Author’s Preface

Now that I am in my sixties, I can look back over a lifetime of frequent verbal and visual contact with celestial beings—the kind I describe in this book. Even from my early childhood, I could see these spirit visitors, whom I simply thought of as my family’s “spirit friends,” who regularly visited my home, mostly at mealtimes. But it was obvious to me that our visitors would go to their own homes to eat dinner, since there was no more room at our table. They just seemed to hang around, patiently waiting for the meal to end, as if they wanted to draw my parents aside for casual conversation.

I had no inkling that, of the eight other members in my family, not one was aware of these celestial arrivals, though it did seem strange that no one ever talked with them. And it was hardly my place to address them, for small children were meant to be seen, not heard, at the table.

All throughout my teenage years, I received countless prompts from these beings, and because of the positive advice these prompts contained, I renamed my friends the Spirit Guides. And although I saw them less often, their valuable guidance had a highly positive impact on my life—in my studies for business management and industrial psychology, in my work, and even in my decision to leave Europe to settle in Australia as a lone migrant at age eighteen. They especially helped me in new business ventures.

From the time I was twenty until I turned thirty-two, as I cared for my young family, my contact with these spirit friends was sporadic. I seldom heard their voices, and yet their subliminal input about the future was an almost daily event. I understood their input to be pure intuition on my part, and all who knew me well pictured me as a talented psychic, capable of hitting the nail on the head when it came to predicting future events.

That conception was about to change-drastically.

When my seven-year-old daughter—at the insistence of her own “spirit playmate”—saved our entire family from certain demise, it became vital for me to urgently reacquaint myself with the Spirit Guides who, in fact, had never deserted me. Over-committed to both business and clinical work and chronically fatigued, I had utterly failed to notice their persistent 11:11 time-prompt warnings about a grave danger to our young family of five.

It took our daughter’s ability to pick up the message of her unseen playmate for me to realize that I had lost contact with something that was precious to me and that I wanted back. The urgency I felt to rediscover my spirit friends prompted an intensive search to find out where these childhood acquaintances could possibly be in time and space.

I had long assumed there was a simple genetic reason for my extended family’s closeness with these Spirit Guides. My mother often conversed with unseen celestial beings, and her father was widely respected for his having been “a great dowser” in his younger years.

When I finally faced the Spirit Guides myself and looked them in the eyes for the first time, a powerful bond was established, and a remarkable Celestial-Mortal Alliance evolved. I began to count on them for assistance more often, and they more frequently depended on my doing their bidding. As they led me out of danger on a number of occasions, I renamed them the 11:11 Spirit Guardians.

These new spirit friends guarded me closely, and we soon became much more involved with the welfare of those around us. We were, and still are, a Celestial- Mortal Alliance for Progress simply called the unit, or the emergency platoon.

But they were still just my old childhood friends-revisited.

As my contact with the 11:11 Spirit Guardians grew closer, my business ventures picked up even more, and on occasion we boldly took on the task of troubleshooting and breathing new life into near-bankrupt companies. My celestial friends regularly advised me about my personal life and assisted me in countless emergencies that involved many of my patients. They even helped me to design specific therapies for clients in great need.

In 1992, I promised the celestials I would begin the big task of documenting our nearly countless combined endeavors, in order to reveal to others the exciting opportunities for cooperating with these hard-working planetary helpers. They wanted as many people as possible to read about the successes that can be achieved, the wondrous healings that take place with their aid, and the fascinating revelations about our planet and life in the greater cosmos—as well as about the spiritual advancement an association with them has to offer.

Unlike us “temporary” mortals, who live on Earth for such a short span, the 11:11 Spirit Guardians are the permanent citizens of this planet. They are capable of causing—through you and me—many small and grand events for the benefit of all, today and into the planet’s distant future.

If you yearn for a more rewarding, more spiritual existence, be aware of their 11:11 and other double-digit time-prompts on your clocks, VCRs, microwave ovens. The brilliantly minded 11:11 Spirit Guardians are seeking worldwide human involvement for their task of promoting planetary progress and greater spiritual awareness.

Perhaps you too will join a Celestial-Mortal Alliance for the benefit of all.

Who Are They?

They are only human, still.

Raw products of His creation and evolution—

Flesh-and-blood mortals—who are invited to chart

His seas of affection, His oceans of devotion,

in their shared existence.

Briskly put upon the intricate road to perfection,

but awaiting a warm welcome in Eternity,

these heirs to His universes

fit their appreciation of His great Gifts

in but an egg cup, still.

Part One

The Fourth Generation

For every meal in the Barnard homestead, over a period of more than four years, an extra place was set at the dining room table. This place, directly to George’s right, was for Simone. George never saw Simone eat anything. In fact, he never saw Simone. She was invisible—but not to his eldest daughter.

To the six-and-a-half-year-old, Danielle, Simone was very real. On a few occasions, the advice that was supposed to have come from Danielle’s “invisible sister” made excellent sense.

“Simone suggests you eat at least half of your green beans,” the father jokingly told Danielle at their Saturday evening meal.

The youngster gave him a troubled, sullen look. Then she pounded her little fork down hard on one of the offending beans.

“That one is quite dead now,” George informed her. “You killed it. I think you can safely put it in your mouth now. It won’t be able to get away.”

Her shoulders hunched, her lips pressed tight, Danielle kept glaring at the annoying little green trespassers on her plate. She wasn’t going to show him she enjoyed the humor. She simply hated those dreadful beans too much.

The father carried on softly, “When I was little—and I was always very, very little—your grandmother cooked us only one meal per week, on Sundays. And so, on all the other days we had to eat grass, like your pony does. Green beans are ever so much nicer than grass.”

The child turned on him in anger and proclaimed loudly, “When you were little—and you were always very, very little—Grandpa forgot to teach you how to walk. And so you skipped around on one leg for the rest of your life. We know that story already, too!”

She was clearly advising her father on behalf of her siblings, and perhaps on behalf of the invisible little Simone, that none of them would believe he was ever forced to eat grass.

“You ask Simone about it,” George suggested. “See what she’s got to say. She’ll soon give you the score.”

“She says the tree is going to fall on the house, Daddy,” came the immediate but utterly inappropriate reply. It was the second time George had heard that comment. It was no longer a joke. He was beginning to feel uneasy.

From his place at the table, he glanced at the big White Eucalypt. It stood fully forty meters from the homestead, right on their boundary fence. There was no chance of it falling on their home. It was old, big, wide, but not very tall. It did, however, carry some large dead branches.

Perhaps they should be taken down? Be made safe? he mused.

Danielle’s remark still bothered him that evening, but even trying hard as he did, he could extract no further information from his Spirit Friends. And to this day, he has no idea why they either did not know, would not tell him, or could not tell him, what he wanted to know about the potential danger with that tree.

Could this failure to obtain psychic information have been caused by fatigue?

1

“Simone Says. . .”

There were many periods during which George Barnard considered himself to be psychically depleted. During times when his firm was financially overextended, or when his workload was committing him to carry on until the early morning hours, it would be more accurate to describe the psychic as intuitively dead.

This was one of those periods.

A new machine-parts manufacture and assembly project would stretch the resources of the Barnards’ family company to their very limit. Many months prior to the commencement of the sizable new undertaking, George still had some doubts about signing up for it.

As it was—especially for that time of the year—a seemingly unstoppable flow of orders had kept everyone in the firm on their toes. Tempers were frayed. Along with his workers, Barnard was tired, overworked, and somewhat indecisive. The machine parts contract would need to be signed within a few months.

That huge new commitment will swiftly push the firm’s bank balance into a deep pit full of red ink, he thought. Already there was a shortage of funds, although, so far, George was the only one who had missed out on his salary—for five weeks.

Jodi, George’s wife of ten years, was finding it tough to make ends meet. She was making some loud noises about being an unseen but important part of his workforce, and about being entitled to receive something extra when his “boatload of outstanding money” finally came in. At least George could charge his hypnotherapy patients for his services, she suggested. Too many of them were never charged a penny if they were rather poor.

Barnard was used to juggling his time between his family, his business, and his hypnotherapy clinic, and moderately successful at serving these three masters. Even then, he still occasionally found time to work on his designs for new machines or cameras. But those drawings had been gathering dust for months. Right now there was simply not a minute to spare.

Kevin Weiss, the firm’s production manager, ambled into his boss’s workroom, his clenched fists firmly in the pockets of his coveralls—a sure sign of another imminent confrontation between the two men.

No prize for guessing what’s on his mind, Barnard thought. Here we go again.

“We’re doing far too many different things already,” Weiss suggested. “George, it could break us. We’re only just managing what we’ve got.”

Barnard put down his inking pen and ruler. He looked up at the worried production man, frowning, but without saying a word.

“It’s outside our area of expertise,” Weiss carried on. “Our lunchroom is too small, our toilet facilities are insufficient, factory space is already at a premium, and that stupid old forklift is about to fall apart.”

“We would employ five more people, Kev,” Barnard suggested. “but we more than double our turnover. This is our opportunity to grow from handkerchief size, bypassing napkin size, to tablecloth size. We gain critical mass to make us infinitely more profitable, better organized, less overworked—hopefully smarter— because we will have time to think, rather than both of us just doing things. It could be a Godsend.”

Weiss turned away, shrugged, and walked to the door, his hands still in his pockets. He knew it would upset his employer. “The French are stubborn,” he remarked, “and the Dutch can never be convinced of anything. You’re half of each and that’s what makes you so damned impossible.” Weiss was getting personal. “I don’t know why they let people like you migrate to Australia . . . allow you into the country.”

“Ah! A mongrel! Well! It could be your German ancestry that makes you so rude and bullheaded,” Barnard countered, knowing neither of them quite meant what they were saying.

Without the benefit of formal managerial training on his part, the somewhat pessimistic, fearful, but obstinate Kevin Weiss often sought to influence the highly educated Barnard’s more radical schemes and decisions. This time he walked out without a further word, haughty, snubbing his boss.

George’s stomach had already been playing up for days because of Kevin’s attitude. His appetite was suppressed, and his adrenaline output so high, that he sensed he would soon lose his cool in a most frightful way. The production manager’s behavior annoyed him almost daily of late. Few of his staff had ever seen George angry, but when it finally happened, it was not all that pleasant to be too close to their employer’s workroom.

Then, Friday’s mail arrived. There were so many checks; the firm’s financial troubles were instantly over. Everyone they knew must have loved them so dearly that they felt like paying their bills. It was as if all their customers had communicated with each other and fully understood the firm’s urgent need.

Amongst the checks in the stack was one of the biggest George would ever put into his business trading account. He laughed almost all the way to the bank. But he had had enough of the factory for the week.

Barnard was on his way home early that afternoon, to take the financial pressure off poor, neglected Jodi and to spend some time playing with his children. They had missed their dad, his jokes and his tricks. It had been obvious for weeks. The telephone would be left off the hook for the rest of the afternoon. “For once, miserable old Kevin can sort things out for himself,” Barnard grumbled.

Much of Kevin’s considerable technical expertise was imported into the firm. But for his previous boss treating him so very badly, the conscientious though overcautious Weiss would have never joined Barnard. He would have stayed with his old firm. Their loss was Barnard’s gain. But if Kevin ever managed to fully mature, he would surely owe that in part to the half-Dutch, half-French “damned impossible mongrel” migrant, George Mathieu Barnard.

* * * * *

“Now listen, all you kiddies!” George shouted just as soon as he walked through his front door. Instantly they came running. “I’ve got some wonderful news to tell you.” He paused to create suspense, and decided to carefully count them: “One . . . two . . . three! Aha! All present.”

All eyes and ears, they waited, eager to hear the news, suspicious of another of his regular stunts. They were clearly holding their breaths.

“We have worked so hard,” the father told them. “And we have made so much money! And we loaded all the money into a huge truck. We transported it all to the bank. Now the bank is full. No room for the people even! We are now so incredibly rich; we don’t have to go back to work. Ever!” He gave them time to visualize the scenario. Then, he casually but pleadingly asked, “You guys do believe me, don’t you?”

The youngest only pouted. The boy shook his head in silent disbelief. But Danielle quickly took on the task of spokesperson for the group. The verdict was loud and decisive. “We have decided! That we . . . will not . . . believe you! Anymore!”

“Too bad. So sad,” he told them all, shaking his head and looking sorry. “That is a crying shame. You see, if all that money is not in the bank, we can’t afford to go to the beach this weekend.”

Quickly, like three little accomplices about to commit an underhanded act, they rushed into a corner of the room. There was a lot of whispering and giggling. Finally, they returned, and Danielle announced, “We will believe you. But only this time.”

“So? All that money is in the bank?” George inquired.

“No, Daddy,” Danielle answered.

“No, Dad,” her brother informed him.

“Uh-uh,” said the little one.

“What? What? What?” he cried, trying hard to put a look of great consternation on his face. “Our money is not in the bank? Oh, no! There goes our Sunday at the beach! What a disaster. . .”

“It’s all there, Daddy,” Danielle assured him with a laugh.

“. . . all in the bank,” the boy quickly agreed, with a hopeful look in his eyes.

“Ah?” made the smallest one. By now, she had clearly lost track of what was going on and which way to vote; one could tell by the confused look on her face as she urgently searched the faces of her siblings. A day at the beach was something that should not be missed. Any pleasing answer would do, just to get there, but what could that answer be?

A priceless reaction!

“Thank heavens it’s all in the bank,” George told them all. “I was so looking forward to a nice day at the beach.” It was difficult not to laugh.

I just purchased three, no, two and a half opinions for the expenditure of a day in the sun, he thought, congratulating himself. When the need is great enough, anyone will believe anything.

But the whole gang swiftly disappeared into a bedroom, and their boisterous laughter could be heard, off and on, from behind the closed door, and for the next hour, as they convinced each other they had won. Fooled their father, too. This time.

* * * * *

“What does Simon . . . oops! What does Simone say about going to the beach on Sunday?” George asked at the evening meal.

“She says she will come, too,” Danielle answered, “but the tree is going to fall on the house.” Her last remark had been so unemotional, so unreservedly casual.

I live in a different time slot, the father thought. I go and whiz around this universe, looking at the future, and I do a second-rate job in coming back. I’m getting the same dumb, unbecoming answer to the question I asked last weekend. Either that or I’m hearing a strange, long-distance echo. I may be a week out of sync with the rest of the world.

“Leave your dinner, young lady,” he told her. “You, and I, and that big tree over there, are going to have a lengthy discussion.”

As he stood and headed for the door, Danielle slipped down from her chair and followed him. Through the door and down the steps, across the driveway and up the garden steps, then across the expanse of their finely mown lawn, they finally reached the Eucalypt. There, father and daughter faced each other beneath its wide crown. The child was wearing a most thoughtful but somewhat distrustful look.

“This here tree is a White Eucalypt,” George told her as he tapped the bark. “It has been standing right here for a long time, even before you were born. It told me just recently that it likes this particular spot and it does not want to leave us. It’s happy to be part of our family and it grows thousands of leaves out of sheer delight. It’s a clever tree. When there is a drought, it will let some branches die. And when the rains come, it grows new branches. This tree can actually prune itself. Smart, eh? See those dead branches up there? The tree let them die, years ago, when there was no rain.”

The youngster stood staring at the foliage, spotted some dead branches, and nodded energetically. “So, Danielle Yvette Barnard, you tell me why this blissfully contented, psychologically well-adjusted, emotionally stable tree of highly superior intelligence, standing here, holding its breath, waiting to see if you might perhaps acquire a liking for green beans, should hop all the way across the lawn to jump on your house.”

Always ready to enjoy yet another of her father’s impossible stories, Danielle had listened attentively and not missed a beat. She spared him a genuine smile for his effort, but she seemed hardly impressed. Pointing at the White Eucalypt, she said, “It’s not this tree, Daddy.” She turned on her heels and pointed to another tree. “It’s that tree,” she said. “Simone said so.”

She was keeping her little finger pointed at a towering Gray Eucalypt that leaned slightly over the homestead. Its massive crown provided shade from the hot summer sun for all the bedrooms, as well as the living areas, of the Barnards’ sizable home. Around twenty tons of potential calamity stood poised, ready to crush all occupants, should a northwesterly squall decide to write their death warrants. Only George’s clinic would remain untouched, but the family might all be dead.

She looked up at her father, to see if he was paying attention, but George was stunned into silence. It felt as if a cold hand had reached into his chest and was squeezing his heart to stop it from beating. That little finger was still pointing at the Gray Eucalypt. She was waiting for an acknowledgment from the man.

But George was listening to a loud inner voice, telling him, ordering him, “You have less than a week to down that giant, George Barnard, and you are going to contact a tree doctor now.” The hair on the back of his head and neck was bristling up with the knowledge that this was a deadly serious matter.

“You go and finish your dinner, young lady,” he told Danielle. “Tell Mom your father is going to have a talk with a tree doctor.” He made his way to the clinic, shaken, but determined to make his call in private and to smartly get someone’s attention.

That big tree had to go.

* * * * *

Shortly after the Gray Eucalypt episode, the Simone phenomenon simply evaporated into thin air. There were now only five places set at the Barnards’ dinner table. With the arrival at Danielle’s school of a new classmate, Simone—a flesh and blood version to be sure—there no longer seemed to be room for the invisible Simone, who for more than four years chose to share a meal with the Barnards, and was reported to “really, really, really and truly” enjoy, as well as need, their company.

Was Simone a simple concept born from the mind of an imaginative child, or some form of reality? Who knows? The jury may well be out on this kind of thing for another thousand years.

But George still questions: Why? Danielle and her brother were constant companions, inseparable playmates—thick as thieves, one might say. They were what he termed call-just-one-and-two-come-running children. And disagreement between these two was an absolute rarity. It could hardly have been loneliness that had triggered the birth of an imaginary playmate. Some other need? Or a budding psychic ability?

Only time would tell.

But at a time when her father was stressed to the limit, his psychic capacity utterly dysfunctional, urgent and most essential psychic information was passed on via the daughter.

They would all soon learn how they had cheated death.