SPI R I T UA L I T Y & BALANC E
Magic Boxing An Interview with Kat Mische Elle
Joe, tell us about how your life began. had an abusive father. He was an ex-marine and prizefighter. I was the firstborn when he was fresh out of the Marines. At that point, that’s after World War II in the Korean War. My father came out as a tough guy who wanted to continue that way of living, and I was just a newborn baby. I was controlled, manipulated, abused, embarrassed, and in fear most of the time in my early life because he was enraged. I think a short answer to describe my childhood would be that I was unhappy. I was an unhappy child and looking for something that was dependable, something that was safe. And what I discovered were books. Books were always there. Books were always going to be my friends that were going to hold wisdom. They held interesting people and characters and amazing experiences. And they were always readily available. My home was near a very beautiful public library in Niles, Ohio and that’s where I turned to for safety and solitude in my early years. Though I did go through a period of wondering if I was going to be a magician, (Which I was interested in because magic presented itself as an escape and a way for transformation)? Or, if I was going to be a boxer, (which I was also interested in due to the influence of my father)? I realized that I actually didn’t need to become either one. That I could write about characters who were in all those vocations if I was an author. So, at a very early age, when I discovered books and writing, I knew that becoming an author was what I wanted to do so I could create a powerful reality for my life with the pen. And an extra perk for you to retreat to the library was that it was quiet, and it commands quiet. No one could be loud within those walls. Very different from when you were at home. Exactly. Can you share with me the day you decided to investigate spirituality, and what that looked like to you at the beginning of your adventure? Well, on the spiritual side of it, I probably wouldn’t have used the word spiritual, but I would have used the word metaphysical. And that would have been when I was barely a teenager at thirteen years old. This was stemming from my reading. I was reading all kinds of books, I started to explore psychology, philosophy, metaphysics, the power of the mind, hypnosis, and anything in that genre. I was looking for a way to distract and submerge my thoughts somewhere else to escape the reality I was in at home because I didn’t feel safe. I looked for a way to tap into extra power outside of myself for protective reasons. What I discovered is that 64
I N S P I RE D S U CC E SS MAGAZINE | SP RING/ SUMME R 2022
I alone wasn’t very powerful. But I am when joining forces, which today I would use the word ‘spiritual’ for those forces. Back when I first began my self-discovery as a teenager, I probably would have said metaphysical forces. Whatever it was, it was clear to me that I was connecting with something powerful, and it would make me feel almost invincible. So, I got interested. How quickly or loudly did your life’s perceptions change once you began this new path? I think because I was a child trying to understand very adult—actually beyond adult—concepts, I found myself struggling to make sense of those things. I remember moments reading that everything was energy. I was reading material like this between the ages of thirteen to fifteen years old. I toyed with the idea that if everything’s energy, then maybe I can walk through the wall. And I would try. I would walk up to the wall thinking, well, if it’s my mind power, and I’m energy and the wall is energy, there ought to be an opening in here someplace. And of course, I did not walk through the wall. So, I was looking deeper into the concepts of everything being energy. During this time, how did you perceive your interactions with others? I had a best friend who was exploring the information in these books the same way I was. In fact, we took turns hypnotizing each other when we were probably fifteen to sixteen years old. He persisted in trying to hypnotize me, but we were not getting anywhere that way, but I could easily hypnotize him. He was a great subject, and I was able to dabble with the mind power aspect of it, even practicing regressing him to an earlier age. During these years, I felt totally alone and that nobody understands me. Nobody is connecting with me, even the best friend that I was practicing hypnosis with. He wasn’t on the same playing field as me. We didn’t see the world the same way. I saw most of what people were talking about and doing as being trivial. It was unimportant. It was almost like being caught up with an illusion. It’s almost like everybody’s involved in a dramatic television series called their life. And I was on the outside watching it feeling the way that I did. I would watch people and think to myself, “You don’t have to be this involved. You don’t have to be this upset. You don’t have to be this attached. You don’t have to play these different games and be engaged in petty arguments or childish desires or fights.” I felt very separate and very alone. I felt very misunderstood, or at least, not understood. Feeling this way kept me from being socially involved with other people in
