Interview with Will Whitesmith

Will Whitesmith
Interview by Kerry Rutherford

Q: When did you first become aware of your magical nature?
Will: When I was a young child, before I could read, my older brother used to read me fairy tales. The magical/mystical people in the stories were so real to me I would imagine myself playing their roles in the tales I heard. Then I would act them out with my younger brother, always being the magical person or the king in the story. I was also influenced by the Bible stories my mother used to read us. I was fascinated by the tales of how a Higher Power manifested in the lives of those who believed in It. Later when I was six or seven, and was living in Ireland, I remember having a strong personal connection with my own Higher Power, even though we were not a strongly religious family. I believed It would give me anything I wanted and it was only a matter of asking and being sincere in my belief. I wanted to have a Magic Ring. With the Ring I could do wonderful things for myself and others. I spent hours daydreaming about this Ring, what it would look like and what its powers would be. Because I knew that my intention was pure, I believed that having the Ring was in line with what My Higher Power wanted for me. If I truly let It know that I had faith, then my wishes would come true and the Magic Ring would be mine. So every day I would get on my knees and pray for the Ring. This went on for months. When my Ring did not manifest, I thought I was not connected enough to The Source so I went outside and knelt on the earth, thinking it would give me a stronger connection. After a year, and still no Ring, I did not lose faith. Because the vision was so strong, I just believed that I was not ready or old enough, but one day it come.

Q: What did the Ring look like?
Will: It was a solid gold Ring with gems set on top in a concentric square. The outer square was black onyx, the center square was yellow topaz, and in the very center was a square green emerald. Just living in Ireland was a magic place in and of itself. It was there I heard about the little people and the fairies. I was always looking for Leprechauns guarding pots of gold at the end of rainbows. On midsummer nights in Dublin it stayed light late and looking out on the lawn I imagined I saw fairies dancing.

Q: How long did your fascination with this magic last when you were young?
Will: I always kept an inner longing for the magical life. However, once we left Ireland and moved to our next overseas post (my father was a US Diplomat and we lived the world over), I became more involved in school and studies and those imaginary longings began to fade away.

Q: How was it that you started studying shamanism?
Will: My education and career lead me to the Pacific Northwest and Seattle, Washington, in 1986. I had graduated from college with a bachelors degree in East Asian Studies and spent five years living in South East Asia and learned Mandarin Chinese while living there. Later I returned to the States, earned a Masters in International Management and transplanted to Seattle. By 1994 I was Director of International Trade for a major export company in Seattle. I enjoyed my work, yet it was not my heartŐs calling. I wanted to change careers and get back to my desire of helping people and making a difference in their lives. To this end, while still working, I enrolled in a two year masters program at the Leadership Institute of Seattle (LIOS) to obtain a masters degree in Applied Behavioral Sciences in Consulting and Coaching, with the goal of helping workplaces, and individuals in them, become happier and healthier. Actually, before attending LIOS, I had thought about becoming a naturopathic physician. This was in line with my desire to be a healer. That course, once I investigated it, was long and arduous. When I discovered the programs at LIOS I realized they fit with my desire to be effective on a broader basis with people than would be possible as a naturopathic physician. The masters program at LIOS entailed doing intense personal and interpersonal work. The goal of which was to enable the graduates to understand and differentiate their own issues from their clients when working with them as coaches or consultants. It was while doing one-on-one work with people, during that time, that I realized I had psychic ability. I recognized that I could read peopleŐs energy, see guides and mirror them back to others. The combination of deep personal work and opening up to my mystical abilities all coincided with a powerful liminal experience. I was reawakened to the world of Spirit and the need to search for a deeper meaning to life. In addition to other mystical traditions, I was drawn to studying shamanism but while I was in Seattle I never found the right teacher. After graduating from LIOS, I helped create The Heart of Business, a coaching and consulting firm that worked with organizations in creating healthy and effective workplaces. I worked as a consultant and executive coach to business and organizational leaders while also teaching effective communication skills to their management teams. Though this was very satisfying work, I still dreamt about traveling the world in search of magical objects and creating an online site to market them to those who would appreciate and benefit from them. After thirteen years of living in Seattle, a place of beauty and high energy, it was time for a new adventure. In 1999 I moved to the Midwest. Within a week of coming to Fort Wayne I found a wonderful shamanic teacher who introduced me to the amazing world of shamanism, which I have been pursuing since. Through what I have learned I am able to support individuals both as a healer and as a mystic.

Q: When and why did you start doing actual readings for clients?
Will: It was March of 2002, while I was taking a Developing Intuition class from Kerry Rutherford, that I got a clear message to become a practitioner. In May I stared giving guided readings to clients and in September, 2002, I opened an office at the YWCA campus. Q: Was it at that time that you also thought about starting a school or center? Will: No, actually, it was while I was attending LIOS, in Seattle, that it first came to me. Their teaching method was experiential learning. We learned theory and then practiced what we learned. I started imagining using the same kind of process but in a school of metaphysics. Originally I pictured it as a campus in a wooded area, with lots of out-buildings with classrooms. I saw classes being offered in different modalities of metaphysical arts. I was the president of the school, where individuals with special gifts, not recognized by society, could come and flourish in a nurturing environment. Once developed, these individuals could go out and support their communities with their gifts and talents. After I started practicing my own metaphysical gifts the vision of the school became even stronger. In April, 2003, I started teaching classes called Awakening Your Inner Magic as a foundation for what was to come. By mid 2004 the process began to actively accelerate. In July I took my ideas to the public with several round table conversations and received valuable input from the community. This year we will be holding our first classes in mystical arts and the adventure continues.