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Welcome to another intriguing episode of Exploring the Mystical Side of Life. I’m your host, Linda Lang, and today we delve into a fascinating discussion with Mary Reed, modern mystic and sage, who takes us on a journey through the awakening of the soul.

Mary brings an extraordinary perspective, sharing her transition from an executive lifestyle to answering a profound inner calling that led her to a Buddhist nunnery in the Himalayas. Along the way, she discovered the power of integrating the spiritual and divine within our human existence. She tells us of her challenges in relaxing the mind to fully embrace experiences that transcend our usual cognitive filtration, inviting us to consider how these filters can be recognized and shifted for greater awareness and abilities.

In this episode, Mary shares some of her profound mystical experience, the wisdom that ensued, and the non-linear, holographic nature of the mystical—a realm where quantum mechanics and ancient wisdom intertwine, leading to profound realizations of oneness with the universe.

Brace yourself for an exploration into how the awakening to mystical experiences is becoming accessible to all, and how we can help others on their own paths of discovery. We touch on embracing wonder, living in awe, and the beauty of the unknown.

For those inspired by Mary’s insights and longing for more, she guides listeners to her website, www.LoveMaryReed.com, for more resources on mysticism.

Stay with us as we uncover the layers of a mystical life and be reminded of the endless possibilities that lie within the choice to explore the depths of our own existence. It’s time to dive into the mystical side of life—right here, on our podcast.

Transcript

Mary Reed:
I went into the body and being of Jesus on the cross at the moment of crucifixion. And when I entered his body and became that which was being crucified, suddenly everything just opened up, and I understood all of this information about humanity’s evolution.

Announcer:
Welcome to Exploring the Mystical Side of Life with your host, Linda Lang.

Linda Lang:
Hi. This is Linda Lang from www.ThoughtChange.com. We are Exploring the Mystical Side of Life once again this week. If you enjoy our conversations, remember to subscribe, share with a friend. Today, we are talking mysticism. I have author and modern mystic, Mary Reed, with us. Welcome, Mary.

Mary Reed:
Thank you. Thank you for letting me be here with you today.

Linda Lang:
Mysticism, magic, mystery, the mysteries of life and energy of all the things that bring us wonder and awe in our lives is one of my favorite things to explore. Now as a modern mystic, talk to us a little bit about how that happened for you. What was your first experience that you considered mystical?

Mary Reed:
It was certainly unexpected, that’s for sure. Many years ago, more than 23 years ago, I was an agnostic health care executive in Washington DC, running clinical research programs in respiratory medicine. And I was not raised religious. I didn’t have any big spiritual questions about life. I wasn’t interested in spirituality at all. And while I was very busy in my normal life, I started hearing a voice. And that voice said I was supposed to be doing something very important, which, of course, I already thought I was.

Mary Reed:
And so I tried to ignore it and it just kept coming and it kept coming and it kept coming at very random times, like while I’m driving or in an elevator or in a meeting or whatever. And after 6 months of hearing that voice, there was a series of events that led me to realize I’m going to have to figure out what’s going on here because it was just getting more persistent and more pronounced. I reached out to a psychotherapy friend of mine who has a PhD in transcendental psychology, and I told her what was happening and that I needed some help. And she said no problem. I’ll just put you under hypnosis and we’ll just see what’s going on. So I flew to Little Rock, Arkansas from Washington, DC, and her name was Sue. And so Sue just barely started putting me under, and almost immediately, I went into the body and being of Jesus on the cross at the moment of crucifixion.

Mary Reed:
And when I entered his body and became that which was being crucified, suddenly everything just opened up, and I understood all of this information about humanity’s evolution. And I watched everything that led up to the moment of crucifixion, and then I watched everything continue from that point forward, everything that was going on in humanity. And I saw all of the sorrows and all of the conflicts and just all of these layers and layers of information. And the scene went on for 3 and a half hours, so it was really rich and just full of information. And then the next day, we went back in again. And this time, I went in and met my soul group and had this huge meeting with Moses about the conflict nature of our world and how we have evolved. In very short order over a weekend, I suddenly got all of this profound information from a divine perspective about humanity and how we’ve been evolving and all of the dynamics at play.

Mary Reed:
And then I had to go back to my office and do my normal work like a normal human being. And it was really incredibly hard because the wisdom from the divine perspective was so profoundly easy. Like, it was just accessible like that. And there was such love. Even though it was showing me all the conflict dynamics at play, it was just laden with love and understanding and compassion. And here I am in Washington DC in a very conflict ridden world, a reality that was very difficult. Everything was very within me. It really started immediately throwing me off balance.

Mary Reed:
And then I started having these mystical experiences, these really weighty profound direct immersive experiences, just on my own. Just randomly, they would happen at at all kinds of different moments. And they kept coming, and they kept coming, and they kept coming, and they were all equally as profound as how they started. That was how things began. And it took me a solid 10 years and a whole lot of confusion and devastation at not feeling normal, not feeling like I could get help. Remember, this is before we could get on the Internet and find community or even a language around mysticism. And, so it was a really incredibly glorious and devastating journey for the first 10 years of these these metaphysical experiences.

Linda Lang:
I guess it’s fair to say that mysticism called you rather than you called mysticism.

Mary Reed:
A 100%. There’s no way that I would have even thought to explore a mystical journey. I had no interest in it. I was very busy, and I was very important and had all this important work that I was doing. And it, it just was never anything in my human radar. And if I hadn’t had that really deep internal pull, that sort of knocking at the door of my heart, I never would have done it. I wouldn’t have known to do it. And even when I finally made the… I left my normal life, my executive life, because all of it fell apart.

Mary Reed:
And I eventually, my world just tipped upside down. And I ended up being invited to India to meet with a high Tibetan Lama to talk about my experiences. Then I was invited to stay and ended up living in a Buddhist nunnery in the Himalayas, which was the absolute furthest thing from what I thought I would do ever because I never wanted to go to India. I’ve traveled the world, and I never had any interest in going to India because I thought it was too spiritually woo and I didn’t want anything to do with it. But when I finally surrendered to what my ultimate calling was, that’s exactly where I was sent, and it was home from the moment that my feet hit the ground. It was a world that I could not have imagined. I literally could not have imagined that world, and it turned out to be exactly where I needed to be.

Linda Lang:
Turns out that sometimes our soul has other plans for us, right?

Mary Reed:
Yeah, big time. And I think that this is what we’re waking up to. We’re able to hear that sort of invitation a lot more clearly than was available in the collective energies 23 years ago. And when we start hearing that, then one of the first things that happens is that we realize where we are doesn’t quite feel right. It probably hasn’t felt right for quite a while, but we just have been managing because this is normal. This is what you do. And sometimes life is hard, and it feels a little discordant.

Mary Reed:
But now that discord is starting to feel more pronounced, and we’re starting to feel drawn more and more. And I speak about this in my latest book, Humanity’s Epic Awakening, about that. We’re feeling this pull towards something that feels right both in our soul and in our bones. And it is that I think that is, this mystical calling, if we want to call it mystical, or a soul level waking up. We’re… it literally feels like we’re waking up to, “Hey, wait a minute. It feels like there’s something more happening here,” or some more capacity or potential within me that’s starting to wake up.

Linda Lang:
And I don’t think that it necessarily means that you’re going to end up in Tibet or in India in a monastery. We can have these spiritual experiences here in our everyday life, although I do believe our everyday life will shift because of it. Mine certainly did.

Mary Reed:
Yes. I think a lot of people’s are, and that’s where we are now is that people are starting to realize there’s more to reality than we’ve understood. And I think the reason why I personally had to have such a severe change is because I came here for this work. And so now, using all of those years of experiences, now I get to help people just more easily wake up to what more of their capability or potential is. So it can be a little bit more of a gentle journey with people. And they can step into it as they feel comfortable or as they feel ready or as those that are around them or circumstances feel ready to hold them in that. So I think most people, it’s a gentle tiptoeing in. And then there are some of us who are a little bit more called into a greater sort of blowout experience.

Mary Reed:
Not many are, but I think those of us who are into those really big experiences are because we use them to help others ultimately.

Linda Lang:
These experiences are no longer just for the mystics or hardcore spiritual gurus. Right? It’s available to all of us.

Mary Reed:
Look, in my private community, there are psychotherapists, there are emergency room physicians, there are lawyers and accountants and life coaches and babysitters and dog walkers and all manner of people. And in our weekly gatherings, all of them can have these various mystical experiences, or they came to my community because they started having these experiences. So this is what the awakening is about, an integrating of our spiritual divine capacity and potential into our humanness. It’s not that we’re trying to leave our humanness to become spiritual. Right? The mystical journey is that integration, that beautiful integration of all of us, all parts of our being.

Mary Reed:
That’s what we’re waking up to. All that we are when we thought we were just this little human.

Linda Lang:
And it’s that seed that holds that inner calling, that’s already within us, that starts to awaken.

Mary Reed:
Absolute. Before I got on this call, I was literally writing about that very thing, the seed within, the seed that is held that is like a… it’s, it’s been like a gestation period of this holy being within us that’s now, you know, being birthed or resurrected in our world.

Linda Lang:
Mary, how does the mind get in the way of us having these incredibly wondrous experiences?

Mary Reed:
Yeah. This is the big challenge, isn’t it? That we’re so used to being mind-driven. We’re so used to analyzing to try to figure out or fix or conquer. We need to strategize through life. That’s the way that we’ve been conditioned to be successful is to use our mind. This is how we’re graded in school, right? How well did your mind achieve this way of thinking about these facts or about this process? And so we’re conditioned to use our mind to relate to our world, to manage through our world. And the mystical journey, the awakening into our divine being is what’s beyond the mind.

Mary Reed:
We can’t imagine what that is. And so it is this process of needing to relax that. And that is so hard. That’s very hard. This is why meditation is so hard, to relax our thoughts because we’re on this default thought process, constantly thinking. We’re constantly oriented through the mind. And I think that the easiest way for people to begin to recognize how they are mind-based is the recognition of “how often am I quiet?” How often am I really allowing, this is the key word, allowing in something that isn’t coming from my mind? Then the moment that you start asking that question, you begin to realize just exactly how mind-based you are.

Mary Reed:
Just that moment of awareness can help you begin to practice, just that moment of calm, taking a moment to stop and listen. When we begin to listen, we realize we’re not… there’s not an outward force, there’s an allowance. It’s not pushing on a door. It’s pulling on a door. Right?

Linda Lang:
That’s an internal quietness. That’s right. Right? Because some people think they’re being quiet when they’re quiet in their outside world but on the inside, there’s a lot going on.

Mary Reed:
I talk about this in terms of between perceiver and that which we perceive in our reality. We insert a filter. In a unitive experience, in a direct relationship that doesn’t involve the mind, we’re aware of perceiver and perceived as one. There’s this unit of relationship going on. But we have been conditioned to insert this mind filter that is gonna analyze what we’re perceiving. So we’re thinking about world, about ourselves, about our feelings, about this situation, about the aboutness. Right? And I call this the “Judge Judy filter” because we’re always just wanting to analyze the facts. What are the facts about this? It’s the Judge Judy filter.

Mary Reed:
But if we remove that and we’re not focused on the aboutness but the experience of it, we’re back into the unitive perceiver/perceived relationship. And so this is an important just being aware of how we’ve been operating and how we’re walking through life. That moment of recognition allows us an opportunity to consider something different for just a moment, for just a moment. And every time we have that just that moment, new capabilities begin to seep in to our awareness. And that’s when we start getting called into checking out YouTube videos that feel interesting or meeting up with new people or reading new books.

Linda Lang:
Or listening to Exploring the Mystical Side of Life..

Mary Reed:
Or listening to fascinating podcasts that really enlighten us in fun ways. (laugh)

Linda Lang:
Mary, I think it’s really important for people to understand that these kind of experiences aren’t linear. They’re almost holographic… that you can have in an instant, a total download that has a whole experience, a whole life experience, or a whole unimaginable… I can’t even, don’t even know how to say it because they’re so big. They have so many levels of information and expansion built into them.

Mary Reed:
Yes. That’s right. It’s like we suddenly, we just hit a hub that is… you can see all that it’s tied to, all the spokes of that, like, everything at once. Download is a good word. It’s just a sudden of realization. And that’s exactly what it is. Realizing something really incredible. And then you have this, like, gosh, how did I not know that before? That’s so that makes so much sense.

Mary Reed:
Anytime that we encounter divine or mystical wisdom, there’s this really strange understanding that it’s so simple that suddenly things are simplified so profoundly. And in understanding that, we realize how we complicate things constantly by this mental analysis, right? We’re constantly in the facts and figures and parsing everything out and separating all of it out. And in so doing, we’re missing the big picture of it, right? And so those times where we have that sudden download, we get to see how all of the pieces fit together. It’s a really beautiful, surprising moment when those things happen.

Linda Lang:
Simple yet very deep.

Mary Reed:
Oh, yes. Very profound, and often it’s very complex when you try to sort it out and narrate it. But in its overall understanding, it’s really simple. It’s if you said to somebody, if an alien comes to Earth and they say, tell me about life, right? It would just like, where do we begin? And depends on who you ask. You could have 7 billion different answers to that question. But from one perspective, there’s an understanding of how life is on earth. And it’s that perspective that often comes through in a mystical moment or a divine, literally a divine moment.

Linda Lang:
Mary, could you share something that blew you away that you received in one of these mystical moments?

Mary Reed:
In my book, my latest book, I share 32 different experiences that in the way that they’re laid out, they tell the story of the evolution of our awakening. Right? Where we’ve been, where we are now, and where we’re going. And I could tell you 10 things out of each one of those phases that are just mind boggling. When you think about my experiences have been going into the body and being of Christ at the moment of crucifixion, going into the mind of Buddha at his moment of enlightenment, going into the first moments of awakening into God as God and the moment of first existence and experiencing in the where we’re going, the end of hell… And so there’s this whole range of it. It would be very hard to pick a single one. But I’ll tell you about one that is related to human, like being human. We have this idea, and I talk about this in my second chapter, we have this idea of how can we be really in a unitive like, a oneness? How can there be oneness if, as a human, we can clearly see separation outside of us?

Mary Reed:
We can see everything outside of us as an other. So how can it be that there’s really oneness? And I had this experience, and this is a good example of how random, how randomly things can happen. I had an experience one night of… I had on a pink blouse. I took off the pink blouse when I was getting ready for bed, I laid it over the back of a chair, and I walked across the room. And suddenly, something made me turn around, and the whole room was gone. It was just the field of oneness, and I could see all of these patterns moving multidimensionally in all directions and all colors and just the whole range of experiences of vibrational activity. And I was not only witnessing all of that, but I was also as all of that.

Mary Reed:
Right? I was in oneness with all of that. And from multiple angles at the same time, I began watching me, this vessel, taking in all of this data from this vibrational activity through my left eye. And I watched it travel with unfathomable speed through this network of me, right? This energetic infrastructure that makes up me. And I watched all of the twists and turns, and I watched all of the energies that are aware of all of this coming in, and there’s a unit of relationship going on with all of it. And, as with every twist and turn throughout my whole nervous system, I was watching the external environment begin to pixelate and come in to coalesce to create the illusion or the translation of form. So I was beginning to see space and distance and form and color and all the things that we think make up reality. Right? But I was watching how it happens in the technical aspects of all that’s going on.

Mary Reed:
And at the same time, as all of this was going on, I also watched all these historical references that were creating what I was seeing. For example, I suddenly saw these fields of cotton. I saw weathered hands picking the cotton. I saw it being dyed and cut and then made into this fabric that was now called blouse that was mine in this room. And then I saw these all these under the earth, I saw these nutrients being absorbed into roots of a tree that would then be cut and carved and eventually become a chair in this room. I’m gonna call it a chair now in this room. So I saw all of this quantum mechanics and historical references and all of this engagement all in an instant. You talked earlier about that big whoop of an experience.

Mary Reed:
It was, it happened in a flash, but I understood exactly how we perceive reality as separate and other, but in fact, there’s so much more going on that is in a oneness dynamic. I think that one was probably the most helpful for me in terms of how I talk with others about their questioning of it’s hard to believe that we’re in oneness when I can so clearly experience separation, right?

Linda Lang:
It brings to mind an experience that I had many years ago. Another one of those mystical experiences that kinda just drop in and give you a totally different perspective. And it was during a time when I was confused and trying to make a choice between 3 things, 3 paths to follow actually, 3 spiritual paths to follow. And it was so interesting because in a second I was shown the core of an apple, then the flesh of an apple, and the skin of an apple, and the voice said, which is more apple? Didn’t matter; pick a path. And it was so interesting because 2 of those 3 paths just dissolved before me, and there was one path left, and that’s the one I chose.

Mary Reed:
I love that. I love that. The simplicity, like, it’s so… I love that. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. And amen.

Linda Lang:
And it was during that time where I had a busy mind trying to think the solution out, and a “poof” didn’t come when I was meditating. It came when I was walking down the hall of my home, right? Thinking about all these things. So this magical, mystical realm that holds so much guidance and so many answers is always with us when we’re open to actually allow it to show its wisdom. Right?

Mary Reed:
That’s exactly right. And we can have these moments where we may have a meditative practice or even an attempt at meditation, even if we suck at it but the intention that we have is to be available. Even if technically we’re not adept at it yet, there is an intention that’s important, and it is that intention that is actually holding the door open. So the big epiphanies may not come in a meditative state, but we’ve opened a door that can come as we’re walking down a hallway or getting ready for bed.

Linda Lang:
And don’t you find, Mary, the more you know, the more you know you don’t know?

Mary Reed:
A 100%. And I call that this the beautiful state of “I don’t know.” I don’t know. It took me many years to get used to surrendering to that unknown. But what has been proven true again and again and again is that means that I’m in a constant state of wonder and surprise, and it feels like there’s just a constant reward going on. Right? It’s just such a beautiful… because everything is unexpected. Right? In your situation, for example, you couldn’t have imagined the wisdom of an apple and how you’re trying to make your decision. It was such a beautiful surprise that was just a perfect fit.

Mary Reed:
Right?

Linda Lang:
Absolutely. So do you have any tips for any of the listeners who might want to open up to that world of wonder and awe and connect with more mysticism in their life.

Mary Reed:
Yeah. I think that we live in such a wonderful time where there’s so many resources available to every type of person or every type of curiosity. Right? So when you have an intention to explore, and explore is the right word. I love that you’re sort of exploring the mystical side of life because exploration just means that you don’t have an expectation of what you’re gonna find. You’re just exploring for the sake of discovery. Right? So if you come into a mindset of exploring various things that feel interesting or exciting or inviting, then you start to draw to you. Again, here’s the the YouTube videos or the podcast or the people or the books, and begin to just let all of that be the thing that’s guiding you a little deeper and a little deeper and a little deeper. And while you’re doing that exploration, it’s helpful to find as you’re exploring, explore some guidance on how to meditate or how to create an environment that puts you in a state of allowance or availability to a connection. Right? And I never make specific recommendations because everybody’s different.

Mary Reed:
Some prefer and and get a lot of help from a mantra meditation. Some prefer complete silence. Some prefer something that’s guided, something that’s guiding them along, which is how I teach in a guided meditation process. And then just find resources that can help you explore those options. But the thing is you have to, you have to make the effort to do the exploring. Right? It’s not all just gonna drop in your lap, as an idea. There does need to be some action on your part in terms of bringing those things to you. And I call that putting yourself in the path of the availability of these things.

Linda Lang:
And that seed that’s within you, when it starts to awaken and you start getting that calling, that’s the time to start exploring.

Mary Reed:
Yeah. Absolutely. And in fact, when you begin to feel that seed stirring around, that can become your guide. That can become your internal compass. When we begin to drop into that, then we’re out of the mind, and we’re into this visceral sense. Right? This mystical journey is very much a visceral awareness. It is a feeling, an embodied experience. And therefore, we begin to tune in more internally.

Mary Reed:
Right? Not in the external, ideas going on in the mental sphere, but really in the embodied energetic. Now we’re tuning into the energies that are available to us, and we’re not used to that. We’re not used to tuning into our energetic, awareness within, and this is exactly the transition from here down into here. And so that seed that we began, the inkling of that can actually become our guide, and it will be a beautiful guide for you.

Linda Lang:
Oh, thank you for being my guest, Mary.

Mary Reed:
My joy. It’s my pleasure.

Linda Lang:
Mary, if anyone would like to know more, where can we send them?

Mary Reed:
LoveMaryReed.com. All my books are there, my courses. You can join my private community, all kinds of information there.

Linda Lang:
Thank you for listening to this week’s edition of Exploring the Mystical Side of Life. You will find all of our conversations on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify. Come visit me at www.ThoughtChange.com. Pick up your copy of Learning to Listen. While you’re there, check out my program, Alchemy from the Inside Out, if it’s time to bring a little bit of magic and self exploration into your world. That’s it for this week. We’ll see you again next time. Bye for now.