For two years we had a number of visions of Hillary Clinton as winner.

Two weeks before the election, I started to have doubts.

One vivid vision in particular kept haunting me. It showed that jubilation on election night would suddenly fizzle into an upset at the last minute.

I realize now that errors of timing combined with errors of denial had thrown me off.

Timing error: Hillary waving in victory, Suffragettes celebrating in the streets, the image of a donkey taking a mighty backward kick, even my students’ images of Hillary having a bad time with scandal had all happened before the election.  Two weeks before the election, media reported that women were going to the early polls dressed as Suffragettes. That should have been evidence to me that the timing of our victory visions were off because I’d originally thought those Suffragettes were celebrating after the election, when it turns out they were celebrating before the election.

It is true that she did win the popular vote, by 2.5 million votes. But she was not inaugurated and I didn’t see it.

The infinitely complex multi-layered psyche gives us visions when we ask, and they often come true. 

But we can be off in our interpretation of what our psyche is showing us. Interpreting the images that pop in our heads is subtle work. We can also be deluded by our fears about the truth.

For one thing, we’re easily tricked by really fervent, personally-invested wishful thinking.  

When I looked at the 2017 inauguration six months earlier, I’d seen Trump on the platform in the shadows holding a funny kind of ax, which I later learned was a fasces, the Roman symbol of harsh authoritarian rule and later an emblem of authority in Fascist Italy. A colleague also saw him in the shadows holding what she thought was a hammer or wrench, but likely it too was the Roman fasces. Because there was no way we could accept that he would become president, we both assumed that he was at the Inauguration in spirit only, not in actuality. I thought he was a presence, ever tweeting some toxic rant.  That is a case of simple denial. It happens in psychic perception, just as it happens in regular cognition. I refused to see it.

So lest I ever make these mistakes again, here are the golden rules of psychic prediction: (Most of these lessons I already knew. Alas, sometimes we have to learn again.)

1) Pay special attention to the unexpected visions — they are usually the most accurate. A few days before the election, I had an unexpected vision that was a no brainer tip off that Trump would win.  I saw frenzied energy of a great battle taking place in front of the Statue of Liberty. It looked like a blinding sandstorm, and I knew it to be the fury of millions of Americans fighting for liberty.

I strained to see who would win this battle and a large hieroglyph appeared and then a small flower was next to it. I actually had to look up the hieroglyph to figure out what it meant, which turned out to be the dark and powerful Roman God Pluto (aka Greek God Hades)– God of Death and God of the Underworld.

This is the very Hades who stole the innocent Percephone from her mother Demeter, Goddess of the Grains. Percephone is often depicted as a flower, hence the symbols of Hades and the flower seemed to be comparing the American political scene to the Greek myth.

I was seeing that Hades would control power in America, and something precious to us, would be stolen away.

When Hades kidnapped Demeter’s daughter, the great  mother fell into mourning and famine spread across the land.  In America, this could mean economic downturn and climate change surge — bringing hard times, which I have seen coming for several years now.

In spite of this vision, I refused to conclude that it meant Trump would become president, which brings up another rule:

2) If we’re emotionally involved and attached to an outcome, then we can’t see what we don’t want to see. We ignore the truth, even when we see it.  The same is true when something terrifies us, bringing me this rule:

3) When something is too frightening, we are not going to see it at all. If climate change is going to end our species, we are not going to see it. If Donald Trump is going to press the nuclear codes in a late night fit of impulsivity, we’re not going to see that either. The psyche protects us from visions we are too terrified to see.  I did sense something frightening and shocking would happen in April of next year. But can’t offer more than that at this time.

4) You can look at an issue too many times. When you do, your mind gets tangled in all the possible answers, and the true visions are confused with worries, wishes, logic and opinion. I have never looked at an event as much as I did this one. Not a good idea for predicting anything.

5) Interpreting your visions causes errors. Unless a strong feeling or voice speaks right at the moment of the vision, it is folly to go back later and interpret. When you do, you are no longer using intuition but other non intuitive capacities, like logic, prevailing opinion, and too often, wishful thinking.

6) Don’t allow other people’s visions to cloud your own. I rarely read other psychics’ visions because I don’t want them to interfere with my clarity.  I broke this rule with the election by counting on what my talented students and colleagues were seeing. The problem is that I’m not the one having those visions and so I can’t know how pure they are.  If they are my own visions, I can go back when I have doubts and remember what I actually saw, not interpreting, mind you, but honestly remembering what I actually saw. Did I really see Hillary at the Inauguration? No I didn’t. I just assumed she was there. Other people did. Did I see Hillary as president during the next four years? No, but some of my very accurate students did, but because these weren’t my own visions, I can’t go back and dissect what I was really seeing. Which brings up rule #7:

7) Be honest about what you are seeing and be clear about what you are not seeing. Don’t extrapolate.  Visions happen in the imagination, so you can put things in there that you are expecting or wanting. That’s why we should trust the unexpected visions the most. The only visions I had of the Inauguration showed Hillary as more of an idea than a vision,  and then unexpectedly I saw Trump on the stage in the shadows, wielding that ax.  I chose to interpret Trump’s visage as meaning he was only there in spirit, continuing to criticize.

8) Be aware that your timing might be wrong. All psychics know that timing is difficult to get right. We were meditating in January 2015 on an election which would take place almost two years later. We were seeing Hillary triumphant, Trump grimacing, Obama happy, handing the baton to Hillary.

But what we know now is that we were seeing the months prior to the election. The media and polls showed Trump losing. Hillary feeling triumphant. Obama handing the baton over to her. Some of my students saw Hillary having a scandal-ridden presidency, feeling defeated, ruined. These visions were real but all happened much earlier, including the scandals that followed her all the way to the election, the feelings of defeat, and the triumphant earlier months.

9) Pay attention to the clearest visions, the boldest images, and the ones that keep circling back in your psyche. 

One of the clearest visions I have had of this election did not tell me who won. I saw a male angel standing downstage on the Inaugural platform facing the crowd. His mood was somber. He was quite still. He seemed to be sending compassion and care for us all. My first thought was that he was Obama, who, by the way, will be present at the Inauguration.

Some have suggested the angel is the country’s guardian angel. Some have suggested it’s an omen of some kind. Perhaps it is all three.

I put up my website so everyone can learn to use the intuitive capacity we all have. God knows we will need it for the coming years. I post our visions of the future and track our successes, and from this process, we all can learn. When we work with prophecy, we are working with one of the ultimate mysteries and with the infinitely complex multi-layered psyche. By examining our mistakes, and keeping our process fresh and honest, we will evolve.