Is everyone here? I hope you all survived Friday the 13th. Yesterday was our third Friday the 13th of the year, which is the greatest number of times it can happen in one year. The next year with three Friday the 13ths is 2012, a year which now has yet another reason for people to fear it.

On Friday, February 13th, 2009, I wrote about why Friday the 13th is considered bad luck. There were many possible reasons, none of which sounded very convincing. But it shows that people can be afraid of something without having any idea why.

Now it’s time to talk about another superstition: that breaking a mirror gives you seven years of bad luck. I’m sure there are hundreds of millions of people who believe this. What’s interesting about this one is that not only is the superstition baseless, but what we’ve heard isn’t even the right superstition.

I had always heard that if you break a mirror, you get seven years of bad luck, simple as that. But I later learned that this wasn’t the original superstition. I’ve heard different variations, but I’ll tell you the one that sounds right to me.

The idea is that your reflection contains part of your soul. If you break a mirror while your reflection is in it, that part of your soul dies. But you get a new soul every seven years. So until the end of your current soul’s seven year lifetime, whether that happens in one year or five or whatever, you’ll be walking around with a damaged soul, and you’ll have bad luck.

This means that even if you believe the superstition, breaking a mirror is completely harmless if your reflection isn’t in it at the time. Granted, it usually will be, but it’s good news if you were holding the mirror away from you when you dropped it.

More importantly, you won’t get seven years of bad luck. It’s only until your age reaches the next multiple of seven, when you get a new soul. That’s three and a half years of bad luck on average.

There’s some bad news though. If a mirror breaks while your reflection is in it, you’ll get bad luck even if you weren’t the one who broke it.

Nobody believes in the original version of this superstition, though. At the age of 34 (one year before a new soul), someone will drop a mirror with a sheet draped over it (no reflection), and convince themselves that they’re getting seven years of bad luck.

But also, they’ll be standing in front of a mirror while someone else breaks it, and have no concern at all for themselves, not being aware that it doesn’t matter who breaks the mirror. If they don’t believe in that part, then they don’t have to believe in the other part.

How many people create a self-fulfilling prophecy of bad luck for themselves, because they believe in a superstition that never was?

Yes, this guy looks really creepy. But don’t judge him because he’s different. Perhaps we just don’t know beauty when we see it.

Notice the unmistakable look of utter serenity on his face. His left and right sides are brought together in perfect harmony, forming a new being that knows no limits, united with the oneness of the universe.

OK, that’s about all I can say with a straight face. Anyway…

After my initial post on mixed handedness got some attention, I began a deep exploration into the mysteries of handedness: left, right, and especially mixed. I wasn’t just looking for trivia; I wanted to know how we can use both sides of our brain and body to our best advantage.

Seven months later, that search now culminates with the release of my new ebook, which comes in two versions:

Ambidextrous: A Right-Hander’s Guide to Developing Two Dominant Hands
Ambisinistrous: A Left-Hander’s Guide to Developing Two Dominant Hands

The word “ambidextrous” sounds balanced but it’s actually a very biased term, being Latin for “right on both sides.” Its counterpart, “ambisinistrous,” is Latin for “left on both sides.”

I’m using these terms to refer to a right-hander or left-hander who has made their weak hand into a strong hand. These people are more formally called Penwald ambidextrous, and I’m now one of them.

Why two versions of the ebook? Because I’m so sick of books that explain how to do something right-handed, and expect left-handers to just reverse everything! They deserve something specifically for them.

Also because these are really two different audiences. For example, left-handers and right-handers learned to write differently and they have different motivations for writing with the other hand, so you can’t treat them exactly the same.

(To keep things simple, both versions are included together in one download for one price. Read the version for you, and ignore the other.)

After a lot of research and personal experimentation, I’ve learned that:

1. You can change your natural handedness. I learned to do many things with the other hand, and even went from -0.2 (mildly left-handed) to +0.2 (mildly right-handed) on the Edinburgh Handedness Inventory (whose scale goes from -1.0 to +1.0).

2. There are cases where it’s very practical and beneficial to switch hands, but also cases where it’s not. That’s why I explain how to know when it’s worth it, and also how to practice efficiently and effectively.

3. Two hands are way better than one.

If you want to boost your physical prowess, balance your brain and body, and awaken your sleeping half, check out the right-handed sales page or the left-handed sales page. Any questions? Ask away.

Photo by striatic.

“What resemblance more perfect than that between the hands, and yet what a striking difference there is!”

- Michael Herz

The release of my new ebook on ambidexterity is just around the corner. More on that later, but I thought this would be a good time to answer some of the questions I’ve received about being ambidextrous or mixed-handed.

1. How many people are ambidextrous?

It depends on your definition. Almost nobody on earth can do everything equally well with either hand. But about 40% of right-handers and 75% of left-handers are considered mixed-handed, meaning that they prefer their non-dominant hand for at least one task on an official handedness test.

In between are an unknown number of people who might be called ambidextrous – those who get significant use out of both hands, even if they’re not perfectly equal.

2. What famous people are ambidextrous?

It’s hard enough just coming up with a reliable list of famous left-handers, because so many people circulate rumors without consulting a primary source.

And reliably determining what famous people are ambidextrous is a million times more difficult for the same reason, and also because we’ve always thought in terms of left and right while ignoring everything in between.

However, there are lots of people who were known to be at least very mixed-handed, and possibly ambidextrous. The list includes James Garfield, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, Robert Baden-Powell, Plato, Hippocrates, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Nikola Tessla, and Ludwig van Beethoven.

Not surprisingly, there are mixed-handed athletes from just about every sport, including LeBron James, Maria Sharapova, Mickey Mantle, Eli Manning, Pelé, and Gordie Howe.

3. Can you learn to be ambidextrous, or at least a little more ambidextrous than most people?

Yup! People who are born perfectly ambidextrous are extremely rare, and possibly nonexistent. But many people have learned to become ambidextrous or mixed-handed to boost athletic performance, improve left brain/right brain integration, do things more efficiently, reduce the risk of carpal tunnel syndrome, and more.

4. Instead of practicing with both hands, doesn’t it make more sense to get really good with one hand?

That’s like saying you shouldn’t learn a foreign language because it takes time away from perfecting your native language. But there’s a point of diminishing returns, where continuing to work on your native language gives little benefit, while learning a new language lets you make progress much faster.

5. But doesn’t it take twice as long to learn something with both hands?

No, because you’re not starting from scratch. Put it this way – if you’re right-handed, you can probably write in the sand just fine with your right foot. Even if you’ve never tried it before, your foot has learned by osmosis. To a lesser extent, your left hand has learned by osmosis as well.

6. Are there advantages to being mixed-handed, other than the physical ones?

Yes, though we’re not entirely sure what they are yet. They may include the ability to read people better, see both sides of an issue, and recall details of an event and their context.

For a long time, scientists thought that left-handers and right-handers had certain psychological differences, but the findings weren’t always consistent. For example, they say that lefties are more creative and emotional, but there are plenty of counterexamples to that.

Only recently have they discovered that the important differences are not between left-handers and right-handers, but between strong-handers and mixed-handers.

7. If left-handers are more likely to be mixed-handed than right-handers are, then why are most switch hitters in baseball right-handed?

Because (1) most baseball players overall are right-handed, and (2) since left-handers have a big advantage when batting, they have less of an incentive to switch.

8. What is the biggest myth about handedness?

That left-handers are right-brained and creative, while right-handers are left-brained and analytical.

It’s true that each side of the body is mostly controlled by the opposite side of the brain, but motor control is just one of the many things our brain does. People of either handedness can be either left-brained or right-brained.

9. What is the weirdest fact you know about handedness?

The hand clasping thing. Clasp your hands, and see which thumb is on top. It’s almost a sure thing you always do it the same way (and it’s not correlated with handedness).

About 60% of people in England put their left thumb on top. Now, the weird thing is that this percentage drops steadily as you go east across Europe and Asia, reaching a low of 30% in the Solomon Islands. If anyone has a theory about how this evolved, I’d love to hear it.

10. When right-handers see somebody writing with their left hand, why do they so often say “Oh my God, you’re left-handed?”

I’m not sure. There are 700 million of us, you know.

For more mixed-handed goodness, check out my ebooks Ambidextrous (for right-handers) and Ambisinistrous (for left-handers).

Seth Godin recently posted a wonderful brainteaser in Not so good at math:

Let’s say your goal is to reduce gasoline consumption.

And let’s say there are only two kinds of cars in the world. Half of them are Suburbans that get 10 miles to the gallon and half are Priuses that get 50.

If we assume that all the cars drive the same number of miles, which would be a better investment:

• Get new tires for all the Suburbans and increase their mileage a bit to 13 miles per gallon.
• Replace all the Priuses and rewire them to get 100 miles per gallon (doubling their average!)

Would you believe that you save more gas by putting new tires on the Suburbans? Because that’s the right answer.

What’s great about this problem is that it seems so simple, but the result is so astonishing. Even after you know the answer, it’s still hard to get your head around it.

Seth’s point was that we’re not wired for arithmetic. True, but I think what this problem really shows is that we’re wired for making faulty assumptions about numbers. It’s not our arithmetic that fails us in this case. It’s our logic and intuition that do.

How to solve it logically

In 6 Ways To Improve Your Telecommunication, Zack Grossbart shows a simple way to solve the problem by using pictures and plugging in real numbers. He crunches the numbers for one Suburban, one Prius, and a specific number of miles for the commute.

That’s one way I might have done it. Another way I might have done it is by flipping the miles per gallon (1/mpg) to get gallons per mile. When you want to see how much gas you’re burning, the relevant metric is gallons.

As you can see, upgrading a Suburban saves 2.3 times as much gas.

How to solve it intuitively

OK, we know how to arrive at the answer. But how can we resolve the paradox? How can getting 30% more mpg possibly be better than getting 100% more mpg? Here are two ways to understand it intuitively.

1. Consider a more extreme version of the problem.

You own a Hummer that gets 5 miles per gallon. You also own a futuristic supercar that can drive across the country on a single drop of gas. Would you rather get 1% better mileage on your Hummer, or 1,000,000% better mileage on your futuristic supercar?

Don’t turn this into a problem of comparing one percentage against another. There’s no point in upgrading the supercar. The percentage you improve it by is irrelevant, because nanodrops of gas don’t matter. But any improvement on the Hummer is huge because it burns a lot of gas.

2. Consider a reworded version of the problem.

All the Suburbans in the world burn 83% of the gas. All the Priuses in the world burn 17% of the gas. Which model should you upgrade?

When it’s phrased this way, the answer is obvious. The wording of the original problem distracted you from what was really important. Of course, problems aren’t always nice enough to phrase themselves in the way that is most convenient for you.

Why doesn’t common sense work?

There are several reasons why it’s so easy to be led astray.

1. We fail to spell out our objective. The wording is critically important, because it’s easy to solve the wrong problem.

Are we trying to maximize the mpg of the average car? No. (If we were, we should upgrade the Prius.) Our goal is to minimize the total amount of gas burned by all cars. So focus on that.

2. It might seem strange that we’re not trying to maximize the average miles per gallon. Isn’t that the same as reducing the total amount of gas burned? Well, it would be, if there was only one car. But averages can be tricky.

If we upgrade the Suburbans, the average car would get (13 + 50) / 2 = 31.5 miles per gallon.

If we upgrade the Priuses, the average car would get (10 + 100) / 2 = 55 miles per gallon.

55 is more than 31.5, so upgrading the Prius means burning less gas, right? It might seem like it should work that way, but there is no mathematical law that says so.

Looking at the average isn’t enough – you need to look at the distribution. Here are three pairs of cars, each pair averaging 10 mpg. The greater the variance within each pair, the more gas is needed to drive a fixed distance.

That’s what we get when we keep the distance fixed and look at how much gas we need, which is what we have to do for this problem. But just for fun, let’s keep the amount of gas fixed and look at how far we can drive with the same cars.

Is that surprising?

3. Reciprocals (mpg vs. gpm) are confusing. We’re trained to think in terms of miles per gallon. But gallons per mile is actually a much more natural unit to work with when you’re looking at how much gas you’re burning.

The Suburban gets 10 mpg, and the Prius gets 50 mpg. The Prius gets 400% better mileage (mpg), but it burns 80% less gas (gpm), so you have to be really clear on what you’re talking about.

The differences between reciprocals get more pronounced when you approach a singularity. 0/1 is very different from 1/0, which is what caused the difference in the previous two charts.

4. We’re told that there are equal numbers of Suburbans and Priuses, and we subconsciously think they should therefore be treated equally. But we need to discriminate. The Suburbans are burning 83% of the gas in the world, so they need to be given more weight. It doesn’t matter how many there are, only how much gas they’re all burning.

Of course, what people should really be doing is trading in their Suburbans for Priuses.

Someone who’s 100% certain is naive.
Someone who’s 0% certain is lazy.
Someone who’s 25% certain is ignorant.
Someone who’s 50% certain is either confused or enlightened.
Someone who’s 75% certain is either an idiot or a scholar.
Someone who’s 99% certain is overconfident.
Someone who’s 99.999% certain is dangerous.

In the new millennium, the most important currency is information. Gone are the days when widgets ruled the world. Today, knowledge is power. If the Industrial Revolution made us civilized, the Digital Revolution will make us enlightened.

But while we have access to extraordinary amounts of information, we still remain ignorant of much of it. The internet is pretty good, but it doesn’t hold a candle to the universe’s biggest and most critical database, the Akashic records.

You aren’t a body that happens to have a soul. You are a soul that happens to be in a body. Your soul is the core essence of your being, and as it incarnates in different bodies over multiple lifetimes, it goes through many amazing experiences. All of these experiences are stored energetically in the Akashic records, somewhere out in the ether.

In the past, the only way of accessing the Akashic records was to hire a practitioner who had been trained in the intuitive arts. But while this method works for reading your own record, many people want far more information than can be obtained in a single reading. And for them, there was no better way…until now.

At last, the complete Akashic records are available to everyone. Get them delivered to you on one million CDs, with a handy carrying case.

This includes, for every person who has ever lived, their soul’s place of origin, primary chakra, soul condition (such as any energetic blocks or tears), full information about their spirit guides, and a detailed description of everything that has happened in their current and all past lives. (You might think this would be illegal, but current identity theft laws don’t apply to soul records.)

Just think of what you can do with this information:

- Read Jesus Christ’s record to learn the location of the Holy Grail. It’s bound to get some serious bids on eBay!

- Where is Adolf Hitler’s soul today? Is it possessing your next door neighbor with the moustache? Better safe than sorry!

- Did O.J. Simpson really do it? Enquiring minds want to know!

- Matt Cutts knows Google’s search ranking algorithm. Learn it for yourself, and never settle for less than the number one ranking!

- Tip off the White House about Osama bin Laden’s location. Place a curse on him while you wait for the armed forces to get there!

How much would you pay for all this? $10 million? $100 million? Well, you can get everything for just $999,997. That’s less than a dollar per CD! And the price ends with a 7, so you know you’re getting the best possible value.

This isn’t quite ready for release yet. But if you sign up for my newsletter, you’ll get a significant discount when it comes out.

If the server crashes, please keep trying. Don’t miss out on your chance to learn all the world has ever known.

This is the second part of an interview with Akashic record reader Akemi Gaines. Be sure to read the first part, if you haven’t already.

Hunter: Teilhard de Chardin said “We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience.” You’ve been operating under the idea that we are a soul that incarnates into a body. The soul is who we really are, and the body is a shell for letting it experience the physical world. When the body dies, the soul lives on, possibly incarnating into another body.

Think about a lizard getting its tail cut off. It’s now in two parts. Which is the real lizard? The part with the head, of course. The lizard no longer needs that tail, so it can grow a new one. But keep in mind who’s running the show. It’s always the lizard that grows a new tail, never the tail that grows a new lizard.

If the body outgrows a soul and gets a new one, that’s like a tail growing a new lizard. If the soul is the highest level of our being, how can the body outgrow it? How can the body run the show, when it doesn’t even know what’s going on?

Akemi: Will you put away the tailless lizard, please? I see you in my mind eye holding it up to me. . . . Now put away that tail you are hiding in your left hand. Good.

I don’t think Ascension soul shift is a case where the body outgrows a soul. The 3D body is just a vehicle of the soul. Yes, the body gets a new soul, a new driver. It’s not the vehicle outgrew the soul – the soul chose to switch.

The first soul grew as far as it could so it switched with its newer version. There is nothing wrong about the first soul – in fact, it’s wonderful it has grown to that point.

But there comes a point where it can’t (or won’t) go up further. I use the analogy of elevators in tall buildings. In very tall buildings, we need to get off the elevator at midpoint and switch to another elevator to go to higher floors.

I really think this ascension is about a new way of life, a new system of existence. It’s not just about soul shifts – soul shifts are just one aspect of it. The big picture is that we are starting a new game. Instead of learning by contrasts, like poverty or abuse, we will just be. I think we may even be ending this life-death-next incarnation cycle.

Hunter: Does every person have a soul? Can anyone live without a soul? Last time I asked you about animals having souls, and you said you didn’t know. But if humans can’t live without souls, and bacteria can, then there’s some point where a species can’t evolve any further without getting a soul. Any idea where that point might be?

Akemi: Soul is the life energy that animates us, so I don’t think anyone is alive without a soul. I think some of the mysterious deaths may be related to soul issue.

When I have some spare time in the Hall of Akashic Records, I will check if a bacteria has a soul. Maybe their section is in the basement. . .

Hunter: You’ve said that a soul might choose to experience homelessness, if it thinks that’s the best way to execute its life plan. OK, sounds good for the soul, but what about the mind and body? Because the mind and body have no say in the matter, right? A soul just chooses where to incarnate, and the mind/body is forced to live with a soul that has its own agenda. Isn’t it a bit rude for a soul to make someone homeless when that’s not what they want?

Akemi: OMG . . . somehow this question is SO funny.

I think this has a lot to do with judgments our ego makes. You think homelessness is bad. Why?

Okay, okay, because you’ll be cold, dirty, hungry, and people wouldn’t like you. But what if you knew you could become rich soon? It’s kind of fun to live the rags to riches story, isn’t it? When you are rich, you have a story – you are not just another boy who inherited the daddy’s money. All the exciting, marvelous real life stories! Being homeless is only temporary, and your soul knows you’ll get out of the situation sooner or later. As you can imagine, our souls have a very long attention span – a couple of lifetimes is no problem for them.

. . . still our ego, committed to our physical survival and make judgments based on past experiences and knowledge, would say “No!”

By the way, I am not endorsing this type of learning by contrast program. On the contrary, I think we are ending this game. Even though it’s fun (kind of ), we know we’ve done enough of it.

Hunter: In Star Trek, the #1 guiding principle of the United Federation of Planets is called the Prime Directive. It says that they’re not allowed to interfere with the internal affairs of other civilizations. They can’t do anything that affects the natural development of a more primitive civilization. That means they can’t even make their presence known to people who haven’t developed spaceships yet. And they can’t interfere with a civilization’s natural course, even with good intentions (such as by ending a war). You could say that other civilizations need to be allowed free will.

People have debated whether the Prime Directive would be a good law to have in the real world, if and when we develop space flight and encounter other civilizations. Some people say that stepping in and altering the course of natural development is wrong and can have disastrous consequences. Others say it’s cruel to withhold technology, resources, and help from those who need it. And others say it depends on the situation.

Now, let’s look at how this fits into our present spirituality. On the one hand, our souls are majorly in violation of the Prime Directive. Our souls came to Earth from other galaxies and possessed these bodies in order to learn the life lessons they picked for themselves. On the other hand, spirit guides aren’t allowed to interfere with the free will of the soul, and they can only give gentle nudges. And since everything came from the source of all energy, that means that the bodies, the souls, and the spirit guides are all just God with one big case of multiple personality disorder.

This all seems pretty messed up. What’s the role of free will? Why is it wrong for souls to get too much help from spirit guides, after the soul decided to swoop in and hijack a human being?

Akemi: That last description sounds more like a possession by negative entity than a soul incarnating in a physical body . . .

I guess we can put various meanings to why the Source split part of itself to many pieces. My interpretation is that it wanted to play, or wanted to know itself in a new tangible way. Being the single presence in the whole universe, it was “bored”. . . it knew it was whole and perfect, but it wanted to know so by contrast.

So came us! We are in this big experiment, in which we believe we are separate from each other. We can act out in the way we want thanks to free will. For instance, you are allowed to think you are single, lonely, and broke, and seek love and abundance in your own unique way. Isn’t this a fun make-belief play? And whatever you do, you are always deeply loved.

Free will is absolutely necessary for this game plan to work out. We are even free to go against the Light and become darkworkers. Because if there are certain restrictions, this learning process is hindered.

We can get as much guidance as we want from our spirit guides. We can ask for their assistance. But they won’t tell you what to do – you are the one to make decisions with your free will. And they won’t live your life – you are the one with physical body and therefore can take actions.

Detachment and respect to each other’s free will is the ultimate form of love. You are not a slave nor a servant nor an order-taker. Spirits might say something like, “Well, you may not like that option.” but if you insist, they respect your free choice. And you are allowed to learn by trial and error.

I agree with the Prime Directive. Criticisms such as it is cruel to leave negative situations as they are come from the critics’ judgment.

Regarding some of us being starseeds – I don’t think we are violating the Prime Directive because we have the same veil Earth souls do. For instance, you are good at technical thinking, but you don’t quite remember how to build spaceships, right, Hunter?

Why do starseeds (or star traveler souls) exist on Earth? This is a really big question. It may be just by accidents – they wanted to come to Earth so they did and somehow staying around. Or there may be a good reason to this, that starseeds are here to assist the Earth and Earth souls develop further, including this Ascension movement. Or it could be a combination of both.

Hunter: You’ve mentioned souls vibrating at higher dimensions lately. Are you talking about dimensions as in length, width, and height? How many dimensions are there? When our vibrational rate increases, what does that do for us? If I’m vibrating at a higher dimension, shouldn’t I be able to manipulate this 3 dimensional world like a baby’s toy? Turning invisible, shooting lightning bolts, and such?

Akemi: This is another thing I’m still looking into. I honestly don’t understand exactly what the higher dimensions are like, or how many dimensions there are. My Akashic Record Guides tell me there are 26 dimensions physically incarnated souls can reach, and some more. (See Akemi’s 5th comment for a correction.) But my mind, tied to the 3D world, doesn’t understand this.

I guess it may take someone who is better at math than I am . . . (wink) So at this time, I only take my Guide’s word, and use it as an indicator of where a client is in their spiritual development. I usually don’t discuss the actual number with them.

And I think we move around between the dimensions. Just because we had the Ascension soul shifts doesn’t mean we are at a higher dimension all the time – our bodies are still in 3D, and our souls move around.

By the way, higher dimensions are different from parallel worlds. Parallel worlds are – well, parallel to ours, not higher. And I don’t recommend going there.

I do think there are fun things we can do as we get used to being in the higher dimensions and learn more about it. Like developing lightbodies.

Hunter: OK, so people are starting to go through this ascension process, more and more people are joining them, and souls are vibrating at higher dimensions than you’ve ever seen before. What’s the end game? Everybody gets up to the highest dimension, so there’s nothing left to learn, so everyone returns to the source and the world ends, mission complete? Is this happening in 2012? If you don’t know, why can’t your guides tell you? Tell them it would make for a great post!

Akemi: I don’t know ^_^ I think if I learn all the things at once, my poor little brain might explode . . .

I am educating my spirit guides why a blog traffic is important . . . This is actually an essential step in working with spirit guides. Spirit guides are always oh-so-willing to help, but sometimes, they don’t remember certain aspects of our worldly life, like money or marriage. Or popularity contest. They’d go, like, “You like writing, right? And you have the vehicle to publish. Great. You even have some readers. And?”

. . . And the strange thing is I’m starting to think more and more like them. Yeah, so what? All my needs are met like a magic. I love writing. I help people with my reading and coaching. Wonderful day. Thank you, good night . . .

It’s great to live in the now.

Oh, 2012? Okay, I do have a glimpse of the future. I don’t know if they all happen in 2012. Still, my spirit guides tell me 2012 is a significant year – I think it’s a huge milestone. It may be when we reach a critical mass. It’s the beginning of the new beginning, or the New World.

Some of my ideas of the New World is:

• Close to zero diseases and sickness because the majority of health problems are self-inflicted by our mind and actually even deeper, by soul level issues
• Extreme change in economic system. The majority of economic transactions will be done either in small local community by cash (think of farmer’s market) or globally through the internet with virtual payment system. Eventually, we may even go without monetary system.
• The majority of “employments” will disappear, and most of us will be working for ourselves, doing what we love and be good at.
• Fundamental change in marital system. Marriage and traditional family will still be a choice, but only one choice of many options.
• Some of us will develop a new way of existence that transcends time and space.

While I personally don’t mind at all to just go back to the Source like you described, this may be a fun world to bring into reality, our new game.

I love your questions, Hunter – you are so good at asking critical questions. Thank you for this interview opportunity.

I intend to publish a book on ascension, so if you have any questions, please fire them up in the comments! I will be checking them to answer.

As an Akashic Record Reading specialist and spiritual coach, Akemi Gaines helps you further your spiritual development and know yourself on the soul level. She writes about ascension and empowerment of lightworkers on her blog, Yes to Me. You can get updates by subscribing to her blog.

It’s time for another exciting installment of Hunter’s Heroes. Today it’s my pleasure to be interviewing Akemi Gaines, who’s known for her unique focus on lightworkers’ empowerment. You might think that I’ve interviewed her before, but no, this is “Akemi 2.”

You see, Akemi has recently undergone an ascension soul shift. She learned her life lessons, her old soul left, and she got a brand new one. It’s like in Lord of the Rings when Gandalf the Grey fulfills his life purpose, dies, and comes back as the more powerful Gandalf the White. The same person in a way, but something is different.

It wasn’t just her either. She says a whole slew of people have experienced soul shifts recently, including me. It’s all part of this thing called light ascension.

For those of you who haven’t been exposed to this kind of stuff before, you might find it overwhelming, or at least very hard to swallow. You may want to start by reading the interview I did last September with Akemi 1 about the Akashic records, which is a gentler introduction to this brand of spirituality.

This interview on light ascension is not for the weak hearted or closed minded. This is hot off the press spiritual insight from someone who doesn’t hold back. I’m sure the reactions to this interview will be all over the place, and I’d like to hear them all.

I want to be clear that ascension is not a theory I came up with, and I don’t have any firsthand knowledge of it. But Akemi is always happy to answer questions, so don’t hesitate to ask.

Hunter: OK, first things first. What exactly is ascension?

Akemi: Ascension, or light ascension, means both the process Earth and its residents are going through and the possible destination, or event, in the future this process will lead to.

It’s something completely new – so I’m learning and researching as I go through my own experiences and through my Akashic Record Reading service. Please consider this interview as a progress report – I will report more on my own blog, Yes to Me, as I find out things.

When our soul’s vibration rate increases, or ascends, to a certain level of development, a new soul comes down and shifts with the old soul. I first observed this special kind of soul shift January this year. I now call it Ascension soul shift, which seems to be happening to more and more people.

Ascension soul shift brings a bunch of recognizable symptoms, such as:
• Change of food preference (many become vegetarian)
• Change in taste for clothes (many women report embracing more feminine clothes)
• Change in interests and aspirations. Also strange wanderlust.
• Change in interpersonal relationships. Basically, who or what interested you before just don’t hold your interest any longer.
• Sudden spiritual “awakening”
• Some also report physical symptoms like change in sleep patterns, ringing in the ear, or strange itching and twitching around the body.

In short, you’d feel another person is living in your body. And the change comes quite abruptly. It’s not something you planned or worked on to change.

You remember what you learned in school, work, and life in general. Your personality basically stays the same, although it may become more “raw” or pronounced. But you just feel . . . different.

Before I send some readers to shock – this is NOT a random take over of you. When I first observed Ascension soul shift, I only knew there were some kind of agreement, or arrangement, between the two souls. Recently, my Akashic Record Guide explained more into details how these souls are related, that they both come from the same Higher Self.

As I wrote in Who Am I?, the Source split part of itself to form individualized forms of itself. They traveled around, and some came to Earth. In order to incarnate in the physical body, these individualized energies split part of themselves to form souls in much the same way the Source formed them. These souls have been going through multiple lifetimes, crossing over to the other side after each incarnation and coming back when they were ready for a new challenge.

Now we’ve done enough of this. We’ve done enough of learning by contrast. So we are starting a new game plan, called Ascension. This involves increasing the vibration rate a big time, and our old souls are not quite up to the task. So our original energy body – our Higher Selves — decided to “upgrade.” It split out another soul and is sending it to us. The new soul is like the new, powered-up version of the same software.

There is also a planetary change involved here. Each person needs to achieve a level of spiritual development to ascend, but we are also receiving the benefit of Earth’s change, our mother Earth’s grace. I’m not an expert on this Earth’s shift, but the increasing number of individuals having Ascension soul shifts leads me to think this is not just a shift on the individual level, but is a change affecting us as a group.

What will all these lead to? I think something wonderful is waiting for us in the near future, the big Ascension, or the New World.

Hunter: How many people have experienced ascension soul shifts? Is it just a small percentage of the population, or something that’s taking over the world?

Akemi: My Akashic Record Reading practice is pretty small and I don’t really know how many people are having this soul shift out of the whole population. I can say, there are a lot more than I initially thought, and the number is increasing fast. I think it may be increasing like the exponential function.

Hunter: When someone gets close to ascending, should they know it? I wouldn’t have thought that I was close to ascending. I didn’t have any sense of having completed my life lessons, or that my soul was maxed out on its vibration. When our soul needs to be upgraded, are we supposed to be able to tell?

Akemi: My own Ascension soul shift came abruptly, too. I was working hard on my life lessons, thinking it would take the rest of my life.

These days, however, I am getting more experienced about this, and can tell if a client is close to their soul shift, and the approximate timing of it. Please understand I don’t predict the future – I only know the likelihood. The timing can change pretty wildly.

I think it just happens at the right time – on the conscious level, there is nothing we need to do for the upgrade. I’m more concerned if the transition gets complete after the new soul comes down. Often, the first soul gets stuck and this can cause a lot of discomfort for the new soul.

Hunter: In your line of work as an Akashic record reader, I know you must encounter lots of people who think you’re crazy. But you’ve always had a community of people on your side, because they were practitioners too.

Now with this ascension theory, even most practitioners seem to be disagreeing with you. Why is it that other Akashic record readers don’t agree with your ascension theory? What is the source of your information, and why is it more accurate than their source?

Akemi: First, I must say my understanding of why they disagree is limited – I gathered what they wrote to me in comments, etc. but that is all. Whenever there is a disagreement, the rule of thumb is to hear both sides’ stories, so you might want to interview a practitioner who opposes the idea of ascension to really understand their view. I cannot speak for them.

And I’m not attached to this ascension theory. I’m only reporting what I observe, and the idea of ascension seems to explain it well. If someone has a better way of explaining things, I’ll drop my theory like a hat any day.

Now I know the idea of soul shifts are new to most readers, but they have been known in my circle – soul shifts themselves are nothing new. There is a way to check if a person has had only one soul in this lifetime or have had multiple souls, and if the latter is the case, there are ways to find more details. I wrote about the various types of soul shifts in my article Ascension Soul Shifts Or Walk-Ins.

This year, I noticed the kind of soul shift that is very different from other kinds of soul shifts we knew. Again, in the Ascension soul shift, the new soul is related to the first soul – it has the same group of origination. And it’s a brand new soul with no physical past lives. It’s also a very advanced soul, vibrating high. And it’s happening like popcorns starting to pop – in groups. Some go through additional soul shifts after the first Ascension soul shift.

So I suggested setting a new category of soul shifts. Ascension soul shift is a term I coined out.

My understanding of their disagreement is that they don’t think it makes sense because the whole point of spiritual development is to develop our souls. One soul going through many lifetimes for refinement. I also sense there is fear about “losing” their souls’ achievements.

How do I know my reading about Ascension soul shift is accurate? Exactly the same way I gather other aspects of my reading are accurate: my clients confirm their readings. For example, there was this new client that I only knew by name, DOB, and place of birth at the time of reading. In her case, even I hesitated for a second when I started talking with her on the phone. She had four soul shifts in her life, starting in her young adulthood and the most recent one being the Ascension soul shift just a few weeks ago. But I went ahead and shared what I found, including when each shift happened and the characteristics of each soul, and she immediately screamed, “Yes! That is exactly what happened!”

Hunter: When I heard about my soul shift, it made me think about who I really am.

I have a certain perception of “me,” my consciousness, my sense of self. “Me” includes this mind and body. You’ve said that we’re really our souls, so I guess my soul is part of “me” too.

If I had known ahead of time that I was getting a new soul, what would I expect to happen to my sense of “me?”

Option 1 is that my consciousness would separate from my body, and go with my soul back to the ether. What I considered to be “me” would be out there. My mind and body would be inhabited by a different soul, and so my mind and body would no longer be “me” in any sense.

Option 2 is that my consciousness would stay with my mind and body. I’d still have all the tangible elements of “me,” but with a new soul, my identity would be fundamentally different. I’d be a new person in the same mind and body. I’d feel like Jason Bourne, having all these skills and memories but not knowing why.

But neither of these happened. My sense of self has not changed at all. I still feel like me, and there was no disruption of consciousness. I don’t feel like part of me is somewhere else, and I don’t feel like someone else is in my body.

Here’s where I’m going with this. We hear that when we die, our soul leaves our body. Our body turns to dust, but our soul lives on, so death is not the end for us. But in this soul shift, I lost my original soul and didn’t even notice. In other words, what I perceive as “me” is not connected to my soul in any way. So when my mind and body die, won’t that be the end? It doesn’t really matter if my soul lives on, if everything I know as “me” is rooted in the mind and body.

Akemi: Hmmm. . . interesting question.

Between the two options you described, I think Option 2 may describe the situation better, but not quite. I think some of us who have had Ascension soul shifts are indeed feeling like, “Okay, I have this skill and this job, but why? Why the heck do I care to come to this work every day? It doesn’t resonate with me at all. Why am I with this boyfriend / girlfriend? Why do I live here?”

But each person’s experience and perception is different. Why some of us experience it more or less dramatically is one of the many things I am studying as I do more and more reading and coaching with post Ascension soul shift clients.

From my own experience, I can say things stabilize after awhile. And again, the mental awareness continues.

By the way, this is why I write about Ascension soul shift even though I don’t know everything yet. There are people going through this process without knowing what is happening to them. You don’t need to know the word Ascension or do specific spiritual work to go through this. And these people need to know they are not having some mental disorder.

I don’t have a clear cut answer to how the sense of “Me” is formed. I’d like to say it’s the soul, and the sense of continuity is there thanks to the fact the new soul is the same kind from the same Higher Self. But I’m not sure. I also think the body and the mind play a big part of the sense of “Me” — or the big old ego.

Hunter: Just like last time, it looks like we’re running a bit long, so let’s end part 1 here. But be sure to subscribe now so you don’t miss the spiritual adventure that is part 2.

Update: Part 2 has been posted.

Akemi: In the meantime, if anyone has additional questions, please ask in the comment section, and I will do my best answering them.

As an Akashic Record Reading specialist and spiritual coach, Akemi Gaines helps you further your spiritual development and know yourself on the soul level. She writes about ascension and empowerment of lightworkers on her blog, Yes to Me. You can get updates by subscribing to her blog.

Do any irrational fears hold you back? It’s one thing to be afraid of heights or spiders. They call them “irrational” fears, but they still make sense.

But when you go out of your way to invent a fear, that’s truly irrational. Case in point, paraskavedekatriaphobia, or fear of Friday the 13th. This is a specialized form of triskaidekaphobia, or fear of the number 13.

Fear of Friday the 13th is a phobia of pure choice. Studies have shown that about 10% of Americans are afraid of it, but they have no idea why.

No one can really say where this fear comes from, but most people say it’s a combination of the fear of Friday and the fear of 13. Really, have you ever heard of the fear of Friday? When you go to work on Friday, are you terrified of all the bad things that will happen, or are you looking forward to the weekend?

Anyway, many reasons for this fear have been suggested:

- The number 12 is sometimes considered the number of completeness (12 months of the year, 12 signs of the zodiac, 12 hours of the clock, 12 tribes of Israel, 12 Apostles of Jesus, 12 gods of Olympus, etc). Adding one more to make it 13 breaks this completeness.

- There were 13 people at the Last Supper, and Judas was the 13th person to arrive.

- Jesus was crucified on a Friday.

- Some people say that Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit on a Friday, and that the Great Flood began on a Friday.

- There is a superstition, possibly derived from the Last Supper or a Norse myth, that having 13 people seated at a table will result in the death of one of them.

- Friday has been considered an unlucky day at least since The Canterbury Tales were written in the 14th century.

- Many professions have regarded Friday as an unlucky day to undertake journeys or begin new projects.

- Black Friday has been associated with stock market crashes and other disasters since the 1800s.

- The goddess Frigga (for whom Friday is named) was banished by the Christians and labeled a witch. Every Friday, she was believed to meet with 11 other witches plus the devil, for a total of 13.

- King Philip secretly ordered the mass arrest of all the Knights Templar in France on Friday, October 13, 1307. This story is told in The Da Vinci Code, but some people think this connection wasn’t made until the 20th century.

- In 1907, Thomas W. Lawson published his popular novel Friday, the Thirteenth, in which a stockbroker takes advantage of the superstition to create a Wall Street panic on Friday the 13th. References to Friday the 13th were almost nonexistent before 1907.

- In the Roman calendar, Friday was devoted to Venus. In the Norse calendar, Friday was named after Frigga or Freya. The Christians didn’t like strong women, so they vilified Friday.

- There are 13 months in the pagan lunar calendar.

- Friday was Hangman’s Day in Britain.

- Apollo 13 was launched at 13:13 CST, and its oxygen tank ruptured on April 13, 1970.

None of these sound like really good reasons, do they? A 2000 superstition survey found this:

“…while only 13 percent of the population at large believes that Friday the 13th is an unlucky day, 30 percent of 18- to 24-year-olds think so. Interestingly, the nine installments of the horror movie series Friday the 13th were released during this set’s formative years (1980-1993). Coincidence? Perhaps.”

This is an entirely made up fear, but it affects many people. Some people avoid their normal routines on this day, to the tune of an estimated $800 to $900 million in lost business in the U.S.

It becomes a self-fulling prophesy. If you expect Friday the 13th to be unlucky, you’ll find evidence to support that. I’m sure some bad things happened on Friday the 13th, but are they really that much more significant than September 11th, Hitler’s invasion of Poland, Lincoln’s Assassination, etc?

How about this: decide that from now on, Friday the 13th is good luck. Just see what happens today. (You’ll get another chance next month.)

I had a job interview today, where they gave me a logic test. I didn’t get to keep it, but I remembered most of the questions. Have fun!

1. Split 110 into two parts, so that one part is 150% of the other. What are the two numbers?

2. There are 100 people, and everyone is either a football player or a basketball player. There is at least one football player. For any two people, at least one of them is a basketball player. How many football players are there?

3. The number 8,549,176,320 is the only one of its kind. Can you figure out what’s so special about it?

4. There are 20 questions on a test. You gain 10 points for each correct answer, and lose 5 points for each incorrect answer. Someone answers all the questions and gets 125 points. How many questions did they get wrong?

5. Two coins add up to $0.55, and one of them is not a nickel. What are the two coins?

6. What is the biggest number you can make using two numbers? Just two numbers, no other mathematical symbols.
[When they say "just two numbers," I took that to mean two digits.]

7. The number of lilly pads in a pond doubles every day. Starting with just one lilly pad on the first day, the pond is completely covered with lilly pads after 60 days. How long did it take for the pond to be half covered?

8. An adult and two children need to cross a river. They have a boat that either child is able to handle by themselves. The boat can carry either the adult or both children, but not the adult and a child at the same time. How can they cross the river?

9. Someone introduces you to your mother’s only sister’s husband’s sister in law. He has no brothers. How do you address this person?
[This isn't stated too well, but I assume "he" refers to your mother's sister's husband.]

10. There are two different colors of socks in a drawer. Without looking at them, how many do you need to take out to ensure you have a matching pair?

11. According to someone’s will, $666,666 is to be divided between 2 fathers and 2 sons. They discuss it, and each person gets $222,222. Explain.