Lono wrote:Well, how do you tell whether an incarnate person is a friend or an asshole? Sometimes it takes a while, but you can know them by their fruit or by the intuitive feeling you get.
***Snorts out the remnants of her fourth cup of coffee for the day ***
Too funny! Couldn't have said it better myself!
Creation is a vast place. There are so many different forms of life and intelligence. That's what makes it all so interesting!
The main point of difference I see is that a spiritual guide is not usually just your average discarnate hanging around looking for a friendly conversation. A spiritual guide can be recognized by a palpable feeling of love and goodwill that they emanate. They are very wise and special. And if you're able to "hear" them, or if you can receive their mind pictures (many communicate with visual images,) you'll find that there is an amazing coherence to what they are telling you. And you'll also find that their advice makes you go "AHA!" in a deep way, lighting up your heart, shining loving light on something that is going on in your life so you can make sense of it.
An imaginary friend or garden variety discarnate, on the other hand, is more likely to simply mirror back thoughts or ramblings that are already going on in your mind, without really adding anything coherent or enlightening to the mix.
Some entities can be quite smart, though, and very persuasive. Many psychics I knew had entities they thought were "guides" who were really rotten eggs. The psychics would get so caught up in the amazement of how "neat" it was to psychically make contact with a spirit that they didn't realize that you often go through a bunch of bad eggs before you find a good one! So they didn't "test the spirits" much. No STO/service to others-oriented "GOOD" entity will ever object to your rational, logical, empowered "testing" of them. They expect that. Angels expect it, too. They know that nobody deserves our instant "trust." It has to be earned.
All friendships at any level of reality involve a delicate process of reaching out, communicating, sniffing each other out, testing each other, and then deciding on further contact or no further contact. That's just the way of it. Just as you would test a live human person, not instantly letting your guard down, so should you proceed carefully in the realm of chatting with disembodied voices. Or avoid them entirely, if you feel confused or scattered about the whole thing. It's always best to turn within for the answers, anyway.
My view, anyway!
LipstickMystic aka Jennifer