Mastership Studies

It’s 1975, I’m in Hawaii, and the Magic of the Mystic Isles Unfolds.

Indulge me in setting the stage before I get into what I consider to have been the most transformative time in my life. I grew up in Southern California, raised by my fraternal grandparents, who adopted me at age 5. It was strange and confusing that I knew there was another family out there, yet in those early, formative years I certainly didn’t know where I belonged or who I belonged to. I was raised in the Mormon church, and it was a huge influence on my early belief system. With my real-life mother not in the picture much in those years, I remember she visited me when I was 4 years old and then not again until I was 8 years old. She was essentially a stranger to me, as were my older sister and my older half-brothers. And so, when my mother came back into my life, it was for a one- or two-week visit at age nine and eventually a summer-long visit at age ten. My grandmother never really approved of my mother and her lifestyle of trying to make it in the business world. She dropped enough hints to make me wary, yet the rebel in me sought to know more about my origins. My mother was not very loving, and my summer stays were a work camp. On one visit, she was a manager for a large apartment complex in Las Vegas, where she would put me to work all summer long cleaning and painting the vacant units. At least I got a small allowance and enjoyed time exploring the desert alone. Meanwhile, my sister, who was 9 years older, was becoming a trusted and caring source of emotional support and refuge. My mother was intimidating, and my sister became a mediator in seeking a relationship with her. In my early teens especially, I was developing two separate personalities to deal with my vagabond lifestyle.

My sister, Nina was 9 years older than me and was the closest I got to another human being in my young life. She had the same sense of humor and quick mind as me, with my history of being misunderstood because of my ADHD in school, church, and at home it was so refreshing to find someone that I connected with. It was nice to have her give me a safe haven where I could relax and take off the mask I had constructed to deal with my everyday life. Plus she delighted in “corrupting” this goody two shoes Mormon boy giving me full access to cigarettes, slow gin fizzes, and her husband Playboy magazine subscription. Don’t judge our relationship by todays standards, there were no ratings on movies and we still were watching TV in black and white in the early sixties.

When I was about 14, my sister was going through a divorce and raising my niece and nephew, so she moved into an apartment that was in the complex my mother was managing in Santa Monica. As a side hustle (an unknown term in 1966–68) my mother was trying to launch her career as a full-time psychic, getting more speaking engagements and advertising her past-life readings in Fate magazine. I was curious but at the same time extremely skeptical because of my LDS upbringing and my mother’s influence in metaphysical topics. That abruptly changed in 1967 when I was 14. All through my childhood, amidst the turmoil and conflicts of my outer life, the one constant influence was the spirit of my father. Even though he died when I was 3 weeks old, I felt his presence protecting me and guiding me all my life as a personal guardian angel. My sister and I were arguing over different beliefs and psychic abilities, and I wasn’t having any of it, totally resistant, with my only focus on cutting loose and misbehaving. Well, at one point she shoved an article on the subject in my face and said, “Read this,” and so I reluctantly skimmed over the article, which was about “Mormonism” and its beliefs about the metaphysical world. As a true believer, all I saw were the inconsistencies and lack of realism in the article. But it helped me calm myself and start taking the conversation more seriously. At that point she asked me to sit down and meditate with her, which I reluctantly agreed to. As we sat there, my thoughts were still focused on just appeasing her right then; then I could pursue my quest to misbehave after that. However, in the quiet I began to feel the familiar presence of my father, who delivered the clearest message of my life, before or since; he said, “Listen to your mother,” which was telling me to open up to these weird topics of reincarnation, auras, ESP, Edgar Cayce, and the whole “New Age” gig that she was involved with. You see, my father was the one voice that I trusted in the confusing and contrary world of adulthood. He was secretly someone I knew well; his death was still recent history, and there were a lot of stories of his life and influences from everyone in my “large” family. He was well loved as the oldest sibling, and I know that was a secret source of my fascination and desire to know what my origin story was. That visitation when I was 14 wasn’t a clear image of him but an etheric glow that I recognized and a voice in my head that had given me comfort many times in times that were trying and even dangerous. Adults in my life were not to be trusted; they lied to me or even abused me, so his influence was consistent, always gentle and positive.

From that day on, I began taking classes in everything that was offered. At 16, I was living with my sister to finish my last year of high school, and I was spending a lot of time with my mother and stepfather and getting to know more about this other family that was so different. My mother could see the change in my attitude about her, and she made more of an effort to take me under her wing and let me into her world.

During those days, my mother had a very busy metaphysical center in West Sacramento, where I had access to every class being offered. My sister and I hosted meditation studies authored by Roy Eugene Davis, and we also hosted an A.R.E. group studying the teachings of Edgar Cayce, and we dabbled in Rosicrucian lessons as well. Later, when I was married and living in Connecticut at the age of 18, I began to teach others. I started out teaching meditation classes to a youth group. Soon I was invited to give lectures at Wainwright House in Rye, New York, where my classes on reincarnation were well received, but the critics said I was too young to know what I knew. Ha!

The atmosphere was electric throughout the week. Being part of the family didn’t hurt, as it meant having access to all these celebrity guests. I really enjoyed my conversations with Sybil Leek, with her cute British accent, and she enjoyed her role as the Goddess/Coven Mother.

I already knew Morna from her classes on Lomi-Lomi and Huna at the center. She was a self-styled “Tahuna,” a name that was adopted from Tahiti because there is no “T” in the Hawaiian alphabet, and to distinguish her as a positive, healing practitioner of the Huna arts, as opposed to the Kahunas that would place curses on others. She was a very sweet, gentle soul who was in high demand to say blessings throughout the island of Oahu wherever there was a new building erected or business started.

Yogi Bhajan was a very dynamic speaker, but funny with his play on words. Take, for example, his hilarious besmirching of the word “understand,” where he would say, why would you admit to standing under anything when the goal was to uplift your mind. To demonstrate the Kundalini energy he had everyone sit on the floor holding the shoulders of each person in front of you and seated us all in a spiral shape in the room. He lead us in a unison chant, while rocking back and forth sending the energy of the group throughout the spiral. The energy of the group was remarkable.

I had already had many experiences with channeling and so was not impressed with Elizabeth Clare Prophet and her “performance” of channeling Saint Germain and other ascended masters. She was robotic and very monotone in delivering her channeled messages, which were more acting than sincere from the heart.

We had the privilege of having dinner with Richard Bach at the poolside garden restaurant at the hotel where the convention was held. He was very relaxed and gracious, kind of hippie in his telling of anecdotes from his life. It was obvious that he was accustomed to having to perform these necessary fielding of question-and-answer sessions to placate the hosts who were cutting his checks. However relaxed he was at dinner, I was not prepared for the way he turned on the charm and enthralled the audience at his keynote presentation. It appeared that, like a real professional, he had been saving his energy for when he was center stage in the spotlight. A trait that I desired to emulate for my future speaking engagements at my impressionable age of 22 years old.

And for me, that helped me grow at this conference. It truly was the start of my speaking career and gave me many new opportunities. I received several invitations to speak and teach and do consultations in Kauai, California, and Las Vegas. I’ll save those stories for another article.

One last memory I will share with you from the “Rainbow Festival.” During the week of the festival I got close to Stephen Leek and his wife Rita. During that week I was assigned the duty of being their chauffeur and tour guide. Stephen was a well-known published photographer in his many travels around the world. He was definitely following in his mother’s success in the world of publishing. During the time we spent together I took them on a hike to Manoa Falls, deep in the jungle of the Manoa Valley.

Like many of the wild areas of Hawaii, there is an elemental force that is felt that gives rise to the tales of the “menehune,” who were the fairy-like creatures that have always been in the islands. A leaf that moved without any breeze, or a sudden smell of the tropical flowers or gentle mist, were all signs that the menehunes were watching you. Wrapping a stone in a palm leaf or an offering of flowers was a common sign of respect for the mystical creatures who inhabit the mystic isles of Hawaii.

This article was inspired by the request of @Jennifer Walz, Medium, Thank you Jennifer for your support of my writing!

Michael Forrest- Modern Mystic, Intuitive Mentor, Storyteller

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