The Veil
My YouTube feed is currently full of NDE (near-death experience) content, which I have been finding very fascinating lately, and this somehow led to the topic of “seeing in the spirit.” I came across a video (and then watched another) of an interview with a man named Michael Healy. I was so intrigued by his story that I ended up buying his book, The Veil, and I couldn’t put it down once I started.
Michael Healy begins by describing his experience as a child who could “see in the spirit.” He details his first memories seeing angels and then later describes the demons saw. He goes into depth about how these experiences played out as a young boy and into his teens and how this led him into his purpose and ministry. He talks more about his purpose on his website, but he ultimately hopes to encourage people “to pursue a deeper connection with God.”
Michael begins his story by sharing the visions he had of angels surrounding his mom in the car. He then details a 3-year period as a young boy when he was tormented nightly by demons. The night visions only subsided after moving across the country with his parents and attending a new church. There he was finally able to open up to his parents and leaders in the church about what he had been experiencing. He began to develop a deeper understanding of God and realized these demons had no power over him; that’s when the night terrors finally stopped.
He develops his gift as he gets older, but there were years when he questioned his faith and his sanity. He wondered if he was simply Schizophrenic. Eventually he embraced his visions and began to deepen his relationship with the Holy Spirit. Once he began to have a dialogue with God, asking about the meaning of the things he saw, many things were clarified for him while others remained mysterious. Some of my favorite visions he details are about personal guardian angels, how everyone has one, and how they are here to protect and love us; they try to soothe us, especially when plagued by demons.
Demons feel like a taboo topic. How can we possibly know if that’s real? But, when we feel and experience negative situations in life, it’s easy to see each other’s demons. When people drink too heavily and their entire personality changes, when we see someone under the influence of heavy drug use, when we see peoples’ trauma expressed in negative behavior, it’s easy to understand that “we all have demons.” But what Blake details is how he was physically able to see these demons in the space around him and attacking the people he saw daily.
What he makes sure to emphasize is that these demons don’t have power over us — they only have the ability to play on our own hurts, insecurities, and negative thoughts and feelings. They have an ability to perpetuate the bad beliefs we have about ourselves, others, and the world at large. They pull the strings that we allow them to pull. Do you ever feel yourself spiraling out of control with a negative emotion, unable to reign it in? He explains that those are the moments we allow ourselves to be manipulated, but we can recognize these moments and change our thoughts to allow for a better outcome. We can instead focus on God’s love and forgiveness for ourselves and others. We can bring ourselves into the alignment of love.
What was most interesting for me about this book was the thought of actual physical entities manipulating our emotions. It’s easy to understand how our own thoughts and emotions affect the way we feel mentally, physically, and spiritually. But to actually envision a physical presence preying on those emotions made me think of things differently. It made it so much more important to catch myself in those moments and not allow myself to fall into those spirals. It made it more important for me to visualize and focus on the important and good things we can control in our lives. It made it more important to focus on the love we have surrounding us always. It’s not always easy, but it will be worth the effort.
I realize this topic is very esoteric. Maybe you believe in this stuff and maybe you don’t - there is no way to prove it one way or another. Sometimes things in life are unexplainable, and that even pertains to God. But we have to ask ourselves what resonates with our souls, and that is always changing. We can ask ourselves, is this helpful? And for me, Blake’s story helped me to visualize how I can make a more positive impact on my life by visualizing the good surrounding us — God’s love, guardian angels, beauty, and worship — all things I am tapping into more lately.
