ZULMA REYO

 I was born to Puerto Rican parents in 1943 in New York, a city where the mixture of Caribbean, North American, and European elements is so pronounced. My Puerto Rican roots gave me Latin traditions and character, while my exposure to North American and European cultures helped to shape my intellect. Mine is a story of the second half of the twentieth century, told by a daughter of a tiny island in the Caribbean, itself undergoing the turmoil of an identity crisis: old versus new, Spanish versus North American, Christianity versus shamanic expressions. My home life too was one of contrast: ours was a Roman Catholic household, but my mother was a natural full-trance medium and my family held spiritualist rescue sessions. I studied Humanities at Puerto Rico University, but completed a BA in Romance Languages and Literature at New York University, where the beginnings of my formal search to understand the complexity of the human condition began to unfold. I went on to complete an MA in Education at NYU, which was followed by post-graduate studies in psychology and counselling at San Fernando Valley State College in California.

This was the California of the ‘60s and ‘70s, and in this environment I learnt about emerging New Age developments in exploring consciousness, which in turn led me to study Primal Therapy under Arthur Janov at the LA Primal Institute. But I always communed with the ‘invisible’. Nobody taught me the kind of devotion I have for divine light: this sense of religiousness was always private, personal, even irreverent. There was a time when I loved and wanted to be Jewish. Another, when I loved and wanted to be a Muslim. I never considered atheism. My inner drive to know God led me to travel to different countries, to meet different teachers and to learn from many traditions. The first stages of my knowledge and training took place in the United States, the UK, and then at length in India. I surrounded myself in ancient wisdom and immersed myself in multiple psychotherapies (Gestalt, psychosynthesis, basic massage, bioenergetics, energy balancing, polarity, regression, and psychic arts, among others). I learnt about world religions, meditation, and various healing methods. I explored eastern and western traditions, such as Esoteric Christianity, Theosophy, Anthroposophy, Zen, Buddhism, Sufism, Taoism, Tantra, and western philosophies. I also studied esoteric science, occultism, and parapsychology.

Then began my teaching journey. First of all, I opened a private practice in California and New York. I also co-hosted a show called Dimensions in Parapsychology for Manhattan Cable TV. I chose to teach not because I wanted to teach per se, but because I longed to share and play with others. I started what is in truth calling a person from within, seeking to remind the willing soul of the beauty that lies therein. My simple tools come from the fullness and the love I have known in the inner recesses within. My teaching combines my acquired knowledge of diverse teachings and practices with my particular personal inheritance. I developed Inner Alchemy, which is a system for experiencing the reality of Higher Consciousness not only as an avenue for inner experience, but also as a source of direct action in the world.

I founded the Inner Alchemy School of Consciousness in Brazil and then in Argentina and Paraguay.

Once I had seeded my legacy in Latin America, I followed my dream of reaching more people by expanding my activities to Europe, and settled in Spain in the mid-90s. There, I consolidated my line of work and continued to develop my own methods of meditation and self-knowledge. I have now spent almost four decades of my life dedicated to teaching, writing, trainings, workshops, and conferences. Thanks to so many students, I have learned about myself and the magic of becoming. My life, and whatever I can offer you, are a tribute to all those whose love and trust constantly remind me what a privilege it is to teach and learn. The purpose of all of this has always been to advocate for personal transformation as a way of securing social and world change, while training others to master the path of Inner Alchemy.

Inner Climate

Even before I could speak, I learned to focus and invite the natural world into my awareness. It would not be easy. Impressions of light and movement coloured my sensitivity. I was at odds with the “real world” and with the myriad unseen factors that impressed themselves upon a child’s tender psyche. I saw beyond the senses and couldn’t understand how a person could be so beautiful and not know it. I always wanted to share my perception hoping that others would see what I saw. So, I went into the teaching profession. My life, and whatever I can offer today is a tribute to all those whose love and trust allowed me to share and teach what I am, and most importantly I thank each and every one of them for teaching me about themselves. I can say that I learned to be an earthling through them. 

What many people don’t know about my life is just how difficult it was to be the daughter of a full-trance medium. Sharing some aspects of her sensibility, with her I learned directly and effortlessly since childhood, about the subtle backdrop of life in all its levels. Little did I know it was training me for my future work. 

When my mom incorporated, the energy in the room would change completely and I would ‘lose’ her. It frightened me, depriving me of maternal holding-power and female protection, and provoking a sense of insecurity.  I eventually came to recognise “who” or “what” was there by the quality of the frequencies emanating from her. 

This is what I perceived, something I would observe time and again in later years when a person loses sight of themselves and relinquishes their inner power.  The person then becomes an instrument of another intelligence, in the best of cases sublime spirits of light, but most often ordinary entities or thought-forms of mid to lower-frequencies. Her case was a bit different in that her mediumship occurred in a safe environment appropriately prepared.  I saw her body enfolded within a gauze-like globe. This would puff up in the beginning of a transmission, and then drain out of her once it was over. When she was about to “receive” she became very, very still. In time I could detect her going somewhere off at an angle, in a state of blissful suspense disconnected from what was going on through her. In those moments of in-between realities her breathing changed, as would the timbre of her voice. Her eyes were open but they were not hers; they became darker than usual and glowing with an unknown light. 

The gatherings at our family houses where my mother, uncles and aunts met to hold ‘services’ of incorporation and rescue, allied with helpers from ‘the other side’, were sacrosanct.  They were considered a service of love, and this established a precedent for me for the rest of my life: to consider our human faculties and powers as instruments of help and guidance to others. Our family actually sat together, making themselves available in order to receive instruction and serve. The atmosphere was always carefully prepared before and after the services, where all precautions were taken and spiritual protection invoked. This impressed me with a careful system of diagnosis and evaluation that I use today in all spiritual work. 

Between the ages of 7 to 16 I was present at many such meetings, all the while learning how to perceive the surrounding subtle world and to discriminate. I didn’t see with my sight; I learned to see with my sensibility in a state of diffuse awareness. I learned to know without words as if it were the most natural thing in the world. The keen sensibility that I developed then is what allows me to teach correct perception of energy frequency today.

When my mother finally set out to take control over her life, she decided to stop the transmissions. It took her a while. She focussed her mind, breathed deeply and eventually shut out the indiscriminate access that had marked her since adolescence. She did this through sheer force of will, focus, and energy mastery. I admired her tremendously. I was a grown woman by then and followed her footsteps, promoting discernment in my students, and teaching mastery over human faculties to anyone who cares to listen.