Erin Pavlina is a professional intuitive, blogger and author who has written more than 800 articles on the topics of spiritual, psychic and personal development.
We talk about intuitive counseling, mediumship, spirit guides, past life readings, astral projection, paranormal investigation, and what happens on the Other Side...
In 2006, Erin was a mentor to me and an inspiration for my creating Shift Your Spirits. It's a full circle moment for me.
*Scroll down for a full text transcript.
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33 - Erin Pavlina on Past Lives, Astral Projection & the Other Side
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MENTIONED IN THE SHOW:
...past lives, past life readings, astral projection, the Other Side, the veil, paranormal investigation, spirit guides...
GUEST LINKS - ERIN PAVLINA
The Astral Projection Guidebook by Erin Pavlina
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TRANSCRIPT
INTRO
Hey, thanks for listening to the Shift Your Spirits podcast.
I’m your host Slade Roberson.
For eleven years, I’ve been a professional intuitive and the author of the blog Shift Your Spirits, where I try to write about spirituality with fewer hearts and flowers than most New Age blather.
I also mentor emerging intuitives, psychics, and healers in a program called Automatic Intuition.
Today I have an interview with Erin Pavlina about past life readings, astral projection, and the Other Side.
And, of course, as always, there’s an oracle segment at the end of the show.
So be thinking about a question or a concern you have. Hold it in your mind, and I’ll come back on, after the final links and credits, and leave you with that extra message.
BEFORE I FORGET
I'd like to say a quick thank you to Heather Becker, my newest supporter on Patreon.
I appreciate all of you who have pledged your support and I’m really excited to see the new names each week. It demonstrates that you’re enjoying the show and want it to continue. That’s very encouraging to me, so thank you.
Listeners who support the show on Patreon can access bonus Q&A episodes, where you guys send in questions, I record answers to them, and they go out to patrons of the show exclusively.
To find out how you can become a patron, support my time in producing this show, and access the extra bonus content, please go to patreon.com/shiftyourspirits
Today’s guest, Erin Pavlina is a professional intuitive, blogger and author who has written more than 800 articles on the topics of spiritual, psychic and personal development.
Just before the recording started, I took a moment to tell Erin about the impact she’s had on my own career as an intuitive and author.
Way back in 2006, I had no intentions of becoming a professional intuitive, but my guides were really pushing me to write and publish about my experiences with the paranormal. And at the time I was writing the first articles for Shift Your Spirits, I discovered Erin's blog which she had just launched. It was a huge synchronicity for me.
Erin set a real, tangible example for me to emulate — just as a blogger, not to mention as an intuitive. I had no idea what it would lead to… Back in the day, I wrote her emails asking for advice, and she was always encouraging, inspiring, and she treated me like a peer. I am forever grateful for that. She gave me a print interview on Shift Your Spirits 10 years ago.
So, for me, sharing this conversation is a full circle moment. Whether she knew it or not before today, I consider Erin one of my mentors.
INTERVIEW SEGMENT
Erin:
That's really cool. Yeah, I've heard that from some other people. And that, I think is the part that's most gratifying, is creating and inspiring people who also create the drops in the ocean and send the ripples out.
Slade:
Yeah.
Erin:
Because the more people we have doing this, the better.
Slade:
Right. It's kind of like nodes in a network and you raise a tower and a bunch of other people can connect to those as well.
Erin:
Exactly.
Slade:
Well for those listeners who may be discovering you for the first time, tell us a little bit about who you are and what you do.
Erin:
Okay. So I'm an intuitive counsellor. So what I do is I connect to my clients' spirit guides and get information that will help them on their path, whether that's career, relationships, finance, health, spirituality, whatever they want to ask about, their guides will answer.
So I consider myself a conduit. Just a relay. And I've honed my abilities to the point where I am able to clearly receive information from people's spirit guides and then I just pass it on and they kind of go from there.
Slade:
Awesome.
So you've written about a turning point in your life and I was referring back to 2006 and you've called it a kind of Emergence. So how did you become an intuitive? Where was the story, the origin, for you?
Erin:
So I was intuitive my whole life. You know, when I was four years old, I started to notice things. I would have premonitions. I would have dreams about deceased people coming to me and giving me information that turned out to be correct, and I kind of went through my life just having intuition for myself, and I never considered that I could do this for other people.
And one day I was watching a reality show, Beauty and the Geek, and my second cousin who I hadn't seen since he was a little kid, was on the show and I noticed that every time he came on the screen, I would hear a voice telling me things. Like, tell Josh I'm sorry, tell Josh it's not his fault.
I'm like, Who is talking to me?
And I really didn't understand what was happening because I certainly wasn't expecting it. But I started writing down everything I was hearing. And then when the show was over a couple of months later, I got in contact with him and I said, I don't know if you're into this stuff, but I gotta tell you what this voice is telling me.
And I told him everything that this female voice was giving me. And there was silence on the other end of the line. I'm like, Josh, are you still there?
And he said, I'm shaking right now.
I said, Why?
He said, Because I know exactly what you're talking about. I know exactly who you're talking to. My finacee had a suicide six months ago and everything you're telling me is stuff that I found in her suicide note, which I didn't share with any other person in the world.
And so we were both kind of sitting there going, Well... well... well... what is this??
And it occurred to me that I had been speaking to a deceased person. Then I thought to myself, If I did that once, maybe I can do it again.
So I started trying consciously to tune in to other people's deceased relatives. And I also discovered at the same time other guides that would come to me and that I could tell were not deceased people. They were spirit guides. And I just very boldly and courageously and with no other intent other than to help people, started passing along messages to people from their guides.
And that's really how it started.
Then I decided to start writing about some spiritual topics. Again, with no intention of it really turning into anything. And as I was talking about this thing with my audience, my growing audience, people started asking me to give them a reading.
I'm like, Well I don't know how to give a reading, per say. I don't know how that functions. But again, I thought, I might as well try. So I tuned in to my guides and I asked them for help doing this work and they taught me how to do it and I started doing this professionally in 2006.
And here we are.
Slade:
Wow.
It's so similar to kind of how it happened for me too. I thought, Oh, I'm just going to write about these experiences that I have and then all the people reading kind of drafted me and said -
Erin:
Exactly!
Slade:
... Can you connect for me?
Yeah, so I was like, months behind you, but also observing you to some degree, you know, having it happen as well. And I think that's one of the reasons I attach to your experience so strongly.
So I'm wondering though, since it has been, what, it's like almost 12 years for you?
Erin:
Yeah.
Slade:
That you've been doing readings...
How have your readings evolved over time, like, are they different now then back when we first discovered you?
Erin:
I would say that the mechanism of how I receive information is exactly the same. But I've gotten faster and better and more clear at getting the information. So I used to do like, a 30-minute phone reading or 1-hour phone reading, but I'm very to the point. You know? I'm not all out there and I don't meander around. I get right to the point and I discovered that I could answer a lot of questions for people in just 15 - 20 minutes.
And so, gradually, I have honed my reading skills to the point where I can do a 15-minute reading for somebody and still cover all the areas of their life that they want to cover.
And then I also was able to start doing readings by email, which I remember trying that long time ago, but people have follow-up questions, and then it turned into this back-and-forth email exchange.
But later, probably around in year seven or eight, I decided to give it a try again because after speaking with my guides about it, they told me how to do it so that a person would get a full reading by email. So I had people send me their questions by email and I sit in my meditation, connect with their guides, and I can answer their questions just as well over email as I could over the phone and I have found that very, very, very few people need any kind of follow-up because the reading is still very thorough.
So I would say that I've gotten better and faster, and even more clarity than we had before.
Slade:
Okay well I'm very impressed with all that. Not only for myself, but I know that there are a lot of other intuitives who are listening right now who, one of the questions I get a lot of times about doing email readings is how do you handle the back-and-forth, so I'm very curious that that just isn't an issue.
Erin:
Actually one of the things I think happens is, when they send me a question, I don't just answer the question. I use that as a launching point to talk to their guides about their entire situation. So if somebody says, you know, should I move to L.A. and take the job, or keep the one I have in New York, it's not just a yes or no question for me. I talk to the guides about their career path and they show me all the different trajectories that the person could be on and which ones will likely lead to the best outcomes for them.
And I also talk to their guides about what the person most wants to experience in their lives.
So when I send back the reading, I don't just say, Yeah, move to L.A.
Slade:
Right.
Erin:
You know? I'll talk to them about what they truly wanted when they incarnated, what their current trajectory is taking them, and also what they want to experience. And so I look through all of their possibilities, pick the one or two that the guides are very much in favour of, and when I send back the reading, I not only tell her why she should go to L.A., but also why she should go and what she's going to experience there, what challenges she might face and how to overcome them.
So it's very complete.
Slade:
That's very cool.
I'm curious, Is there a particular type of reading that you tend to attract in your practice? Have you noticed any patterns?
Erin:
Yeah, I mean, the types of questions people ask, after doing thousands and thousands of readings, there are a few questions that are sort of at the top. The top one is definitely how can I transition to a career I'll enjoy? Which I find interesting and I guess a lot of people go through that, you know? You get out of college or high school, you pick a career path and somewhere down the line, five or ten years later, you are not happy. You've had a shift and your career has not shifted with you. So a lot of people want to know what they can do to be happier in their careers. So that's a big one.
Slade:
Yeah.
I notice that you also do past-life readings, correct?
Erin:
Yes. I've just started doing that.
Slade:
How did you - Well, that's cool because I was wondering how you discovered that you were receiving past life information. Was it prompted by a question someone had about it or how did that emerge?
Erin:
For the most part, during the last 11 - 12 years, most people did not ask me about past-life stuff. So past-life information would only emerge in the reading when the guides felt it was necessary for the person to know what had occurred in previous lives. Usually there were some kind of trauma that was carried over.
So I never really gave it a whole lot of thought because my personal opinion was that getting a past-life reading doesn't help them a whole lot this life unless there is some kind of carry-over. But one day when I was in meditation with my guides, they gave me the idea to just do it. And I don't really question them after this many years.
They said, Do some past-life readings. You're going to see some really interesting patterns. You're going to see some really interesting things, and it is going to be very helpful to people.
So I thought, Alright.
So really, on a whim, but with great delight and joy and curiosity, I offered the past-life readings. And I ended up getting like, 300 people signed up in the first week and it was a little overwhelming, because it takes a long time to do those, but as I got going with them, I realized how valuable they are, how important they are, and what would happen is when I would tune in to their past life, the guides would show me their entire life, like a video, and I could fast-forward or rewind or pause at various points and what I did, because obviously a life is very long, I would grab the key salient significant experiences of their life and express those to them. Otherwise, obviously it would take many, many, many pages to go over a past life. And so what we discovered together, me and my clients, is that knowing how you were in a previous life often informs what you're doing in this life, whether it's a reacting to something bad that happened and you say, I'm never doing that again, or it's an opportunity to replay and redo things that happen in your previous life where you didn't like the outcome.
It's like re-doing a dream in a way. You get to change the outcome. It was really cool.
Slade:
Well, one of the main reasons that I wanted to talk to you at this time was because one of my listeners requested a show topic covering the Veil of Forgetfulness or The Veil, as some people call it. And when I heard that, I immediately thought of you because I remember the tagline that you had years ago about remembering where you came from. And I thought you would be the perfect person to ask about this topic.
So what is the Veil? How would you explain it?
Erin:
To me, I guess the Veil is like a blanket covering your memories so that you cannot remember who you really are and where you really came from. And I think a lot of intuitives have pondered, Why bother with a veil? Why can't we remember that we come from love? Why can't we remember who we are, who we were and everything like that?
And I don't know that I have the definitive answer, but the way that I view incarnations is kind of like playing a video game where you create a character, you give him or her certain attributes, certain strengths, certain weaknesses, and then you hit Play.
And so, if your character knew everything, if your character knew everything that he was going to have to do and everything he was going to have to be, he would probably, you know, fall on his sword and say, Forget this, I'm not doing it.
So part of it is to have, part of the Veil is to have the experience, to have it be clean, to have it not be informed by who we've been and who we are and not remember where we come from. But I think it's very important and very helpful if you can remember where you came from, and you know, where you're going to return to, because I have to imagine that if we were all living in a world where we remembered that we're connected, that we're all One, that we come from love, we would treat each other differently, and we'd treat the planet differently, and very, very different things would happen.
Slade:
So do you think, and I mean I'm just asking you to kind of philosophically ponder a little bit, do you think it's something that we're meant to overcome, that it's sort of maybe a soul chosen... like you said, if it's a video game, is it a survivalist game that you are agreeing to go into with the limitations because of those limitations, or do you think it's the intention of a higher power that we come in forgetting...
Erin:
I think it's both.
Slade:
Yeah...
Erin:
I think that the system is set up so that we don't remember. But I want to clarify that by saying, Some people do remember. There's a lot of people that remember but they're told by society and by how they're raised and everything that it's probably not real or not true. Kids have a very strong grasp of cooperation and love and being very unconditionally loving. And then our societal structure often changes their nature to be, I don't want to say selfish, but looking after oneself. Not sharing.
But I think it's all, I don't want to say it's all part of the game, because that sounds, I don't know, I don't like that, but it's part of the system and I'm not 100% sure why it is but I do know that it's beneficial in some way or we wouldn't keep doing it and I also know that some people do remember and that's... When people have their awakening, they remember and then it's very... it feels very important to share that memory with other people, which is why I kind of started my blog.
Slade:
Yeah...
Erin:
Is to wake people up. And to help them remember that they're a spiritual being having a human experience and that we can design and structure this playground any way that we want.
Slade:
You've written a lot about The Other Side. You have an e-book actually available on your website called The Other Side, which is a collection of some of the information that you've brought through, specifically about the other side and what happens when we die, what happens before we incarnate, the in-between. I'm just wondering, Is there anything that you've discovered about the other side that was particularly surprising to you, that you hadn't heard before from another source? Something that might have been unexpected or peculiar?
Erin:
Yeah, I think usually when I would do a reading and I would connect with a deceased individual, they would send love and they would send hope and all kinds of ideas to make a person's life better. But there was one situation where I was speaking with a gentleman on the other side and his client was, his daughter was my client and he was very intelligent and he was coming through very clearly. And when I got off the phone with my client, I continued talking to this guy because that's how strong a connection we had and how interested I was in speaking to him. And he was very interested in speaking to me.
So he was at a real high vibration and I kind of asked him, What do you do over there? What's going on?
And one of the things he said is, It's sort of like a creation experience. There's a lot of different things you can create over there. Different experiences, but one of the things that he was doing is engaging in sort of philosophical discussion, sharing of wisdom with other beings on the other side. So that sounded really cool to me. It was a little unexpected. Some people on the other side want to create sort of a fantasy-realm for themselves where they re-live a little bit one of their most recent life and they set things up to see what would have happened if they had taken a different road.
So it's almost like you seem to get an opportunity to say, What would have happened if I had taken that job? Or what would've happened if I married that guy? And all the curiosity you ever had in your life, you're allowed to kind of see what would've happened if you had taken a different road. So there are apparently people spending time doing that a little bit.
The other thing I saw which was, I was not expecting is some times, and this is very, very, very rare, so I don't want people to worry about this. Sometimes, if a person crossed over and they had either suicided or there was some mental anguish going on with them, they, I saw, had a tendency to re-live a lot of the anguishing experiences, hanging on to something that they really did not need to hang on to but which they could not seem to let go. And in those cases, what I saw over time because I would read for the same client and we'd kind of check in to see what people were doing, there were angelic energies around them that were helping them to heal and helping them to close those wounds so they could properly and fully cross over and release their life. The life that they had just had. Because there's something about they don't want them to cross over until they're able to drop that persona and be back at One, in peace and kind of become their higher self again.
Does that make sense?
Slade:
Yeah, interesting.
So I wonder if, do you think that corresponds with what we call earth-bound spirits and spirits that are trapped or do you think it's something else?
Erin:
Yes, I do think that some spirits have a difficult time crossing over but I really, really, really, really want to stress that that's a teeny tiny percentage of people. Because most people easily slough off the connection and are able to cross over completely and fully, but I have seen some energies that are either too afraid to cross over because they fear judgment or are a little bit confused and they need a little extra help working on releasing and cutting the cord with this life.
So yeah, that happens sometimes. Rarely.
Slade:
Cool.
Well, you know, the thing is, you do so many fascinating things including, you have a whole paranormal investigation team which we'd have to do a separate episode about.
Erin:
Yeah.
Slade:
So I won't take you down too many rabbit holes.
But I was curious about the connection between the things that we're talking about. The readings, the mediumship, connecting with the other side, communicating with spirits, and then astral projection, which is another really big topic for you that you've written about. You have a book about astral projection.
So, what do you use the astral projection for? What's the application?
Erin:
Yeah, okay that's a great question.
When I was young, when I was 15 to maybe 18 or 20 years old, I used to astral project because I was getting attacked by lower vibrational entities on the astral plane. And it wasn't something I was trying to do and it certainly wasn't something I was trying to attract, but it kept happening.
I finally got to the point where I said, You know, if you're going to keep attacking me, I'm going to go on the offense because I don't like this. So I started projecting three or four nights a week, and I would go on patrol and I would remove and clear lower vibrational entities that I saw either around my house, not inside but outisde, and then I started doing that for other people.
And then that kind of died down a lot. I got real focused on college and dating and marriage, children, business etc. And so my astral projection experiences now are focused very differently.
So now when I go out, I'm either helping a spirit who is having difficulty crossing over. I do some astral projection work on my paranormal investigations to identify and look at the ghost or entity that is plaguing our clients and I communicate with it to see what its deal is. And also sometimes I'll visit friends because that's fun. Also I will visit either another dimension or go up to the, oh let's call it the Ether, where I'll communicate and commune with my own deceased relatives, friends and loved ones from this life and previous lives.
Slade:
Awesome. Okay well that makes me want to get the book now.
So I assume that the astral projection guide book is about mastering some of those techniques for those purposes, correct?
Erin:
Exactly. Yeah.
The book really covers a lot of detail about how to prepare yourself to astral project because you really want to be mentally prepared and then some techniques to achieve it faster and also troubleshooting some common problems people experience when they first start projecting.
Slade:
Very cool. I'll put a link in the show notes and on my blog as well so people can go check that out.
I'm curious what's next for you. Do you have anything special, project-wise, coming up on the horizon?
Erin:
Yeah, I'm working on an intuition development program. It'll be an audio program. This is something I've been wanting to do for at least five years, but I have not had the time to devote to doing it. And now I finally do, I have completed the script so all I need to do is record it and get it produced. And in this program, people will learn how to use their clair-abilities: clairvoyance, clairaudience, sentience and cognizance. And we'll also go over the practical ways that you can use it in your daily life because a lot of people don't realize they can use it for everything. And it will also go over how to prepare yourself to be able to hear your guides and receive intuition whenever you desire, where you don't have to just wait for it to strike you.
Slade:
Very cool. You'll have to come back on when you get all that up and running and share it if you'd like.
Erin, it's been a real pleasure catching up with you and finding out what you're up to. Tell everyone where they can go find you online.
Erin:
The website is erinpavlina.com and I'm sure Slade will post it up somewhere. There's hundreds of articles on there that you can read for free, which I love. I love to hear people's feedback on the articles, and often we go over to my Facebook wall and talk about each article, so that's available for people as well.
Slade:
That's wonderful. Thank you, Erin, for coming on the podcast. I really appreciate it.
Erin:
Thank you. It was great catching up.
OUTRO
Thanks again for listening to the Shift Your Spirits podcast.
For show notes, links, transcripts and all the past episodes please visit shiftyourspirits.com
You can subscribe in iTunes or Stitcher or whatever app you use to access podcasts.
If you’d like to get an intuitive reading with me, or download a free ebook and meditation to help you connect with your guides please go to sladeroberson.com
and if you’re interested in my professional intuitive training program, you can start the course for free by downloading the Attunement at automaticintuition.com
BEFORE I GO
I promised to leave you a message in answer to a question or a concern you may have.
So take a moment to think about that — hold it in your mind or speak it out loud. I’ll pause for just a few seconds….right…now.
1…2…3…4
MESSAGE
Do you have issues with faith? Are you guilty of trying to plan out every little detail of your life?
This is a little reminder for you to trust in something greater than yourself — it can be the natural world, the universe, a higher consciousness, God, or even just the Mystery.
Having this kind of faith is about trusting that the outcome will be exactly what it should be, no matter what it is, and it will happen in its own perfect time.
Give your divine timing over to the divine — it’s better at it than we are.
You can take a break from the impossible job of coaxing the universe.
Take a break, take a breath.
And I’ll talk to you later.