Cindy Saul

"When you have a beacon that you're shining out there, people that are looking for exactly what you have will find you . It's like a lighthouse in a storm."

We who have worked with her know the story of how it all started and felt it was time to share it with the readers.

phenomeNEWS staff: How has consciousness changed in the time that you’ve been publishing phenomeNEWS?

Cindy Saul: When I was first into this, hardly anybody knew what meditation was about except the people, who – and at that time there was only a few of them – were into Eastern religion and philosophy, because it hadn’t really hit here in the states yet. They were considered the fringe element, part of the group of folks that were left over from the 60s hippie generation that tuned in, turned on and dropped out. So now they were searching for the next “high” without drugs, which was meditation and all this other stuff that everybody passed off as the latest fad. It ended up that they became the harbingers of what I consider the New Thought movement, which is really the old stuff coming around again, the ancient philosophies resurfacing to serve another generation.

You see, the truth can’t be buried forever. It can be covered up for a while and it can be disguised as other kinds of things, but the truth will always surface.

When times get bad, people go inside to find where that truth is and what it’s all about. That’s what happened then and it’s what’s making its resurgence again in another form. It’s returning and like a spiral, coming in at a higher level, a higher frequency. I think that’s what’s happening to consciousness. More people are becoming aware. A lot more people are knowing that there is a greater power, whatever they choose to call it: Mohammed, Allah, Jesus or Buddha, whatever or whomever. And they’re recognizing that that’s a very important facet of what it means to be human, what it means to be on the planet and that it’s an important and vital part of everyday living, not just something you do on Saturday or Sunday.

How was phenomeNEWS born?

It was birthed through my questioning what this life is all about. And that came about when I experienced the first death of a close family member, my Aunt Sel.

My mother had two sisters and they were all close. I felt like I had three mothers. My Aunt Sel was very dear to me and when she went, I was thrown into a state of depression for about six months, which is not very like me at all.

About six months from the day she passed, I recall having a dream, which I knew was not a dream, where I saw my Aunt Sel standing in front of me as vividly as you are now. I ran over and put my arms around her, “Sam, you’re not dead!” That was my nickname for her, Sam. She said to me, “Don’t be unhappy any more.” As she smiled at me, I could feel that strong heart connection between us. The minute my feet hit the floor the next morning I said, “Sam’s not dead!” And while I realized that she really was gone, something had happened to relieve my grief in a miraculous way.

A few days after that, I was writing out checks at my kitchen table on a bright, sunny Sunday afternoon. I happened to glance up and my Aunt Sel was appearing to me, coming almost in a vignette, a soft, hazy, oval vignette, coming through the wall. I was spellbound. What was happening? Had I somehow pierced the veil with my deep wanting to feel her presence again? I was seeing her with my physical eyes in broad daylight.

I had a black cat at that time named Boris. He was in the kitchen with me and out of the corner of my eye, I could see he was frozen like a stone, staring at the wall. He was seeing her also! So I knew that whatever was happening, whatever magical, mystical thing allowed this hole in the universe so I could glimpse into another part of existence, this was real.

It seemed like she was there forever. It could have been only a matter of a few seconds. I felt the love radiating from her. Not a word was said, but volumes were spoken. After a little while, she just kind of disappeared back into mist, back into the wall. The cat took off, spooked, gone! I just sat there stunned wondering, “what was that?”

What that did was set me on an obsessive search to discover what that moment was all about.

I became voracious, reading every single thing I could get my hands on. I read all the ESP studies and the experiments Duke University was doing with telepathy and astral traveling. I immersed myself in trying to find out what this experience was about.

This would have been the mid-60s, so there wasn’t an awful lot to read back then. I really had to dig to find anything related to these areas.

Part of the search lead me to become a member of a Spiritualist church. They communicate “beyond the veil” and bring back messages. I became very good friends with two of the top mediums. One of them brought my Aunt Sel through on the first night I went there. That did it... I was hooked! I learned an awful lot through that Spiritualist group.

The more I learned, the more excited I became about this whole non-physical realm. I felt a burning desire to share this wonderful information with others. So, on the urging of a dear friend Barbara Johnson, I started teaching an Adult Ed class called “Your Psychic Self” at Southfield High School. It was an eight-week class. And I was still just learning myself. I knew just a little sliver of what lay ahead of me, but I was anxious to share it with others.

Every week, I’d carry in two armfuls of books to share with my 20 students. And they were thrilled. We would play with the energy. We did telepathy and worked fun exercises with playing cards and other things.

One day, Barbara suggested I start a newsletter to let people know about the things I was learning. I thought that might be fun. I was working part-time as a typesetter and I thought it would be a hoot to put together one little newsletter. That’s all I had counted on doing was printing one little issue.

I paused over the name. What should we call it... Psychic Eye, Mystic Eye? They didn’t click. A good friend of mine that was working with me at the time, Joann Stott, came up with the name. I can still see her walking down the hall. She turned around, joyously laughing and said, “I have a name for it. How about phenomeNEWS?” And I went, “Oh, yes!” Right away, the baby was birthed. I saw it! Small “phenome” big “NEWS.”

We came in that next Saturday. I think we both worked about 15 hours to put out a simple 11 by 17 folded piece of paper. I was going to have 20 copies printed up for my class to let them know what was happening around the world. I was getting flyers in the mail about things happening in other states. They were just sparse little things so I put them in because I actually didn’t know of anything else happening in our area. This first newsletter was set in big, 12-point type because I hardly had anything to report on. I thought, “I’m just putting it out once, anyway.” This was just a lark.

The printer told me that it would cost just as much to print 100 as it was to print 20. So I printed 100. From doing typesetting for other businesses, I knew that every newsletter had some kind of subscription price on it. Remember, I never had any intention of doing more than one issue, but some crazy little thing made me put $7 a year price on the back of it, in little teeny-weeny type.

I printed up 100, gave 20 to the gals in my class and distributed the remainder among the three metaphysical bookstores in our area, Middle Earth, Michigan Metaphysical Society and Mayflower Bookshop.

Soon, to my great surprise, I started getting calls. People told me they had ongoing meditation groups and reflexology classes in their basements and other kinds of things going on. They wanted to list them in the calendar. I also had seven checks come in the mail for subscriptions. My Capricorn midheaven loved it, “Oh, $49!” while my Libra sun thought, “another fine mess I’d gotten myself into!”

Well, I decided to put out just one more issue. I could refund everybody $5 and use the rest as seed money to print just one more time.

Before the second issue went to the printer, someone from the community came to me and asked if I sold ads. I didn’t know what to do with that, but my friend Jo, who was helping me do this anyway, said she knew. So we charged $5 for a business card ad. We had one whole page, 8-1/2 x 11, with all these little ads on it. Big time! We had enough to print one more month. Every month I kept saying to myself that this was the last month. I never thought it would take off the way it did.

It had a life of its own.

It sure did! phenomeNEWS really wanted to manifest itself. I just happened to come along and it’s siren song called to me, “OK, you look like you’re ready.” And, like I said in an interview with the Detroit News a couple of years ago, “It was like a piece of gum that gets stuck to your shoe... you just can’t get away from it!”

In those early years, I was ready to quit every month because it was just too much. I was working a full-time job, teaching psychic classes four nights a week and afterword I would go do typesetting until 2 a.m. I already had three jobs so I certainly didn’t need another project.

Judy, the owner of the typesetting shop, bless her, let Jo and I come in and use all her equipment, her typesetting machines, keyline boards, Xacto knives, hot wax, the whole thing for a couple of years. After our typesetting shifts, we would return late at night and work on phenomeNEWS. That’s how phenomeNEWS got her beginnings.

To this day, I consider my Aunt Sel to be the patron saint of phenomeNEWS because she’s the one that sent me on that search to gather lots of background material. This knowledge would be put to good use many years later when I began interviewing people for our radio show. All that research served me very well.

It got to the point where I stopped asking every month whether I was going to do this anymore. Whenever people talked about phenomeNEWS touching them in a very personal, powerful way, that was confirmation to me that I just had to continue. So I kept doing it, putting it out one more month and one more month, until I finally got hit over the head with the cosmic 2x4 that said, “Hello! You’re not in this for the short run, girl!”

In Michigan, some people say things are tough right now. Other people say that these changes are freeing up a lot of energy. Do you see any parallels to the conditions we’re experiencing right now and the changes in consciousness?

Absolutely. The old paradigms and old structures of business as we know them are falling away. We’ve seen business changing. It’s not the old way it used to be, where everything was structured and run by a set of rules and strong patterns. We see management styles changing. There’s a touchy-feely quality that’s evolving. There’s a more humanistic approach to business. The businesses that want to stay in the old format and the old structure are the ones that are falling away and losing people. In our parents’ day, they wanted to work at a business for 30 years and have this nice retirement and they worked their tails off while they were there. They were totally loyal to it.

Now we see people that, if they are displaced by the structure of the business changing, they are finding that this is helping them be free of the shackles, so to speak. It’s helping them move on so they can create something that they always wanted to do, something that will make their heart sing. We’re seeing more people going out and creating those niches for themselves, going back to the land or doing whatever it is that they’ve been yearning to do. They’re finding out, much to their delight, that they are soaring and they are making more money than ever. They’re saying, “We should have done this years before,” but they felt they had to be stuck in the format that their parents, perhaps, were stuck in. Now they’re recognizing that they have the wings to fly once they get set free from the cage.

You were an early adopter of this sort of thing, weren’t you?

Unconsciously, yes.

You went out and did your own thing 28 years ago.

This needed to happen and it attached itself to me and, being the worker bee that I am, I just kept doing it, week after week, month after month and year after year. All of a sudden, without even consciously having a plan, here I am 28 years later. I just kept doing it and, as long as it felt good and it felt like I was making a contribution to society and people were benefiting from it and the feedback I was getting was positive, that’s what kept me going.

Where do you see phenomeNEWS in the future?

Well, at first it was a vehicle for people to find each other, people who were scattered in small pockets, in basements and different kinds of places. They were meeting but they didn’t know there was a community of like-minded people. phenomeNEWS provided a common place where they could come together, share information and let others know about weekly meetings and different kinds of things that were going on. It was an evolving vehicle where they actually helped create structures that they could get in touch with each other. They didn’t feel like they were the only ones out there, they actually had a whole community of friends.

There was a bonding that happened and I think, phenomeNEWS was like the glue that held things together.

The paper itself has evolved as the writers have grown through the years. We’ve had writers that have been with us for many years. I see how their writing has changed. Their consciousness is different. Every issue contains an energy that is almost indescribable. There’s something about it that enlivens all of us that have anything to do with it. There’s actually a heartbeat to it that carries us on forward. It has its own consciousness, its own energy. Someone once told me that an angel is assigned to every page. I like that image a lot.

People often say they can feel the energy from the paper and that feeling comes from how you all bless the paper before it goes to the printer.

Yes, we bless it, as a group. We hold hands in a circle, pray, then we OM three times. We put that energy and intention into the paper and we bless everyone who has in any way, shape or form been involved with putting it together, advertising in it and distributing it. And we bless those who will be touched by its message. It is a sacred mission.

Our intention is for it to be a vehicle for the work of good in the world and an inspiration where people can find exactly what resonates with them. Somehow it seems to do just that.

phenomeNEWS moves and changes as the feeling of it needs to change. We’ve just updated the format to add some freshness to the energy of it.

When we initiated the website, www.phenomenews.com about eight years ago, that was brought about because of a strong suggestion from Louise Hay. She said, “Cindy, why you don’t have a website?” I said, “Well, we never got around to it. I don’t know, do we need one?” And she said, “Absolutely you have to have one!” Shortly afterward, we received a check from her with a note to use it as we see fit. And I thought, “Well, Louise, you are blessing this adventure of getting a new website,” so we applied that immediately toward having it manifest. I had no idea what I was doing with it. But since then, it has created a force field of its own in that has drawn people from all over the world who come to read and receive sustenance for their spirit every month from the articles and the resources that are there. It’s amazing to me that that kind of thing happens with really no advertising. We just create it, put it out there, mention it it in phenomeNEWS and people find us. When you have a beacon that you’re shining out there, people that are looking for exactly what you have will find you. It’s like a lighthouse in a storm. If people are searching for that light, they’re going to find it if you are holding it strongly enough out there.

And that’s what I feel phenomeNEWS and phenomenews.com have done. We have a strong focus and a strong purpose and a strong intention to be of service. We’re putting it out there totally unconditionally, with no expectations on anything.

Now you’re adding another piece?

Yes! Actually, we’re adding a couple of pieces.

When we first started phenomeNEWS, producing it was all about cut and paste, keylining and blue lines. Everybody who has been in graphic arts understands what that’s about. It took us about five times the amount of time to physically produce a paper that was one-eighth the size of what it is now. We all remember what that was like to be up late nights, trimming hot-waxed typesetting paper with Xacto knives and pasting on light tables. The first typesetting machines were what we used.

We’ve come a long way from that whole thing when computers came in. I love how things move us along in this marvelous world of technology! It was a learning curve, but it cut our time easily into one-third or less of what it normally takes to produce the paper. We now can produce the layouts and the covers with great ease. It’s amazing how it has evolved so far.

So technology came along and we were able to incorporate what we do into that. God made the technology available to us and we gratefully jumped in to use it.

Then the next thing that came along was the Internet. That gave was the opportunity to have a website which provided presence to expand the message out even further.

We had a radio show on traditional radio airwaves for over 16 years. Even though it reached 17 communities, it was limited in its ability to reach further. And it was only on certain hours of the day. The Internet strikes again! Now with Oprah and other folks going over to XM radio, more people are using this as a broadcasting vehicle. And that’s where our radio show has evolved to.

Very soon we’re going to have two programs on our website. Gerri and I will be talking to leading edge thinkers. And Gerri will also host her own program where she will be able to spread her wings.

When do you plan to launch?

Within the next month and we’re really excited about it. The technology is new to us, but it’s something that, again, has the potential of reaching around the world. The possibilities are unlimited. What a blessing to have the opportunity to affect consciousness worldwide with something so simple.

This is going to be on our website. We won’t be broadcasting live so all programs will be up and readily available. People can go to the site, sit down and listen any time they want. They can also download it onto iPods or onto their own computer to listen to later.

Very cool.

Yes, it is very cool.

One Great Treasure is the other piece?

Yes! In the past, if you wanted something, you used to have to leave the house and drive to a store somewhere during their hours of business.

Well, what’s happened with the advent of all the wonderful things that are on the Internet, you hardly have to leave home anymore. You can do absolutely everything from home.

Years ago, when we interviewed Patricia Aburdene, author of Megatrends 2000, she told us this was going to be the trend, that there would be more people working from home. Futurist Faith Popcorn mentioned, in her trends newsletter, Popcorn Report, about people creating businesses from the confines of their homes.

Those trendetters and trend predictors were absolutely right, because that’s what’s happened with the Internet. You can handle everything with a cell phone and a computer, from just about anywhere on the planet. When eBay was launched, it showed people that, not only can you handle everything from home, but you can make money from things that you no longer need.

One day when we were discussing this, from out of the blue – and as we all know “out of the blue” doesn’t really mean it’s out of the blue – the idea of a metaphysical auction site came up. There’s that certain resonance when an idea hits you like that... something just seems to click in place with your consciousness. So, the concept of One Great Treasure was born and the more we thought about it, the better it felt and the more it made sense. It seemed like the next logical step. And to paraphrase Abraham, “If it’s the next logical step, go for it!.”

So we did. We launched this exciting new project inviting folks that have goods that would be helpful to someone on their journey through life to come play with us.

How will the vision of these new adventures dovetail into the strong foundation that’s already in place?

Well they’re a perfect marriage to what we’re doing, because our intention, again, is to spread this to as many people as possible who are asking the questions. All of this wouldn’t have come to our attention if it wasn’t a vibrational match to those people that are seeking what it is we’re offering

Not everybody in the world would want to pick up phenomeNEWS and read it although I can’t imagine why not, because there’s only good stuff in it. It’s all good news! And that’s the way we keep it.

We’re very strong in our editorial policy to print only those things that will make the reader feel good. There are so many things that can disconnect a person these days, not only with the accelerated energy on the planet, but with day-to-day living and the stresses that are put on us in this society to live faster, better and more fulfilled lives.

We want phenomeNEWS to be a safe place, where people can come for a while, put their feet up and read something that will bring them back to their source, that will make them feel good about being human and about being on the planet right now. We help them recognize that there is time that they need to take for themselves, whether it’s in meditation, or relaxing in the tub – just do something every day that makes your heart sing, whatever will connect you up to your source. Because that’s what’s real – anything that reminds us of the truth of who we really are.
Once you are connected with your source, manifestation becomes really easy. We did this years ago when we needed to find a new office space.

Our first affirmation that we used in the little office that we rented on Greenfield Road near 12 Mile Road was, “Write it, say it, believe it and it becomes.” I don’t know where we got it from, if it came from a book or if God just wrote it on the board one night. We used that as an affirmation for many years. I would write something down. I’d say it out loud and then I’d put it aside. After a while, things would happened. In those days, things moved a little slower because the energy wasn’t as accelerated and perhaps I wasn’t as aligned or didn’t totally recognize the importance of aligning with spirit.

So, when we needed a new space, we wrote down a list of 15 specific items that we wanted and before long that space appeared. It contained all the items and more! So it came with extra blessings. I thought, “OK, God is really good!” This stuff really works.

When you are strongly focused, with a pure intent in your heart and you have that vision in front of you and you don’t let anything deter you from that vision, people and resources come to you. That’s how my dear friend, Gerri Magee, came to be a part of the phenomeNEWS family

Gerri was working at Betty’s Grocery Store in the early days when I was delivering phenomeNEWS. She thought I was a delivery person. We used to talk about metaphysical things and we got a fine friendship going. Then one day, she got laid off from Betty’s and we went to lunch and I said, “You can help me.” She was there at that time when we were just starting to experience growing pains and, God love her, she did everything. She did accounting, distribution, shipping and selling ads. Gerri put in numerous hours and even slept on the floor to meet our printing deadline a few times. She’s been with phenomeNEWS now for 20 years! So she’s seen and been a part of it all evolving to where it is today.

Everybody that’s been a part of phenomeNEWS was drawn here. We’ve never had to advertise for anyone. They felt the call on the cosmic want-ads and just showed up one day, asking if we needed help.

I think all of the staff, by our experience with phenomeNEWS, with the energy, the articles, the people we come into contact with – all of us have been enhanced on our paths forward. I just feel it’s a real blessing to have been cosmically chosen for this job.

Would you call it intuition that you use as your guidance for decisions on what to do next?

I believe we are divinely guided. I know who the CEO really is here and it’s not me, it’s not any of us.

We go by how it feels inside. If it feels good, we’re going to do it. It’s not something I hear in my head, it’s a strong sense, a knowing that comes in strongly... usually followed by goosebumps!

So you have the paper, the website, One Great Treasure, the upcoming radio shows online and the Body•Mind• Spirit•Festivals, which have been going on for 22 years. The next Festival on November 11 will be number 43.

Yes, and it all just continues to evolve. And sometimes we don’t take time to notice what’s really going on until we’re into it.

For instance, one day I went to the website and saw that we had 444,000 hits, I got so excited I screamed from the office. In Doreen Virtue’s book on angels, she writes that whenever you see three 4’s together, it indicates the presence of angels. And I just went “Yes!”

Stuff like that goes on all the time and it’s just mind-boggling! Nothing happens by accident. There is a divine plan behind this whole thing. There’s a divine blueprint that was overlaid across this whole project from the time it began. phenomeNEWS has its own energy, its own being-ness in all of its many facets. And I feel blessed to witness its evolution.

If you had one pearl of wisdom to leave with us, what would it be?

If your life isn’t what you would like it to be, you’re the one who’s in the driver’s seat and you can change it anytime. Here’s what I do. Abraham had a great quote that I adopted as my personal mantra. This is the simplest and best wisdom that I’ve ever heard in my life. I write it on post-it notes and stick them everywhere. The message is very simple, “Get happy and stay happy.” That’s it. Your happiness aligns you automatically to the divine flow. It keeps you connected to those things, those people, those vibrations, those energies that will allow you to dance joyfully on your trip through this life. Get happy and stay happy!