"Last of the Sleeping Prophets," Interview by Francesc Prims
This article originally appeared in Athanor Magazine (Barcelona, Spain), May/June 2011. Translated from Spanish to English.
Through Deep Trance Meditation, Douglas J. Cottrell is able to project his mind outside the body to recognize a patient who is at his side or thousands of miles away and find out the causes of their illness, giving natural treatments for recovery. This ability, along with that of healing by the laying on of hands and his ability to see the future make Douglas J. Cottrell an essential reference in the field of spiritual healing and prophecy by psychic means.
DEEP TRANCE MEDITATION
You have been billed as “the last of the sleeping prophets”. What does this mean?
‘Sleeping Prophet’ means I have the ability to go into deep trance. I am the ‘last’ because the great visionaries who preceded me in the 20th C and died were Edgar Cayce, Ross Peterson and Paul Salomon. Through Deep Trance Meditation I can get information from the Akashic records and I can answer with authority on any issue or question. This capability allows me to accurately predict the future, including the likely future of a person or big changes that will occur on the Earth. It also allows me to recognize the body a person, knowing the exact cause of an illness or disorder and find remedies.
What is Deep Trance Meditation?
Some describe it as an intermediate state between consciousness and sleep, while others describe it as self-hypnosis. But deep trance goes beyond hypnosis, since it is possible to project the mind outside the body and contact the soul mind. In the Hindu tradition this kind of state is called samadhi, and is developing a higher consciousness; it is a state of cosmic consciousness.
Akashic Records, soul mind … What exactly is contacted?
Beyond the physical dimension there are others, and there is a place where all the information is stored. More than a place, it is a state of mind, or a high level of consciousness. I think all the souls who have lived, are living, and will live on Earth have a connection with this state of mind, where everything is stored, like in a library. Just as an elevator interconnects all floors of a building, the akashic records connect every soul and every conscience of every single soul. My conclusion is that every word, deed and thought has been etched in the minds of the soul, and thus remains in the Akashic records.
Is deep trance a gift, or can it be taught?
Edgar Cayce sought others who may enter this type of trance, and found some that throughout history have had this ability. Ross Peterson developed this ability, too, and taught others to develop. All that is required is to have the desire to learn, from the heart.
What is the process to enter the Deep Trance Meditation?
You start relaxing the body through slow, deep breathing. Above all we must exhale slowly while allowing the body to become relaxed. There are also exercises to help with the mind’s eye. In my workshops I invite people to visualize a red ball passing through a green ring, from right to left and left to right several times. This practice allows for greater equilibrium between the two cerebral hemispheres. Then we perform several practices with the mind’s eye, like walking around the room, going inside certain materials and articles or even visiting a particular person. But this involves much effort and training.
Why?
Because you have to get the ego and the rational or ego mind out of the way. The rational mind is the mind of logic and intellect. It must be trained to let go, or go away. One of the most important things you need if you want to go into a deep trance state is trust. Distrust is one of the aspects that do not allow people to advance. It is essential to start relaxing, and breathing is a conscious way of relaxing the body. The deep breathing I mentioned affects the metabolism, respiratory system and the circulatory, which become more relaxed. Your heart rate slows … In this way the mind begins to expand into the field and your intuitive or contemplative mind differentiates from the logical or rational mind. As you are entering a deeper state of relaxation your rational mind enters a state of neutrality or indifference or falls asleep while your mind contemplative, intuitive mind awakens. This mind is aware of everything: clock ticking, noises of people outside on the street … and, of course, of the Akashic records and the universal mind. In this state the two minds, the rational and contemplative, are united to form a single mind. The mind, in this type of meditation, it becomes very active, and has an immense capacity.
In the state of Deep Trance Meditation, how can you “explore” the body of a person to know the causes of their ailments or diseases?
First it should be clear that this is an intuitive or psychic ability. It cannot be called a diagnosis, which is a medical process where examinations are made and evidence is gathered to reach a conclusion or diagnosis. In the deep trance state, there is only consciousness, completely separate from any other stimulus. Then there is a person next to you, who directs the mind where to go. Because this mind can go anywhere and see everything, but it is like a computer: unless you give an order and tell it where to go, it is just there, present. The person sitting there asks that mind to analyze the state of someone who is sick or is having difficulty. All you have to indicate is the name of that person and the place where he or she is located. So, no matter where in the world they are, the first thing is for the mind to locate that person in the soul mind. At that time my soul mind and the mind of the person I’m looking at are together. The mind runs through the body of the person, in a very exhaustive way. It usually takes about 15 to 20 minutes to get the answer to what is the cause of an ailment.
How reliable is this method?
In the thirty-eight years of doing this work I have done almost 35,000 consultations. This method of intuition has demonstrated that it is almost never confused in an analysis. It is very accurate. All the sessions I’ve done are documented and recorded; I give the person the CD of the recorded session. The person takes the CD to their doctor, who corroborates the information. On my web site there is a long list of testimonials, including doctors. As I’m a skeptical person, if this information was not accurate, I would have stopped doing this activity many years ago.
How do you see the symptoms of a disease?
When someone looks clairvoyantly at the body of another person, they are seeing clearly intuitively. In light states of consciousness, when one is in meditation, this ability still exists. What happens is that the Deep Trance Meditation helps you to see in great detail and very clearly: it is like a body scan psychically, we can see the imperfections . If a bone is broken you see a dark line where the break is. If the spine is broken, you will see that the vertebra is out of place, crooked or moved. If it is a stroke, you can see the vein dripping on the brain … The ability to see psychically is not like looking at a picture, it’s more like looking at the screen in the cinema. At first the curtain may still be in front of the screen, and the image is not clear, but Deep Trance Meditation allows you to remove the curtain so the image of the screen can be seen very clearly. To give an example, we can say to a person to picture in the mind’s eye a famous image, such as the Statue of Liberty. If this person is in the waking state, he or she may be seeing the Statue of Liberty with the mind’s eye while they may be looking around at the same time. This duality of vision gives us the idea of what the psychic mind is; a translucent image in a part of the mind that is separate from the one corresponding to the physical vision. The Deep Trance Meditation allows this to become more visible, transparent and vivid in the mind’s eye. Then the mind can examine the object closely and from all perspectives.
Reading the body, would you just see it, or can you then induce some kind of healing?
The spiritual energy, or healing, has its own consciousness, which is based on love. When a person asks for healing for someone else at a distance, that person is helping. The person may appeal to influences – you can call on divine beings who are in the afterlife to come and help. So the answer to the question is yes, because there are no rules that prevent anyone from being helped, when this assistance is being given from compassion and love. There have been readings which have helped to clear the karma of the person, to connect with the spiritual mind of the other person and spiritual intelligence or the spiritual dimensions beyond. We are dealing with an intelligence level so high that we cannot understand it. Sometimes energy has also been directed to the person to improve their physical, mental or emotional health.
And what therapies do you recommended?
Although a reading usually points to the cause of the disease, often certain therapies, techniques, or remedies are given. The mind that is doing so in the reading clairvoyantly reports on what has to be done in this regard, but usually under the authority of a doctor or therapist who uses this information. I usually also make predictions of how likely things will go according to what you do … The information is given not as directions, but as suggestions.
You have said that you not only go into deep trance, but you also teach others to do it. When trying to see with the mind’s eye, is there a risk that someone could confuse vision with imagination?
Yes, but if you develop the Deep Trance Meditation ability, you remove all attachments or emotional connections, which are usually what confuses intuition. The rational mind, logic, intellect, is moved to one side, as are the prejudices and memories that we normally carry with us in the waking state. So we can be more certain of the intuition and vision. The subconscious mind has no emotion, and the superconscious mind or soul-mind has no other emotion than love. So when we look at something psychically the best is not to worry or have any emotional attachment to what you’re seeing. When you do not care about being wrong, the ego mind or personality is at rest, and so your vision can be clearly psychic. Normally when you have an attachment to something, the intellectual mind clouds the intuitive, so it becomes like a veil over the intuitive vision. It is important to practice meditation every day, with discipline, to make sure the rational mind does not interfere with the contemplative. When you enter a deep state of meditation automatically you are going to develop the skills of clairvoyance, telepathy, clairaudience, clairsentience and other abilities, such as visions and prophetic dreams, and remote viewing. Other abilities, such as spiritual healing awaken and develop also.
To progress, do people put challenges that prevent them from seeing?
My model is that faith is based on belief and that belief is based on evidence. Any intelligent person would need to have some facts to believe in the unseen: evidence that they have been able to see the future, or the house of a person at a distance, or the body of a person and their problems. When these results are accurate this gives concrete evidence to the person that they really are using their clairvoyant abilities. This evidence is important, because it will give confidence to the person. That way you can relax and let the process happen, without caring if your answer is going to be right or wrong. The first thing that comes to the mind’s eye, no matter what it is, is often the answer to the question. In this way one can become very powerful intuitively, and training can develop at a very high level. I often use the example of the bicycle: when one is trying to ride a bike, you wobble and may even fall, but with time the person may ride without having to think about balancing.
LAYING ON OF HANDS
In addition to the insight you provide by Deep Trance Meditation, you also do a healing practice of laying on of hands. Are you in a meditative state when you do this?
The practice of spiritual healing by laying on of hands is an altered state of consciousness, not as deep as the Deep Trance Meditation. For deep trance I have to lie down, while when I do laying on of hands, I do it while standing.
Is this type of healing recognized with a specific name?
I call it ‘spiritual healing’. Because the most important is the healing that takes place on the spiritual level, the mere fact feel the healing energy entering the body is already a transformative experience. In the Bible is called ‘laying on of hands’, and other religions give different names: ‘divine healing’, ‘balance the aura’ … I try not to label, because this brings doubts, prejudices … I think it is a loving energy that has its own consciousness. We can call it ‘chi energy’, ‘bioelectric energy’, ‘kundalini’, etc., The name does not really matter. When I put my hands on a person’s body, the energy can go to the chest or foot for example, where the problem really is. The energy knows, alone, where to go. I have also been able to do this kind of healing at a distance. I’m a skeptical person, and seeing results is what makes me believe.
What results have managed to convince a skeptic like you?
Sometimes real miracles occur. For example, a woman recently came to one of my healing events with a small lump in her breast. I put my hands in front of everyone and immediately the lump disappeared. There was an instant change in his physical body.
How often does a phenomenon like this occur?
Very often. There are many more miracles that have been documented. One of the best documented case was in Toronto, Canada, in a place where we were promoting my book, “Secrets of Life.” I was approached by a woman in a wheelchair, with two friends. I was doing laying on of hands spontaneously to people who came to buy the book. Several of them fell to the ground. At that time there were 10 or 12 people on the ground. She asked me for a laying on of hands. She rose from her wheelchair, I laid hands on her head and immediately she fell back. There were nearly a thousand people in the place, so there was a lot of energy in the room. When she was down she put her hand on her head and said: “Something has fallen out of my head”, and was very concerned about it. What was discovered after is that what had ‘gone’ was a tumor.
You praised the group’s role in healing. How may a group of people encourage healing?
I like doing the healing in front of many people, because the more people there are in the room, the more energy is available for healing. This energy can pass through me and I can focus it. This approach can produce miracles, such as healing the body instantly. I also learned that healing can occur in steps, not instantaneously. Sometimes it may be necessary for four, five or six applications for the disease or the pain go away. It generates energy in the room so that people do not have to come up to where I am to receive a healing. It, may happen to people just sitting there. Some may feel very warm in parts of their body and suddenly become aware that a pain is gone. We have taken photos that show an energy, a white light around me and in the room. This light, this energy, I think that is the divine energy that is healing. I do not promise or guarantee anything. We invite people to come and see what they see.
How do you get to use that energy?
Understand that when people sit in a circle that energy starts to move by itself. For example, if we use a pendulum, it starts to rotate. I stand in the center of the circle and people are coming, one after another, and I start doing the laying on of hands. I can capture the energy generated by the healing circle, because I have practical experience with it, and I push it through my hands, my body, or my mind to the person making the request for healing. In a way, the number of people who are in the room equals the amount of battery cells in a stack. The more battery cells, the more energy. I would be like the man who, with cables in hand, is applying this energy to people who come to the center of the circle. When a person is sick the energy level of the body is down, like a spent battery. What I do when I lay my hands for healing is like charing the battery. This energy is so powerful that it sometimes causes a shock in person (a good shock), and they fall back. I always have helpers who assist when someone falls, so they do not suffer any damage.
And the people who are sitting do not have to do anything specific?
We ask the people in the circle to cooperate intuitively by generating their own energy or healing. I ask them to breathe deeply and to direct energy through their hands. These people can also benefit from this energy, which can help their own pain or illness, and to awaken their own intuition. Because this energy is somehow contagious.
Do your healings have a permanent effect? Is there something we should do to keep it?
Healing is a form of cooperation with the body. But once you have received the blessing of healing, it would help if you were good to your body, so it does not get worse. It sometimes happens that the person feels good immediately, but then the illness or pain returns. I believe this is because these people do not change their attitude. For example, a taxi driver complained of pain in the neck. I laid hands on him and he returned within a week saying that the pain had returned. I suggested that when he speaks to his customers that he twist his whole body and not just his head but he ignored the advice. We all come here to improve spiritually. We have to learn lessons derived from past experience, and the universe is a place where justice rules. To overcome problems, illness or crisis in your life, it is important that you realize that the challenge is there for your spiritual growth and learning. At one point you will see a solution that will be permanent if you learn from that situation. When receiving a healing, a spiritual blessing, I recommend people start practicing one of the first spiritual laws, and that is gratitude. Give thanks for everything that happens to you: you have the ability to breathe, to be able to get up every morning – especially when someone does something good for you. And most important: Do not judge or criticize others. If you look at the religions of the world, this is the main law, the golden rule.
How do you teach people who want to heal with the laying on of hands?
First I would suggest that they should come to the healing events or retreats we do; come to Spain and other places. Not only will they see things they have not seen before (the way spiritual healing energy works, and they may even witness a miracle), but they may find that the healing energy is benevolent and loving. They may feel that not only physically but also mentally, emotionally and spiritually. First of all, the room is sanctified by prayer. Then people come into contact with that energy and soon begin to feel it real in their hands, or on the forehead or on the body. Then that energy is transferred invisibly around and through the people in the circle, and they may experience very strong feelings or feeling physical pain is relieved. You can teach people how to direct that energy through the body, through the chakras, which can be opened. One day a man asked me to open the heart chakra, and I did. The evidence that the healing took place is that he went home and there was an emotional change in him, in the heart. Helping people to be open in their centers or chakras so they can direct energy is a personal experience, something that cannot be displayed, but has to be experienced. When I teach this method I speak of the energy and give demonstrations with moving a dowsing rod. This energy is on the meridians of the body and affects the spiritual centers, the physical body, muscles, bones …, opens the mind of the person who comes in contact with the soul mind, which is the Spirit, the Supreme Being in us. I also teach people how to use the mind, because the language of the soul is not verbal, but images, symbols, shapes, colors … For example, to heal an injured arm, create a mental image of affected arm. This affects the unconscious mind, conscious and superconscious and helps direct all their energy to that body part. Since this energy is always where it believes it has to go, I simply ask you to go to that area; arm in this case. By doing so, the different minds are directed to the same place. As people are practicing this are taking tests that heal people, so they think more about it and are opening. But more importantly, you begin to have a personal relationship with that energy, which is an expression of the Divine. We ask the divine entities of the spiritual dimensions (call them angels, avatars, spiritual guides, etc.) to help us. When people come together, ask and pray (and pray simply means asking in your mind) that energy is directed to what is asked. It is very important to always ask. When people come for healing. I ask them what they want. They may say economic gains, prosperity, they fix the computer …, and that really can happen! Animals, plants, the physical, the emotional, mental, spiritual, everything can be healed. You can also have effective distance healings. There was a woman in Montreal praying for her daughter, who had a cyst on her leg. After the healing, the cyst was gone. So distant healing works … when you ask.
VISIONS OF THE FUTURE
With the situation we face in 2012, with the economic crisis and world conflicts, I feel it is important I come to Spain and Europe to be able to say what I see for the future, but also to show that there are divine beings dealing with us and can help us in this time of change.
What can you say generally about the immediate future?
Many of the things that are happening today I had predicted in the 1970s and 1980s. Unfortunately I see many difficulties in the world, as there will be hyperinflation and severe changes in the Earth. In the latest vision, I could see related to Barcelona, Spain was surrounded by water, and people located in the Cantabrian coast had to climb to higher places. Also, I had a vision of the continent Africa becoming much smaller. In the U.S. everything on the west coast will disappear. I have also seen the Great Lakes of Canada inundate the northern U.S. All this is indicative that the level of the oceans will rise. The oceans are heating up two, three degrees. To increase one degree above normal is disastrous … I have also seen more volcanic activity in North America, just as what happened in Iceland, where volcanic ash interfered with air traffic, which can affect other countries and trade. I saw that the price of gold and the metals will rise much. After Greece and Portugal, Spain is one of the places where there will be more economic crisis, but I think that Spain will not suffer as much as other countries, for its banking structure, which is strong. I see Spanish people smiling in my mind. The economic situation will be a slight problem or at least not disastrous. I see a great light in Spain, a spiritual awakening, that will expand to France, Italy, and even Africa. In fact, the Spanish revival is already taking place, it is not just a spiritual rebirth but also intellectual, artistic, religious … at all levels. Consider that the main lines of trade will go through Spain, because much of northern Europe and Russia will be under water. Interestingly, I received information that Italy would rule the world. And I saw in the Italian seas tropical fish, so I think that the axis of the Earth is going to move, and that Spain and Italy will be in the tropics.
Can you explain a little what may occur in relation to the axis of the Earth?
The ice caps are melting, and the North Pole and the South Pole have always been the two equilibrium points of the Earth’s axis. It is scientifically proven that the Earth spinning on its axis is wobbling, and there is also scientific evidence that the crust of the Earth is rotating at a speed faster than the center of the Earth. That means that the center, which is molten rock, is separating from the crust, then the crust can slide on this lava. What has happened in Japan, and in other places where there have been large earthquakes, are examples of this. The Earth is changing its rotation. I had visions and dreams that indicate that Earth will be tilted between 45 and 90 degrees. The continents of Lemuria and Mu, in the Pacific, might emerge to the surface again. This can also happen with Atlantis (the Canary Islands, among others, were part of Atlantis). So we’re expecting big changes that will take place soon.