VERENA: Tanis how did your own personal spiritual journey start? And when did your journey start?
TANIS: My own inner journey started as a child. I had the spiritual gifts of astral travel and telepathy. At age seven I realized that most people didn’t have this and that there was no one I could talk to. I had to fall back on myself and my own ethical code of never listening or seeing people deeper than they wanted be seen or heard.
And from there I began my own investigation. I read science fiction and fantasy books when I was a teenager trying to find other people who had gifts like mine. I went to a Protestant church, which unlike the Catholic church has no mysticism. So there weren’t any miracles and saints who had gifts of levitation or any other kinds of mysticism to be found there. The Protestant church is very concrete and practical about being a good person, like Jesus. But it definitely could not help me with the kinds of spiritual experiences I was having.
I started doing TM when I was about 21, when Maharishi came to the University of Toronto where I was a student. From then on I started to have even greater breakthroughs, which led in my twenties and early thirties into teaching about spirit guides, self-hypnosis, meditation, dream analysis, and past life regression.
As I studied more deeply the esoteric writers, such as Rudolph Steiner and Alice Bailey, I became interested in the myths of the world. I was fascinated by the common patterns of the Egyptian, Greek, Celtic, Christian myths and how they all showed us predictable steps on our path to consciousness. I started teaching about these myths and the steps to consciousness that they show us even today.
Writing books was never a goal of mine. I wrote my first book Decoding Destiny in 1988 because Spirit asked me to do so. I have always listened to Spirit and attempt to follow Spirit’s requests. Doing so, has taken me to so many unknown places that have been great gifts in my inner and outer life. A life of adventure.
VERENA: Your most famous book is Summer with the Leprechauns. How did that come about and how does that fit into your greater spiritual pattern?
TANIS: Once again that was unanticipated. I was in my thirties and I went to Ireland to become enlightened. I ended up in a haunted cottage, haunted by a leprechaun family. On one hand, I did not reach my goal of enlightenment, this was a big disappointment at the time but, on another hand, I had this fascinating unanticipated experience with leprechauns and other elementals, which led to them asking if I would write a book on my experience in ten years. Before that, I thought my purpose in life was to help humans in their evolution. When I met the leprechauns and other elementals I became interested in helping all sentient beings.
Meeting the elementals coincided with my study of Buddhism which played a major part in my life, in my thirties and forties. I was especially interested in Tibetan Buddhism. And in the Buddhist tradition you pray for the enlightenment of all sentient beings and not only humans.
In my thirties, my focus for my work expanded to include taking people on tours to the sacred sites of the Earth. I feel we are guardians of this planet and we need to work co-creating with nature spirits and elementals. They are in harmony with the divine consciousness and we need to be as well.
VERENA: Can Elementals help us to lead us to greater divine harmony?
TANIS: Elementals include, but are not limited to, fairies, brownies, goblins, gnomes and elves. Elementals are the creators of form on this planet. They build the trees and the plants, rocks, air and water. They do not have free will and were created to work with humans who have free will to create a beautiful planet in harmony with universal consciousness.
Unfortunately, humans have let down their side. I partner with elementals and teach people how important it is to be in harmony with the earth and with nature. There will be no humans if we don’t learn this soon.
