I’ve come across this term – Ready, Fire, Aim.

Of course, it’s a play on Ready Aim Fire, which is what one should do.

One shouldn’t fire before one has aimed.

You waste bullets, or arrows, or insults, that way. And you might hit someone you didn’t intend to hit. Which would be unfortunate for all parties concerned.

Ready, Fire, Aim is a term often used in marketing, or entrepreneurship – in a critical way. You shouldn’t launch a product or a concept until it’s ready, until you know your market and have taken aim, and then you fire – you release it onto that targeted demographic.

But we’re in a changing world. Things are moving so fast. What we knew yesterday isn’t necessarily relevant to what we need to know today. The targets are shifting. They’re changing shape. They’re hard to take a bead on.

Let’s look at this concept of Read, Fire, Aim in a different way. Let’s not see it as a negative, but as something to embrace.

For us to thrive in this constantly changing world, we need to be constantly changing too. Stasis is paralysis. Stasis is death. If we always waited to take aim before we fired, we would often miss the target – whether that be a reward, an opportunity, or an awareness.

If we always waited to take aim before we fired, well, where’s the fun in that? Where’s the excitement? Where’s the growth?

Sure you might hit the target, but maybe it’s not a target that’s worth hitting anymore. Maybe the really interesting, the really productive targets, have shifted and taken flight. And the only way you can bag those beauties is to shift and take flight too.

If you stick with Ready, Aim, Fire, you’re sticking with what’s known, what’s predictable, what’s rational and logical and safe.

Whereas if you run with Ready, Fire, Aim, you open yourself up to the Universe. To the joys of happenstance, of coincidence, of synchronicity – those things that can take you down paths you never would have explored, had you stuck in the predictable buttoned-down IBM world of Ready Aim Fire. 

To play Ready, Fire, Aim, you need trust.
You need to know that the Universe has your back.
You need to know that adventure, real adventure, is just around the corner.

Ready, Fire, Aim leads you to the kind of opportunities you never would have thought possible, had you waited for that target to settle within your sights.

Close your eyes, fire, and trust that your aim will be true –
Because it will be.

Sometimes you don’t know why you do something until you’ve done it.

I came to Japan to research the practices of Ninja.

I now realise I came to Japan to discover Shinto.

Shinto is a uniquely Japanese religion that many say is not a religion at all, because at its essence there is no founder -no Buddha or Jesus or Mohammed – there’s no Bible or Koran or Vedas or Bhagavad Gita.

It’s an ancient religion that’s the closest thing I’ve found to the New Age movement,

it’s not monotheist but pantheistic, and nature based.

It doesn’t believe in sin.

It doesn’t believe you have to suffer to achieve salvation.

It believes in the inherent perfection of each individual soul.

It believes that Kami – the universal god force – is not only all that is, but is also within each of us and we can achieve union with that god force through right thought and action and purification.

Shinto speaks of the horizontal nature of life and death, whereas Christianity and many other religions speak of the vertical nature of life and death.

The vertical view is that there is a heaven above us and a hell below us, metaphorically, and we have to rise to reach God. And if we don’t we fall into the fiery pits of hell.

The horizontal view is that heaven is all around us, in different realms, and God is within us.

What does all this have to do with Ninja?

At their core, all Japanese martial arts are spiritually based. That’s what I came to Japan to research. The underlying spirituality of Ninja. Because in my writing, that’s the wellspring of character.

Many of you who follow this blog might think there is a disconnect between my work on intuition, expressed in my movie PGS, and my work on modern day witchcraft, expressed in my Palace of Fires thriller trilogy, the first book of which is to be published by Penguin Random House in January.

They are different aspects of the same themes I’m exploring.

One informs the other.

And they will appeal to different people, different age groups, different sensibilities.

But at their essence, they’re exploring the same stuff.

In future posts I’ll write more about Shinto, which I find fascinating, and which I’ve just briefly touched on here. And I’ll also write more about the inter-connectedness of PGS and Palace of Fires.

If you’re interested in learning more about Shinto, a good starter is The Essence of Shinto, by Motohisa Yamakage.

I leave Japan later today to resume normal duties getting PGS out to the world.

And now I know why I came here.

A wonderful lady that I met at one of the screenings – Sally Block – sent me this story below about how intuition saved the world.

That’s perhaps a bit of an overstatement, but it was a “gut feeling” that prevented an all out nuclear war between Russia and the US in 1983.

Here’s the story, and thanks Sally for sending it to me!

THE MAN WHO SAVED THE WORLD –

Stanislav Petrov was a lieutenant colonel in the Soviet Union’s Air Defense Forces, and his job was to monitor his country’s satellite system, which was looking for any possible nuclear weapons launches by the United States.

He was on the overnight shift in the early morning hours of Sept. 26, 1983, when the computers sounded an alarm, indicating that the U.S. had launched five nuclear-armed intercontinental ballistic missiles.

“The siren howled, but I just sat there for a few seconds, staring at the big, back-lit, red screen with the word ‘launch’ on it,” Petrov told the BBC in 2013.

It was already a moment of extreme tension in the Cold War. On Sept. 1 of that year, the Soviet Union shot down a Korean Air Lines plane that had drifted into Soviet airspace, killing all 269 people on board, including a U.S. congressman. The episode led the U.S. and the Soviets to exchange warnings and threats.

Petrov had to act quickly. U.S. missiles could reach the Soviet Union in just over 20 minutes.

“There was no rule about how long we were allowed to think before we reported a strike,” Petrov told the BBC. “But we knew that every second of procrastination took away valuable time, that the Soviet Union’s military and political leadership needed to be informed without delay. All I had to do was to reach for the phone; to raise the direct line to our top commanders — but I couldn’t move. I felt like I was sitting on a hot frying pan.”

Arms control expert Jeffrey Lewis recalled the episode in an interview last December on NPR:

“Petrov just had this feeling in his gut that it wasn’t right. It was five missiles. It didn’t seem like enough. So even though by all of the protocols he had been trained to follow, he should absolutely have reported that up the chain of command and, you know, we should be talking about the great nuclear war of 1983 if any of us survived.”

After several nerve-jangling minutes, Petrov didn’t send the computer warning to his superiors. He checked to see if there had been a computer malfunction.

He had guessed correctly.

“Twenty-three minutes later I realized that nothing had happened,” he said in 2013. “If there had been a real strike, then I would already know about it. It was such a relief.”

That episode and the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis are considered to be the closest the U.S. and the Soviets came to a nuclear exchange. And while the Cuban Missile Crisis has been widely examined, Petrov’s actions have received much less attention.

Petrov died on May 19, at age 77, in a suburb outside Moscow, according to news reports Monday. He had long since retired and was living alone. News of his death apparently went unrecognized at the time.

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There is a strong line of thought in many esoteric teachings that the ego is a bad thing.

That ego, personality, the “small self,” keeps us in duality –

Duality being a belief that there is separation between us and the divine.

And I get that –
I accept that –

There’s the small self, and the higher self –

And ego, personality, intellect, are bound in the small self, whereas the true self, being your particular aspect of the divine, resides in the higher self. It’s a little more complicated than that – read Alice Bailey! – but that’s the gist of it.

Intuition lies outside of ego and personality and intellect, and lies in loftier realms.

Okay, here’s the thing –

We need our ego, our personality, to define our time on earth.

Yes on an intellectual level and on a quantum level and on a spiritual level I accept that there is a connectedness between all of us, and all that is.

But there is also a separateness.
And that’s what defines us –
And that’s what makes our service special and unique.

Far be it for me – who knows nothing – to go against common spiritual doctrines, however I believe that it’s essential for our higher selves to work in league with our smaller selves.

Personality is important.
Ego is what drives us.
Intellect is what we use to put into practice what we’re given through intuition.

If our intellect, our ego, our personality, want to deny a divine connection to higher realms, if they want to keep us in the lower frequencies of fear and anger and mistrust, then yes they oughta be put in a box and told to behave.

But if I can now bring this back to personal experience; my film PGS – Intuition is your Personal Guidance System was created through following intuitive guidance. However it was my ego, my personality, and my intellect that gave it shape, gave it form, made it different from every other such film.

Steve Jobs used his intuitive powers to create breakthroughs in technology that we all benefit from today – yet it was through his fierce intellect, and the force of his ego and personality, that he materialised those intuitive hits into unique and special products.

I don’t see ego as a dirty word.
It can be, but it doesn’t have to be.

I know I need my ego, my personality, and my rational thinking to put into service what comes to me intuitively. That’s what makes what I do different to what you might do.

Yes we are all connected,
But we are all special and unique, too.

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Earlier this week I was in this boardroom.

There were eight people sitting either side of me – and we were connected via tele-conferencing to a further half dozen people, or more, in various parts of the country.

They all wanted to hear me talk about intuition.

So I talked about  intuition – which is my favourite subject.
It used to be Donald Trump but I’m over that now.

After my impassioned monologue for I don’t know how long, someone played the trailer to my movie. It’s a good trailer. If you haven’t seen it, here it is:

PGS Official Trailer

Anyway, once the trailer finished, everyone was supposed to ask me questions. However the first question wasn’t a question at all – a gentleman on one of the monitors wanted to tell me his particular story about how intuition had saved his life.

When he finished, I told him that what was remarkable about his story wasn’t so much the story itself, but that he’d told it to us all.

He felt safe enough to tell us.

Because most often, people don’t talk about this stuff. They’re afraid of being ridiculed. Afraid of being laughed at, or scoffed at, or have what happened to them trivialised.

I’m starting to realise that what happened to me – hearing a voice telling me to slow down while I was driving, and ultimately saving me from a certain fatality – that kind of thing isn’t just a weird one-off. These sorts of intuitive interventions happen way more frequently than most of us are aware. It’s just that most people don’t speak about it.

I made a film about it.
And it’s making people feel more comfortable about speaking about it.

It’s fascinating.

I’m having these screenings of my film now all over the country, and when I chat with audience members after the show, invariably I find myself listening to a story of how intuition impacted significantly on that person’s life.

I was doing a media interview the other day. And the reporter – (reporters by design are a notoriously skeptical bunch) – stopped me mid interview and proceeded to tell me her particular story.

She was pregnant, traveling in a car without her seatbelt on because her tummy was so large – but her husband, who was driving, suddenly turned to her and told her to put her seat belt on.

She questioned him: why?
He told her again, firmly, to just put her seat belt on – which she immediately did.

A short time later their front tyre blew and her husband lost control of the car. If he hadn’t told her to put her seat belt on, she – and her unborn child – would have been killed.

Later she asked him about it.
What made him tell her to put her seat belt on?

He said he foresaw the whole thing – what was going to happen. The tyre blowing out, him losing control.

The reporter made pains to tell me her husband was in no way spiritual. He didn’t believe in any woo woo stuff, but this flash of an impending disaster came to him so strongly, he felt compelled to tell her.

Now – this reporter is telling me this amazing story in the middle of the interview she’s conducting, right? And she was a skeptic. But that incident was so startling, so profound, that it’s made her think that there could be more to this life than what science can currently validate…

Back to the boardroom.

I was being auditioned as a public speaker for Saxton, a prestigious agency. And I got the gig – they’re now representing me. Which is cool. It means I will have the opportunity to speak more widely about my favourite subject.

And no doubt I will hear other stories too –
Stories just like mine. 

We are now having screenings of PGS all around the country, and I am doing Q&As afterwards. And one of the regular questions I get asked is:

How have I changed during the making of the film?

At first I found it a tough question to answer, for two reasons: firstly, it’s very personal, and I felt uncomfortable talking to a roomful of strangers about intimate things in my life. But secondly, the changes have been so profound, and far reaching, that it’s very difficult to articulate.

Perhaps there’s a third reason too – and I feel even more uncomfortable talking about this, because it’s about my spiritual growth. Even the term spiritual growth seems cheesy and facile – but I guess that’s what I’ve undergone in the making of the film.

And I allude to that in the film.
Well, I don’t allude to it, I state it categorically.

But it’s one thing to state it in a film, one thing to write about it in a blog such as this, another thing altogether to discuss it with a bunch of strangers in a big cinema with the lights on, holding a microphone, holding court.

For me, that’s tough.

But if I want this film to instigate change, then I have to toughen up and become more open about talking matters spiritual, and divine.

Getting back to that question: How have I changed?
One big change is this:

I don’t make decisions anymore, I feel them.

What does that mean?

It means that I trust my intuitive processes so much now that I no longer make decisions rationally, I make them by feeling what’s right or wrong. And I trust those feelings implicitly.

I never question them.

I talked in a previous blog about First thought, Best thought. This process of feeling a decision even goes beyond thought. The feeling could be in the gut for some people, it’s not for me. It’s an all-encompassing feeling of what I should do, irrespective of the consequences, irrespective of the logic that says I shouldn’t go that way, irrespective of what common sense would have me do, or what society would have me do, or what my rational self would have me do.

If it feels right, I do it.
If it feels wrong, I don’t.

For some people on the other side of these decisions, it can be confusing. I am expected to jump a certain way, because everyone else jumps that way – but my PGS tells me to jump the other way, so I jump the other way. To an outsider, it might seem crazy, even irresponsible. To me it’s the only right and proper thing to do – to trust my guidance.

An example?

I’m still raising money for the film to cover marketing and publicity costs. Someone saw the film at a screening and approached me to talk about investing. Right from the get-go it didn’t feel right. He was offering a lot of money, but he was the wrong energetic fit for my film. He was looking at investment from a P+L perspective. You can’t do that with this film. A decision to be involved has to be intuitive, not empirical.

So I said thanks, but no.

In doing so I knocked back a solid chuck of funding, but it didn’t feel right. And I have absolutely no regrets. Because someone else down the track will step forward, for the right reasons, and they’ll be the right energetic fit.

I know that’ll happen, because it’s happened before.
And because I trust that it will happen. So it will.

So I now don’t make decisions anymore, I feel them. And that’s caused a fundamental change in the way I live every moment of my life.

Because it’s taken the fear out of decision making, and that’s made me feel light, unencumbered, and free…

I’ve learnt a huge amount during the making of my film on intuition.

But one of the most important things I’ve learnt is this –

FIRST THOUGHT,
BEST THOUGHT.

Our first thought is our intuitive thought. That’s what comes through suddenly, unexpectedly, it somehow manages to sidestep the filters of rationality and logic, and it shows up via your intuitive system – tah da! – before our rational mind swats it to the ground.

We dismiss the first thought.
We don’t trust it.
Oh that’s crazy, we think.
But that’s our intuition trying to guide us.

FIRST THOUGHT,
BEST THOUGHT.

We take refuge in our rational mind.
Our intellect.
Our intellect is what keeps us alive.
We use our intellect to survive.

Crap.

Our intellect limits us.
It keeps us small.
It keeps us shrivelled up,
Contracted,
Limited to what we know,
What we’ve done before,
What’s expected of us.

FIRST THOUGHT,
BEST THOUGHT.

Our intuitive mind seeks to expand us –
Wants to show us what’s possible –
Wants to break us out of what we know,
So that we can grow and discover, 
And find out who we truly are.

Don’t hide behind the second thought.
The rational thought.
The safe thought.
Learn to trust the first thought.
Run with it –
See where it takes you.
Because where it will take you –
Is to the full expression of who you really are.

FIRST THOUGHT,
BEST THOUGHT.

Think about it.

http://www.pgsthemovie.com

Bill Bennett on location in Istanbul for PGS the Movie

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We’re moving into an exciting new phase of cinema, and how we watch movies –

In Australia it’s called Cinema on Demand – in the US it’s called Theatrical on Demand.

What is it?
And how is it different?

In one word, it democratises the cinema experience. You get to see the movies you want, in the cinema of your choice, at a time of your choosing.

This is the way we’re releasing my movie on intuition, PGS – Intuition is your Personal Guidance System. If you haven’t already seen it, here’s the trailer: PGS TRAILER

Why didn’t we go for a more traditional theatrical release?

Because the way cinema exhibition is now, if you’re not some dumb bloated comic-book franchise movie, you’re lucky if your film lasts a week in release.

It used to be that good arthouse or niche-audience films hung around in the theatres for weeks, sometimes months, occasionally years. This allowed a film to grow an audience through word-of-mouth.

That doesn’t happen anymore.

If your film doesn’t get huge numbers the first week, you’re tossed out to make way for a blockbuster, because the candy bar does better business with these movies and that’s where cinemas make their money – not out of movie tickets, but by selling overpriced popcorn and chock-tops to kids and families.

Sad but true.

PGS is a niche targeted film. It’s about intuition, how to access it, how to use it to make better decisions day to day. With Cinema on Demand / Theatrical on Demand, we’ll be able to make an event out of a screening.

There’ll be Q&As, and sometimes a panel discussion after the movie. So attending at COD / TOD screening will be an experience. 

Thing is, with a COD / TOD film, you have to pre-purchase the tickets a few weeks out from the screening, because if enough tickets aren’t sold, the screening doesn’t happen. In that case, those that have bought tickets get a refund.

So come see my movie and buy a ticket now – in Australia through Fan-Force from October 11 onwards – https://fan-force.com/films/pgs/

In the US, through Gathr Films, from January 11 onwards –
https://gathr.us/films/pgs-intuition

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In this blog I’m re-posting a piece from famed spiritual teacher Caroline Myss, who features in my film PGS – Intuition is your Personal Guidance System.

Caroline is a no-nonsense teacher, speaker and writer. One of the reasons she’s so respected, and so highly regarded, is she cuts through all the follies of the way we live with incisive wisdom.

Here’s what she says – in her current blog – about distractions…

Caroline myss – from her blog / http://www.myss.com

Every person wants to find a way to live in tranquility. Every person is overwhelmed by chaos. We are not creatures who strive for chaotic, confused lives, at least not when we have our heads on straight. Rather, our inner nature thrives when we find the courage to become congruent, when our heart is one with our mind and through that union, we find the key to our soul.

The great mystics of all traditions offer us enlightened teachings that remind us that many pathways to the soul exist – through the Christian tradition, through the Buddhist, the Hindu, the Jewish, the Sufi – all of them wise paths to soul illumination.

Living in a World of Distractions

Revered spiritual teachers tell us that we are consumed and controlled by distractions. Have you ever really noticed how loud your environment is? I know so many people who cannot tolerate silence. They have to have some sort of background noise on at all times, whether it’s the radio or television. This irritating blast of sound bites and commercials and endless horrible television nonsense broadcasts all during their dinners instead of conversation or while attempting to have a conversation. The kids race through dinner so that they can return to their on-line life.

I observe people who are so insecure about being alone that they cannot even do gardening without their cell phone hanging from their side. And if there was ever a place to enjoy the sound of nature itself, it’s your garden. Or what about taking a walk just to reflect upon your own thoughts? Nothing is as irritating to me, however, as dining with someone who places a cell phone on the table. Trying to have a conversation with someone whose eyes are constantly shifting from you to a cell phone has raised the bar on the definition of what it means to be socially rude. I have often excused myself giving the impression that I am headed to the Ladies Room when in fact I am headed right out the restaurant door. I then send a text.

And what is this value we put on “multi-tasking”? I don’t admire that. I always picture someone who claims to be able to multi-task as having a spinning head on his or her shoulders. Since when is not being fully conscious and attentive to what you are doing something to be admired? Why is driving yourself faster and faster and faster and faster the standard of admiration? (Will someone please tell me how we got to this insanity??? ) Is it any wonder then, how, in the midst of a culture that admires speed and doing more and more and more and living in an electronic wonderland, that there is little if any time for self-reflection on a daily basis? Quiet time is something that many people get only when they are on the verge of a breakdown or they have to flee their residence and take off for some cabin in the woods somewhere because they think it’s city life creating the stress – (I don’t think so, folks).

Distractions are a product of attachment to a sensory-driven life without values strong enough to control the choices your senses compel you to make. Your five senses are in charge of your reality. You know you’re alive and in charge of your life because you can see, hear, touch, move, control, pick up a phone, hold on to your lap top as if it were your life preserver, speak to another person, get reports on this and that, sell this, buy that, be with this person or that person – any one, just as long as you are not alone. Consider all the data coming at you nonstop and the noise.

And now – more importantly – consider the content of that data. What is flowing in and out of your mind and heart just on a daily basis? Think of all the choices that you are confronted with each hour of your life, never mind during an entire day. If you were to believe all the nonsense of every television commercial and so-called medical report on what you should or should not consume for your health – every morsel of food that you put into your mouth is now a life-or-death decision, not to mention where you live, walk, and what you wear.

I look all these other countries in the world that do not have advertising companies promoting vitamins and health products and cannot help but notice they have millions living to a ripe old age…and I wonder, “How’d ya do that without all your vitamins and three organic veggies per day and just the right amount of omega fish oil and avoiding certain toxic movies.” Then I realized, they just don’t listen to American pharmaceutical commercials – that’s how they survived – they don’t suffer from American neurosis. For what reason do nations with a population of over a billion people need viagra? Maybe it’s us…duh.

Distractions. Our culture is dripping with the most outrageous distractions that have ever been manufactured – from noise to electronics to advertising propaganda. But then, life is a journey of distractions. And the first one to point that out was the Buddha. He called the world of form and everything in it “illusion”. Few jewels are as liberating to your inner life and soul as understanding the core teachings of the Buddha, beginning with that one. Distractions are illusions – and what is not a distraction?

It took me a long time to understand the Buddhist teaching on illusion (not that I fully understand the anything the Buddha taught). I remember thinking that the rock that just fell on my foot is not an illusion because illusions cannot possibly hurt that much. But I was missing the key ingredient to this mystical truth. I did not yet understand that power was the fundamental ingredient of the human experience. – a topic for another discussion. Briefly, however, Buddha was referring to the danger of developing an illusion with an object, person, place, thought form – anything – in life that causes you to negotiate your inner power and form an attachment to that external object in the belief that you require that attachment for your survival or happiness or security. Any such attachment for Buddha qualifies as an illusion. That illusion, in turn, becomes a distraction of consciousness. We create narratives in our mind about its significance in our life and how our life would crumble without it.

Buddha included relationships as illusions. All of us have close and loving relationships and none of us would refer to those we love as “illusions”. And yet, though we all have suffered terribly at the loss of people we have loved, the truth is life has gone on. We did not evaporate in our pain, though we perhaps thought we would for a while. It was an illusion that we could not go on without that person – because we did.

And people can and will go on without us. Many have already. We were illusions in their lives. Imagine that.

Distractions and illusions are powerful things. But they are clutter, talking mind clutter. Go for a walk and listen to your clutter. Anger, stress, things your worry about – it’s all clutter. You may tell me that a mortgage payment is not an illusion. Fair enough. But the stress around it is. With or without stress, you have to find a way to make that payment. Does stress help you? That is the illusion.

Observe your distractions and illusions and see how many you can detach from just by realizing you are captive to them. Turn off the television. Read a good book instead of sitting at the computer. Change your life habits. Break out of your routines. Stop multi-tasking – give yourself a break.

Slow down and become conscious of your life and the world you live in.

Love,
Caroline

I just wanted to share something with you that I read this morning – about the Camino and its symbol – the scallop shell.

Caroline Myss is perhaps the world’s greatest living medicinal intuitive. She is also an extraordinary spiritual teacher and renowned speaker, as well as being a five times New York Times best selling author.

She is also a true mystic.

Caroline Myss features prominently in my film, PGS – Intuition is your Personal Guidance System. 

Aside from teaching and holding seminars and workshops, she also regularly conducts spiritual tours. I’m on her newsletter feed, and this morning I got an update on a tour she’s leading in April next year, to amongst other places, Pamplona.

As most of you reading this blog will know, Pamplona is a city on the Camino, and for many it’s their start to the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela.

Well, Caroline is starting her spiritual tour there next year. Here is what she wrote in her newsletter. It resonated with me because it’s about the two things I’m most interested in – the journey of the soul, and the Camino…

CAROLINE MYSS:

In recent years, I have become devoted to teaching spiritual direction and contemporary mystical spirituality.  It is my deep belief as a teacher, a medical intuitive, and a mystic that most people have been searching for a way to embrace the power of their soul for most of their life. 

Perhaps you have not been conscious of that search, but that is because you are not familiar with the subtle tactics of the way the soul maneuvers in your psyche, your heart and even in your physical biology. 

For all the many ways we can describe this rapidly changing time in which we are living, I see this time as the era in which the consciousness of the soul is emerging as the core power of the human being.  A new understanding of the soul is essential, one that is based upon the truth that the soul is our mystical consciousness, not an object of religion.

I am passionate about teaching mystical consciousness and introducing people to the power of their soul.  To accommodate this workshop theme, CMED and Alternatives UK. have created a workshop experience in Spain that begins in Pamplona, a town on the famous Camino de Santiago, the long walk across Spain (or France or Portugal) to the Church of Saint James the Apostle in Santiago de Compostela. 

We chose that town as the start of our workshop because of a legend associated with a Pilgrim. According to the legend, a Pilgrim, exhausted and thirsty from traveling the Camino, met a stranger, also traveling on the road. This stranger happened to be the Devil in disguise. The Devil offered to show the Pilgrim a hidden source of water but only on the condition that he renounce God, the Virgin Mary and Saint James.

The Pilgrim refused even though it meant dying of thirst. At that moment, Saint James, also disguised as a Pilgrim, appeared and led him to that hidden fountain and using a scallop shell, he offered him water to drink. 

Eventually pilgrims walking the Camino began to wear scallop shells around their necks, indicating that they were officially on a pilgrimage.  For centuries, people were honor bound to offer food and shelter to people wearing the pilgrim’s shell out of respect for the holy journey, as hotels did not exist along the roads to Santiago de Compostela.

People have walked these pilgrimages for over 1,000 years.  And those caught wearing the shell under false pretenses as a way of entering homes to steal were put to death. 

The Pilgrim’s shell is still the official icon of the holy journey.  And so, we begin our holy journey at the place where the Pilgrim’s shell came into being.

If you’re interested in doing this tour with Caroline, then I suggest you sign up fast because  it will sell out quickly.

Here’s the link:
https://www.myss.com/workshops/exploring-mystics-path-soul/