Lynne Renoir: Finding Meaning
SANDIE SEDGBEER: Did that cause a lot of confusion for you?
LYNNE RENOIR: Yes.
SANDIE SEDGBEER: So, tell us, what changed things for you?
LYNNE RENOIR: What changed things for me was personally seeing all these wonderful qualities in people who were not religious. But then, as a result of my research, I came to understand that everything in the universe is one. We are all interconnected. And that oneness means that we should find it easy to love each other in a way that my parents could never love me.
SANDIE SEDGBEER: Let’s back up a bit because you’ve skipped quite a bit of your story. According to your memoir, you had an experience at the age of 50 that was a pivotal moment for you. Will you tell us about that?
LYNNE RENOIR: Oh, yes. That pivotal moment changed my life. On one particular day, I had two things to do. One was to clip around the edges of the lawn. The other was to clean the car. I placed my car cleaning equipment and car keys in the middle of the lawn. I finished clipping the edges, and when I returned, I found that the car cleaning equipment was still there, but the keys had disappeared. But it would’ve been impossible for anybody to steal them. When I could not find an explanation for the disappearance of those keys, I had a sort of breakdown for days. All I could do was walk around the yard and through the house, and back to the yard again. I thought I was losing my mind. I thought” “I’ve got serious problems here. I’ve got to find out what happened to those keys.” So, I did something I would never have contemplated before – I made an appointment to see a psychic.
SANDIE SEDGBEER: What happened? Did he tell you where the keys were?
LYNNE RENOIR: No. He said, “You will never find those keys. And that turned out to be the case. But then he said”, “There’s a woman on the other side who wants to speak to you. Her first name is Edith. Her second name starts with either C or a, K,” I said,” and “That would be Edith Cavell.” And he said,” “Yes, that’s the name I’m being given.” Anyway, through the psychic, Edith described a pendant that I owed and said,” “When you get home, I want you to hold that pendant perfectly still. Ask me a question, and the pendant will swing. If the answer is yes, it will swing horizontally, and if the answer is no, it will be vertical” ” Well, I am such a skeptic. I thought there was no way in the world this was going to work. But when I got home, I closed all the doors and windows, and I held that pendant rigidly and asked it a question. I could not believe it when it actually moved. I thought, “Wow! Something very strange has happened here.”
SANDIE SEDGBEER: For those who don’t know, Edith Cavell was a nurse during the First World War who treated both Germans and Australians. She didn’t differentiate; every injured person got treatment. Eventually, she was shot by the Germans. So, here you are, communicating with Edith Cavell. What did you make of that?
LYNNE RENOIR: Oh, I thought it was amazing. It made me question the Christian belief that the only contact you ever have with the departed is with Christ. So, the idea that you could actually speak to a person who had died was just beyond the pale as far as Christianity was concerned.
SANDIE SEDGBEER: How did you reconcile all that?
LYNNE RENOIR: The only thing that made me think it was okay to speak to the departed was a story in the Bible where King Saul had contacted a witch who made an accurate prediction about his downfall. So that made me think, well, if King Saul could do it. Maybe I can, too.
SANDIE SEDGBEER: Did you ever ask Edith, “Why me”?
LYNNE RENOIR: No, I didn’t.
SANDIE SEDGBEER: What do you think the purpose was? Why was she communicating with you?
LYNNE RENOIR: I think the universe had a long purpose for me. And Edith was the first to get in touch with me. She later referred me to other beings who had existed before, most of whom were philosophers, and it was the philosophers who helped me to write my thesis.
SANDIE SEDGBEER: What were you thinking about God at this point?
LYNNE RENOIR: Oh, that’s a difficult one. Because I believed in the oneness of the whole reality, I found it difficult to understand how there could be this high being that people call God, who is beyond everything we know, who sits in judgment on his creatures. I mean, the whole thing seemed terribly unlikely.
SANDIE SEDGBEER: Did you not feel, as you were talking to these dead people, that you were committing a sin?
LYNNE RENOIR: No, I got past the worrying stage about Sin. Sin is very much a Christian idea, a sort of rebellion against God. But I didn’t feel I’d ever rebelled against God. And so, I found it hard to see myself as a sinner.
SANDIE SEDGBEER: But did you tell anyone about it? Your husband or friends?
LYNNE RENOIR: Oh, no. If I told people about it, they would’ve thought I’d gone nuts.
SANDIE SEDGBEER: So, how did having that connection with the spirit world change your reality?
LYNNE RENOIR: It made me realize that the whole of reality is one. Christianity teaches that we’re cut off from God because of our sins. And I realize that nothing can ever be cut off from anything else because we are all one; we’re all part of this universe of love.
SANDIE SEDGBEER: So, you talked about the philosophers who started communicating with you, telling you that you needed to study philosophy and even helping you with your thesis. Did you just accept everything they told you and follow their directives?
LYNNE RENOIR: Yes. Because of the miracle of having lost my keys, going to see a psychic, having Edith describe this pendant accurately, and having her give messages about things, and then referring me to all these people. It was such an amazing lot of events.
SANDIE SEDGBEER: Yes, I can imagine. The first philosopher to contact you was Aristotle, which blew your mind.
LYNNE RENOIR: Oh yes. I just couldn’t understand why such an eminent Greek philosopher would be even vaguely interested in a non-entity like me. I was so worried about this Aristotle business that I went to see another psychic I didn’t tell her anything about myself. And in the middle of the reading, she sa”d, “I see a group of ancient Greek philosophers discussing your work.” So that convinced me I was actually talking to Aristotle. So, it started with Edith; then, she referred me to Aristotle, who then referred me to Jacques Derrida, who then, in turn, referred me to Thomas Aquinas. I still talk to Thomas Aquinas as a matter of interest.
SANDIE SEDGBEER: And you did get a Ph.D., which you didn’t think you had the qualifications to even try for. Do you think they were helping you along the way? Or just kind of nudging things along?
LYNNE RENOIR: Oh, that’s a hard one. I had to get answers in a yes-no form because that was how it was repeated. But then, sometimes, before I even asked a question, they would give a yes-no answer. I’d get a feeling about what they were about to tell me. And quite often, this feeling turned out to be what they, in fact, did tell me.
SANDIE SEDGBEER: You got your master’s degree in psychology and then your Ph.D. in philosophy, and you went on to investigate religious traditions, Gnosticism, mysticism, and quantum theory, from which you got a lot of insights. At what point did you suddenly realize that what you’d been taught about God was wrong?
LYNNE RENOIR: I don’t think there was a sudden point. I think it was a gradual realization that there was far more to ultimate reality than just the idea of a God who has sent his son to die for our sins. That is a very narrow form of reality. Well, I believe today that there are Christians who do have a connection to whatever ultimate reality may be, and their lives are transformed because of it. But for me, I could never be connected through the Christian message. It never sat right with me. And then, I developed the view that Christianity was just one way of looking at reality; there are a whole lot of other ways of looking at reality; at that point, I realized that Christianity was not the path for me; there was another way of looking at the reality that would work for me. And the most important aspect of that research was the realization that everything is part of everything else. There is no separation between ourselves and anything.
SANDIE SEDGBEER: Which is what quantum physics is showing us. So, do you believe that anyone can make that kind of connection that you did?
LYNNE RENOIR: Yes. It’s not easy, but if people accept the oneness of all reality and are willing to open their hearts to experience that reality, they can be connected to that.
SANDIE SEDGBEER: Do you still communicate with your guides?
LYNNE RENOIR: I talk to them every day about all sorts of things.
SANDIE SEDGBEER: What kind of things?
LYNNE RENOIR: Sometimes small things, and sometimes the important things in life, such as where my life is going? And, will my two books be successful? They tell me that both my books will be successful.
SANDIE SEDGBEER: Did they tell you why they would be successful?
LYNNE RENOIR: They feel I have a message the world needs to hear.
SANDIE SEDGBEER: How would you sum up that message?
LYNNE RENOIR: It’s that the whole universe is One. And if we turn our back on that, we will suffer the consequences within ourselves. People will fight each other. There will be wars. All sorts of things go wrong when we disconnect from that basic oneness, that basic love. It’s that love that holds the universe together.
SANDIE SEDGBEER: Well, thinking about love, how do you feel about your Father?
LYNNE RENOIR: My Father died many years ago. It was very difficult for me even to feel sorrow when he died. They say that when their abuser dies, a lot of women experience some sort of regret. I didn’t have any regret when he died. I was sort of glad that he’d gone over.
SANDIE SEDGBEER: Did you, or could you, forgive him?
LYNNE RENOIR: Yes. It took many years before I could forgive him. But then I looked at the terrible family background he had. His Father used to beat him, and he thought his Father was wonderful. So, it was a very difficult upbringing that he had.
SANDIE SEDGBEER: Are you still talking to the philosophers, or do you have different guides now?
LYNNE RENOIR: I have one main guide, but she’s part of a group of guides working to help me through life. Every now and again, I will talk to Aristotle or Thomas Aquinas about something. It’s mainly Aristotle or my guides.
SANDIE SEDGBEER: Do you ask them about what’s happening in the world?
LYNNE RENOIR: That’s something that they’re not prepared to commit themselves. I’ve asked them who’s going to win the American election. And they won’t tell me. The other day, they told me that the Democrats were going to do very well, which they have done.
SANDIE SEDGBEER: So, if they’re not going to tell you some of these big answers to big questions, what is their purpose in your life?
LYNNE RENOIR: It’s to reassure me that I’m on the right track. Because of my background, I’m always fearful of getting it wrong.
SANDIE SEDGBEER: You did your master’s thesis on the abuse of men about ten years ago. Why have you published that as a book now, and why have you left it this long to write your memoir?
LYNNE RENOIR: Well, as far as publishing “The Abuse of Men” is concerned, I felt it was the right time p because of all the attention that has been paid to the abuse of women, particularly with the “Me Too movement.” But as far as my memoir is concerned, I actually started that years ago. But there was something within me that would not let me rest until I had completed the story and offered it to the public.
SANDIE SEDGBEER: Who is your memoir aimed at?
LYNNE RENOIR: My memoir is aimed at people who have not yet found what they’re looking for in life. This would include people who have tried a particular religion and found it didn’t give them the answers they were looking for. And I would like people to understand that each person’s life is different, so what will work for one may not necessarily work for another.
SANDIE SEDGBEER: So, it doesn’t matter how people find purpose and meaning as long as they find it. Is that what you’re saying?
LYNNE RENOIR: That’s right. As I said before, some people will find it through Christianity. Some people will find it through Buddhism, Islam, or Hinduism. There are just so many different paths to that, ultimately.
SANDIE SEDGBEER: Both books are very interesting and have strong messages, especially The Abuse of Men, because this is a topic that badly needs to be brought into the open and discussed.
Lynne Renoir’s book, Leaving Faith, Finding Meaning: A Preacher’s Daughter’s Search For God, is available in paperback and for Kindle on Amazon. The Abuse of Men: An Enquiry into the Adult Male Experience of Heterosexual Abuse is currently available in digital format for Nook, Kobi, iBooks, and Kindle. For more information about Lynne Renoir’s books and to download free excerpts, visit www.lynnerenoir.com‘
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