I want to make one thing clear in advance: I don't believe a single word in the esoteric industry. Nobody has ever been able to convince me of healing stones or light temples.
I have an average sense of the unearthly. I have already donated a candle or two in churches. You never know if there isn't someone up there. And to do something good for this “someone” or “something” can at least not hurt, according to my previous attitude.
I am not alone with this somewhat diffuse idea of the "good spirit". In Germany, only 64 percent are convinced of the existence of God. However, 66 percent of people believe that there are guardian angels. This was the result of a study by the Forsa polling institute. Completely logical, says theologian Christa A. Thiel in conversation with 'Die Welt'. She believes that guardian angels are "more tangible than God".
The belief in guardian angels certainly helps with one thing: making money. So-called “angel media” can now be found in almost every major city. These people advertise making contact with guardian angels. They want to act as a channel between people and the "other world". Like Medium Petra. She is convinced: "A channel medium is an interpreter for the language of light. We deliver messages that are important for people." Contacting her costs between 80 and 250 euros.
Get to know my personal guardian angel through an "angel channel"? That's where my belief in the supersensible actually ends. Nevertheless, I dare to experiment – without knowing that the "encounter" will ultimately take me away more than I would have thought possible.
It is a weekday in Hennef, a bourgeois suburb of Bonn. An inconspicuous area. I have an appointment there with Petra, self-proclaimed angel medium and clairvoyant, in her house. The building, adorned with red clinker bricks, is small and a bit conservative – just like its owner.
Petra is in her mid-forties, wearing worn jeans and a plaid shirt. Her light blonde hair has been tied into a messy braid and her face looks leathery. Somehow this shape does not match the picture I have of a medium. But no time for prejudice, I finally want to know what she can do – or not. I am determined to see through her tricks.
We sit around a round table in Petra’s house. There is a bottle of water and a full ashtray on it. Nevertheless, there is less smell of cigarettes in the entire room than penetrating lavender. Relaxing music is playing in the background. Admittedly, the scenario works. I feel relaxed.
Everyone has one to three guardian angels
Then the session starts very specifically: According to Petra, I have two guardian angels – a male and a female messenger from heaven. "They stand behind you – they on the right and he on the left. He has put his wings slightly around them," she says very convincingly. What a cliché! I still turn around briefly – just in case. And see: of course nothing. But as cheesy and unlikely this picture may be, a slight shiver runs down my spine.
But then Petra really gets going.
"Do you remember when you were seven years old? You had a serious accident and your angels really had to do it for the first time," says Petra. Various falls with my roller skates or my bike – I immediately think of countless dangerous situations.
I need details. "It was a car accident. You were in the car with your mother and another car crashed head-on in hers," says Petra. The memory slowly rises in me. Petra talks about an experience that I have tried to displace over the years. At that time my mother and I barely got away with our lives. How can she know about it, it shoots through my head. Maybe she is not a medium, but a research genius, I try to calm myself down. After all, I'm not sure that there might have been an article in the local newspaper about the accident. But the depressing feeling that spreads in me cannot be suppressed.
Mouthpiece for the spiritual world – vocation or imagination?
All Engel media report that one day they had an angel experience that led them to turn their gift – communicating with the spiritual world – into a profession. Petra has always perceived signs and understood this as an indication of her guardian angel. But six years ago, her life changed drastically. According to her, the story, which is considered Petra's revival experience, goes as follows: Petra is traveling by car when she loses control of her vehicle. Suddenly, she says, a tall figure with huge, white wings appears next to her in the passenger seat, who quickly reaches for her steering wheel and safely leads Petra back into the lane. Since then, not only the guardian angels appear to her regularly. They also use the slightly higher archangels as a mouthpiece to carry their messages across the world.
They do not speak to her directly. Supposedly, she gets the news sent to her mind – then she suddenly has a thought in her head that she should pass on. As with me now: "You are on the right track. It will change again in a few years, but that is only for your benefit. ”Quite vague – I read about that in my horoscope recently. But it should not be the only message that my heavenly companions have ready for me.
"Your grandfather was a very rich man. I don't mean that in a material sense. He still sees that his family is doing well. He is proud of her and knows exactly what you wanted to say that night. He would like to not that you continue to torture yourself, "says Petra, rolling a cigarette.
I am a little shocked by this supposed news from the afterlife. Your statement hits a sore spot in my past. I am agitated and touched. How can she hit me like this?
The fact is: I have never seen Petra in my life before. We have no mutual friends or acquaintances. She didn't know my surname, birth date, or address. I didn't tell her anything about me and tried to keep my body language neutral. And yet she knew things that she couldn't have known. Things that not even my closest confidants know.
It's also a fact: my grandfather, whom Petra is talking about, was my best friend. He died quickly and unexpectedly. And my memories of the last evening we had together are certainly not to be found on the Internet.
I have been here for over an hour now and have learned everything about angel choirs, archangels and guardian angels. Petra made me feel comfortable. We were on the same wavelength. Is that exactly her secret?
I think Petra is a highly sensitive woman who can watch well. Does she have a direct line to the unearthly? I still want to doubt it. What remains is the feeling of having been seen through. Are guardian angels really just a myth? I am not sure anymore …