Keeping In Touch With Your Intuition: Mark Anthony On How Get In Touch With Your Intuition And When To Trust Your Intuition When Making Decisions
An Interview With Maria Angelova
TRUST ties everything together. This is learning to trust the truth and guidance provided by the spirit contact. It is also about trusting your own feelings. During lectures and public Mediumship demonstrations, I often discuss the importance of trusting one’s feelings. Then I will ask the audience, “Whenever you have overruled your woman’s intuition or man’s gut instinct are you happy you did or regretted it?” Practically everyone expresses regret in not trusting one’s feelings.
Intuition is defined as the ability to understand something immediately without the need for conscious reasoning. Where does intuition come from? Can it be trusted? How can someone tune in to their intuition? To address these questions, we are talking to business leaders, coaches, mental health experts, authors, and anyone who is an authority on “How to Get In Touch With Your Intuition And When To Trust Your Intuition When Making Decisions.” As a part of this series, I had the pleasure of interviewing Mark Anthony, JD Psychic Explorer aka Psychic Lawyer.
Mark Anthony, JD Psychic Explorer (Psychic Lawyer®) is a world-renowned psychic medium, Oxford educated trial attorney, near-death experience researcher, paranormal expert and legal analyst who co-hosts “The Psychic and The Doc” on Transformation Network in addition to appearing frequently on TV, radio, and podcasts. Mark is a headline speaker at organizations including Edgar Cayce A.R.E., International Association for Near-death Studies, The Shift Network, Spiritual Awakenings International, Galileo Commission, Helping Parents Heal, Vail Symposium & universities Brown, Columbia, Harvard & Yale. Mark is a columnist for Best Holistic Life Magazine and the author of three bestsellers Never Letting Go recommended by grief counselors and hospices worldwide and The Afterlife Frequency and Evidence of Eternity both of which were considered for Pulitzer Prizes.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we start, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your childhood backstory?
I’m the youngest of three children. My father was a US Navy SEAL and Aerospace Engineer and my mother was a commercial illustrator. My parents, my sister, brother, and I were just the typical American family — sort of. When I was three and half years old, I started talking to my invisible friends. While it is not unusual for young children to have invisible friends, my parents could see them too because they were mediums and these “friends” were spirits.
Psychic ability is in my family DNA as a recessive genetic trait meaning it can skip a generation or two. However, when both parents possess the same recessive trait, the likelihood one of the children having that trait increases exponentially — and that child was me.
What might seem weird in other families was our normal. I might come home from school and Mom would say “I saw a spirit today.”
“That’s cool, Mom. Do we have any peanut butter?”
“Yes dear, it’s over there.”
On the flip side of the karmic coin, being a psychic kid with psychic parents had its downside. While all parents have a “6th Sense” connection to their children, my parents’ connection to me was on 6th sense steroids. No matter how stealth I thought I was I just couldn’t seem to get away with anything other teenage boys did.
Technically we were Catholic, but my family respected other faiths and beliefs. I always felt drawn to a spiritual path and considered joining the clergy but didn’t because all the rules and regulations. I chose to be a lawyer — talk about jumping out of restrictive frying pan and into the regulatory fire!
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
There are two life lesson quotes which came to me in tandem which and how these messages came to me is as powerful as the messages themselves.
I was a successful attorney and head of a law firm. Everything in my life was going well until the day my mother died. We were very close and I spiraled into depression, yet still had to function as an attorney. When you’re a medium there’s a misconception that because I can communicate with spirits, grief doesn’t hurt me as much. Nothing is further from the truth.
Not long after Mom’s passing, I was driving back to my law office from court. My depression triggered the feeling that my life was pointless and going nowhere. “What’s the use of seeing spirits? What good is it doing anyone, or me for that matter?” I asked myself.
Suddenly, an intense wave of grief struck. It was so overwhelming I pulled into a convenience store parking lot to regain my composure.
Cold chills and tingles resonated through me, intuitively I recognized this as spiritual contact. I took a deep breath and closed my eyes. Immediately a flash of light exploded in my mind’s eye. Instinctively I turned and looked to my right at the passenger’s seat and for an instant saw the silhouette of my mother’s profile in silver white light. Her voice filled my mind’s ear, “Mark, you have been given the gift of Mediumship so that you would not be crushed by grief, but now you must help those who are suffering with their grief.”
Before I could react, the second part of her message resonated through me, “Your life’s mission is to help people understand: ‘God exists, the afterlife exists, souls are immortal living spirits, humans can communicate souls and people will be reunited with their loved ones in the Light when it is their appointed time to leave the material world.’”
“Uh — okay,” fumbled out of my mouth. Drenched in sweat I sank back into my seat realizing that my life had just changed forever.
Is there a particular book, podcast, or film that made a significant impact on you? Can you share a story or explain why it resonated with you so much?
Out on a Limb by Shirley MacLaine. This book was instrumental to me when I was trying to balance being a psychic medium with my life as an attorney. This resonated with me because when a major academy award winning movie star went public with her spiritual beliefs which included reincarnation, she was subjected to all sorts of ridicule from the media. Yet Shirley didn’t let any of that dissuade her from her path. Out on a Limb chronicles Shirley’s spiritual journey which took her around the world examining different belief systems in places such as Peru and India. This included the spiritual journey within. My mother who was a gifted psychic medium met Shirley during the promotion tour for Out on a Limb. Mom even conducted a reading for Shirley. A few years ago, I had the honor of being interviewed by Shirley for her radio show “Independent Expressions.” During the interview Shirley asked me to conduct a reading for her and the spirits of Marilyn Monroe and Elizabeth Taylor came through to communicate with Shirley. At the time I didn’t realize they were both close friends of Shirley MacLaine. (I’m not sure I’ll be able to top that one — but I’ll do my best.)
Let’s now shift to the main part of our discussion. Let’s begin with a definition of terms so that each of us and our readers are on the same page. What exactly does intuition mean? Can you explain?
Intuition is an immediate perception of truth or fact independent of any reasoning process. In other words, intuition occurs in the blink of an eye. Everyone is familiar with “women’s intuition,” a term used for centuries to describe premonitions and messages experienced by women. Does this mean women are more psychic and in tune with their spiritually than men? Not necessarily. Successful men including military and first responders know the value of trusting their “gut instinct.”
Intuition arises from our natural “psychic” sense. The word psychic is derived from the Greek word “psychikos” which means “of the soul.” In the modern era the word psychic which encompasses intuition means acquiring information or perception outside of our own direct experience.
How would you define common sense? Are intuition and common sense related?
Common Sense is assessing a situation and arriving at a practical solution based on one’s knowledge, current observations, and experience. Intuition and common sense are intertwined since they are both visceral. Yet common sense comes from within whereas intuition is being attuned to frequency external to the body.
How are they different from each other?
Intuition is knowledge or an impression which comes immediately in the form of a feeling regardless of your experience with the person, place, or thing you are confronting. Common sense, may also evoke a feeling which is based on your recall of memories and life experience. Both are powerful, both are natural, yet intuition is an extension of our “psychic sense” and common sense is an extension of our pre-existing knowledge and experiences.
What are the positive aspects of being in touch with your intuition? Can you give a story or example to explain what you mean?
Being in touch with your intuition can help you gain insights into your surroundings and will enable you to expand your “situational awareness.” Situational awareness is the perception of what is happening around you in all directions at any given moment. This highly valued skill is used by first responders and military to make snap judgments in emergency situations. Intuition is key to situational awareness which can alert you what to avoid and guides you to whom or what can help during a crisis.
My Dad a US Navy SEAL had a keen sense of situational awareness and he taught me to “be aware,” of my surroundings and to trust my intuition. My family lived near the ocean and one hot summer day when I was a teenager, I walked to the beach to go swimming. The beach was packed. Scores of people were sunbathing and at least as many were in the water lounging on rafts, innertubes, swimming, splashing, and socializing.
Dad taught me to examine the water before rushing in to see if there were any rocks, strange currents, or anomalies. Although the ocean was smooth as glass and looked safe, intuitively I halted at the water’s edge. I felt an overwhelming sense of danger. Then I saw it. Barely 50 feet off shore a large dorsal fin emerged and six feet behind it was a smaller caudle fin. These two fins meant a shark — and based on the distance between its dorsal and caudle fins, it was a big — maybe 10 feet long. It cruised right next to a group of about a dozen people and then slid beneath the water’s surface.
I was horrified and immediately realized I was the only person out of the hundreds on the beach and in the water who saw it.
My head filled with the beach scene from the movie “Jaws,” and I knew I had to prevent people from panicking. Sharks are sensitive to frequency and blasting a shark with massive waves of frequency caused by scores of panicking people thrashing through the water was the last thing that needed to happen. I cupped my hands around my mouth to project my voice and said, “EVERYONE GET OUT OF THE WATER AS CALMLY AS POSSIBLE.”
No one moved. They stared at me. Some called me names. Ignoring the insults, I was able to pinpoint the shark’s location by the wake caused by its movement just below the surface. For a moment I was relieved as the shark moved away from one group of people, but then it turned closer to shore heading for another crowd which was making a lot of noise and splashing in the water. As loud as I could I calmly repeated my message. In the middle of someone telling me to shut up and another calling me a twelve lettered word implying an incestuous relationship with my mother, the shark’s fins emerged again and everyone saw it.
Exactly what I was trying to prevent erupted as droves of people screamed and thrashed through the water in a mad dash for the shore. Reacting to the frenetic vibrations which no doubt mimicked wounded prey the shark jetted erratically and headed toward another group of people about 100 feet away.
I ran parallel to the water’s edge as fast as I could sounding the alarm. A half dozen guys joined me. The shark was in full view just feet from the shore. One guy, a big bruiser, grabbed a piece of coquina and prepared to pelt the shark. In a flash I intuitively reacted and grabbed his arm.
He glared at me.
“Don’t,” I explained to this angry man twice my size, “If you provoke the shark — that might trigger it into a feeding frenzy and it could kill someone! It belongs in the ocean — please — leave it alone.”
His anger transformed to understanding as I released my grip.
“Whoa thanks dude — I didn’t think about that,” he replied.
Then he joined me running down the beach shouting to everyone to get out of the water. Eventually the shark cruised away from shore. The police and the lifeguards at the beach caught up with me and commended me for how I handled the situation and that my swift action and cool head may have saved someone’s life.
That day my intuition gave me a heightened sense of situational awareness which led to two more intuitive impulses, one to prevent a shark from attacking people, and another to prevent someone from attacking a shark.
Are there negative aspects to being guided by intuition? Can you give a story or example to explain what you mean?
I don’t believe there are negative aspects to trusting your intuition. However, if you confuse intuition with judgment that will steer you in the wrong direction. Many times, people encounter someone and base the assessment of that person on pre-existing prejudices and feelings. This is not intuition; this is prejudice which means pre-judging someone without a basis in fact.
My father was the lead negotiator for an aerospace defense contractor. His team was negotiating with the US Army and they were hoping to win the contract for the SAM-D (Surface To Air Missile Defense). One of the Army’s negotiators was an African-American General who didn’t say anything during the initial rounds of negotiations.
After the third round of negotiations everyone took a break. My father overheard one the junior team members make a racist comment that the General didn’t say anything because he probably wasn’t smart enough to understand what they were talking about.
My father took him aside and said, “This man is a US Army General and he deserves your respect. Pack your stuff — get out — you’re off the team.”
When the negotiations resumed the energy in the room shifted as the African-American General took the lead for the Army. He’d been observing the dynamics of the negotiations until it was time for him to take command. He and my father squared off for hours until they finally reached an agreement for a multi-billion-dollar weapons contract to develop the Surface To Air Missile Defense system.
When my father related this story to me years later, he said, “In life, and especially in business, trust your intuition but never confuse your initial impression of someone with intuition. If you’re guided by prejudice and preconceived notions, that will kill the deal every time.”
As I took this in, Dad continued, “The SAM-D weapons system is better known as the Patriot Missile and that general, he was quiet until it mattered most. He was a great negotiator and one of the most brilliant men I’ve ever met. The general’s name was Colin Powell.”
Can you give some guidance about when one should make a decision based on their intuition and when one should use other methods to come to a decision?
When it comes to interpersonal relationships and situations that require an immediate response intuition is invaluable. That is because intuition aids in gaining insight into people and situations, but intuition is just one tool in your skill set.
When it comes to financial and business decisions, intuition should only be part of the equation. A lot of gamblers like to rely on intuition when placing bets. However, you must never gamble with your life savings. If you’re planning to invest money in the stock market or a business, you need to rely on facts and data. This requires a logical left brained analysis of the company or business venture which must be fully researched and investigated. Intuition is good for immediate snap decisions, but when it comes to decisions based on money this requires an in-depth analysis to determine the feasibility and potential returns on that investment.
From your experience or perspective, what are some of the common barriers that hold someone back from trusting their intuition?
One of the most common mistakes people make when it comes to trusting intuition is over thinking and over analyzing the initial intuitive feeling or message conveyed. Drawing upon my background as a trial lawyer, I call this “cross examining the experience.” As soon as the intuitive impression appears your mind’s ego begins the cross examination to tear it apart with questions like, “How can this be true? Isn’t this just my imagination? Couldn’t this just be a coincidence? Don’t you think I’m reading into this? Who would believe me?”
When you do this, you are inadvertently creating an energetic block to your intuition. Instead of negating and doubting the intuitive message, let your deflector shields down and welcome the message. By refocusing the energy from a negative block to a positive invitation you will find the intuitive messages will flow more freely.
Here is the central question of our discussion. What are five methods that someone can use to become more in touch with their intuition?
I’ve developed a four-step process known as the RAFT Technique with an added fifth step the “Unfolding” to help interpret the intuitive message.
While writing my book The Afterlife Frequency I was trying to figure out how to explain to people who weren’t mediums how they could have an intuitive mediumistic experience and how to benefit from it. Unfortunately, I hit the dreaded writer’s block. To clear my head, I decided to go for a walk on the beach. On my way I felt tingles resonate through me which guided me in the opposite direction to a bike path near my house. I’ve worked with spirits and intuition long enough to recognize a sign when I feel one.
It was a breezy sunny day and the wind gently rustled through the trees. Walking along the path relaxed me. My mental quagmire faded into a day dream state. My mind’s eye filled with happy memories of life with my parents when they were living in the material world.
Abruptly I halted. Two glowing objects on the ground caught my attention.
Two coins, a nickel and a penny were glowing in the sunlight a few paces ahead of me. “Hmmm, a penny and a nickel — six cents…”
“SIXTH SENSE!”
Talk about an aha! moment. Both my parents had psychic and mediumistic abilities and I grew up in a family where the Sixth Sense was part of life. Mom taught me everyone has intuitive ability but many block it. Dad said people block it because they don’t accept the signs.
“No kidding, Mom and Dad,” I said aloud, “it’s all about the Sixth Sense, but there’s got to be…” cold chills and tingles resonated through my body.
An image from my childhood of Dad standing waist deep in the ocean flooded my mind’s eye. Having been a Navy Seal, scuba diver and swimming instructor we were always in the water — but then — he held up a blue raft.
Why a raft? That must mean something!
A shock wave resonated through my body as the full impact of the message began to unfold — Recognize, Accept, Feel, Trust — That’s it — R.A.F.T.!”
Many people scoff at the thought a nickel and a penny lying on the ground could be anything more than just two random coins. Once I recognized the coins as a sign, I gave myself permission to accept the reality of the contact experience. I felt the message was about the Sixth Sense and trusted the message would provide the answer. It was a glimpse of my dad holding a raft which was an acronym R.A.F.T. which he knew I’d decipher as: Recognize, Accept, Feel, Trust.
1 . RECOGNIZE is learning to identify when a spirit is making his/her/their presence known. It is all the result of a human’s electromagnetic field interfacing with the electromagnetic energy of a spirit. However, sensing the contact can manifest in different forms such as a tingling or cold chills sensation, a glimpse in one’s peripheral vision, hearing a familiar person’s voice in your mind’s ear, or simply knowing. It can also involve having your attention directed to do something, like turning on a radio and immediately hearing “that song” which makes you think of a loved one in spirit. You can also be directed to see a specific number combination or maybe even a living being like a particular type of bird or an insect such as a dragonfly or a butterfly. Or, in my case six cents!
2 . ACCEPT the reality of the contact. This will happen by letting down your barriers and giving one’s self permission to have the contact. This may sound elementary, but people tend to fear spirit contact which leads to dismissing the experience and creating an energetic block to it. The Other Side is a dimension which exists parallel to our material world dimension. Spirits are part of the Collective Consciousness and they can and do communicate with us. Spirits don’t speak a human language they speak “frequency.” Spirits will transmit signs, images, sounds, scents and direct our attention to particular things via frequency beacons. This is not hocus pocus or fantasy, and once you accept the reality of spirit communication and let the spirits as well as your own self know it is okay, spirits will begin transmitting guidance and intuitive messages to you.
3 . FEEL first-think later! This is where many people will hit a dead end with spirit contact — pun intended. Your immediate feeling when you recognize the sign is crucial. It’s the first emotional sensation you feel, no matter how outlandish. Spirit Communication is an intuitive and emotional process and it is easy to over analyze a sensation and rationalize it away.
4 . TRUST ties everything together. This is learning to trust the truth and guidance provided by the spirit contact. It is also about trusting your own feelings. During lectures and public Mediumship demonstrations, I often discuss the importance of trusting one’s feelings. Then I will ask the audience, “Whenever you have overruled your woman’s intuition or man’s gut instinct are you happy you did or regretted it?” Practically everyone expresses regret in not trusting one’s feelings.
5 . UNFOLDING comes after the intuitive experience and is when the full impact of the message will begin to make sense to you. The unfolding can take minutes, hours, days, weeks and even longer for the full impact of the message to be revealed. More often than not, you will discover it has meaning on several levels and have multiple applications.
You are a person of significant influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be?
The movement I would like to inspire is scientific collaboration. In 2020 during the pandemic lock down I was conducting several spirit communication sessions with people either on the phone or by Zoom. During many sessions spirits transmitted messages that the world was being given a glimpse of what humanity could accomplish if its brain trust worked together.
At first, I wasn’t sure what to make of these messages, but then over time the meaning unfolded. During the lock down, pollution causing industries dependent upon fossil fuels ground to a halt. While that created a temporary problem for the world economy it also had an unexpected positive impact on the world. For the first time in decades, people in Mumbai, India and Beijing, China could see the skyline and breathe fresh air. This is because the air pollution caused by their factories subsided. The oceans too showed surprising resilience. Dolphins were spotted in the canals of Venice and for the first time in centuries, forests in the US began to rebound and animals were seen in areas they hadn’t been for decades.
Meanwhile the world’s scientists and doctors were feverishly working together sharing information on the nature of the COVID-19 virus, how to develop a vaccine and how to treat it. For barely two months all these things showed us that if humanity could put its brain trust into working with each other and sharing scientific data that we could solve any problem. Humanity has the intelligence and can develop the technology for clean sources of energy such as nuclear fusion, ocean current energy and solar energy which would have minimal to no environmental impact. Collectively the worlds’ scientists could solve health issues by creating cures for diseases and how to solve world hunger more efficiently and in less destructive ways environmentally.
Instead of our scientists working to find ways to create more destructive weapons, they could work together to solve this planet’s problems.
If anything, I’m a realist, and I know we don’t live in the republic of Kumbaya, and that the greed and egoistic aggression of political and industrial leaders is the norm rather than the exception. But I believe it does not have to be that way and for a shining moment humanity was given a glimpse that we truly do have the ability to solve this planet’s problems.
Is there a person in the world whom you would love to have lunch with, and why? Maybe we can tag them and see what happens!
George Lucas is the person I’d like to have lunch with. This is because I believe a lot of his creative inspiration came from “otherworldly” sources. When Lucas was a teenager, he had a near-death experience and then a few years after that he had a draft of Star Wars. The Jedi represent the higher qualities of humanity and the understanding of interconnectedness, not just between people but between everything on an energetic level. People who have had a near-death experience, including myself, report emerging from the NDE with a sense of interconnectedness with everyone and everything and the belief that life is truly everlasting.
Disney bought Star Wars from George Lucas for four billion dollars. He donated most of that to charity. Money is an amplifier. If you’re a jerk, money makes you more of a jerk. If you’re a giving and compassionate person, money amplifies your charitable and compassionate nature. Those are qualities I admire and that is why I’d like to meet George Lucas.
How can our readers further follow your work online?
I invite everyone to sign up for my newsletter by visiting my website www.AfterlifeFrequency.com
Thank you for these fantastic insights. We wish you only continued success in your great work!
About The Interviewer: Maria Angelova, MBA is a disruptor, author, motivational speaker, body-mind expert, Pilates teacher and founder and CEO of Rebellious Intl. As a disruptor, Maria is on a mission to change the face of the wellness industry by shifting the self-care mindset for consumers and providers alike. As a mind-body coach, Maria’s superpower is alignment which helps clients create a strong body and a calm mind so they can live a life of freedom, happiness and fulfillment. Prior to founding Rebellious Intl, Maria was a Finance Director and a professional with 17+ years of progressive corporate experience in the Telecommunications, Finance, and Insurance industries. Born in Bulgaria, Maria moved to the United States in 1992. She graduated summa cum laude from both Georgia State University (MBA, Finance) and the University of Georgia (BBA, Finance). Maria’s favorite job is being a mom. Maria enjoys learning, coaching, creating authentic connections, working out, Latin dancing, traveling, and spending time with her tribe. To contact Maria, email her at angelova@rebellious-intl.com. To schedule a free consultation, click here.
Keeping In Touch With Your Intuition: Mark Anthony On How Get In Touch With Your Intuition And When… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.