An Interview woth Doreen Virtue, Ph.D.

ANGEL ANGLES
By Jianda Johnson

From the look of things, Doreen Virtue may very well be one of the angels with which she so prolifically and lovingly communicates. She glows with Spirit's light, and her husband Michael Tienhaara's photographs of angels decorate the room. Virtue smiles adoringly as she discusses her cat, Romeo ("Yes: animals are angels, and they have their own guardian angels!"). Doreen's home is filled with vibrations of peace, angelic imagery, and a sweet, light energy.

Her cherubic face and wise wo-man's graceful stance bespeak a lifetime of more and more heavenly thoughts and loving interactivity with God, and what Virtue calls The Angelic Realm.

"It's interesting," Doreen begins: "God and the angels have a definite different energy and vocabulary, but at the same time they're all one. In the same sense that you and I are one, you and I are one with God and the angels.

"God really is like talking to a wise nextdoor neighbor man," she continues. "He's got a real male energy: down to earth, loving and strong. The angels have more of a feminine energy to me, except archangel Mich-ael, but even he has more of a feminine energy than God. They talk more poetically, almost like Shakes-pearean language. It's like poetry. It's just beautiful."

Virtue's latest best-selling book, Divine Guidance: How to Have a Dialogue with God and Your Guardian Angels (Renaissance Books), is filled with such loving eloquence.

No stranger to best sellers (see The Yo-Yo Diet, Constant Craving, and The Lightworker's Way), Doreen's worked long and hard to acquire academic and professional accolades. Then, with over 12 years experience as a psychological clinician and founding an all-woman psychiatric hospital under her belt, Virtue turned 180 degrees away from so-called "higher learning," seeking healing on a higher plane: Angel Therapy.

"As a child," Virtue continues, her eyes full of light, "I was tormented for being Œmetaphysical.' I felt really different. I would talk to my mom [a Christian Science spiritual healer], about anything I believed in, and people would roll their eyes. I learned that you keep your mouth shut. ŒDon't talk about your deep beliefs.' "

It seems, with a little help from The Angelic Realm, Doreen has turned that all around as well. Almost immediately after Virtue's nationwide appearance on Barbara Walters' show "The View," musing on angels with such notables as Rosanna Arquette, Divine Guidance hit the best-seller list.

"Isn't that cool?" she enthuses, poetic justice set right once again. "It's a miracle to me I can talk about this openly and make a living."

A seeming struggle at first, Doreen's spiritual unfoldment was inevitable. "I had really shut that part of my life out almost all the way, " she says. "I still used affirmations and visualizations with my clients, and sometimes I wished I could use my spiritual healing background with them, but I was afraid they'd have the same reaction I had as a child. It was very painful. And metaphysics has only been in for the last five years.

"I was trying to be just this regular psychologist and I kept getting messages from the unseen world that that's not what my purpose was. God and the angels were much louder than my determination.

"I still use parts of my psychological training that are healthy. But the basic premise of psychology is, figure out what's wrong and then try and fix it. Now that's the opposite of metaphysics or Angel Therapy, which starts with the premise that you're already perfect, you just have to reveal that by getting rid of the fears. So it's really more similar to what I knew as a child."

Virtue's determination, loving thoughts and persistent desire to work with the angels and show others the way to work with them has paved the way for healing in many others. Taking her workshops and Spiritual Counselor certification courses across the country, Doreen is also a syndicated spiritual advice columnist and editor, and continues to evolve in Spirit, with her most trusted guardian angel "Frederique" by her side.

"I transcended my fear of what people think," says Virtue, "And I'm helping other people to come out of the closet spiritually. This is such a gift. It's time for all of us to come out of the spiritual closet!"

So what looms on Doreen's horizon? A continuation of something she's called "The Great Experiment." "On November 11, at 11:11 A.M.," Doreen continues, "In every time zone, we're asking people to visualize peace. Have you ever noticed 11:11 on the clock? When you see 11:11, it's an opening. You can make a wish. We're going to ask everyone to make the wish, affirming that we choose peace. We choose geographical peace . . . We're just going to correct the fears and release them peacefully. We're healers. Mother Earth isn't a killer, she's a lover. Someone's gotta do it, otherwise we're going to listen to those doom and gloom profiteers, like Œp-r-o-f-i-t-e-e-r-s.' Let's turn it into prophecies of peace!"

What is most personal is universal. Peace begins at home, with self-love, and Virtue knows it. With a loving certainty Doreen assures me, "Matter doesn't matter. If you want a great parking space, ask for that! It's not trivial. God and the angels are able to help everyone simultaneously. So you're not pulling them away from something else that is more important. "

As children we're told, Œthese are your eyes, this is how you see, these are your ears, your nose . . . ' but we've got spiritual eyes. We've got spiritual ears. We've just never taken the time to think about them or open them, but once we break through the veil just for a second, the light comes streaming through and we start seeing and hearing a lot. "So I'm going to just crack open the veil a little bit. Anyone can do this! The angels speak to us, we just need to listen and take action. The power and intelligence of the one mind makes no mistakes. We would not have been assigned our lightworker role were we not perfectly qualified."

Please see Doreen's book review on page 7 of this issue. Her books and new tape, "Healing With The Angels" (Hay House) are available in bookstores nationwide. Watch for her November 1 at Unity Community Church, Laguna Hills, and at her Angel Communication workshop November 22 at Awakenings Bookstore in Laguna Beach. For seminar/book/audiotape information, please call Hay House at (800) 654-5126, or visit www.Angel-therapy.com . For information about Michael Tienhaara's angel art, please call (949)369-9277. 

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