Communicating with angels

By David Maurer

Published: September 28, 2008

The comforting notion of having a personal guardian angel has helped countless children slip into restful sleep despite the near certainty that a monster was lurking nearby.

Having a heavenly protector is such an appealing concept that people often carry the belief into adulthood. And to bolster their position, they can read chapter and verse in the Bible to show that angels have played key roles in the affairs of mankind.

Some people believe that humans can be taught to communicate with these benevolent beings. Melissa Kitto and Richard Lassiter started the Balanced Living Institute in Central Virginia a few years ago to do just that.

Kitto is from New Zealand and, in that part of the world, she is known as the “angel authority.” For the past five years she has been living in Orange County and has concentrated her efforts on helping people get in touch with their angels.

“My original interest in angels was sparked by my mother when I was about 12,” said Kitto, who is now 30. “She was learning about things like working with angels and using her intuition.

“She started telling me some things about it, and it was intriguing. I had a consultation with the lady who was working with her, and she showed me how to communicate directly with my angels.

“By using this technique, I was able to get a direct answer to a question. That was when I started to think, ‘Wow, it’s not just Mom saying funny things, but there is something real about this.’ ”

Kitto said it wasn’t much later when she was on a sleepover with her two best friends. The conversation came around to angels, and her friends’ skepticism was starting to make her doubt the angels’ existence as well.

“I started to think if my two best friends were thinking this isn’t right or it’s a little scary, then maybe it wasn’t real,” Kitto said. “Just as I was starting to doubt myself,

there was a big ball of white light that appeared to the right of me and then swished diagonally up across the room and hovered in a corner.

“It stayed there for about 10 or 15 seconds and then disappeared. My friends saw it as well, but the next day they both rationalized it by saying it was a car’s headlights coming through the window.

“I thought about that and realized if it had been from a car driving by, the light wouldn’t have stayed in one place like it did. I can’t prove it, but I believe it was one of my angels showing me I was right to believe in them.”

Lassiter grew up in a Methodist family in Staunton and learned about angels in Sunday school. But it wasn’t until after serving two combat tours in Vietnam that he says he learned how to directly communicate with his personal celestial helpers that he calls guides.

“I had a lot of experiences in Vietnam that helped me begin to see things differently,” said Lassiter, who works as a graphic design teacher for Culpeper County’s two public high schools as well as at Germanna Community College.

“In 1973 my son’s kindergarten teacher was giving an Inner Peace Movement lecture that I decided to attend. At the time I was working with the physics department at the College of William and Mary, so I had a pretty analytical mind.

“But during that lecture, for the first time in my life, everything started to make sense. It’s basically the same lecture Melissa and I will be giving in Charlottesville on October 1.”

The lecture will be given twice at the Comfort Inn Monticello and will cost $10. Lassiter said it’s basically an orientation workshop that’s designed to give people an opportunity to meet Kitto and Lassiter and get the “big picture” of what this is all about.

Basically what they offer are programs developed by Francisco Coll, who was active in the field of spiritual research for more than 45 years. He started the Inner Peace Movement in the early 1960s, and then founded the Americana Leadership College in 1967.

“The college serves as a training center for people wanting to lead Inner Peace Movement groups,” said Lassiter, who served as the president of ALC from the time Coll died in 2000 until Coll’s son took it over in 2004. “The Inner Peace Movement made such a difference in my life that I apprenticed with Coll for about 10 years.

“The beauty of what Coll did was that he took some very complex things and developed techniques people can actually do so they can experience them. I see a lot of people who are looking for ways to find their own answers, and learn how to do all these marvelous things.

“But they don’t want to have to be devoted to someone, they don’t want theology or dogma. They just want the techniques and that’s what we provide. I have been interested in spiritual things all my adult life, and I have never encountered anything that has this type of richness of experience.”

Lassiter met Kitto in 2002 at a course he was teaching in Iowa on how to work with inner guidance to get a clearer understanding of one’s life purpose. Kitto was teaching school in England at the time and had traveled to the United States just to attend the course.

“Right away I felt Melissa was one of the clearest people I had ever met when it came to working with her guidance,” Lassiter said. “Because she had learned how to work with [angels] at such a young age, she had come to trust and rely on them.

“Instead of looking outside herself for answers she’d look inside and had become very comfortable with it. I could see where I could learn a lot from her, and I had all these years of experience with the techniques Coll developed.

“I also had a lot of experience working with groups. Melissa is best working one on one, and I’m best speaking in front of groups. Over time we realized we made a good team and decided to start the Balanced Living Institute.

“Our goal is to teach as many people as possible how to work with their guidance so they’re free to use all their own resources.”

According to Kitto, people shouldn’t keep an ear cocked for the rustle of wings to let them know an angel is near. Rather, she says, pay attention to intuitions and those sudden chills, shivers or goosebumps that nearly everyone occasionally experiences.

“Angels communicate through hunches, dreams and sometimes with words or pictures that pop into your head,” Kitto said. “Pay attention when you feel goose bumps, because that’s when your angels are coming close and want to communicate something to you.

“It could just be a confirmation that there’s truth in something that you’ve just seen or heard, or that you’re on the right track. Angels are here to help people live their life’s purpose, and you attract those that can help you do that.

“Everybody has at least one or two angels. Those with one or two tend to work with things, such as an auto mechanic who works on cars. If you have more than two you probably work with people in some way.”

Kitto says she has six angels. They have all lived on Earth, and she claims to know what they did. One was a merchant baker living in Switzerland and he helps her with finances and business. Another was a yoga instructor from India and she helps to keep her balanced, centered and relaxed.

“I’m a visual person so I have a picture in my mind of who my angels are,” Kitto said. “I don’t necessarily know which ones are with me at a given time, but If I wanted to know I could ask very easily.

“Because your guides communicate through your intuition, not your five senses, a lot of people doubt or don’t trust it. Our techniques help people cut through that doubt so they can get direct answers to their questions.”

Just what angels are is open to interpretation. Kitto’s definition for an angel is a soul who has mastered certain lessons in life and continues to learn and grow by returning to the earthly plane to help another.

The word “angel” is derived from the Greek word “angelos,” which means messenger. The belief that angels can be guides appears in the Old Testament of the Bible. The belief that every person gets assigned a guardian angel at birth also goes back to antiquity.

According to medieval angelology, angels are at the lowest rung of nine celestial orders. At the top are the seraphim, followed by the cherubim, thrones, dominations or dominions, virtues, powers, principalities, archangels and angels.

One of the most revered and famous of all these transcendent beings is Archangel Michael. He serves as the field commander of the Army of God, and made a name for himself by defeating Satan in a heavenly battle.

Kitto and Lassiter view their angels as supernatural beings who are not above enjoying a bit of humor from time to time. They think angels might even experience a wee bit of frustration when their charge continues to ignore their input or makes the same mistakes over and over. Not to fear. According to Kitto and Lassiter, angels are with us for the duration and won’t desert us. However, there are some things they won’t do.

“Our angels won’t interfere with our free will, but they will definitely give us ideas and suggestions to help keep us safe,” Kitto said. “And I imagine they might get frustrated, but I don’t think they will give up on someone.

“In order to get to the state where they are angels they have to have immense patience and respect for not interfering with someone. And they won’t do something for you, because we’re the ones living the life.

“Our goal is to help people realize that angels are real, and they’re here to help us in practical ways. I think my calling is working with people at their awakening stage, and helping them to realize they’re here for a reason, and that they are a soul with a body and not a body with a soul.”

Kitto and Lassiter will be presenting the program “Awaken to Your Psychic Gifts and Inner Guidance” on Wednesday, from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., and again at 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. The lectures will be given at the Comfort Inn Monticello, 2097 Inn Drive, just east of Charlottesville off U.S. 250. Cost is $10 and can be paid at the door. To register call (540) 854-4841 or visit www. balancedlivinginstitute.com.