The Unseen ~ A New Novel by Mike Clelland

Mike Clelland–author of The Messengers, Stories from the Messengers, and Hidden Experience–has just released his first novel, The Unseen.

I’m so excited to review this book, but before I do, I need to disclose that I edited the manuscript. That said, I feel honored to have done so. This is a brilliant offering on so many different levels. I’ve watched it transform from a comic book to a novella into a full fledged novel that I’ve compared to Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises. I’ve read that book a dozen times and hold a Masters degree in English Language and Literature, so this is no light comparison.

Mike has a special ability to write about emotions. This book ranges from the depths of despair to mystical heights, and the tenderness with which he treats his characters astounds me. Even minor figures come to life as real people grappling with paranormal events and more universal themes of love, grief and complex relationships. I would say the characters “make” the book, except so many other things stand out, too.

In addition to showing the nuanced paradox of spiritual awakening, this novel also conveys a tangible sense of place. Most of the book occurs in the Southwest, and Mike’s decades as a professional wilderness guide allow him to bring us right into that environment. As readers, we see, feel, taste, touch and hear the magical desert. We dive right into the charm and grit of a forgotten town. We experience the pulsating joy and sorrow of NDE’s, OBE’s and other difficult to explain things. I’m no stranger to strange events, and I know how tricky they are to convey. This story hits home in ways that only a fellow experiencer and researcher could bring to life.

It also goes way beyond a paranormal thriller. Yes, psychics, synchronicity and dreams play big roles, as do murky behind-the-scenes controllers. But this is also a love story, a tale of friendships lost and found, a hymn to the creative process, and a deeply healing narrative. We long to find our own Trail’s End Café, to listen to Tony’s mix-tapes and drink some of that amazing coffee.

While editing, I’ve read and re-read the entire book so many times that I’ve lost track. During all those reviews, I never once grew tired of the story, scenes or the characters. I actually miss reading it each morning and will probably begin again very soon. It’s the kind of book that rewards multiple readings, because so many subtle details reveal themselves with each new journey through its pages. I love this book, and I cannot recommend it highly enough.

An instant classic, available in paperback and Kindle.

Links to Talks from the 2021 Consciousness and Contact Conference in South Dakota

Mia Feroleto — who interviewed Ann Kreilkamp and me last year, and included an essay of mine in a recent publication — sent me links to some resources for blog readers. I have not had a chance to listen or read through all of this, but Mia consistently gathers interesting people together to raise consciousness and discuss pressing issues of our times. From Mia:

Here is what we have so far in terms of edited and posted presentations from Wasta.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mWqk4F7cdtQ&t=20s   Whitley Strieber

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eczop6Oj8dg Barbara Lamb

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ec8wD3e756I Elana Freeland

https://youtu.be/3zlRyKRbaJU Juliano Pozati

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0qrzWiT4sU Peter Champoux

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35Mo8rw7MAA Ray Grasse

And here is the link to my recent article on all four of the conferences:
https://nexusnewsfeed.com/article/consciousness/the-old-ones-lead-the-way

Please feel free to share with your subscribers.

…

Thank you, Mia!

Weekend Getaway: Haunted Tunnels, Bigfoot, UFOs, Hemingway and Fall Colors Galore

Happy Samhain and Celtic New Year!

David and I made another getaway to Traverse City, our second year going the weekend before Halloween. This time we also explored further north to Charlevoix and Petoskey. I saved this recap for today, because it contains so many spooky and Halloween-type details. Usually, Traverse City is my happy place. I love how I feel with so much water around, and even before our first trip there, I sensed a kind of vortex energy due to the sheer number of Reiki Master Teachers who live there. I don’t know where I first saw evidence of the concentration of RMTs, but to me the high number in a relatively small town seemed significant. I’ve referred to Traverse City as the Sedona of Michigan.

For this trip, David cooked up a different itinerary than our normal TC jaunts. On our last trip there, two different people mentioned “The Commons,” a combination of high end condos, low income housing, elder community and shops — all in the renovated Traverse City State Hospital. Both people marveled at how you’d never know it was a former insane asylum, and one of them claimed to be as sensitive to energies as I am. She said she went on a tour and couldn’t believe how they “got rid of the energetic residue.”

Book Review ~ Hidden Experience, by Mike Clelland

“Hidden Experience: collected writings from ten years of blogging 2009-2019,” by Mike Clelland, shares “the strange challenges of otherworldly contact, where confronting the darkest unknowns can ultimately lead to transformation.” The supposed theme of this book is a question about UFO abduction, but really, the question could be any huge, foundation-shattering and life-altering realization triggered by dreams, confusing events, and truly uncanny coincidences.

As the posts and years go by, Mike wrestles with existential crises, clinical depression, and deep inner healing. We follow the development of close soul friendships, as well as the loss of friends through death. We see how Mike’s public grappling with personal trauma and the Big Questions opens doors for others to share their stories, too. And we see how some relationships break rather than expand into larger implications. These are universal human experiences on the path of self discovery — told in an intimate, vulnerable way, often in real time.

Full disclosure: I know Mike Clelland, because he spent years interviewing me for a chapter in his “Stories from the Messengers” book and more recently for “The Unseen” podcast. Although I know Mike and consider his work a sacred path, I do not follow his blog. I check in once in awhile, but for me much of this material was new. It doesn’t read in chronological blog order. Rather, he thematically collates the posts and includes comments and updates from across the years. He also shares his own 2019 take on earlier experiences, revealing how the meanings of synchronicities, relationships and mysterious events can unfold and change across time.

The time looping and spiral journey nature of this book also models a process for embracing the “little things” that connect us to the Great Mystery, and to each other. By sharing so many of his own specific memories, details, timestamps, and experiences, Mike taps into the universal. Though true, the book kind of reads like an epistolary novel. My favorite parts are the hypnosis transcripts, his eulogies, and especially the passages about his friendship with the late Mac Tonnies. A tension between mind and heart runs throughout, yet despite the struggle, his heart keeps shining.

The Introduction begins with Joseph Campbell’s quote: “We must be willing to let go of the life we planned so as to have the life that is waiting for us.” In the Conclusion, Mike says, “Recently, someone asked me how my life has changed because of these experiences. I thought for a moment and said, ‘I now live in a magical universe.’ I meant that, I see reality as something much richer and more mysterious than I could have ever conceived.” The final page of the book echoes a vivid dream of Mike’s from 2012, posted on his 50th birthday. In all bold letters, it says: “Follow your heart.”

“Hidden Experience” is about the spiritual journey and continuing to find the courage to walk it — one step or quantum leap at a time. Highly recommended!

Comment Bump Up from the Mike Clelland interview of Laura Bruno

This is a comment bump up from the post of Mike Clelland’s interview of me on Whitley Strieber’s Unknown Country. (You can read what I had to say about that interview here.)

The comments are all very supportive and excited, until September 7, when reader William C says:

Michael, forgive me, but I cannot believe you take all these New Age practitioners seriously and give them a public forum. Lyme disease is a horrible disease. To equate it to some sort of spiritual awakening is almost obscene. But hey, I was trounced on Whitley’s forum for not being a New Ager, since I guess that is a prerequisite around here. Really sad.

Something led me to pop over to the interview page today, and I happened to see the comment. I felt it important to reply there, and also to share the exchange here, for clarity:

I’m sorry you feel that way, William. I can assure you that I in no way trivialize the horrible experiences of my Lyme clients. I nursed my (then) husband through Chronic Lyme, and I also survived my own infection with Lyme. It IS a brutal, existentially crushing disease, and I do not take that lightly.

The emails I receive from people who’ve read my writings on Lyme disease, as well as comments from clients with advanced, Chronic Lyme, share a sense of relief, a “clicking in,” profound gratitude, and a feeling of finding the blessings and especially the Meaning within the trauma. It’s like Victor Frankl’s ability to survive his concentration camp experience by finding meaning.

Those I know who have completed the “initiation” for lack of a better term, are living deeper, more joyful and meaningful lives than they ever imagined they could prior to Lyme. That in no way invalidates the journey or the scars they acquired along the way, but those soul wounds also triggered much deeper healing and inner peace.

I realize how from a superficial look, other people would consider me a New Ager, but I am actually NOT a proponent of New Age fluffy luv-n-lite. I find it toxic, disabling and disempowering, but I’ve learned not to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Some tools and concepts, taken much deeper, can heal in profound and loving ways. “Know thyself” is powerful advice and balm, and sometimes it helps to have someone reflect that self back to you. I consider this sacred work, and I wish you well.

Peace,

Laura

UPDATE 9/9/19 Comment Bump Up from the comments to this post on my blog:

I define “New Age” as diluted and distorted Mystery Teachings that people swallow because of the “truth signature” while not discerning that there may be poison and lies tagging along for the ride. At its worst, luv-n-lite callously victim-shames and/or spiritually bypasses opportunities for real growth. True Love and True Light nurture and heal, whereas New Age platitudes act more like a sugar rush and/or superfoods laced with toxic heavy metals. Not a fan!

Interview on “The Unseen” with Mike Clelland: Healing, owls and UFO’s with Laura Bruno

I’m so excited that Mike Clelland has this entire interview posted online! (Originally, it was only going to be the first half for everyone and then the second half for members of the Unknown Country website. It does have some sponsorship ads, which you can fast forward over. I’m just happy for Mike making it available to more people.)

I loved this conversation! Between this interview, his research for my chapter in his book, Stories from the Messengers, our email exchanges, and some other phone conversations, Mike has a way of getting information out of normally very private me.

The interview begins with a story I’ve told many times — how I got into doing Medical Intuitive readings — but then we go places I don’t normally talk about in a public way. We cover some of my experiences with owls, precognitive dreams, and even a very rarely told UFO/lightning strike story.

Then we get into Reiki, astrology and life path topics, both mine and Mike’s. He happens to be living his life path, which includes doing these very deep sorts of interviews. I always enjoy interacting with Mike, but every single time, I have to laugh afterwards: “I told him what?!” This interview is no exception. It has things in it that I had literally thought, “If I ever share this, it will be in thirty years.” Haha, joke’s on me: that Mike Clelland knows how to get the information out of me!

Anyway, here’s the interview. It’s pretty wild, but I hope you enjoy it as much as we did.

Gordon White on the Richard Dolan Show

This was a rich and fascinating discussion between Gordon White, author of Star.Ships, and Richard Dolan, publisher of, among other things, Mike Clelland’s The Messengers books. They cover Gobekli Tepe, the Dogon people, magic, astrology, tricksters, the limitations of academia, ancient prehistory, and the future of humanity. If you’ve got an hour and 42 minutes, it’s well worth a listen. It certainly made riding the exercise bike, doing laundry and cooking jackfruit tacos a lot more interesting!

Book Review: Stories from the Messengers, by Mike Clelland

In December 2015, I wrote about how I “devoured” Mike Clelland’s book, “The Messengers: Owls, Synchronicity and the UFO Abductee.” Well, the long-awaited companion volume just became available! As of this writing, “Stories from the Messengers: Owls, UFO’s and a Deeper Reality” is available on Kindle only, but the paperback will get listed very soon. (UPDATE: you can find the paperback here.)

The first “Messengers” book stands out as a turning point in my life,

Rune Soup with Mike Clelland

While catching up on other tasks, I’ve been listening to this fascinating discussion between Mike Clelland and Gordon White. Given their shared interests and the number of people Mike and Gordon know in common, many of us knew it was just a matter of time before this conversation happened, but I’m so glad it did!

I got to know Mike through a series of conversations and emails as he interviewed me for a chapter in his next book. I don’t know when that one will be released, but if he puts even a fraction of the time into each chapter as he did with mine, then Mike promises to deliver a beautifully mind blowing book. If you’ve not yet read his book, The Messengers: Owls, Synchronicity and the UFO Abductee, I highly recommend it for anyone with interest in shamanism, synchronicity, reality shifts, owls, paranormal experiences, and/or synchronicity.

Now … back to sessions and packing!

 

Book Review ~ “The Messengers: Owls, Synchronicity and the UFO Abductee” by Mike Clelland

Book Review

The Messengers: Owls, Synchronicity, and the UFO Abductee

By Mike Clelland

To say I devoured this book would be an understatement. The fact that the title includes the phrase, “UFO Abductee” also makes that understatement a miracle. Although I’ve had a lifetime of extremely paranormal, inter- and extra-dimensional experiences, have used telepathy since childhood, and religiously watched the show “Roswell” during my non-reading brain injury years, that whole X-files, UFO Conference, and “abductee” panoply is just not my scene. I’m much more of an intuitive reading, gardening, Reiki teaching, shamanic journeying, Faerie Realm, create beauty, tree-hugger type.

Not that the two can’t coexist! I’ve long noticed obvious crossovers; I just really don’t like to focus on any kind of victim mentality or the cloak-and-dagger secret space war, black-ops military projects, and “the Nazi’s won WW2” conspiracies. Nor do I enjoy the largely dis-empowering, Savior-in-the wings, “luv-n-lite” cotton candy of most material supposedly channeled from ET’s. Thankfully, Mike Clelland’s new book is none of these things. Rather, “The Messengers: Owls, Synchronicity and the UFO Abductee” explores the absurdly frequent appearance of owls before or after periods of unexplained missing time, UFO sightings, death (including Near Death Experiences), and/or moments of extreme spiritual questioning.

Although Mike does address the common “screen memory” of a four foot tall owl so often shared by abductees, this book spends much more time looking at synchronicities with real owls. Parts of “The Messengers” will no doubt make readers uncomfortable, but anyone who’s ever had an attraction to or relationship with owls will value the diversity of exploratory lenses — from owl experts to shamans to animal communicators to contactees to paranormal researchers to psychologists/psychiatrists to hypnotherapists to outdoorsmen to myths from around the world. The book also becomes an exploration of consciousness itself. How does synchronicity “work,” and by extension, what role(s) do we really have in the creation of our own experience of reality? More importantly for the purposes of “The Messengers,” what role do owls play in the Mystery of mysteries, and what reality-shattering implications might that role bring with it?

“The Messengers” presents both a deeply personal and universally human quest. Mike Clelland, also known as “The Owl Guy” has experienced truly bizarre owl encounters — in frequency, unusual behavior patterns, and especially in their meaningful timing. On his journey to understand his own experiences and their implications, Mike has interviewed hundreds of other people about their own synchronous owl stories. Page after page of magical tales weave their own comforting web of synchronicities across time and space. We find owl stories and dates linking people and events sometimes thousands of miles and many years apart. Inexplicably intertwined with the owl stories come sightings of UFO’s, colored orbs, strange lights, and the development of certain personal traits — high levels of intuition, energetic healing abilities, and a profound sense of “mission.”

Since so many people who contact Mike with their on owl stories (myself included) also end up having weird owl synchronicities right after emailing or calling him, “The Messengers” contains multiple layers of such intricately knotted stories that the book rewards readers with an undeniable sense of the vastness and complex beauty of life. So many stories involve moments of intense doubt and then the mysterious appearance of an owl that results in clarity and a deep reverence for life. Many people also share how owls “freak them out” or “terrify” them, and Mike explores these stories through a variety of lenses, including the highly inconsistent attitudes of indigenous cultures to owls. Unlike many animals, the spiritual meaning of owls varies from place to place.

Everything I’ve mentioned so far would make “The Messengers” an interesting and powerful book; however, imho, Mike’s treatment of what he calls “the maybe people” makes this one of the most important books of our time. Mike spends most of the book trying to make sense of his own “maybe” status as someone who does not consider himself a UFO abductee but who nevertheless exhibits very similar traits and paranormal experiences as those who do. His journey remains his own, but by providing it in context of so many others’ journeys, it encourages readers to look more deeply at our own lives. Doing so takes courage, and Mike shares his own struggles with the journey, which, in turn, helps others to continue on own own path. I cannot say how “The Messengers” will affect you, but I promise you, it will.

I feel so grateful for the release of this book at this moment in time. Of course, we would expect perfect timing from a book on synchronicity, but this book arrives like the caress of an owl’s wing. As chaos seems to spiral out of control, readers will find a strange sense of both comfort and awe in recognizing intricate harmony just beyond the veil. When all the old structures fail — in individual lives or in society — unanswerable questions arise. At such moments, remembering the Mystery becomes its own answer. I offer deep thanks to Mike Clelland for his gift to humanity in these challenging times.