#68 Jeannie Sullivan: Past Lives and The Spirit World
Johnny Burke: Welcome to Closer To Venus, I’m Johnny Burke. Today’s guest is Jeannie Sullivan. She is a psychic medium who’s taught seminars on past lives, reincarnation, what the other side may look like, as well as Ascension and the beings in the spirit realm. Today, we’re going to be talking about how the spirit world works,-Jeannie, welcome to the program.
Jeannie Sullivan: Thank you very much for having me. I’m really happy to be here.
Johnny Burke: Being a medium, I’m sure you probably get this question a lot- what exactly is the difference between being a psychic and a medium?
Jeannie Sullivan: That is a great question. And I get that all the time, it’s a fabulous question. The difference between being a psychic and a medium, a psychic can read energy anywhere in the world. We are pretty good at predicting the future, telling stories about the past, and what your present might be looking like. So we read energy really, really well. So do psychic mediums. However, the difference between a psychic and a medium, is that mediums talk to dead people. It’s probably the easiest way to explain it. They are able to see and hear, feel, sometimes taste, but basically a medium can talk to dead people. Psychic intuitives generally don’t.
Johnny Burke: I’ve heard it explained a variety of different ways, but I have heard more than once that all mediums are psychic, but not all psychics are mediums.
Jeannie Sullivan: That is exactly true. All mediums are psychic, but not all psychics are mediums. That is absolutely true.
Johnny Burke: As far as mediums are concerned, I know there are some, non-profits such as Forever Family Foundation and Windbridge, two organizations that come to mind that actually test and certify mediums. What are your feelings about that? , have you ever been tested or certified?
Jeannie Sullivan: I have not been tested in that way, and I’m not a certified medium. There are organizations that do that, and there’s a religion called Spiritualism that also tests their mediums as well. I do not feel that we need that. It’s great if you feel comfortable with that, I do think we need training. We need to know certain things like ethics and other things. I don’t think that you need to be certified because we all have this gift. We come into this world having this gift and we can all do it. It depends on whether or not you feel comfortable accessing this.
Johnny Burke: I bring that up because I think those organizations basically came into existence to alert people that there was fraud and yes, there is an effort in trying to curb the fraud. I spoke with Bob Ginsburg, who is the founder of Forever Family Foundation. Among other things, he remembers discovering a medium who would interview people and have two computer screens, one had their Facebook page open, which was very alarming. And I think their point of view, is only about 15% of the mediums that go through the programs actually get certified. So their feeling is there’s an awful lot of people out there that either doesn’t know what they’re doing or are not quite developed enough. I think at some point it wouldn’t shock me to see that field maybe in the future being regulated.
With your training, speaking of which, can you give us an idea of how you found yourself on the path, what classes you took, or who you studied with?
Jeannie Sullivan: It’s an interesting path. I have always been able to read energy. I’ve always been a psychic medium when I was younger. I didn’t have the words for that. And I’ve always been an empath, and that someone who feels everything, my stuff, your stuff, and everybody else’s stuff. So you need to learn how to discern what’s yours, what somebody else’s, and you need to discern how to speak with spirit as well.
My training started in earnest in 1996. The catalyst to that was I got divorced, and I wanted to get better and getting better mentally, physically, and emotionally also meant learning these gifts. So I’ve been trained by very good people. I did an introduction to Tarot with a woman who was very well known in the Portland Maine area. I’ve also been trained by an amazing Reiki Master teacher, and I trained through primus activation healing technique with a woman Samira asked her, who’s probably better known as negotiation. So I’ve been trained by really good people with really strong ethics. I think that that’s important. I do a whole bunch of things before anybody comes and has a reading with me. I set an intention, I say prayer of protection for me and for them, just allowing what is the divine white light to be able to come in and that’s it.
Johnny Burke: We know that the training is obviously important. Going back to how you knew that you were a medium early on, did you have experiences with spirits, ghosts in your bedroom, that type of thing, when you were young?
Jeannie Sullivan: No, because I wouldn’t let them in. My experiences came in bits and pieces because the universe doesn’t give us anything more than what we’re ready for. So my journey to be a medium, it was a long one. I would admit to myself that I was a psychic, intuitive, and I could read energy. I could understand people’s feelings. I could assess the situation from an energetic standpoint or a psychic standpoint. And I did that for many, many years, and it wasn’t until I started doing something called psychic dinners here in Maine that I allowed myself to say,” I was a medium “, because people would come and say, “I want to talk to so-and-so” and I’d be like, yeah”, no, I don’t do that.”
I was saying I wasn’t a medium, but I didn’t feel comfortable. And I think it’s hysterical because I didn’t want uncle Charlie, whose ever Uncle Charlie it was to show up in the middle of night and go, “hi, here I am.” I didn’t want that to happen, except that when I moved to the town that I live in now, it started happening with regularity because the town that I live in, there are more dead people than there are alive people. And they’re like, “woo, new girl in town and she can hear us!”
Johnny Burke: That’s great.
Jeannie Sullivan: So they kept me up at night. That was a really long process. I saw shadows at first, and that I could tell if they were male or female energy, and then slowly over time, they morphed into actual beings. When I started, it was easier to see the people that I was related to, than the people that weren’t. I think that’s one of the misconceptions that we see it all, we see it all the time, and that’s not the case. We grow and change and morph into this, just like you grow and change and morph into any job that you have. I look back on it now, I kind of chuckle at myself like, honey, you were a medium the whole time. You just didn’t allow yourself to be that.
Johnny Burke: I’ve heard that quite a bit. The gifts, the abilities usually manifest pretty early on. Usually the kids are like, four or five years old. You mentioned also misconceptions, and I think it’s an important thing to talk about. What are the most common misconceptions of mediums that you know of?
Jeannie Sullivan: I think that we know everything all the time and that we’re on all the time, and that we’re reading all the time. You can’t do that because you’ll burn yourself out, and your human body is not designed to sustain that very high vibrational energy. Our souls can, but our human bodies come along for the ride, and they can exhaust themselves very easily trying to sit in that high vibrational energy. It’s kind of like running a marathon; you have to train to run that kind of energy because it’s so high vibrational.
What happens is, the beings on the other side lower their vibration, we raise ours as high as we can get it, and we have a conversation somewhere in the middle. Our human bodies are not designed to sit in that energy. So I think that’s one of the miscommunications that we’re reading all the time, that we are on all the time, that we know everything and that we see everything. We don’t. We just get enough information from the other side for either for me to understand it, or the client to understand it. Lots of times I will say something like” this does not make any sense to me, but this is the third time I’ve gotten it in this session. So I’m going to say, this”. And it makes no sense to me, but the client goes, “oh my gosh, that I know exactly what you’re talking about”. There’s lots of misconceptions, but those are probably the most common that I bump up against.
Johnny Burke: And what you just mentioned- you don’t know what the significance of that information that came up three times. So I’m going to relay it. That would be an example of evidential, mediumship, right? That’s what I thought. In all fairness, that’s probably as good, as substantial as being certified.
I think there are mediums that are not certified, that are great. I’ve talked to quite a few mediums that went through and actually passed and actually got certified and they will be usually the first ones to tell you that “I know several mediums that are not certified, that are fantastic.”
Jeannie Sullivan: Oh, yeah.
Johnny Burke: the evidence comes out and pieces of evidential information that only the client can verify. Now, I believe you’ve also had shamanic training as well.
Jeannie Sullivan: That is true. I am what is called the Mesa Carrier, and you can do a Mesa for a lot of things. Mine happens to be a healing Mesa, so I use it with my energy work. It’s 13 stones that I have maybe not put blood in but sweat and tears and a lot of energetic work into. I incorporate that into my healing sessions. Though I am not a shaman, and never will be, unless I studied Celtic shamanism.
I am a shamanic practitioner. I am very careful not to misappropriate other people’s cultures. I use the Mesa when I’m doing my energy healings like Reiki or Primus. it adds a really nice balancing element to it. And, it really has made my energetic sessions with people very shamanically informed.
Johnny Burke: That modality is probably one of the oldest. I think it’s interesting that you mentioned shamanism. I’ve been told that part of the Catholic or Pre-Christian past has been repressed by church and state for literally centuries.
Jeannie Sullivan: Celtic shamanism is a thing, it’s not just North American shamanism or Native American, there’s indigenous cultures all over the world that have their own shamanic practices. And you are absolutely correct; Religion has done an excellent job of squashing any kind of indigenous practice everywhere.
Johnny Burke: In several instances, four or five different movements, which I think are correlated with certain Renaissance movements, which have to do with experience, the Gnostics, and so forth. That’s probably a discussion for a different day, but it’s interesting that I’m hearing more and more people that have had some kind of shamanic training or are shamanic practitioners and or ministers.
You’ve actually taught seminars on past lives and reincarnation, and you are a psychic medium. So you are pretty well steeped in the world beyond the veil. In your work, have you done something similar to a past life regression? what is your experience with beings, spirits, beyond the veil?
Jeannie Sullivan: I have had a multitude of experiences, including my own experiences. I’ve had sessions, with someone who’s been trained for life between lives, from the Michael Newton Institute, and they take you in a hypnotic state, right back to the other side. I have seen the best as far as it led me in the other side. There’s just a certain point that as humans, we can go, because if we go any further, that means that we have really crossed.
Johnny Burke: You can’t come back at that point.
Jeannie Sullivan: Right. You can’t come back to that point. So your body’s hanging out, and you’re kind of on the other side. My own experience, I’ve made it as far as a waiting room, and it is the first place that we tend to go when we cross, if we need it, there are other souls that greet us and help us cross over the veil. Then we get into this big meeting hall and there’s everybody, your people, you, but there’s also a whole host of other beings there as well. We gather in the meeting hall and then that’s the first step. Then you go further in, and you have your life review. You have your life set up before you get here, you do your contract work. Then when you go back, you have a life review, and your spiritual team kind of talks you through it and you’re like, “Ooh, I did a really great job when I did that. Ooh, that was not so great.” And that kind of stuff. So, you have your life review and then you go further on into what I describe as heaven.
So I’ve made it as far as the meeting room. So, but that’s it, because like you said, if I step any further, then I’m not here anymore.
Johnny Burke: That’s what I’ve been told so I think what you just described is that you do encounter your soul group, right?
Jeannie Sullivan: Yes.
Johnny Burke: This is a hypnosis session. one thing that I think maybe confusing to some people, is that during these sessions, are you viewing a past event or is it actually more in real time? happening right this moment?
Jeannie Sullivan: It is happening right at this moment. And it’s also past life, because all time is now. There are different dimensions that we live in and go through, especially if you’re a psychic medium or someone who does hypnosis, or you’re psychic. You learn those different dimensions. So all time is now because our brain can’t handle that, we structure it in our brain like a filing cabinet, and we call it a past life. You can access that is something called the Akashic Records. Or you can go into a meditative state -shamans all it a journey. You can access it that way. You can go to someone and be put in a hypnotic state and view your past lives yourself.
What’s really fascinating was that when I had my sessions done, and to answer your question, yes, they are recorded. My voice changed, my mannerisms changed, how I said things were changed and there was a point where my soul was very impatient with the person that was asking me questions, because it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter that you’re asking about the color purple. That does not matter. And the funny thing is I couldn’t describe the color purple because we don’t have that color on Earth.
Johnny Burke: Right. In this space, whether it’s in the meeting room or beyond, which I think is called the council of elders or the karma council, I’ve been told that some of these beings actually have a sense of humor, is that true?.
Jeannie Sullivan: They do, and the universe loves irony. And they have a great sense of humor. They crack me up all the time. What I find is that the universe and universal forces can be incredibly ironic.
Johnny Burke: I remember one conversation where someone was having a life review. What he told me was that this being, I’m not sure whether he called that God or Jesus or the universe, actually took on a very colloquial manner,because they were reviewing some of the things he did in his life. And one thing was obviously not,very well. And the being told him telepathically, that wasn’t too cool. That was incredible. I thought it’s just such a thing of beauty, but since we’re on the subject of spirit guides-I think this is pretty important, because I do feel some people confuse spirit guides with other beings that may be earthbound ghosts and things like that that are not developed. Do you find the same thing?
Jeannie Sullivan: Correct. If you are an earthbound ghost, you are caught in between, and that’s one of the worst places you can be from a soul standpoint because you’re not human anymore and you’re not crossed over into the light. So what happens is you’re stuck in between, and in order to get energy, you need to- this sounds gross, but you need to feed off humans because we have energetic light. Not that they’re taking our blood and all that, but they are taking our energy. So you’re kind of stuck in between. You’re not in the love and the light. You’re not, but you’re not on earth either. So, you are stuck and you’re in between, and in order to be able to be there, you attach yourself to humans and feed off their life force energy.
Johnny Burke: Interesting. I’ve been told that sometimes that person that is stuck, can possibly be rescued by some of either their spirit guides or some of the relatives that have already crossed over.
Jeannie Sullivan: They can be rescued not necessarily rescued but sent on by humans. you can be trained how to, it’s called psychopomp, if you’re a shamanic practitioner, or if you’re a psychic medium, who does that work, you can help spirits cross.
Johnny Burke: Is that a soul retrieval or ?
Jeannie Sullivan: No, that’s something different. Soul retrieval is a gift that you receive, your spirit guides give you a gift. And that’s often a piece of you that got removed when trauma happened, or you gave your power away or a multitude of other reasons, and it can happen in a past life. So you get that gift back from yourself. So that is a soul retrieval, that’s pieces of your soul being put back to you. and I can’t think of the other thing right now. Cause all I can think of is recapitulation, which is something else entirely.
Johnny Burke: We can get to that, of course. Did you just say recapitulation?
Jeannie Sullivan: Yes.
Johnny Burke: Okay so what is that exactly?
Jeannie Sullivan: Recapitulation is, I would put someone in a meditative state, and we would decide beforehand, it has to do with bringing your power back. It’s not a soul retrieval. It happens in this lifetime usually. If you and I had a recapitulation session together, you would pick a memory from this lifetime that you gave your power away. So I would put you in a meditative state and we would talk through what happened. Then we go back to the memory, and you would say I’ve been carrying something that does not belong to me. You gave it to me. This happened, I am giving it back to you because it’s not mine to hold anymore. for whatever reason, whatever that memory is about. And then you place it in that memory and then you wall off that memory, so that energy can affect you anymore. Then I have you actually turn in your meditative state, and we decided ahead of time how you can bring back your power to you.
So what I do for myself is that I gather a big bouquet of lit flowers, the little lights, like Christmas tree lights that look like flowers. And I gathered them up into this huge bouquet. And I put that light back into my chest. And that’s a way for me to signal that I am taking my power back. So I put all the stuff that I don’t need in the memory -I wall off the memory. I grab whatever I decide to use to signify that I am taking my power back. Then I leave that memory. I call it “coming back to the room.” It is incredibly, incredibly powerful. You feel the difference from before and after.
Johnny Burke: Sounds like it’s almost like getting a tune-up or something. Thought that was a pretty crude analogy, but I guess it serves the purpose. With your work, what you do with a client. Is it roughly equivalent to like a past life regression or is it much more of a comprehensive approach?
Jeannie Sullivan: Kind of depends on what the client needs. Sometimes it can be very much a past life regression, and oftentimes it deals with this lifetime here. But that doesn’t mean that it’s not informed by something that happened before, because when we cycle through our lives, what we didn’t learn the last time gets brought back to this lifetime. I have a very interesting story about that, which we may get to, but we get represented in different ways what we didn’t learn in other life.
Johnny Burke: Do you find that when you’re in sessions with a client, that they’re taken back to past life and they recognize someone, wherever that takes place, who is actually in their current life?
Jeannie Sullivan: Yes, when we’re on the other side, we hang out with our soul group, but we also come to human form with the same, or parts of the same soul group, we move together. We are on the other side together, we decide who does what, when, where, and how. We come together. Then tend to cross with the same soul group. So yes, lots and lots of times in a past life, you meet the same quote, unquote people. This lifetime, my mother was my mother. In another lifetime, she might’ve been an aunt or a sister or, a storekeeper or whatever it is we set up and agree to in our contract before we get here, plays what to teach us what in this lifetime.
Johnny Burke: So in your life, just to clarify, when you viewed some of your past lives, people that are in your life today?
Jeannie Sullivan: Yes. Yes,
Johnny Burke: Can you just go over exactly who they are?
Jeannie Sullivan: So for example, there is a man that I used to know, and he is in this vein. and we’ve had a very significant, significant lifetime together. It ended with him killing me. He killed me after some horrifying things happened before that, and then he killed me. I feel I was a queen in that lifetime. And, in order to teach my subjects a lesson, he quartered me. And now, we had for a short period of time in this lifetime an experience. And another, I had a friend, another guy, he was a friend, he’s a muggle.
Johnny Burke: What is a muggle?
Jeannie Sullivan: Oh, that’s a good question; a muggle is somebody who does not have any spiritual or magical gifts. It comes from Harry Potter. And so, he is the muggliest person I’ve ever met. And I’ve had a couple of exchanges with him that brought me back to a past life that we have had. This particular friend now, not that we’re friends anymore. We’ve had two significant lifetimes, together, and we are together again, in this lifetime and this time it was my choice to represent something for him. In this lifetime, it was his choice to either grow from it and change and learn or not. And he did not. And I’m like, okay, I’m done. I’m not doing this for you anymore. This is at least the third time that I know about. And I’m done. You’re on your own bud.
Johnny Burke: These people that you just mentioned, have you made them aware that you recognize them from a life in the past or not?
Jeannie Sullivan: No. the friend that I was telling you about, the muggle friend of mine, have had conversations and there’s just so far he’s willing to go. It would not have been worth the argument to explain to him about past lives and all that kind of stuff.
Johnny Burke: Yeah. I can imagine
Jeannie Sullivan: Yeah. And the other guy I’m like, oh, I got to go. for my safety’s sake, like energetically safety, not my physical safety sake. It was time for me to go.
Johnny Burke: What is this guy like now? I’m just curious, the one who killed you in the past life. Mild-mannered? Hothead?
Jeannie Sullivan: He appears to be very mild-mannered. And if you did not know any spiritual practices, you would think that he was a really great guy. But, I do not find him to be very ethical . Clearly, he did not learn. his lessons.
Johnny Burke: It sounds like he might’ve learned his lessons-
Jeannie Sullivan: That’s true. At least he’s not, killing anybody anymore,
Johnny Burke: Not that you know of.
Jeannie Sullivan: Right?
Johnny Burke: You mentioned the in-between space, which I’ve heard many, many people talk about -it’s almost like casting a movie or casting a play. One question That does come up, the people that agree to play the bad guy, maybe it’s for the benefit of the group or not. But they think, Jeanie, guess what? I’m going to be the guy that breaks your heart, or I’m going to rob your house or I’m going to kill your family. I’m going to do this for that because you need to learn this, and the rest of us need to learn compassion, or whatever that might be. Do you find that those people, because they agree, get some kind of karmic exemption from the bad acts because they’re planned,or not necessarily.?
Jeannie Sullivan: I don’t think there’s a karmic exception in their process, they also learn a lot and sometimes we set things up and they go haywire. Cause when we incarnate, we forget everything from the other side. And not to be political, not Biden, our former president 45, I think one of his jobs was to be who he was to help wake up the world as difficult as it was. And he continues to be, I think to a certain extent that was a karmic role for him.
Johnny Burke: Maybe the QAnon people are right, maybe he was sent here by God, but not for the reasons that that camp believes in. It sounds crazy, but that explanation is a lot more believable than the other things that Q Anon believes in, which we’re not going to go into that -not on this show.
Since you have a lot of experience, you understand the reincarnation cycle, and the life between lives, I think is a critical piece in understanding how the life/ death /rebirth cycle really works which, the Buddhists for example, have been talking about for the past five or 6,000 years, if not longer. What is your experience with souls that have committed suicide? We know what the religious groups say about that, but I want to hear it from someone who has experience beyond the veil.
Jeannie Sullivan: My experience is that they are very, very compassionate, especially if you are suffering. Really suffering. They have compassion anyway because on the other side, all it is love. It’s pure, unconditional love. And the being who has the hardest time with committing suicide is the being that did it. Once they get on the other side, we tend to be very hard on ourselves. And our spirit guides are far more gentle with us.
I have an interesting story being on this side. so you know that I’m a medium and in 2014, life was not good. So I had decided to make a plan and the day that I decided to execute the plan, I got up from the kitchen table to go get the implement. And I heard very sternly,” sit down”, and I am the only one in the room. I’m the only one in the building that I’m in. And I don’t really pay attention to it. I take a couple more steps. Even more sternly. I here “sit down.” So I sat down, and we had a conversation. Me and the other side, and the other side said,” we’re not going to stop you. If you choose to decide to do this, we will not stop you. However, if you do this, we are going to bring you back in another lifetime, to this very moment. It might be a different circumstance, but you will be brought back to this very moment, and you’re going to have to decide again.” And I’m like, forget that I am not ever going to be in this situation again, ever. So game on, I didn’t do the deed, so to speak, I didn’t grab the knife. I didn’t slit my wrist. I didn’t do any of that. I’m like, I am not going to ever going to be in this position again. And so we will move forward, be very much alive.
But I found it really very interesting that yes, they were compassionate and incredibly clear that “yes, you can do this. This is your choice. However, if you do this, you’re going to be brought right back again and another lifetime because you didn’t learn the lessons that you set up for yourself.” However, if you are incredibly in pain and agony, either mentally or physically, I knew they are very compassionate, and they look at that differently.
Johnny Burke: That was a great explanation of what is most likely to happen. I’ve heard the same thing. We don’t want to confuse this with what certain religions say about, this is a sin, that’s a sin. By now most of us know that committing suicide or being gay is not a sin. That’s deeply silly, among other errors in the Bible, and there’s plenty. But I think it’s a very important lesson, that if we choose to do something like that, we’re going to be put in the same situation more than likely, until we learn our lesson.
A man named Walter Semkiw basically took the works of Dr. Ian Stevenson, who we all know as a pioneer in reincarnation research, built a website called reincarnation research.com and took the most important cases of Dr. Stevenson, he made them into a readable format because Stevenson basically wrote for the academics. One book that he wrote on birthmarks in reincarnation cases is 2000 pages long. So if he were alive today, he probably wouldn’t be trying to sell books on Amazon.
And this is Walter’s idea where he basically said “if there was a widespread acceptance of reincarnation, there would be, no fear of death.” In other words, a greatly decreased fear of death. If there is a greatly decreased fear of death, there would be less emphasis and importance of religion with less importance and emphasis on religion, we would have a lot less wars. I guess the devil’s advocate would respond to say,” if everybody believed in that, then what would keep them from offing themselves, if things don’t go right?” You just supplied the answer for that, because, you do have free will, but what’s probably most likely to happen is that you’re going to put in the same situation again and again and again, until you learn your lesson . Then at that point, you will most likely make a decision as you did.
Jeannie Sullivan: Right.
Johnny Burke: I thought that was a very important episode as is this one, because as more and more people are starting to believe in the afterlife and even in reincarnation, I’ve heard people say ” that’s a dangerous thought because if things get tough, they can just kill themselves and be reborn.” I don’t think it’s that simple. And you don’t either.
Jeannie Sullivan: Or that easy.
Johnny Burke: No, it isn’t, because it’s akin to being held back a grade.
Jeannie Sullivan: Right. And sometimes again and again and again and again, cause some of us are slow learners.
Johnny Burke: What do you do think are the most important takeaways from the spirit world, especially for that person that wants to get to higher spiritual ground, doesn’t quite know how to get there, and for those people that go to traditional worship ceremonies, they do reach a point where they just can’t go any farther. They have to really go beyond that point and learn what really happens when you die? Why are we really here? And it’s not just” live our best life and collect as many toys and make as much money and win everything. “
It has to be more than that.
Jeannie Sullivan: It is, on the other side is all about unconditional love among other things, but the big takeaway is unconditional support, unconditional love. And this side, we are here to learn. You’re right. It’s not to get the most money or get the best car or the best biggest boat or whatever. It’s to learn compassion, learn how to get along with each other. Learn love. I don’t mean just romantic love. I mean, all love, love the person who doesn’t look like you, who doesn’t act like you. We are here to learn lessons and that’s why we come here. That’s why we have contracts. I also feel like we come here because there’s a physicality that we get here that we can’t get on the other side. I am a medium and my parents had passed away, and yes, I get to talk to my parents and other people who passed away that I love very much, but it’s not the same. I can’t hug them. I can’t kiss them cause they’re light form and I’m not. That’s the big takeaway- be kind, be thoughtful, be considerate, be loving, learn to get along with other people. Everybody, not just the people that you like and learn.
Johnny Burke: Excellent. Jeannie, thanks so much for joining us today. Excellent. Excellent information. How can our listeners find more about you online?
Jeannie Sullivan: I have my own website. It’s www.heartfeltenergies.com and I’m on Facebook. And I have a Gmail address, heartfeltenergies @gmail.com,but my website is heartfeltenergies .com