THE EARLY YEARS
Elaine Resnik’s early years were spent living with her family in the South
Bronx of New York. She later moved to Hicksville, a suburban residential
community on Long Island 30 miles East of New York City. Throughout her
life, Elaine was aware that she had some kind of special gifts. Family and
friends were often amazed at how often she “knew” things before they happened,
yet she was never entirely comfortable with what she felt, saw and heard.
For many years she questioned these “coincidences” not knowing quite what
to think or willing to acknowledge nor accept the extent of her abilities.
As Elaine filled her busy life with the day-to-day activities of marriage
and raising a family, her special gifts remained in the background. In 1974,
Elaine became very ill with a variety of symptoms that the Doctors had great
difficulty diagnosing. At one point they thought she might have leukemia.
Unexplained internal bleeding caused postponement of much needed surgery
to correct a painful back condition. Hospitalization became necessary as
Elaine’s condition worsened. She was in and out of consciousness for weeks
and almost died. Her condition was finally diagnosed as a rare blood disorder
that could be attributed to her Mediterranean ancestry. While Elaine was
eventually released from the hospital, she retained a vague memory of another
“experience” occurring during that long hospital stay. She would not fully
recall what that experience was, nor what it meant, for years to come.
Elaine’s recovery and single parenthood would consume much of her time and
energy for the next few years. Still her special gifts did not go away and
in fact seemed to become even stronger. While keeping the matter of her own
abilities private, Elaine found herself meeting others who either shared a
gift similar to her own or an interest in the subject of metaphysics.
Realizing that she was not alone, and that others also possessed special
gifts, made Elaine aware of the need for a kind of support group where
like-minded individuals could meet and share their interests and
experiences. This awareness, plus a growing sensitivity to her own intuitive
awareness, eventually led Elaine to co-found a non-profit metaphysical study
group on Long Island in 1983 called the Eyes of Learning. When Elaine’s son
Richard received a physical upon entering the Air Force in 1987, it was
discovered that he too had the same rare blood disorder that had caused his
mother’s grave illness and hospitalization in the prior decade. Only when
Richard shared these findings concerning his medical condition with Elaine
did those vague memories of her earlier unexplained hospital “experience”
begin to resurface. Elaine intuitively “knew” that something very
significant must have happened to her many years earlier and so her
questioning began.
LESLIE’S OPERATION, 1996
In 1996, Elaine’s friend Leslie was hospitalized for surgery to remove a
kidney stone. While in the waiting room during the operation Elaine sat
with her friend Marie experiencing all the feelings of fear, worry and helplessness
one would expect when a loved one is facing major surgery. While quietly
sipping tea in the darkened room, Elaine turned to her friend and said “I
can’t talk to you anymore, I need to face the wall.” Without a word, the
two women re-arranged the furniture in the waiting room then Elaine settled
down to look straight ahead at the blank wall. Almost as though she was
watching a TV screen, the operating room appeared on the wall of the room.
Elaine could clearly see all the equipment, doctors, nurses, and her friend
Leslie. Drawing a breath of surprise she turned to Marie and whispered “Oh
my, I am in the room with them. I can see and hear them.” She saw the doctor
make a hooking motion with his right arm and hand and say “It’s not working!
It’s not working!” She could see the Doctor was perspiring heavily as the
nurse wiped his forehead, suggesting to Elaine that there was a problem
with the operation.
She felt relieved when the nurse swabbed his brow a second time as he didn’t
appear to be perspiring as much. The third time there was very little moisture
on his brow and Elaine felt sure the operation had been successful. Marie
listened and watched as Elaine repeated over and over what she had “seen”.
Shaking and excited Elaine was unaware that what she had been describing
to Marie with words and hand motions was not in fact a projection on the
wall but that it was visible only within her own “mind’s eye”. A tall gentleman
sitting on the couch near the wall was also a witness to Elaine’s odd behavior.
Elaine was still excited when she got the first chance to visit Leslie in
the recovery room. Upon entering the room she began telling everyone there
what she had seen and heard. While they looked at her and one another
strangely, Leslie and Marie looked at each other and smiled. They knew that
Elaine could see and hear what others could not and enjoyed both her
excitement and the public sharing of the experience.
Several days later during a follow-up visit, Leslie told his doctor, a
well-known urologist at Winthrop Hospital in Mineola, New York, what Elaine
had seen during the operation. Very interested, the doctor asked her to
describe what she had seen. Elaine told him, “I knew it was a difficult
operation because I saw you perspiring. I saw the nurse wipe your forehead
three times.” The doctor laughed and told her she was right. He said, “It
was a difficult operation but I wasn’t perspiring. In this type of
procedure, the pressure often causes a patient to urinate and that’s what
you saw - three times.” Elaine continued, “I also heard you say, ‘It’s not
working, it’s not working. I can’t get it to work’ and you made a hooking
motion with your right arm and hand.” The doctor then explained that the
laser wasn’t quite ready when he needed it. He also had to move the
instrument in a hooking motion in order to catch the stone in the basket to
remove it.
Needless to say, the doctor was surprised at all Elaine knew about the operation.
She had explained details that only those inside the room that night could
have known and she knew it all. At that point the doctor shared with her
an experience he had while a student in Italy. The day before his oral exams,
answers to questions, not part of the suggested studies, came to him in
thought. He knew three out of five answers and his study partner was astounded
each time this happened and so was the doctor! In light of this account,
Elaine felt comfortable that the Doctor would be receptive to her intuitive
perceptions. She said “today, sitting across from me in your waiting room
is a little Italian man who has a serious problem in his genital area. He
is very worried and in great discomfort.” The doctor knew the patient however
his schedule was so backed up, he did not have the time to continue the
conversation. Elaine suggested they continue it at another time to which
the Doctor agreed. Two weeks later, Elaine had a dream in which she saw
the urologist. She called the doctor the next day and said to him, “I saw
you in a dream. What were you doing?” He answered “I was talking about you
to my staff before an operation. I told them about your ability and how
you witnessed Leslie’s operation.” Elaine said, “No, no there’s something
else. Who were you operating on?” The doctor answered, “The little Italian
man you saw in my office and you were correct, he had prostate cancer.”
THE FOLLOWING YEAR, 1997
A year later Elaine had another experience. While waiting for Leslie’s
annual follow-up with the same doctor, Elaine moved to the seating area
near the television to watch the then new Rosie O’Donnell talk show. She
admired the expensive sweater being worn by the gentleman sitting directly
in front of her. Though at first she thought her eyes were drawn towards
his attractive sweater, she soon realized she was seeing through the sweater,
directly into the man’s body.
It was exactly like the vision she had of Leslie’s operation on the hospital
wall. She was startled by a sense of absolute fear and the vision of a
dark mass near the man’s kidney that seemed to be throwing out threads
like a spider’s web. When Elaine and Leslie saw the doctor, they told
him what Elaine had just seen. He seemed amazed at the details of Elaine’s
description. The Doctor explained that the patient had been referred by
a colleague. “Don’t worry, I can take care of his problem” the doctor
said. Elaine stood back in shock, covered her mouth and began to tremble.
Holding back, not wanting to contradict the doctor, she told him it was
inoperable. “Call me in a month,” the doctor said, “and I’ll tell you
the outcome.” Four weeks later a call to the Doctor would confirm her
earlier vision. “You were right, Elaine” he said, “ it had metastasized
and was inoperable.”
ELAINE’S EYES, 1999
In March of 1999 Elaine was diagnosed with cataracts and was told she
would need surgery on both eyes. She felt a strong spiritual connection
with the ophthalmologist during the examination and told him that someday
he would become well known for a new technique that would be associated
with his name. She “knew” at that time the operation on the right eye
would be a success but there would a problem with the left eye. As predicted,
all went well with the surgery of the right eye. During surgery on the
left eye however, Elaine knew that something was wrong. Lacking the medical
knowledge and terminology to explain further she kept repeating that something
was wrong, but to no avail. The Doctor tried to reassure her that all
would correct itself during the healing process but Elaine knew better.
‘No, there is still something wrong” she told the doctor, having seen
it in her mind’s eye. There was nothing more they could do she was told
and was sent home to heal.
Elaine continued to complain to doctor, family and friends while she was
recovering. A secondary cataract formed and was removed with no difficulty.
However, she continued to verbalize that something was wrong with her
vision. Desperate, Elaine went to several ophthalmologists hoping one
of them would recognize the symptoms she was experiencing. Each doctor
said the implants were perfect and complimented her surgeon’s ability.
They all recommended she return to the original surgeon, which she eventually
did. He finally agreed to attempt the procedure a second time. During
this surgery Elaine felt as if she were standing next to him and watching
as she kept saying repeatedly, “No, you don’t have it yet.” Suddenly,
the Doctor did something unusual, something he had never done before.
Taking her off the chair, the Doctor and his nurse hurried Elaine down
the hallway to another room. Even before she sat in the other chair Elaine
“knew” and verbalized to the doctor and nurse that this additional procedure
would indeed correct her problem. The next day, while sitting alone in
a diner, she realized she could once again see properly. She rushed home
to call the doctor and thank him, overjoyed, shaking and crying.
Elaine hadn’t wanted to be a complaining patient to a doctor, whose work
his own collegues would later compliment as a ‘perfect implant’, yet her
sense that something was wrong was entirely accurate. It seems that there
was a tiny piece of cataract behind the implant causing the problem. Her
insistence that something was not right caused the doctor to invent a
new medical technique that successfully corrected an almost imperceptible
problem. Elaine’s ophthalmologist, Dr. Sajid Malik, told her he now uses
this new special technique often, with great success and plans to write
an article for a medical journal describing the procedure.
SEARCHING FOR ANSWERS, 1999
Much had happened to Elaine in the last 20 years. Her intuitive perceptions
had become much more developed, more frequent more accurate but still she
felt uncomfortable
with the gifts. Still she hesitated to “go public” and speak out about her
abilities. What was she afraid of? Shouldn’t she be ready by now? Didn’t she
have enough proof of the validity of her sensitivities? What would it take
for Elaine to acknowledge the reality of the gifts that she had been given?
Perhaps the answer lay in an experience that happened in a hospital many
long years ago-that time when she was gravely ill but lived, in spite of
severity of her condition. What had really happened Elaine wondered? She
knew it was time to try to make sense of all the things she did not
understand!
In December of 1999, The Eyes of Learning was featuring a well known author
and hypnotherapist by the name of Dolores Cannon as a speaker on it’s
monthly calendar. Elaine was able to schedule a private hypnotherapy session
with Ms. Cannon. While regression of a patient to a point earlier in one’s
life is now a common practice in hypnotherapy, Ms. Cannon’s specialty
takes patients to previous lifetimes in what is known as past-life regression.
With much pleading, Elaine was able to convince Dolores to bring her back
hypnotically to May of 1974 to relive those events Elaine could not remember.
Under hypnosis, Dolores brought Elaine back to the hospital room where
she lay gravely ill but, much to her surprise, Elaine was both laying
on the bed AND hovering near the ceiling! She was surrounded by row upon
row of what looked like glowing light bulbs that she knew to be beings
of light! Dressed in long white robes, Elaine recognized other beings
with white hair as the same spiritual master teachers she had been seeing
over years of private meditation. When she looked down from the ceiling,
she saw and heard the Doctors in conversation with her daughter Lori.
The Doctors were explaining that they would have to replace all of Elaine’s
blood and they did not think that she would live. Regretably, the wrong
blood had been sent initially and they would need to wait for a replacement.
When it finally arrived, Elaine saw the blood being removed and “knew”
it was “contaminated with the illness of soon to be death.” Then the words
of the white Masters said that she would live, it would be a miracle and
she had a “soul path”. Elaine prayed that if she got well she would do
God’s work.
Upon awaking from her hypnotic trance Elaine realized that she had had a
“near death experience” twenty-five years ago. She had been given a second
chance because there was something she still needed to do before her time on
earth was over. This provided Elaine with the answer she was looking for and
the courage to move forward.
PROLOGUE, 2002
After countless years of questioning, doubting and working in the
background, Elaine is now ready to fulfill the agreement she made in
exchange for her life that day. She believes her soul path is to help others
develop their own special gifts. Just as she was unwilling to recognize,
acknowledge and fully accept the gifts she was given, she knows many others
just like her are still struggling with the implications of having intuitive
abilities of their own. She would like to see the Eyes of Learning expand
outside of Long Island to afford other seekers nationwide the metaphysical
teaching and learning opportunities that helped her though times of fear and
self doubt. By bringing her story to others she hopes to make them feel less
afraid and to help them to learn how they can enhance their lives and the
lives of others by developing their own gifts. To that end, Elaine continues
to serve God not through religious but through non-denominational spiritual
teaching, counseling and hypnotherapy. She has finally come to terms with
her clairvoyant, clairaudient and clairsentient and telepathic abilities and
now helps others to “see beyond their eyes” too.
Elaine Resnik does monthly lectures at Borders Books in Farmingdale, NY and
can usually be found at scheduled lectures and workshops for the Eyes of
Learning at Levittown Hall.
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