A World Beyond this Realm
My exposure to spirits from other realms started early in life. Growing up, my parents were spiritual seekers in search of effective ways to mend their emotional wounds and find meaning in their lives. In 1970, when I was six, they discovered a group called the “Pathwork” whose members were devoted to learning teachings transmitted by the “Guide.” Channeled by an Austrian-born woman named Eva Pierrakos, the Guide was believed to be an enlightened spirit who possessed deep wisdom that could facilitate the healing and awakening of humankind.
Every week, with my 7-year-old sister Ruthie and me in tow, my parents traveled from our house in Brooklyn to a member’s SoHo apartment in Manhattan, where they joined dozens of people who eagerly gathered to hear the Guide’s wisdom. Ruthie and I were part of a small gang of kids who played quietly in a bedroom off to the side during the Guide’s lectures, but we all liked to watch the very beginning—the exciting part, when Eva first went into a trance.
Eva Pierrakos in the 1970s. Photo by Charles Rotmil
Eva had a special seat at the head of the room next to an altar with candles and incense burning. The grownups sat in a semi-circle facing her. As Eva prepared to open herself to the Guide, an expectant, reverent hush filled the room.
Suddenly, Eva would jerk forward dramatically, almost falling, before immediately righting herself and sitting up extremely straight. After taking several quick, loud breaths in through her nose, the Guide would begin to speak in a voice that was notably different from Eva’s. It was mesmerizing.
All of the Guide’s lectures were transcribed for Pathwork members to study, and my parents found them to be very profound and inspiring. As the organization grew from dozens to hundreds of members, my parents became part of the top leadership circle. For seven years—until my mother had a huge falling out with Eva which led to a traumatic parting of ways—the Guide’s teachings had a central place in our lives.
Pathwork lectures are still being studied today
While my mother never considered herself a medium, during our Pathwork years and continuing for decades afterward, she was regularly visited by the spirits of people who had passed. These entities usually came to my mother with messages they wanted her to convey to their loved ones, and they often communicated mind-blowingly accurate information there was no way my mom could have known otherwise. Although she always felt obligated to do as the spirit asked, my mother would often say that the message came to her in a dream that felt astonishingly real.
For example, my mother had a friend who lived in Israel that she hadn’t seen or spoken to in years, but she’d heard that her husband had recently died. One day, the husband’s spirit appeared to ask my mom to call his widow and simply tell her that he loved the brown sweater. When my mom reached out, it turned out that for months her friend had been secretly knitting a brown sweater for her husband’s upcoming birthday. It had particularly broken her heart that her husband had died right before this special occasion and would never see it.
Myra's mother Edith in 2014
While nothing that dramatic has ever happened to me, I did have a direct experience communing with my father's spirit while he was dying twelve years ago.
A few days before my father passed, I began to feel him sending me messages. Although it was hard to believe it was actually happening—especially because my dad had lost his ability to speak after suffering from Alzheimer’s disease for ten years—the hospice nurses were not surprised. They told me that they’d heard similar stories dozens of times. They’d also witnessed many near-death patients who were suddenly able to hear words whispered far away in another room behind closed doors, as if they were no longer tethered to their bodies or limited by their physical senses.
One evening, when I thought my father’s death was still days away, I took a break from sitting by his bedside and drove home to take a hot tub. While relaxing under the darkening sky, I suddenly felt my dad’s spirit swoop down, guided by another spirit that I felt was his mother. They had come together so that my dad could share final blessings for our family. While my father didn’t speak in words, I was somehow able to understand his messages with senses I didn’t know I possessed.
When I went back to my father’s bedside soon after, the universe felt different to me, as if the boundaries between realms had partially dissolved. The air was different—charged with peace, light, and love—and I knew we were not alone. My father died peacefully a few hours later, and the joy of his release was tangible.
Mendek and Myra circa 1989
Two months later, in November 2012, my family vacationed at Miraval resort, a holistic wellness spa in Tucson that offers sessions with metaphysical practitioners. I booked an appointment with a medium named Tina Powers, curious to see if she could contact my father.
Tina was beautiful and buoyant, with long blond hair and bright green eyes. After saying a short prayer to set the intention that everything coming through from spirit would only be used for the highest good, Tina opened her eyes, gave me a radiant smile, and said, “Your dad is already here with us, looking very handsome and happy. He’s wearing a shirt that is highly unusual. The entire front is covered with pockets, at least a dozen. Does that mean anything to you?”
Tina Powers
It sure did! As an inventor perennially working on multiple projects, my father would only buy clothing that had a lot of pockets, the more the better. My dad needed all those pockets to hold the little odds and ends he was always collecting, as well the pen and paper he carried to jot down new ideas as they came to him.
The accuracy of the messages that came through Tina were mind-blowing. It had been close to ten years since my father had been able to have a real conversation, but from this other realm, he was able to answer all my questions and share a tremendous amount of wisdom, using words and phrases unique to him. My heart was bursting.
When I went back to Miraval a year later, I booked another session with Tina straightaway. One of the questions I wanted to ask my father had to do with my mom.
Immediately after my dad passed something miraculous happened: for a full year, my relationship with my mother had felt easy and non-reactive—magically different from how it had felt before. I happily visited her almost every day. We would sit side-by-side in her little flower garden as I interviewed her about her life, often remaining together for hours. The love that flowed freely and strongly between us helped to ease the pain of her loss and considerable loneliness.
Flowers from Myra's mother’s garden
I suspected that when my father’s spirit visited me in those hours before he passed, he’d somehow enabled me to see my mother the way he always had—as a spectacular human being, completely undiminished by her exceedingly difficult trauma patterns. Through Tina, my father answered that while I was correct to think that he was behind the dramatic transformation in how I’d perceived my mother, it wasn’t that I was suddenly able to see her how he’d seen her. Rather, he’d helped me be able to see her how God sees her.
Years later, when I began working on turning my father’s unfinished spiritual memoir into a book for publication and had many unanswered questions, I remembered Tina and reached out. For the four years we spoke regularly, it was as if Tina had my father’s phone number and could dial him up anytime. Always happy to chat, my dad clarified details, gave me much-needed encouragement, and even shared new information that I was later able to verify.
Now I’m grateful to call Tina my friend, and to be able to share her incredible gifts with you during our fourth annual Beyond this Realm free online event on Saturday, September 28, at 10:00 AM Pacific.
During our highly anticipated 75-minutes with Tina, she will explain how she communicates with people who have passed, answer questions about the afterlife, lead us on a guided meditation to a realm when where we can meet our loved ones and/or guides, and open herself to receive incoming messages for event attendees from loved ones in the other world.
Tina was a very successful news anchor before she became a medium, and her clients include celebrities and business leaders from across the globe. To learn more about her fascinating personal journey, you can read my blog, Medium Tina Powers—Reporting for the Other Side .
We hope you will join us on September 28! If you sign up and are unable to attend live, you will receive a recording within a few days.
