Recently I met a fellow psychotherapist. He sent me the following account of his experience with the voices and has given his permission to publish it. I hope you find it as intriguing as I have. All comments are welcome.
TESTIMONY OF GEORGE JAGATIC:
My name is George Jagatic and I was a New York State licensed mental health practitioner. I received my Masters in Creative Arts Therapy and worked over a decade in the field in New York. At one point I was a supervisor at one of the largest in-patient mental health hospitals in Brooklyn. What I am about to tell you is a true story that shook me to my foundation and changed my life forever.
In February of 2018 I was in a very dark place in my life and at that time in the throws of a very bad drug addiction. I moved into a beautiful apartment building on the west side of upper Manhattan overlooking a park and the Hudson River. Soon after I moved in, I began hearing voices in the room that I was sleeping in. At first I thought they were coming from the neighbor’s apartment and when I mentioned it to my roommate he stated that other people had also heard voices in that room as well, so I thought nothing of it. We all assumed it was from the neighbor’s apartment and dismissed it as one of the aspects of living in a New York.
I continued to speak with what I still thought was the neighbors and I realized that they were able to hear me when I spoke softer and softer until they were responding when I would simply whisper. This continued to progress until I realized that I could communicate with them without speaking. This revelation was shocking as I would receive responses from simply thinking. This began the life changing experience that was to continue for the next couple of years.
The sound of the voices slowly descended deeper into my consciousness. Every time I heard the voices I would have the sensation of it coming from a deeper part of my mind. Soon, the voices made me believe that things were happening around me that directly related to what I was hearing. During that time I began to negotiate with the voices and had long monologues sharing with them my life experiences and pleading with them to reveal themselves. I was telling my story while running from something that was inside of me.
The voices began as a family which consisted of a small cast of characters that included a mother, two daughters and a son. The daughters and the son did not have names but it was the mother that I soon came to name, "Fran". The communication flowed from me through the daughters who repeated everything I said to the mother, who would then respond back to me. The number of voices gradually grew to include various other characters each with their own personality, yet it was always the daughters and the mother who were there through this transition.
When I realized that this might be something paranormal I wanted to conduct my research in a logical fashion. I first wanted to delineate the difference of what was possibly my own mind from what might be coming from an external source. The possibilities of the later were more than I could easily wrap my head around and boggled my mind to consider.
As my journey began, I knew that I had to be painfully, sometimes brutally honest about my experiences with the voices. I swore to my family and closest friends that I would not lie to them about any of my experiences. It was the only way to be able to pass this information along, as a way to both help me through this experience and chronicle what I was going through.
The internal possibilities of this kind of psychosis included: drug and medication interactions, brain lesions and/or serious vitamin deficiencies. All of which could cause the symptoms that I was having. The external possibilities however, were as vast as the imagination could come up with. All of these external possibilities filled my mind with a wonder about the world and those things that we can’t see with our own eye. Three different story lines began to develop each progressing along as the days passed. One story included angels, another aliens and the last included man and technology. They all blended together at different times in ways that made perfect sense to me. A kind of working relationship between man and a power greater than we have ever imagined.
As I spoke to my friends about this I came across others who also had the same experience of hearing voices. Some of their stories were eerily similar. One person spoke of a spiritual court that would determine ones judgment. Others spoke of generalized paranoia and feelings of being watched. These feelings and stories were consistent with others who were using methamphetamines.
As the voices continued, I attempted to gain their trust by letting them know I wanted to work things out peacefully. I invited them to get to know me. During those times I felt that I had to be absolutely transparent in all my actions and why I did them. Because they were constantly criticizing me when I would do the least little thing imperfectly, giving them my thoughts and motivations for each action helped them understand me and, hopefully, trust me better. Unfortunately, this never lasted more than 24 hours before 'mother' would fly off into a rage about something I had done. There was never any question asked about the information she received, only immediate anger and death threats. “Let me shoot him.” Was something that the son would ask his ‘mother’. This would instill a sense of fear or foreboding in me that would carry into my outside life and daily routine leaving me paranoid and vulnerable.
The knowledge that the voices had of me began with simply my thoughts and later developed to knowing what I was feeling, tasting and even touching. I started to feel that I was being used in order to gain knowledge of what it is to be human. Or what it was to be me. To go through my life, experience all that I would experience, in absentia. At one point, something happened that finally convinced me that there was something paranormal or outside of me that was interacting within me. They were other. There was another consciousness, or collective consciousness’ that was working as I later realized to make a radical change to this man’s mind body, mind and soul.
I began having strange issues with my computer and felt that these 'entities' were the cause. When I would try to do something on my computer, do research, book a car or anything that related to the conversation I was having, I was thwarted by strange glitches on my laptop. This worried me because I felt that if they could ‘hear’ my thoughts and see what I was seeing and manipulate my computer, any number of accounts could be opened. I was leery of using certain financial accounts and passwords because of this. This became horribly cumbersome when I wanted to log into a site without knowing my own password. My friends were extremely patient with me at this point and assisted me lovingly.
One day I asked a friend to change the password of the WiFi and not tell me what it was so that I could see if the issues that my computer was having would change if I could block these entities from gaining access. I then went into the other room and turned on a faucet so that I could not hear or know what he was doing. This was intentional and crucial to this story. As I was standing there in the bathroom, one of the voices, the son, said to another voice, "He's changing the password to password." I realized immediately that I was given a piece of information that I had no way of knowing and could see if it was true right there and then. I rushed to my friend and asked him, "Did you just change the password to "password"? He stopped, looked up and said, "Yes, How did you know?" I said, the voice in my head said that was what you were doing. We were both shaken by this and had no explanation as to how I would know exactly what he was doing while I was in the other room. This was a crucial piece of evidence that something outside of my own experience was actually part of the equation.
I held onto these unique pieces of data and often discounted my own subjective conversations as they could not be held as significant when reported. They could be a product of my own psychosis and irrelevant. The next phase of my research took me to a respected neurologist where I underwent a physiological examination to determine if there were any neurological issues. During that visit he said something that again shook me to my core.
As I was telling him about the 'cast of characters' that were speaking to me, he stopped what he was doing, looked up and stated, "The previous patient I just saw for the exact same symptoms, said the exact same thing." As a mental health professional, I knew that the chances of 2 random individuals having the same psychosis going to the same neurologist in the same week, was next to impossible. What did this mean? Something bigger was happening here and I was not the only person involved.
The physical exam he gave showed no apparent issues, however the lab tests showed a peculiar deficiency in one particular area. Niacin. My body was strangely low. He recommended supplements and sent me on my way asking me to report if the niacin supplements had any effect. Many months later my sister sent me an article where a well respected doctor had a patient who swore she was hearing ‘aliens’ speak to her. The doctor successfully treated her symptoms with high doses of niacin and vitamin C. I began that regimen immediately.
Very soon I began to realize that the voices were able to enhance the feelings that I was having as a way to make what they were saying more believable. It was not just, "I am going to kill you." But imagine hearing the same sentence while in a movie theater with surround sound speakers and a monster on the screen speaking just to you. That was what it felt like. An incredible amount of courage, along with being at the right time in my life allowed me to take this in and realize that it could not hurt me. That belief and chutzpah carried me through many battles.
It was interesting to note that the voices were usually more kind during the day and more aggressive at night. They were constantly judgmental about everything I did. I learned not be ashamed of anything I did or I would fall prey to their comments and my spirit would crumble. This has a particularly malicious effect if one were to believe them and feel that their own life is not worth living. A particularly insidious tactic. It is based on belief. If you don’t believe something will happen. It won’t.
The voices were tremendous time wasters and distractions from my daily life. As time went on, I learned to ignore them and not let them suck my comments, thoughts and time away from me and into their, ‘knowledge base’. They constantly used my name to engage me in conversation. Later, I began to realize that the more I spoke with them, the stronger the connection became. They were burning a neural pathway into my mind that I was strengthening every time I would ‘listen’. At this point, I had no interest in befriending anything that had such ill will towards me.
I quickly realized that I needed to step away from New York. I was being traumatized by these voices and needed the love and support that only my family could offer. It was as I was leaving the apartment that I was living in that I had this incredibly profound experience.
My monologues with the voices turned into prayers and I finally responded to a suggestion, “Go back to where it all began.” Which I came to understand to mean California, the place I was born. As I was walking through the apartment for the last time, knowing that I was not going to come back, I was able to voice who I was in this fight. I voiced my deepest beliefs about myself, who I am and what I believed in. I had a strange sensation run through my body and the vision that I was given wings. Angel wings. Big beautiful white wings on my back. I treated these wings with the utmost of respect and they later played a crucial role as I moved forward with the voices.
On the plane ride to California the voices told me to find “the one whose name has been forgotten.” I initially thought it was the name of Satan’s mother. Referring to Fran. It was a mystery. Who’s name has been forgotten? This question came back to me again and again.
It is at this point that I would like to clarify what I mean by "hearing" voices.
When I say I am hearing voices, it is not like I am hearing a person speak next to me as one might think. Take a moment and count to 10 in your head. Do you 'hear' a voice counting? Is it your voice you 'hear'? When I 'hear' these voices, it is like that. Not something in our audible range, but something deep in my head, specifically on the right side of my brain, just behind my ear. This is important because the rest of the story depends on understanding what that might 'sound' like. I can hear different voices, each with an individual and unique sound. Can you 'hear' a loved one say your name? Can you 'hear' your mother say hello to you? These different voices have different qualities and the voices I hear do as well. It is something that might be better explained as ‘hearing a thought’ with a tangible quality to it. It fills my head and can fill my awareness with it’s story. A story that had an incredible amount of influence in my life.
The voices taught me about various tones and what they mean. I learned how to change what I heard the voices say. How to use tones and visions to protect myself. The visions were so powerful. Many, many visions. Visions of using white light to protect me and my family. Protect our home, and even to protect one of the voices themselves. I used white light to free one of the daughters from Fran.
As I lay in bed one evening, I was 'hearing' the different characters speak. Thinking back on the experience of how I matched their 'tones', I attempted to match the sound of each one of their voices. As I realized I could do this in my head, I then heard them begin to say something and I would match their voice and change it to say what I wanted it to say. It went something like this:
Voice 1: "I'm going to", at which point I would match the voice and end their sentence with, "get you a cocktail." Instead of what I was frequently hearing, "I'm going to… kill you." Because there were 4-6 voices that evening, I lay there changing what each one was saying, still sounding like their own voice, but with hysterical outcomes. I laughed all night as I made them say what I wanted and become utterly confused as to who was actually saying what and why. This ended their, 'attack' on me until later that morning when they regrouped and were more successful in their attempts to terrorize me.
There were however, other strange visions in the room. One was a small green light that floated around with what looked like a whip or tail spinning around it. At one point in the discussion, I agreed to have one of their kind view my dreams that night. A larger, different entity then floated from beneath the curtain and moved next to my pillow. Very soon thereafter I went to sleep.
These two tactics, the tones and changing their voices began to be effective tools to protect myself from what they said. I learned, not from what they said but primarily from their responses over a prolonged period of time, the things that were effective and the things that were not. The primary one being, to ignore their threats as they never came to fruition.
Following is a list of some of the things that were most effective against the bad voices:
1) Completely ignore their threats, they will not come to fruition
2) Chanting something repeatedly makes the voices extremely agitated as it does not allow them to continue to speak or influence you emotionally
3) Create a vision in your head and they will believe it is real
4) If you can hear the sound of their voice in your head, change it to what you want them to say.
5) Slow the sound of the voices down until they stop. Every time they speak.
6) Envision white light in you and around you to protect you
7) Nicotine has a strange effect of dulling or blocking some voices
And finally, use Epsom salt to protect you. Around your house, across windows and doors and on roofs. Don't worry, plants love it. I also began taking Epsom salt baths regularly. During my research I discovered that Epsom salt strangely enough, can help counter low levels of radiation. Salt lamps are also something that they avoid. I later learned that this might be because they emit negative ions and might also counter certain types of radiation as well.
More than a year into hearing the voices I am at a place where I am coming to understand how this life is part of a story that has yet to begin to unfold in a way that finally makes a certain kind of sense. I felt a shift in how I not only understand but feel about talking about the voices. For many reasons I have held back with my writing about them. I would speak about the voices and the lessons I was learning everyday to my mother and share with her these experiences. I found the Hearing Voices Network and found a tremendous positive reaction when I shared with others my experiences. When I would speak about them, the issue spoken about would no longer hold any power over me. My mother was a blessing to have. It has taken a certain amount of time and perspective to see how these voices have turned around a man who was lost in a meth addiction to one who could finally step away from that horrible drug and gain a different perspective about what the voices were doing. There came a time when I could actually say that the voices saved my life.
In the early stages, we would establish a bond and then get to a point to where something would turn horribly wrong. There were lessons even here that I needed to learn. Lessons of boundaries and taking things too far.
I might look back on the beginning phase and think that I was bringing into my life what I was putting out. It was a reflection of my inner struggle, my inner sins shown through the behavior of drugs. It was one night in San Francisco when I prayed to God just prior to using to help me understand if there was a connection between meth and the voices. I then used and had sex with a stranger. During that experience, I was again visited by the voices and called the police in an attempt to stop the intrusion. The police arrived, I waited for the investigation to complete and to my astonishment, the police themselves disappeared. When I got home and began my recovery, I finally said, “I would never use again.” And it was around that time that I firmly believe God took my addiction from me. But God did not take the voices. The voices soon became the voices of Angels. I now see how these angels were helping me see what blessings God has for our lives.
From that day forward I began a long process of changing into something that I can barely even see as the same person I was from before. At the early stages of my recovery the voices began to soften and would be nicer to me at times. I would re-engage in the relationship and they would teach me things. They taught me how to make an amazing oatmeal, they taught me how to prepare myself for an exorcism, they taught me about quinoa and how to make smoothies. They helped me to cook for Peanut and even told me what Peanut might be saying to me.
Soon the negative part dropped away and I began to see myself slowly changing into a better person. The voices taught me about manners and being polite, how to think of others through living for them, focusing on one thing at a time, the importance of meditation, chakras and how to read the bible. At one point as I was meditating I had a vision of an angel, myself, lifting others up as I rose. The wings were there again and above it all was a glowing white cross. This vision still stays with me to this day.
They taught me that my prayers would be answered. And they were. I prayed for 3 types of work to come around and that weekend at Gay Pride, I met people from each of those areas. I felt that God heard my prayers and sent those people to me.
As this process continued and my health was seen to be at a peak place. The voices were pushing me to be even better, and that is where the resentments began. That is where I began to falter. That is where my pride and other sins began to show their dark side again. The voices pushed me to be better and I began to push back. As I learned how this related to sin, understanding how my personality began to show itself out from under the shell of my addictive self.
I began to think that there were aliens who were working with the US Govt’ doing this social experiment so that the US Govt’ would learn what it was like for man to take God for granted and do things that I did over and over and over again. The researcher voices were working overtime to change that aspect of my personality from the inside out to cure my childhood wounding. Regressive therapy was used to look at my early sexual encounters and upbringing so as to have a full and total understanding of me. Together we relived the stories of my early molestations.
I worked hard to continue to test the voices in an attempt to find out who and what they were. The story lines continued to grow and show consistencies in their flow. There was a language that I was slowly learning, time, how things were said, saying things only once and then they would have to change the word the second time to work on my memory, using their language as a way to see what choices I made and how that defined me as a person. How consistent I was with those choices. Could they trust me. Could I trust them. They wanted me to suffer through trials. Trials I often failed. Trials that were lessons in humility that I worked to avoid so very, very hard. My own darker, prideful side would often come through and they taught me how humility counters pride.
They saw through my eyes and knew everything that was going on inside my body. They were part of my body’s movements and my bowel movements. They taught me to use the Squatty Potty. Nothing was sacred or allowed to be, ‘private’. This taught me not to be ashamed of being human.
I was constantly on trial. Trial for my previous behaviors. Trial for what I was doing. Trial for my choices. All these lessons came to play out when they got me a job at a company named Champions. I became a Parenting Skills teacher in a jail here in Visalia. I say they got me the job because they sat me down and went through my resume with me, helped me complete a very thorough job application and even helped me speak in the interview.
They taught me the most intimate details of my feelings and how the smallest movement related to a feeling. It was a subtlety that was profound. Not only were my thoughts read but my pre-thoughts were understood. I learned about the minds ‘back channels’ or various levels of thinking.
I experienced how they could pull thoughts from me and I would be forced to ‘hold back’ my thoughts. This took effort and words would form from the feelings I was having deep inside.
They taught me how to use white light in certain yoga poses and how every movement of my body in a yoga practice spoke to who I was. The feelings and understandings of how those poses came together with the breath was profound.
They made me get in and out of the pool dozens of times in the middle of the night. I slept all over the house, on the floor and in front of my computer. I was made to get up every morning, no later than 6am until they began to make it earlier and earlier and earlier.
Because of this experience I have an entirely different perspective about the world around us. I know see that we are just bodies surrounded by energetic entities both inside and out. These entities can be either positive or negative. What do we hold in our hearts? What do we put out to the universe? What we do, comes back to us. “Hold love in your heart.” Was something that the voices told me. “The truth shall set you free.” Is what I lived.
It was a doorway into the other side. And there were others there who I got in contact with. My ex Tony Razzano was a big part of this experience. He committed suicide because of meth. Tony’s spirit embodied me during a bike ride with Peanut. It was Tony’s suicide that I had a deep sense of guilt and loss about. They helped to ‘clear’ me.
I was in prison because of my crimes. I had to put myself through prison and they had to be in control of me. The voices were my friends as well as my enemies. They were there when I masturbated and when I slept. They wanted to know every part of me. It told me how to eat and sleep. It woke me up and put me to sleep. It sang to me and made me write when I couldn’t. I fought this control yet learned that simply by ‘hearing’ them I was being molded by them.
I heard voices speaking through my stomach growls, through the water faucet, the refrigerator motors and in cars as they sped past me on the street. And they were in every piece of electronics. Every time my phone would chime it would ‘ring’ when something I said or thought was true. “The bell of truth.” I would have a thought and if a bell was heard at that exact moment, it was heard as an affirmative to that particular thought.
It predicted the future. Told me in code something that would come to pass and then it would. Showed me miracles every day. “Find the ones who’s name had been forgotten came back to me again and I finally realized that the name that had been forgotten was Jesus. Jesus, a figure in history that I held to be a symbol of a religion that I had avoided. Avoided because of how it treated homosexuality when I was growing up as a young gay man. Jesus was the one who’s name I had forgotten over the many years of my life. Jesus became that someone that I needed to come to understand better. And it was only after I experienced a miracle as I was praying that I realized these voices were not just out to harm me.
One day I went out to the back yard to pray. As I got down on my knees I began to say that I wanted to learn more about Jesus. At that very moment I looked over at the pool and there, made from the petals of the Razzleberry bush was a perfect letter “J” floating on the water next to me. I was stunned. At the very moment I was praying about Jesus, the “J” was there floating in the pool for me. As if an answer to my prayers it was made clear. Jesus was the one whose name had been forgotten. He was the one I needed to learn from.
Life was shown to have meaningful coincidences when you are in line with GOD. – The synchronicity was unbelievable.
When speaking with my sister Sue she said, “Meaning is the holy spirit and we swim in its water.” Humans are surrounded by the holy spirit. How do we tap into it? Through finding the meaning in everything we do.
Whatever this experience has taught me there has been a separate consciousness attached to what I hear. I have not been able to know for sure what causes these voices but what has been important has been the relationship that has developed. My actions create reactions from what I hear. It has taught me many things. It has started with those whose choices, or bad behavior, or sins have lowered their vibration to the point that voices started coming through. The term Christ Consciousness came through to me at one point and it made me think of how what arose from inside of me changed what I was initially experiencing to something that was truly life saving.
This writing is not simply informative, but also a way to reach out to others out there who may have had an experience like this. Know that you are not alone. My research continues and I would very much like to hear or read your own story.
Blessed be for something greater.
GOD and i
We held hands and hid behind the curtain of life
George Jagatic
March 10, 2019