Experiencer Wes Roberts had never listened to the MP3s of all his hypnosis sessions before he started writing his second book, An Experiencer’s Garden.
The Toronto native, and teacher, opened up about being an abductee in his first book Intersections, and now he’s compiled his sessions that he had hypnotherapist Lesley Mitchell-Clarke and published them in his second book.
“I thought about categorizing the experiences for anyone who might look at this and say, ‘Well, what kind of experiences? What kind of things? What kind of locations?” Roberts recalled, in a January phone conversation, adding with a laugh, “So, I set out strictly to make a boring book where I would categorize [it].”
Roberts describes the types of entities, worlds and environments that he has witnessed during his hypnotherapy sessions. He admitted that he was considering not publishing his second book, but decided to brush aside his trepidation thanks to his partner A.B. Neilly.
“The a-ha moment is feeling comfortable,” Roberts admitted. “I think, in a major way, that I’m doing the right thing. I haven’t doubted for several years that these are genuine experiences. I’ve eliminated a ton of them that I thought were not; I thought might just be a vision or a dream.”
In An Experiencer’s Garden he discusses, different beings, his twin — a being of light — and those garbed in white robes.
Outside of parsing through his hypnotherapy sessions, the biggest challenge for him was the decision to talk about something he’s experienced his whole.
His career as a teacher has always been kept separate, he admitted, and once he began to open up about the paranormal his greatest concern was whether or not it “confirm to people he’s a nut job.”
“I was following him along until now, and maybe some of his experiences happened, but now he’s talking about magic, states of consciousness and levels of awareness and yadda, yadda, yadda, and now he’s crazy,” Roberts said. “So, I was really on the cusp of thinking, ‘No, I shouldn’t do this.’”
What’s helped Roberts cope with experiences is getting in touch with the state of being vulnerable and accepting it. He has connected with a group of friends that share his interest in parapsychology and opens up with the state of vulnerability.
He needed to accept his vulnerability, he added, because it allowed him to be more accessible to those experiencing close encounters.
The overall response to his first book was mostly positive, save for the ambivalent reaction from his family, who were always open to psychic phenomena.
“[My book] was greeted with something between mystery and disdain, and you know it was okay,” he admitted. “I understand … Most people I spoke to thought it was an act of courage.”
Curiosity was the biggest response to his experiences with alien abduction.
Roberts said he is hoping that his categorizing of his experiences allows other experiencers sitting on the fence to come forward and share their experiences. He admitted it doesn’t make him special, because the phenomena of abductions are allegedly more common than thought.
“I was thinking earlier, ‘Does this make me special, or average, and quite honestly I fall between the two most of the time,” he said. “I’m not sure I’m special because [abduction] is supposed to be a hugely widespread phenomenon.”
An Experiencer’s Garden was released in December and is available for purchase on Amazon.