About

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Kathy Craig is a massage therapist, counsellor and alternative healing practitioner. Co-author of two books with Brent Ovalsen, she has a keen interest in facilitating inmates, parolees and their families to find peace within their difficult circumstances.

Kathy Craig - Co-author of books 2 & 3

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My name is Brent Ovalsen and I am the founder of Anahata Karma Pty Ltd, a way of life that seeks to help you access the divine within.
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I do not recall any spiritual experiences in my childhood, other than seeing a bright light around one of my Uncles when I was about 12. He was telling me how he had just eaten plain rice every day for six weeks. I was mesmerised that anyone could do such a crazy thing. I do recall though, that there was something bright about him. The way he spoke gently and calmly and lovingly, and the light that seemed to shine outwards from his body. It would be 14-years later, when I myself began fasting regularly and saw white light all about me.

At age 15, I embarked on a personal study of the world’s most successful people. After finding that many of them had walked a spiritual path, and particularly the use of positive affirmations, my studies broadened from typical success pursuits to spiritual seeking. At that time of my life I was a computer geek and worked for the Australian Government managing the computer data for 5,000 users.

At age 20 I was involved with my father in a homicide. It remained unsolved until I was 26-years-old. When you have been involved in a terrible crime, you are given a choice - take a negative and self-destructive path, or seek redemption. Although Christ did not physically intervene and stop my actions with my father, He was a powerful presence in my life. And what I quickly came to understand, was that Jesus really does use all things for good, when we surrender our lives to Him. Redemption is always available - even to those of us who have knowingly made choices that we would not choose again.

On my 21st Birthday I was speaking to an elderly spiritual Seer. This man carried an illumination about him, and as his eyes penetrated deep into me. He glowed as he said, “You are a healer”, and as I looked down at my hands, I saw light around them and felt some kind of subtle energy and a mild heat radiating from them. It would not be until I was 26-years-old when I developed enough confidence to act from instinct, and where I began to follow my inert intuition and place my hands on  others. I will talk much more about that as I take you on my journey.

I began meditating regularly and doing some spiritual courses. I studied Christianity and Buddhism.

Age 24, I was married to an Indigenous Australian lady. Having just completed a 2-year feasibility study into Aboriginal Art export, we went to live in the Australian desert with her tribe the Warlpiri people. It was here that my soul was guided by Jangala, the elder of this ancient people. I began having telepathic experiences, including being called by Jangala from 2,500km away when he needed me to attend him in hospital. I was actually sitting on the side of the road having a break from driving on the east coast of Australia, when looking up I saw a cloud shape-shift into Jangala’s face, and he called out to me seemingly in pain, to come to him now! Without phones or any modern communication, I acted completely intuitively and changed my plans on the spot to go to him in the Northern Territory. When I finally arrived at the hospital I was told by Doctors that he refused to speak even to his own people. When I entered the room, Jangala was on oxygen and in traction with numerous broken bones from a car running him over. As I tapped him, he tried to sit up, and between breaths said, “Japaljarri (my Indigenous name), I have been calling you”. He went on to chat for about ten minutes, to the bewilderment of hospital staff and even his own tribal people sitting by him. Estranged from my own father, Jangala was God’s provision as not only a father figure, but my spiritual teacher and mentor. Our bond was otherworldly.

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ABOVE: Jangala and me at an exhibition of his art in 1997

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During this same period, I also met with a Native American Indian medicine man who just happened to have a medicine centre here in Australia. We did healing ceremonies and vision quests, and I began to see the difficult direction I must take in facing my past.

Age 26 - I went to a night of chanting in a temple near the sea in Melbourne. A Guru there gave me the mantra“Om Namah Shivaya” meaning “Universal consciousness is one”. It would only be a matter of days before I really embraced the mantra, and many many years before I realised the power of it.

In the material world, I now had a successful Indigenous art export business, but eventually though, my past collided with my present, for you cannot walk any spiritual path without the truth revealing fully. Trying to keep my participation in homicide locked away was not possible due to the serious dedication I had to my spiritual evolution.

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It was the 20th of February 1999 - I was 26-years-old. I had started to develop a personal relationship with Jesus, mainly reading the Bible each day over a couple of months. After cutting off my long hair, I had a tattoo of an Orthodox cross put over my heart. 15-years later I would learn that my Orthodox stepfather had tattooed the same cross in the same place on his body while I was in prison, and yet he had no idea about my tattoo from where he lived some 3,000km away! I went and shared with my sister in Melbourne what had happened to me with my biological father and the resulting homicide. We both agreed that God wanted me to hand myself in. After a prayer to Jesus to look after me, I handed myself in to the police at 5pm that day for my participation in the homicide. This culminated in a number of things happening:

•     Within 21-months I was found guilty of the entire crime and sentenced to 19 1/2 years with a minimum of 15-years in prison.
•     My biological father never visited me in prison, the only letter I ever received was him asking me to take a book about what really happened off the market. Numerous books and the television show 60 Minutes all claimed that he had gotten away with murder, and yet my father was never charged and died of heart complications in December 2018, just a few months after I was finally released from my parole in July of that year.
•     From day one in an underground prison dungeon in the city of Melbourne, I began dedicated and disciplined meditation practices, to the point of walking around chanting mantras all day, even when I was not meditating. My first 11-days in prison were in this dungeon, no fresh air and fifty men morbidly pacing up and down. I quickly felt a great peace rise up in me and began sharing this by counselling other men and helping them to find a more positive focus.

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The power of grace quickly became apparent, as wherever I went men would greet me, and offer protection in the dangerous prison environments I was moved through. When I arrived at Port Phillip maximum security prison, I was greeted by a muscle-bound Irishman who said, “Ah my spiritual friend”, which of course had all the thugs, wannabe plastic gangsters and so on, all looking at me intrigued that I had such a powerful allie. This kind of grace was to remain with me.

From April 1999 I was trained in Hatha Yoga by a teacher brought into the prison each week. Instead of the recommended maximum of seven rounds of the 24-posture “Salute to the Sun”, I was soon doing 21-rounds and eventually moved to 52-rounds, meaning that I did over 1,200 yoga postures each morning, all strictly aligned with deep breaths in and out of the nose only.

My meditation had begun from my first day in prison with the Sanskrit Yogic mantra, “Om Namah Shivaya” and I silently chanted this whenever I was not meditating. During Yoga, I would silently repeat the mantra as I breathed in or out with a particular Yoga Asana (posture). I became so adept at chanting, that I would often chant as I held a conversation with someone. Initially I did mantra without any beads, although I felt it would be helpful to have a set. In early 2000, I said a silent prayer to God for a set of beads blessed by the Dalai Lama. After my prayer I thought about what I had asked for and decided that this was perhaps a difficult prayer to fulfil, and promptly forgot about it. I told no person about my prayer, it was between me and God. A few months later a spiritual teacher came to me in prison and handed me a set of twenty-one natural beads. They said, “I don’t know why, but I have to give these to you. It is an odd situation actually, as they were given to me by a lady whom I only know as a passing associate. This lady apparently bought them from Buddhist Monks who were selling beads. They are apparently blessed by the Dalai Lama. After she purchased them, she felt that they were ‘not for her’ and had an overwhelming feeling to give them to me. Once I had them, I had an overwhelming feeling that they were not for me, and I was wondering if you would like them, if they would be useful to you?”. Of course I then explained my prayer to the spiritual teacher, who just smiled and said, “They are obviously for you”.

Each time I move a bead, I repeat a mantra or prayer. This practice of repeating a mantra is known in Yoga as “Japa”, which was coincidentally, my nickname in prison, the shortened version of my Indigenous name “Japaljarri”. When you are trying to develop the mind and its habits you will find that negative thoughts will become more prominent and noticeable. At times when the mind is racing with a tumult of negative or other thoughts you may use a mantra as an alternative focus. This has both the effect of calming the mind, and it also trains the mind not to think of or focus on negative thoughts.

At age 26, I began having profound experiences with Christ and the first was late one afternoon during 1999 when Dean and I were standing in an open outdoor area of the prison chatting about my life.

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When suddenly, a bright light erupted in the skies behind him. As my eyes adjusted to the bright light, Jesus appeared to me in a dramatic broad daylight vision as a shimmering image the size of a football field. Although I had been standing talking to Dean, my eyes were taken away due to gazing into the air at this image of Jesus. In fact, the entire backdrop of the prison, including Dean, faded away into bright white light. I felt a sudden sense of completeness as a human being, a feeling that made me feel acknowledged for my good and bad points, yet somehow loved to the depth of my soul regardless of what I feared I had done. A seed that had been blossoming in my consciousness since the first time my mother held me, suddenly burst forth with a deeper knowing that love and the opening of our heart centre is the most powerful integrating force on earth. In this middle of the day experience the brilliant light blasted apart the darkness about my being and Jesus told me that everything was going to be alright. I began to feel a true merging of forgiveness in my soul. I discovered the still point of our heart centre, where we may be at one with the overwhelming force that is The Holy Spirit. Left entranced to the epicentre of my being, Jesus slowly faded away and allowed the prison and its grounds to come back into my vision. Dean was calling out to me saying, “Japaljarri, what's wrong? Are you with us?”. I was so shocked by my experience that I excused myself and went for a long walk.

A few days later I confided with Father Grant, a Catholic Priest. Father Grant had been working with inmates in the prison system for many years and the men trusted him. A large broad-shouldered man with a gentle smile and friendly humorous attitude, Father Grant sat me down and asked what was going on. I told him in great detail what had happened and he said that he had heard of such occurrences; however, it was probably safer to keep this particular experience to myself. So there I was contemplating my relationship with Jesus, a divine messenger of God whom was to have a profound affect on my life. I wanted to share my experience with the world, but prison authorities were likely to lock me in the psychiatric ward as some kind of nutter, so for now I kept it to myself.

About a month later whilst watching television in my cell, I was reduced to tears when I saw the movie “Joan of Arc” for the first time. She had a vision in the movie that was so similar to mine in dramatic bright light, effect and size. I knew there and then, that God had truly blessed me. I realised that miracles can happen to ordinary people.

Since then Jesus has appeared to me many times. The most memorable was when I was rather down and out, sitting quietly in my cell, and Jesus appeared as a bright white silhouette the size of an ordinary man. When he appeared my body shook with a powerful love that seemed to go through me. I felt completely calm, as if cocooned in a place of pure peace. Then Jesus said to me, “Be calm, be still, be silent”. He then faded away. From that moment forward I began chanting in my mind, “I am calm, I am still, I am silent”. This simple mantra completely transformed my life in prison, bringing me much peace. I later realised that Jesus was teaching me the power of simplicity to change our lives. I discovered that we do not need hundreds of books and a Guru to find peace; peace is actually within us and simplistic practices are the key to unlocking our divine peace in our heart centre. I have come to learn that finding the inner silence is the key to unlocking a divine connection with God. This ever important stillness may be achieved through art, dance, meditation, yoga, poetry, sexual experiences and through many hobbies and occupations where one becomes completely absorbed; such as gardening for instance. The mantra that Jesus gave me opened the doorway to a sacred peace and stillness.

As the years in prison went by, I read the Bible pretty much every day. I studied many of the world’s religions, in particular Buddhism, Islam, Hinduism and Yogic philosophy. I came to love Sanskrit, which is known as the base of all languages. I went to Christian church services up to four times a week, and would speak with visiting Buddhist monks, when they occasionally came by.

Another protective incident occurred when a Muslim inmate, the leader of several hundred men in the system - a General so to speak - came to me and said, “When I was praying this morning God spoke to me - He said that I have to look after you”. This muscle ripped man trained every day with another mountain of a man in the prison gym. After each training session the two of them would make extra meals in the small cell-block kitchenette area. From this day forward, my new friend came to me, took my plate from my cell and went downstairs and filled it with rice, tuna and vegetables in a stir fry sauce. When I finished he came and got my plate and washed it. I was not allowed to do anything. To other inmates looking on, they would have been perplexed… Why was I being “looked after”?

Intrigued by Islam, I read the Noble Koran every day during the year following this. Years later I was able to assist this Muslim man with a legal issue that affected him and 49 other inmates. My understanding of Islam through study, combined with my legal intervention not only resolved the situation, but the precedent made life fairer for a lot of Muslim inmates over the long term.

One day Jesus told me to paint three paintings utilising Arabic writing. Jesus told me to have a Muslim translate “The more that you give to others, the more that Allah will bless you”. Following Jesus’ prompting, I painted three dot paintings the size of a single bed, comprising about 30,000 dots each. When I was finished I stared at each of the artworks, and one of them freaked me out when I saw that there was a lamb in it, faintly made out in the dot patterning - The Lamb of God. With no further instruction from Jesus, I was left perplexed as to why I painted them. The paintings then sat for about seven years in storage outside of prison. Then in 2014, a female Muslim Barrister was referred to me as I had just had my parole revoked before I had a chance to finally get out. This was due to an inmate being released on parole and raping and murdering a well known female journalist. The Muslim barrister clicked with me, particularly my knowledge of the Koran and she ended up getting me out of prison and did not charge me. Amazed by how the grace of God works, I gave her two of the paintings, which she absolutely adores. The third went to another Muslim inmate who had assisted me.

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If you look behind the left bottom quarter of the writing,
you may see "The Lamb of God"... A kneeling Lamb.

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Many inmates would comment to me that they felt a great sense of peace come over them when they were with me and many inmates and guards would comment on the profound energy they felt when just sitting in my cell. Back then, I was usually talking to a person and chanting the mantra in my mind at the same time. If you are ever with me now and you see me move my finger to another bead on the beads that I usually have in my hand, then that means I have just said the mantra once again. Nowadays I chant, “I am calm, I am still, I am silent and in the grace of God”. This mantra is yours to use too.

In my first year at maximum security Port Phillip Prison, I was standing by my cell door for one of the several daily counts. I ended up standing by my cell door for “muster” over 33,000 times during my 5,533 days in prison. Suddenly, light erupted in the room and I saw the auras of all the inmates in my direct and peripheral vision. From that day forth, I began to see auras regularly and most of the time I walked in a state where everything had white light swirling in and about it. Sometimes it was like I was walking in a snowstorm of white light. It brought with it a feeling of ease, a sense that all was working out just as it needed to.

Also in my first year, my healing hands began to light up, so to speak. With no training whatsoever, I began to intuit that I should place my hands - say on an inmate's back. Heat would begin to come out, and often miraculous results occurred. The first was a man whom apparently had had back pain for twenty years which had stopped him from getting a good night's rest. After a twenty minute session with me, he claimed it was cured and so was his insomnia! Another time the guards called me, as an inmate could not get up off the floor to stand by his door for count. Two other inmates jeered at me for they had both just tried massaging his lower back, but to no avail. I placed two hands over his back, aware all the while of a running commentary of disbelief from the two other inmates. My friend on the ground ended up telling them to shut up. Five to ten minutes after I began, this man’s back made large cracking noises as it shifted under the very light touch of my still hands. He got up off the floor and smiled. The guards and inmates stared at me bewildered. I smiled and walked off - for me - this was just another day in prison.

As the years went by, I ended up training in Shiatsu pressure point massage. I was studying a book on where the 108 points were, when I told my teacher that I could actually see the points as small swirls of light. She told me to throw the book away and work with my gift, which I did use on over 1,000 men and some prison guards during my fifteen years in there.

In the later years at a medium security prison, I was trained as a Reiki Master and went on to teach over 140 inmates Reiki. I also taught classes 6-days a week in Yoga and meditation. As a result I had the privilege of seeing many inmates transform their lives.
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It was early 2002 when I was bashed almost to death by three other inmates at maximum security Barwon Prison in western Victoria. I have refused to ever name who did it, even to heavy underworld inmates. The way I saw it was, if someone repeated what I had said, this could get back to the authorities, and then my time in prison may be even more dangerous as I would be marked as “An informer” or “Rat”. As it turns out, during the attack I tried to fend them off as best as I could, but eventually the men held me in a head lock and kicked me in the head repeatedly whilst wearing steel capped work boots. Eventually I passed out. Apparently they continued to kick me until a very dangerous underworld figure intervened and stopped them actually ending my life. I woke up in a pool of blood that spread for a metre across my cell floor. The walls were covered in blood splatter. At the time, I had no idea that someone had saved my life. About three years later I was doing some massage on an underworld figure when he told me that he had turned his life to Christ just prior to my bashing. During the attack he had been prompted, he felt by Jesus, to save me. Apparently he entered the cell when I was knocked out, and stopped it just in time. He asked me not to name him and I never have.

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BELOW: Prison Bashing Barwon Prison

BELOW: Loddon Prison in the sacred garden built by inmates

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It has been my personal experience that the closer we come to God, the more Satan tries to discourage us from the path of light. My meditation, daily prayer and unswerving faith had rendered Satan powerless, or so I thought. It was the middle of a typical day when a guy living in the same prison unit spat the dummy at me over a minor misunderstanding. He went on to threaten me that I now had an enemy for life. As he said this to me, I saw evil overcome his eyes and his demeanour. This incident happened out in a common area between the prison cells. After he had left the immediate area, I was left wondering what was going on. I walked upstairs to my cell and then stood gazing out through the bars of my window. Suddenly, Satan himself appeared, some four metres high in stature, a glowing evil apparition – floating just above the garden bed adjacent to my first-floor window. His eyes were black with red centres, his head and face grotesque and topped with small goat-like horns. I felt the almighty evil of Satan’s daunting red body emanating out and impressing upon my soul, in a sense I felt quite overcome with every fear that I had ever had all seemingly coming upon me at once. In the same moment, I said loudly, “In the name of Jesus Christ”. Suddenly, what looked like an atom-bomb of white light exploded across the manicured prison gardens, and Jesus appeared floating in the air, some seven metres high in mighty stature. As for Satan, I heard him shriek in pain and he vanished instantly. The space of evil and fear was dissolved and replaced by an overwhelming feeling of calm and wellbeing emanating from Jesus, through me. Jesus smiled and faded away, yet the bright light remained. In fact, I was in a state of ecstatic bliss for the following four days. Wherever I walked, a bright light erupted before me, affecting all the inmates and guards around me to shift their demeanours to the positive. It seemed as though a ‘field of light’ was around me for about thirty feet, for whenever I came within thirty feet of an inmate or prison guard, they would turn around, as if I had tapped them on the shoulder, and I could see from their faces that they were being overcome by the light and love that I know to be The Holy Spirit. As for the man who threatened me, only minutes after Jesus’ appearance, he came up to my cell and apologised for his earlier outburst. I didn’t tell him about my spiritual experience; however, we were friends ever since.

This kind of experience is not a game. When we become close to God and start to bring many others to God, which in my case was an ongoing flow of inmates – Satan becomes very angry. It is important that when we do inevitably find ourselves under spiritual attack, that we do not try to take Satan on in our own power, as all spiritual power belongs to God. Providing we put our fears aside (as this is the only power Satan has over us) and we give all power to God, then Satan is powerless over us.

As I worked with inmates, every now and then demons and entities would appear. I would pray to Jesus to take them, and saw in some cases radical shifts in the person. I once saw a demon the size of a small baby come out the neck of a pedophile and that particular inmate completely transformed his behaviour from then on. Guards were asking me, what had I done to him? I have never had any formal training in this and believe that Jesus personally trains me as I go.

Close to the end of my sentence, Mother Mary began appearing to me and placing her hands on the inmates that I was working on. Little did I know that years later I would meet my partner Kathy, a healer herself, who also regularly sees Mary.

Also near the end of my sentence, Siddha Yoga people began to see me and I did a reading course with them. The Sanskrit mantra they used, was the one given to me just before my imprisonment - “Om Namah Shivaya” meaning “Universal consciousness is one” - The mantra that I repeated literally hundreds of thousands of times, prior to Jesus appearing to me.

I was released from prison in April 2014 and back in the real world, my intention has been to use my gifts in a manner that is helpful to humankind. I have worked as a spiritual counsellor and healer with many around the world. I am blessed with profound psychic gifts that often assist me to see a person’s past, present and future.  To my own surprise, numerous clients come back to me to share how profound and accurate the insights I have been given, turn out to be. I have published a self-development spiritual training course and five meditation CD’s. I have also authored and co-authored with Kathy a series of books and guidance videos for inmates and parolees.​
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On the 23rd of August 2020 Kathy and I entered St Mary’s Church in the city of Darwin. As we sat quietly praying and meditating in an empty church, Jesus appeared to me and put his sword in my right hand and said “I give you my sword to cast out demons. Go out and do this and everything will be provided unto you!”

Two nights later, Kathy and I were in the city when we came across a very drunk Indigenous girl. After feeling a prompt from Jesus, I asked if we could pray for her. She said yes, so Kathy and I placed our hands on her head. Suddenly, she went pale and said: "What have you done, I am sober - I have been drinking for four days. My mother and my grandmother are Christians - I have to go home right now - thank you!" and off she went.

Only weeks later I saw myself in prison with Jesus, not as an inmate, but as a free man counselling inmates.

You may listen to my only ever interview about my criminal life here: 
https://omny.fm/shows/naked-city/getting-away-with-murder

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Brent Ovalsen as a free man today

Typical Brent on the roof of his 4WD travelling Australia

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