Excerpted from the newly released "Practical Conscious Creation: Daily Techniques to Manifest Your Desires" (Findhorn Press, Fall 2011)

When most people think of fear, they conjure pictures of screaming women in slasher movies, horrible mindless villains, or heroes chased by zombies. But, for most of us, fear feels more like an insidious virus that our minds and emotions create to stop us from moving forward.

Fear is the mind/ego's way of saying "I'm not going there! I like being right where I am. I'm familiar with my current state. If I plunk myself right down here, nothing can hurt me because I already know this territory. I'm not worthy and if I stretch myself, I might get rejected."

Do you have your own reality? I have found myself asking the question to not only myself and friends, but also to my friends the ENTITIES.

Through the years I have received and been given a lot of different answers to that very question. This text is a combination of those answers.

As a human being we all get caught up in what everyone else thinks is they’re reality. If you were told you had the power to be something, or create anything you wanted or could comprehend, would that overwhelm you or even surprise you? We all seem to think that what we see, feel, touch or even smell is real! What do you think is real?

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There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy. Shakespeare, Hamlet, act 1, scene 5

When William Shakespeare wrote those intriguing words, he probably had no idea that modern humans would try to prove them. Interest in the supernatural and paranormal has rushed into popularity since the turn of the 20th century like ants to a kitchen full of honey. Anything that hints at what could be "behind the veil," or is at all connected with the power of the mind is gobbled up with relish even by the most conservative individuals. Granted it may be gobbled up in order to condemn, but there is no denying how powerful a force the supernatural and paranormal, collectively called "metaphysics," has become.

We came into this lifetime with an authentic path full of purpose and potential. At the moment of birth our memory of this path illuminates our entire infant selves.  As our soul begins to embrace this human existence our cells mimic this particular incarnation.

As the infant we are able to take in our environment as it is. Our inner and outer reactions to the reality we are now in is authentic.  A baby’s laughs because something is funny. A baby cries as a means to communicate a problem. They are living authentically.

I believe that a critical part of learning discernment on the spiritual path is discovering the pervasive illnesses of ego and self-deception that are in all of us.