Lightworkers are souls who carry the strong inner desire to spread Light – knowledge, freedom and self-love – on earth. They sense this as their mission. They are often attracted to spirituality and to therapeutic work of some kind.

Because of their deeply felt mission, lightworkers often feel different from other people. By experiencing different kinds of obstacles on their way, life provokes them to find their own unique path. Lightworkers are nearly always solitary individuals, not fitting into fixed societal structures.

A note on the notion of “lightworker”

The word “lightworker” may evoke misunderstanding, since it lifts out a particular group of souls from the rest. It may be taken to suggest that this particular group is somehow superior to the others, i.e. those “not working for the light.” This whole line of thought is at odds with the very nature and intent of lightwork. Let us state briefly what is wrong with it.

First, claims of superiority are generally unenlightened. They block your growth toward a free and loving consciousness. Second, lightworkers are not “better” or “higher” than anyone else. They simply have a different history than the ones not belonging to this group. Because of this particular history, which we will discuss below, they have certain psychological characteristics which distinguish them as a group. Third, every soul becomes a lightworker at some stage of its unfolding, so the label “lightworker” is not reserved to a limited number of souls.

The reason we use the word “lightworker” despite possible misunderstandings is because it carries associations and stirs memories within you that help you remember. There is a practical convenience to it as well, since the term is frequently used in your current spiritual literature.

Historical roots of lightworkers

Lightworkers carry within them the ability to attain spiritual awakening faster than other people. They carry inner seeds for a rapid spiritual awakening. With regard to this, they seem to be on a faster track than most people, if they choose it. This again is not because lightworkers are in any way “better” or “higher” souls. They are, however, older than most souls presently incarnate on earth. This older age should preferably be understood in terms of experience rather than time.

Lightworkers have reached a particular stage of enlightenment before they incarnate on earth and start their mission. They consciously choose to become entrenched in the “karmic wheel of life” and to experience all forms of confusion and illusion that go with it.

They do this in order to fully understand “earth experience.” This will enable them to fulfill their mission. Only by going through all stages of ignorance and illusion themselves will they eventually own the tools to help others achieve a state of true happiness and enlightenment.

Why do lightworkers pursue this heartfelt mission to help humanity, thereby running the risk of losing themselves for ages in the heaviness and confusion of earth life? This is a question we will deal with extensively below. For now we will say that it has to do with a galactic type of karma. Lightworkers stood on the eve of humanity’s birth on earth. They took part in the creation of man. They were co-creators of humanity. In the process of creation, they made choices and acted in ways which they came to regret deeply afterwards. They are here now to make up for their decisions back then.

Before we go into this particular history, we will name a few characteristics of lightworker souls which generally distinguish them from other people. These psychological traits do not uniquely belong to lightworkers and not all lightworkers will recognize all of them as theirs. By drawing up this list, we simply want to give an outline of the lightworker’s psychological identity. With regard to the characteristics, outer behavior is of less importance than inner motivation or felt intent. What you feel inside is more important than what you show outside.

Psychological characteristics of lightworkers:

• From early on in their life, they feel they are different. More often than not they feel isolated from others, lonely and misunderstood. They will often become individualists who will have to find their own unique ways in life.
• They have trouble feeling at home within traditional jobs and/or organization structures. Lightworkers are naturally anti-authoritarian which means that they naturally resist decisions or values based solely on power or hierarchy. This anti-authoritarian trait is present even if they seem timid and shy. It is connected to the very essence of their mission here on earth.
• Lightworkers feel drawn to helping people as a therapist or as a teacher. They may be psychologists, healers, teachers, nurses, etc. Even if their profession is not about helping people in a direct manner, the intent to contribute to the higher good of humanity is clearly present.
• Their vision of life is colored by a spiritual sense of how all things are related together. They consciously or subconsciously carry memories within them of non-earthly spheres of light. They may occasionally feel homesick for these spheres and feel like a stranger on earth.
• They deeply honor and respect life which often manifests as a fondness for animals and a concern for the environment. The destruction of parts of the animal and vegetable kingdoms on earth by human doing invokes deep feelings of loss and grief in them.
• They are kind-hearted, sensitive and empathic. They may have trouble dealing with aggressive behavior and they generally experience difficulties in standing up for themselves. They can be dreamy, naive or highly idealistic, as well as insufficiently grounded, i.e. down-to-earth. Because they easily pick up negative feelings and moods of people around them, it is important for them to spend time alone on a regular basis. This enables them to distinguish between their own feelings and those of others. They need solitary time to touch base with themselves and with mother earth.
• They have lived many lives on earth in which they were deeply involved with spirituality and/or religion. They were present in overwhelming numbers in the old religious orders of your past as monks, nuns, hermits, psychics, witches, shamans, priests, priestesses, etc. They were the ones providing a bridge between the visible and the invisible, between the daily context of earth life and the mysterious realms of the afterlife, realms of God and the spirits of good and evil. For fulfilling this role, they were often rejected and persecuted. Many of you were sentenced to the stake for the gifts you possessed. The traumas of persecution left deep traces within your soul’s memory. This may presently manifest as a fear of being fully grounded, i.e. a fear to be really present, because you remember being brutally attacked for who you were.

Getting lost: the lightworker’s pitfall

Lightworkers can be caught up in the same states of ignorance and illusion as anyone else. Although they start from a different point of departure, their capacity to break through fear and illusion in order to attain enlightenment may be blocked by many factors. (By enlightenment, we mean the state of being in which you realize that you are essentially of the Light, capable of choosing light at any time.)

One of the factors blocking the road to enlightenment for lightworkers is the fact that they carry a heavy karmic burden which may lead them astray for quite some time. As we stated before, this karmic burden is related to decisions they once made with regard to humanity in its infant stages. These decisions were essentially disrespectful of life (we will speak of this later in this chapter). All lightworkers now living wish to set right some of their past mistakes and to restore and cherish what was destroyed because of those mistakes.

When lightworkers have made their way through the karmic burden, which means to release the need for power in any way, they will realize that they are essentially beings of light. This will enable them to help others in finding their own true selves. But first they have to go through that process themselves. This generally demands great determination and perseverance on the inner level. Because society feeds them values and judgments which often go against their own natural impulses, many lightworkers have gotten lost, ending up in states of self-doubt, self-denial and even depression and hopelessness. This is because they cannot fit into the established order of things and they conclude there must be something terribly wrong with them.

What lightworkers have to do at this point is to stop looking for validation from the outside – from parents, friends or society. At some point in time, you who are reading this will have to take the momentous leap to true empowerment, which means to really believe in yourself and to truly honor and act upon your natural inclinations and your inner knowing.

We invite you to do so and we assure you that we will be with you every step of the way – just like you will be there for others on their way in the not too distant future.