her work, which sells from $520 for big pieces down to $120 for smaller ones, is ‘not commercial’ but that’s not what it is for.
‘A guy brought this work from me here yesterday and he was crying and that is the connection I want,’ she said.
As I carefully navigated the increasing crowds, I began to sense something in my soul, which was fatigue.
I interpreted this as a sign from the universe that it was time for me to return home and leave the animal spirits, dermal resistance auras, and ancestral super consciousnesses to other seekers.