The Monthly Aspectarian: Thomas, give us a brief description of your background and how you came to where you are now.

Thomas Pecora: As you know, I'm what's called a functioning intuitive. Of course everybody is intuitive, but before a person reaches the level of functioning, their intuition acts as hunches, feelings, knowings. Most people have very good hunches when it comes to things close to them such as family situations, jobs, et cetera. That, of course, can be extended into a leap from the standard hunch-type intuition into the fully conscious functioning intuition. It is absolutely available to everybody. This is why I've started my workshop series.

TMA: When did you become interested in astrology and become an astrologer?

TP: I was about thirteen or fourteen when it happened. I don't know how to put this, but the doors or the gates of Spirit sort of flew open and then came all this energy. From a very young age I was asking questions. I remember one night when I was five or six being up all night trying to fathom the concept of eternity as taught in church.

When I was fifteen or so, I decided to examine astrology because my only exposure at that time was sun sign astrology in newspapers. Part of me said, "This cannot possibly be right because you can't divide this many people into twelve and be accurate." Like many astrologers, I entered into the field as a skeptic looking to disprove. It took me about a week to realize that something was actually going on here that defied the laws of statistics as they govern coincidence. Then I decided to throw myself into this.

For those who know astrology, I have what is called a bundle chart, meaning all the planets fall within a 107 degree range. This creates someone who, when they throw themselves into something, it's strictly tunnel vision. We're looking at 15 or 16 hours a day. In any event, this study was quickly absorbed, probably because of past-life indicators in the chart, meaning it wasn't so much learning as much as it was remembering. Shortly thereafter, I started doing consultations. Of course, in the beginning there was no charge because I was testing the waters. And then I went professional but stayed underground. I didn't go public in a big way until the beginning of the actual radio program, which debuted on June 3, 1996.

TMA: How did the show come about? What was the impetus for that?

TP: [There was a long lead-in that culminated in the radio show.] I started playing music when I was eight years old, and when I was 16, I was approached to take over a music teacher's schedule at a music store. The teacher was going skiing for two weeks. I said, "Oh sure, I can sit there and show folks a thing or two." Two weeks later when he came back, he told the owner of the store that he preferred to switch the majority of his schedule. I didn't even know there was a job there; I just thought I was filling in. The owner gave me my own schedule. I hadn't pursued teaching, but at 16 I'm teaching.

TMA: Well you know, when the teacher is ready, the students appear.
[laughter]
TP: What was interesting about this teaching is that quite a few people, especially at the tail end of that 20-year cycle, were not coming in for music instruction. Some of them didn't even bring in their instruments. They would come in for advice and to talk. So I learned a lot on that level. As you know, I do come from different backgrounds, one of which major was the music industry, but it just wasn't doin' it for me at that time. I dissolved the band I had at the time and went solo, a solo artist, which I am now. Some of the music you hear on the program coming out of the commercials at the end, that's off the first album. The second album is written and ready to go, but there's no time right now for that.

What you asked is how did I get into radio. When I deviated a little from the schedule with the students, most of them were asking for different types of advice. My work was becoming more esoteric. Now remember, during all this time, starting around 14 or 15, I was almost obsessively studying things like the collected works of Carl Jung, Dane Rudhyar, Alice A. Bailey-who was one of my foundations.

It started to tug on me intuitively that maybe we could look at radio . . . because I had experience in the music business. As soon as I had that thought-and believe me, I had that thought in the morning and in the afternoon, a female singing student came in and as we were talking, she mentioned that her boyfriend was leaving his brokerage show on Monday evenings on WCBR. Something told me a make a phone call. A long story short, ten days later I wound up with my own program. It started with two hours and went to three within about six weeks. As you know, that station was sold and now I'm at WJKL in Elgin.

Many things that have happened to me were accidental or not planned-but intuitives know how to listen to their true self. If they do it right, they don't double guess. They just act. Action, of course, is vital. And then you see what happens. And so it worked, and we continue the expansion, and I think that's a good thing.

TMA: As you know, for the past 15 years I've done the interviews for The Monthly Aspectarian, and when I look at your lineup of guests every month, I see that basically, we talk to the same people. It sounds trite to say it's a lot of fun, but it really is. What would you say you've learned, talking to all these people?

TP: Whenever possible, I like to get to know my guests better. Sometimes because of the fact that I'm involved in the various spiritual traditions on an experiential level, I will meet people in the course of my own training, which is always ongoing. When I met spiritual elder Wallace Black Elk, it was part of my training at the time on the Red Road. (The Red Road is the Native ways, the Native spiritual path.) We became good friends. It was the first time I had experienced true grandfather energy. I wound up on the side of a sacred mountain with him in a type of training. Well, of course I wanted him on the air. There's an example right there of what I could call a perk. That's one of the great things . . . you get to know some of these people.

I do learn a lot from the guests because I read their books, I prepare for the interview, and I do my very best to remember what I read and incorporate it into my life so that it's practical.

TMA: You've taken the step of making your show available on the Internet. How's that working?

TP: It was done as an afterthought. A couple of years ago it became possible, because the technology had arrived, to take a radio program and stream it, make it available on the Internet. We call it netcasting now. To my extraordinary surprise, it took off and we're now in over 100 foreign countries. I know this from the Internet Service Provider logs that I get every weekend. I didn't even know some of the countries.

TMA: Is the show being streamed live, or are they downloading it after the fact?

TP: It's always live. If you look at the home page, at www.thomaspecora.com, there is a place to click to listen to the show during the live airing. Not only is the Chicago time listed for the program but underneath is the Greenwich Mean Time because of course we're working internationally. I do email from these countries and found that some of these people actually stay up until three and four in the morning to hear the program.

TMA: Give us a closing statement of essence.

TP: In closing I would say, first of all, thank you to everybody who listens to the program and of course, thank you always to the Creator for the opportunity. I'm not trying to tell anybody anything they might already know, but the path itself is always a process and not necessarily a destination. The Masters know that and have said as much. It's vital that a person not just walk the path, but they must become the path. A quote used very often these days is by Mahatma Ghandi: We must BE the change we wish to be. What that means is that people are waiting around for the world to change. What they need to do is to change themselves first. If everybody did that, the world would change. This sentiment has been applicable to the Dalai Lama and, most recently, to Deepak Chopra. It's empowerment at work, and it's good work.

The program is there for anyone who wishes to listen and partake of and, of course, participate.

You can tune in to The Thomas Pecora Show on Monday evenings from 10pm until midnight on FM94.3, WJKL, Fox Radio. You can also visit his website at www.thomaspecora.com or email him at thomas@thomaspecora.com. For private intuitive astrological consultations, he can be reached at 708-345-6323.