Читать книгу My Life As a Medium - Betty Shine - Страница 7

Valerie sat in the chair opposite me in my healing room, and sobbed. I had known this would happen when the communication with her father came to an end.

She had been receiving healing from me, and as she was preparing to leave I had seen a man standing in a corner of the room. He told me that he was Valerie’s father. When I asked her to sit down and explained to her what was happening, she was shocked, as she had no idea at the time that I was also a medium. Apparently, the idea of survival after death had never interested her; she had been too brutalized by this life to care about the next.

‘Would you like to hear what your father has to say?’ I asked gently.

‘Yes,’ she whispered.

‘First I will describe him to you,’ I said. ‘He is about five foot six inches tall, of stocky build, has black hair, bushy eyebrows, a fine nose and full lips. But his eyes are his main attraction – they are twinkling and full of humour.’

Valerie nodded. Unable to speak, she had followed the direction of my gaze and was staring into the corner of the room.

‘He tells me that his name is Nathan. Is that correct?’ I enquired.

‘Yes,’ she replied. ‘That was his name.’

‘He is showing me a gold watch on a chain. It has a cover on the face with an intricate design and the initial ‘N’, and was passed on to him by his father. They both shared the same name. Is that correct?’

‘Yes.’ I could hardly hear her reply, and asked her to speak up. She shook herself as though relieving her body of a heavy burden.

Nathan was speaking again. ‘Will you tell my daughter that I love her, and that I am pleased the rest of the family were able to escape. Death, when it came, was a merciful release, not just for me but for all of my friends who were incarcerated in that dreadful building. The shedding of the physical body was a revelation. Looking down, it seemed that a bundle of old rags was lying there, no use to anyone, whilst my real self soared into the sky. At first there was a brilliant light, then total darkness and finally a dark tunnel. Spinning through this tunnel I saw a pin-point of light, and then I suddenly shot out into Paradise. At least that was what I thought it was. My darling, you have so much to learn, and I have appeared today to tell you that you must believe in survival. Haven’t I proved it to you? When you truly believe, your life will begin. Love will enter your life and you will be shown what a privilege it is to be able to give of yourself without expectancy of reward.’

There was a pause, and Nathan murmured, as though he were speaking to another presence. Still staring at the corner of the room, Valerie asked, ‘What is happening?’ 1 had to tell her that I didn’t know. It must have been two minutes before Nathan spoke again.

‘I have your mother here but she can’t show herself yet, she doesn’t know how. She hasn’t been here very long.’ Nathan continued, ‘She wants me to tell you that we both love you very much and you are to stop crying every night because you live alone. You must believe that you are not alone – there are so many people here who give you love and comfort. You only have to believe that and the loneliness will disappear. Your aunt, Greta, wants to send her love also. I have to go now, my darling. You must believe that life is everlasting. If you do not believe that, then life will not be worth living.’

Valerie looked at me, still crying. ‘Everything you have told me is true. I’m terribly lonely, I have no friends.’

‘Have you ever thought about having a pet for company?’ I suggested. ‘There are so many unwanted animals around. And it would be a way of giving. When you are a giver rather than a taker you will find that your generosity will return to you tenfold.’ Then, changing the subject, I asked her if she had recognized my description of the watch. ‘Yes,’ she said bitterly. ‘I suppose some Nazi has passed it on to his son.’

‘Valerie,’ I said, ‘it is only a watch. What you have received today is worth a thousand watches. I’m sorry I have to ask, but did your father die in a concentration camp?’ It was quite apparent, having seen her father, that they were Jewish.

Tears were still running down her cheeks as she answered. ‘Yes. My mother and I escaped with my cousin, but my father was picked up at work before he had a chance to hide.’ She gave me an odd look and said, ‘If I’d known you were a medium, I wouldn’t have come for healing. I’ve always been afraid of this sort of thing.’

‘Are you still afraid?’ I asked.

‘No! But I am shocked. However, this experience has been so beautiful I shall never be afraid again. I could actually smell my father’s tobacco when he was speaking to you. Could you smell it?’ she asked.

‘Yes, but then I’m used to the aromas manifested by spirit people.’

We talked for some time, and when she was ready to leave she kissed me and said, ‘I’m going home to think very carefully about my father’s words.’

It was at this point that Nathan materialized. The wonder and joy on Valerie’s face was a sight to behold. She walked toward him, arms outstretched, but as she did so, he faded. She looked at me, ‘Where has he gone?’ she asked.

I assured her that he was still there even though we were unable to see him, and that he must love her very much to make such a supreme effort to show himself. Valerie hugged me. ‘I will never forget this as long as I live,’ she said.

When Valerie had left I walked back into the healing room. It was so charged with energy that I felt as though I was walking on air. I sat down and thought about the first message I had ever received – a simple message from a mother to her daughter. Then, as I recalled the emotionally charged sitting I had just experienced, I realized just how far I had come in being able to handle the sheer power that had exuded from Valerie’s father as he gave his message to his daughter.

At this point I would like to go back to the beginning of my mediumship and share the magic of my journey with you. It was not an easy journey by any means.

I had never been particularly interested in other people’s lives, so one of my first questions was, ‘Why me?’ It was a question I was to ask myself many times over the following years. As the messages I received always made sense to somebody, I was never afraid that I was going mad. I simply was not interested, and so tried to block out the voices. Because of my lifelong interest in health, it was the healing aspect that fascinated me most – so the spirits used every opportunity to pass on messages whilst I was healing. It was almost as though they were saying, ‘If you listen to us and pass on our messages we’ll help you with the healing.’ Oh yes, make no mistake! They were prepared to bribe me.

If I had been in a giving frame of mind it would have been easier for both sides. But I wasn’t. My children had left home and, for the first time since marrying at the age of twenty, I had time to enjoy myself. Life begins at forty-five, I thought. And it did, but not in the way I had envisaged.

My main reason for trying to block out the voices was the emotional strain it put upon me. Healing was stimulating, exciting, and I had studied alternative healing for most of my adult life. I felt that I could use that knowledge in conjunction with the energies to produce good results.

Mediumship, however, was a mystery. Although my grandmother had been a medium and we all looked upon her as someone very special, it had never dawned on me that I would inherit her gifts, so I had paid very little attention to her interests. I was only ten when I was evacuated, during the Second World War, and saw very little of her from that time. The war separated many families in this way. The simple fact was that I loved being a healer but hated being a medium. Fortunately for me and for many others this changed, and this book is about my training as a medium by spirit entities.

They spent an enormous amount of time and energy dealing with my eccentricities – and I had many. Ignoring my pleas to be left alone and my threat to give up healing they continued to try to pacify me and to encourage ‘survival evidence’. For this I am now truly grateful. But it was quite a different story at the beginning.

Although I had been guided by a spirit voice from the age of two, I was still shocked when, during my forty-fifth year, my friend’s late mother spoke to me and asked me to pass on a message to her daughter, who happened to be with me at the time. When I had finished relaying the message my friend looked at me and said, ‘I didn’t know you were a medium.’ My response was, ‘Neither did I!’

In my first book, Mind to Mind, I described my visit to a famous medium and how, during the session, he had told me that I would be a great healer and that my name would become known around the world. He also explained that I was mediumistic and that I would be using this gift for clairvoyant diagnosis, amongst other things. That was twenty-two years ago, and everything he forecast has come true.

Much has been written, by myself and others, of my healing abilities, but I have never mentioned the inner conflict that I suffered as I tried to come to terms with the fact that people who were supposed to be dead were actually trying to communicate with me. And that overnight the energy floodgates had opened.

And if that was not enough, spirit forms began to build up around me. One day, whilst my daughter Janet and I were having tea in the kitchen, I happened to glance through the open door leading into a large hall. A huge funnel of blue energy had formed in the centre of the hall, and as I stared a man appeared inside the structure. He had long white hair and wore a white robe. A quick glance at Janet told me that she was wondering why I was ignoring her and staring through the door. I explained, in a whisper, what was going on and asked her to turn around. Her reaction was to tell me to close the door as she would rather not see it. I didn’t, of course, as I was completely fascinated by the phenomenon. Then the entity looked straight at me with a kindly but concerned expression. My first thought was, ‘If he is worried, how does he think I feel!’ The vision slowly disappeared and as it did so I experienced a feeling of emptiness and desperately wanted it to return. It was a sensation that was to become part of my everyday life. At the time I was upset by Janet’s refusal to share my experience. I was to find out much later that she had her own unique path to follow.

While I was relaxing that same evening, the faces of different nationalities manifested on the blank walls of my living room. The images vibrated as they continually changed. I remember looking at them in fascinated disbelief, wondering what on earth was going on. This continued for about one hour.

Retiring to bed did not help either. When I looked up at the ceiling I could see an eye, about the size of a dinner plate. This phenomenon was something I had experienced from the beginning. It was a kindly eye, and it gave me a tremendous feeling of peace. Unfortunately, I lost a lot of sleep looking at it. It was only months later, whilst looking in the mirror, that I realized it was identical to my own; this was my mind’s eye – my third eye. From that moment I was able to ignore it and my sleeping hours were restored. Three years later the eye stopped appearing, and I missed it.

Something new seemed to be happening to me every day, and there were times when I just had to get out of the house. I would drive to the nearest park and, depending on the weather, either go for a walk or sit in the car. It was on one of these occasions that I pondered over the different spirit messages I had received for myself. How was I to know whether the voices were true or whether I was listening to my own higher mind? It worried me, and I had no idea how this was going to be resolved.

The following day, whilst carrying out that most mundane of household jobs, washing-up, I had my answer. A voice repeated over and over again the christian names and surnames of both family and friends, many of whom had been dead for some time. The repetition was extraordinary. I wrote them down. It was very similar to the way I had been taught parrot-fashion at school when learning my times table. When the voice eventually stopped I looked down at the names on the paper. Some I remembered, others I did not. As I had a day’s healing ahead of me, I had to put them out of my mind at that point.

That evening the voice returned, repeating the same names three times. Toward the end many new names were mentioned. The process continued in this vein for the next two months. During that time I checked with relatives and friends, and all of the names that were unknown to me were verified. As time passed I was also given the second christian names of many of these people. Once more I had to check, and once more they were confirmed. The voice itself had no name and I was never to find out who it had been. But one thing was sure, it was the most persistent of all the communicators. If that person had ever lived on this planet he would surely have made an excellent politician!

Although the results I was having with healing were excellent, I found the survival evidence intrusive. Somehow it did not seem to belong in the healing room, although the messages were well received. But I was unhappy about it. There were so many lessons to be learnt as far as healing techniques were concerned and I needed the time to study them.

I remember sitting alone one evening, praying for the voices to stop. I had heard a child’s voice that day asking to speak to her mother, and the shock had reduced me to tears. This is how it happened.

I was healing a young woman who had been suffering with acute irritable bowel syndrome for the past two years. This was her second visit. She told me she liked being with me as I didn’t ask her questions. It was so peaceful. Suddenly I heard a little girl’s voice saying, ‘I want to speak to my Mummy.’ I looked at my patient. Her eyes were closed and she appeared to be asleep. I touched her hand and she opened her eyes. ‘There’s a little girl here who wants to speak to her Mummy. Have you lost a child?’ I asked gently.

She whispered ‘Yes,’ and then incredulously, ‘Can you hear her?’

The child spoke again. ‘Tell Mummy that the nice lady said that I could talk to her as she is so unhappy.’ I passed the message on. With myself as the mediator the conversation continued as follows:

Mother: ‘I love you and never stop thinking about you.’

Child: ‘I know, Mummy, because sometimes I can see you.’

Mother: ‘Where are you, darling?’

Child: ‘Well, I’m not sure, but it has lovely birds and we stroke them.’

Mother: ‘Who is we, darling?’

Child: ‘My friends. I have to go now, Mummy.’ A woman’s voice took over.

‘Hello, Jill, it’s May. I thought you would like to hear from Gemma. We’ve been worried about you.’

Jill’s eyes widened. ‘I can’t believe it! May was my aunt. She died about ten years ago.’

May then continued, ‘I look after the children, and Gemma has been with me since she arrived. She is a very happy, lively little girl and much loved. Now I must go.’

Jill was crying and questioning at the same time. I sat and held her hand.

‘Why did your little girl call May “the lady” and not auntie?’ I asked.

Jill wiped her eyes. ‘Gemma was only two when my aunt died. She didn’t know her.’ She frowned then, and said, ‘It is strange. Gemma died exactly two years ago today.’

I smiled. ‘Obviously it was a treat they had planned for you.’ ‘I had no idea you were a medium,’ Jill remarked suddenly. I smiled and said nothing. Jill left.

If I had been truthful I could have told her that I didn’t want to be a medium. That I had found the whole session a terrible strain. I re-learnt a valuable lesson that day. The truth is sometimes a cross we have to bear alone so that we can ease the suffering of others.

After Jill had left I sat alone, going over and over the conversation she had had with her daughter. The little girl’s voice was in my head and I couldn’t get rid of it. The sadness overwhelmed me. I prayed that the voices would stop. Two weeks later Jill asked for a healing session. Although I gave her an appointment, I dreaded seeing her again. When she arrived I could not believe she was the same young woman. The pallor had gone and her previously dull eyes were shining.

‘Betty,’ she said, ‘I haven’t come along hoping to hear from my daughter again, I just want to thank you for the precious gift I received last time I was here.’ She laughed. ‘I haven’t suffered with my bowel since, and I know that my daughter’s visit has cured me.’ As an afterthought, she went on, ‘With your help of course.’

Whilst I was healing Jill, a spirit child built up in the room. It was Gemma. She was smiling, and although she didn’t speak I was able to give Jill an accurate description of her. Jill never looked back. Because she now knew that Gemma still lived, albeit in another dimension, it gave her the strength to rebuild her own life.

Was I being shown the link between healing and survival evidence? Did they sometimes have to go hand in hand to get results? At the time I did not know what to think. All I knew was that things were moving too fast for me and I just could not take it all in.

One night I awoke with a start. I could hear a rushing sound, like a waterfall. Then as the sound receded I saw the most beautiful coloured pictures being projected on to the wall opposite my bed. The first scene depicted a small village with white houses and a dusty track. Behind the village were hills, and just above the hills was the most beautiful sunset I have ever seen. The sky was a mass of many different colours. As I stared, the scene slowly changed. This time it showed a valley filled with people crouching on the ground, obviously listening to the figure standing before them. I could not see the face of the figure as it was half hidden by a white cowl. The scene changed again, and before me was a beautiful waterfall and the same rushing sound that I had heard on awakening. And then a voice said, ‘Everything is possible.’

As my bedroom returned to normal I tried to leave my bed. At this point I needed to make myself a cup of tea – perhaps with a tot of brandy! But I could not move. The whole of my body felt like lead. Eventually, I was able to sleep. The leadenness, I was to find out later, was due to the mind energy having practically left the body, as it does with shock or deep sleep, and until it slips back, the physical body is helpless. These visions have continued, and all have a spiritual significance. I love them and would hate them to disappear altogether.

It seemed that the more I tried to reject the voices so eager to pass on messages of survival, the stronger they became. Healing sessions were usually of an hour’s duration. I felt that anything less than that would lead to a sense of urgency, and when people are ill they need time to talk. When survival evidence came through, the session obviously went on for much longer and this worried me a great deal, because my clients liked the confidentiality that I gave them. I did not favour the packed waiting room. It might give the appearance of being successful, but it does little for the sensitivities of the people who are forced to share their space when they are at their lowest ebb. As I could not stop the flow of spirit voices I had to arrange my diary accordingly so that my appointments did not overlap.

This worked quite well until four friends, who all had health problems, asked if I would mind if they stayed together whilst they each received healing. I reluctantly agreed, although I thought at the time that the room was far too small for all of us. It seemed, however, that the spirit world thought it could hold a few more! As I healed, survival evidence poured through. It must have looked as though I was giving a command performance! As usual there was a mixture of tears and laughter, especially when an uncle, who had been a professional comedian, came through. His niece said, ‘I cannot believe he is still telling the same old jokes.’ Another of the friends had lost a watch and was told to look under the wardrobe in her bedroom. She called later to tell me that it had indeed been there. All of this happened during the evening and they were my last clients – but what if it had happened during the daytime? They had overstayed their time by two hours.

When they had gone I sat quietly in the healing room, feeling thoroughly exhausted. Leaning my elbows on the healing couch I put my head in my hands and wondered what was going to happen next. I felt that I was being knocked sideways as each individual experience gave me more problems. Then I heard a voice calling my name. It was repeated three times. Silence. A few seconds passed and the voice said, ‘You must have faith, trust us.’ I stood up and threw my arms out and shouted, ‘Trust who? Who are you?’ Silence. I was so annoyed that I began to tell them just how I felt. ‘How do you think I feel?’ I said dramatically, still throwing my arms around. ‘Every day something different happens. I’m trying to give people privacy and then voices clamour to give survival evidence and it completely messes up my schedules, and tonight I have had to work myself to death trying to please.’ Still ranting like a drama queen, I went on, ‘There must be someone else you can go and bother, for Heaven’s sake!’ At the end of this tirade I felt wonderful, having released all the frustration of the past six months. Perhaps that had been the reason for the silence. Nothing made me more angry than a one-way conversation, spiritual or otherwise. I had found out the hard way that onesided conversations meant trouble. As I left the room, I prayed that I would be given a peaceful night’s sleep. This was granted. Perhaps my ranting had done some good after all.

Another, more personal problem was worrying me. People who I had thought of as friends were avoiding me, and one day I had the opportunity of asking one of them if there was a problem. He looked shamefaced, and told me that when he had told his mates in the pub about the wonderful survival evidence he had received they had ridiculed him. The bottom line was that he could not cope with this, and so had decided to stop seeing me. I argued that I had not changed, but was exactly the same person that I had always been. A trifle more perplexed perhaps, but the same.

‘Betty, the majority of people think mediums are frauds,’ he said.

‘And your friends think they’re the experts, do they?’ I was furious.

‘Why did you tell them in the first place?’ I asked. ‘You must have realized they would laugh at you.’

‘Well, I must confess I was pretty bowled over by what had happened, and wanted to share the experience.’ He smiled. ‘I’ve been an idiot, haven’t I?’

‘No,’ I replied. ‘But I think you’re being a coward.’ Upset, he turned around and left.

A few months later we talked on the phone. He told me that he had needed time to think about what I had said, and laughingly agreed that he was a coward at heart.

‘I am so intrigued, I can’t keep away,’ he confided. Eventually, the survival evidence, clairvoyance and healing won him over. He was to admit later that it had completely changed his life. During this time there was one question that he repeatedly asked. ‘As a believer, will I have to change my ways and become a goody-two-shoes?’ ‘Well if you do then I’m in serious trouble,’ I replied.

It was a thought that frequently passed through my mind, especially as my clients were obviously in awe of me. Like my friend, I did not want to change. I had led an extremely eventful life and I was the sum total of every experience I had ever had. And yet the thought continued to bother me.

My mother was religious and belonged to the Church of England, and so I had become part of that Church from my birth. After much coaxing from my mother, I was confirmed in Southwark Cathedral when I was nineteen. I was already beginning to feel disenchanted and hoped by making this commitment that things would change. It is only later in life that one realizes that it is not that easy. Eventually, after much soul-searching, I stopped being a member of the Church. And from that time on, I felt spiritually cleansed. In retrospect, it is obvious that it was part of the Grand Plan that had been mapped out for me. But here I was twenty-five years later, with yet another spiritual dilemma. It had to be solved if I was to have peace of mind. And yet, as with so many problems we have during our lives, this one was going to have to be put on hold.

Throughout the first year of my mediumship I tried to make all sorts of pacts with the spirit world; some worked while others did not. I could not understand why this should be so, and continued to experiment. It was through trial and error that I began to see a pattern emerging, and this was confirmed through survival evidence.

One evening I was healing a woman who was crippled with arthritis. Halfway through the session a spirit voice told me that he would like to speak to his sister. I passed the message on and the woman was delighted that her brother was communicating. With myself acting as the mediator, the communication was as follows:

‘Hello, Joan, we heard you were in trouble. I was elected to speak as we were so close when we were young.’

‘Bert, it’s so lovely to hear from you but who are the “we” you are speaking about?’

‘Oh, Mum, Dad, Ivy, Flo and many others who loved you.’

My patient began to weep. She said, ‘I am in such pain, I wish I could be with you.’

‘Joan, you will never be well until you have released all the hate in your heart. It is crippling you.’

‘I can never forgive him for what he did to me,’ she replied.

‘This hate is not hurting him, only yourself.’ Bert paused, then continued, ‘We cannot help you until you help yourself.’

For the next twenty minutes they enjoyed a private chat about their lives until Bert said goodbye. I asked my client who the ‘he’ was. She told me that it was her ex-husband, and that he had made her life hell.

Joan visited me again a fortnight later. She walked into my healing room, twirled around and said, ‘Look what you have done for me. My arthritis has gone.’

On questioning her about the last two weeks I found that she had rid herself of the hate she had inside her by mentally sinking into a bath and watching the black hate being released. Then she ran the water until it was clear.

‘So you have actually cured yourself,’ I said. She looked at me in silence for some time. ‘I suppose I have,’ she was perplexed. ‘But it was so easy.’ I smiled. ‘If I had all those people rooting for me in the spirit world I would find it easy. I think the evidence you received has been a valuable lesson for both of us.’

She visited me again a year later to tell me that she was getting married and was going to live in America.

It was a simple message, but a powerful one. Working in my capacity as a medium or healer I could not always be successful if the spirituality of the client had been badly affected in some way. I began to give myself mental exercises for cleansing, and felt so much better that I passed them on to my clients. It was whilst I was sitting at my healing couch writing them down that I heard a voice say, ‘We are going to try something.’

My hand moved rapidly, as I drew face after face on the blank paper. There were priests, nuns, clowns and children, and they were not all English. There were many foreign people with ornamental headdress. The drawing stopped as rapidly as it had started, and I was completely dumbfounded. I had never been able to draw at all, and here were most professional sketches. I tried to carry on, but I could sense that the force had left and with it my artistry. These sessions continued for about three weeks and I thought that I had found another talent. I was thrilled. Unfortunately, it left, one day, never to return. I found out much later that a medium is tested in many ways, and a spirit artist had obviously wanted to work through me but had found that I was not the right material. I could have told them that to begin with!

I was still being urged to give straight sittings and although my clients were extremely happy with the results, I myself did not particularly enjoy the experience. It was too inactive for me. As most of the sitters needed healing, I was able to persuade them to have healing whilst giving them survival evidence at the same time. They were delighted with the results, and this method suited me.

My mediumistic abilities enabled me to work in conjunction with a team of spirit entities, including doctors who had taken it upon themselves to train me. As in any teacher-pupil relationships we had our ups and downs. I was convinced at one stage that healing was purely magnetic, and that the spirits did not have anything to do with the healing. The team were quick to react to this.

First there was the blind man who told me that when he and his wife arrived home after healing, all the lights in their house were on, including the spare room which they never used. Also, the curtains in the bedroom were closed at night and opened in the morning.

Then a woman client told me that she had felt someone manipulating her arm in the night and found when she woke in the morning that her frozen shoulder had been cured.

A friend who suffered from migraine mentally asked for my help during an attack. After a few minutes she felt hands on her head and shoulders and fell asleep. When she awoke, the pain had gone and she never suffered another migraine.

And so it went on, until they had convinced me that there were spirit doctors and they did work through me. But one day whilst meditating I received this message.

Having experimented with the idea of healing being purely magnetic you have been given evidence that this is not entirely correct. But you have found out for yourself that life force is magnetic. You will find that spiritual power and life force interact all the time and it is impossible to separate the two. You were partly correct. We would like you to continue with your original ideas and when we feel that you are on the wrong path we will gently guide you back on to the correct one. You are a free spirit and will always be so.

I was glad to hear that. I hated the thought of being manipulated and sometimes the idea disturbed me. It was only the successful healings that urged me on. If so many people were being given a new life by this incredible force then what I was doing must be right. But somewhere in the corners of my mind I occasionally felt uneasy. Sometimes, I was not quite sure if the ideas I had were mine or theirs, they were so mixed up.

Other aspects were also worrying. Although I have been an avid reader all my life there were certain subjects that did not interest me, and one of those was golf. Yet when a group of friends discussed golf I found myself making suggestions that would improve their game. They were astonished, and so was I. But trying these tactics later they found them to be extremely helpful.

The same pattern was repeated whenever there was a particular topic being discussed. People who did not believe in mediumship or healing gradually began to phone me for advice, and I began to give my friends psychic consultations. Between us we monitored these consultations, which were to prove extremely accurate.

Nine months into my first year of mediumship I was to discover yet another gift. In conversation, whenever a name was mentioned, I seemed to know everything about that person and was able to give a detailed account of their personality. When asked about this ability and where the information came from, I had no answer. All I could say was that it was, ‘a kind of knowing’. Now, of course, I know that it is an ability to tap the Universal Mind. Twenty-two years on I am still using this talent to help friends.

One memorable consultation was with an amateur golfer. His ambition was to achieve a hole in one. The words came before the thought as I explained what he had to do.

‘Take a long look at the direction in which you want the ball to go and visualize an energy beam from the middle of your forehead to the hole. Then “see” the ball going into the hole. If you have any doubts at all it will not happen. Just “know” that it is going to happen.’

My friend laughed, ‘That sounds even more difficult than trying to get it in the normal way.’

‘If you simply “think it there” it should work.’ We were both laughing at this point. He agreed to try, though we were both doubtful.

A week later I answered the door to find him standing there with a huge bunch of flowers. He shoved them into my arms, and raising his hands above his head, shouted, ‘You’re a bloody marvel. It worked!’

He then explained in detail how he had carried out my instructions to the letter and got a hole in one on the first try. Grabbing my arm be propelled me inside and told me that he wanted me to be his personal consultant. I declined. But over the years he was able to achieve his ambition five times.

I enjoyed the mixed consultations with my friends. They were always happy events and there were no great expectations, it was just fun. Nevertheless, we were all pleasantly surprised at the outcome of these meetings. For me it was a time to relax, away from the pressure that was being put upon me by requests for healing and sittings.

At the end of the first year I still found sittings difficult. The communicators themselves were very coherent most of the time, and I was at ease with the two-way conversations. The difficulty arose from the emotions that were released when the contacts came through. A sitting would sometimes leave me feeling completely exhausted.

When I had been healing it was quite the reverse and I felt exhilarated. It was to be some time before I could work out why this should be so. I was also saddened by the fact that I did not seem to have a life of my own any more. I was trying to please too many people at the same time. However, I was so fascinated by the phenomena that were becoming a daily occurrence that I could not, it seemed, cut the cord.

There was one thing, though, that angered me during this period, and that was the intolerance shown to mediums and healers. The word ‘medium’ seemed to bring out the worst in people. I was ‘told’ by Christian friends that the devil was speaking through me. I replied that if that was the case then he was pretty well-informed and extremely intelligent.

‘Of course he is,’ was their reply. ‘That is why he is so good at hoodwinking people.’

‘You know him personally, do you?’ I asked.

‘Yes! We know him as well as we know Jesus Christ,’ they said.

‘Describe him,’ I asked. They faltered, and then said, ‘He can take on any image.’ Laughing, I remarked that he must be very talented. They were furious. ‘We’re trying to help you. This is no laughing matter.’

‘If you are right, then why does he give so much pleasure to so many people?’

They were angry and tried to interrupt, but I held up my hand to silence them. ‘No, hold on,’ I said. ‘All the messages I have passed on to people from relatives and friends have given them such happiness. In fact they have all told me that it has changed their lives for the better. In many cases it has taken away the fear of dying.’

‘They are being lured away from Christ,’ they replied.

I tried to bring some logic into the conversation. ‘If the church preaches that there is a life after death, then surely it should not be too much of a surprise to anyone that the survivors try to contact us to confirm this.’

‘We have already told you, it is the devil mimicking them.’

We had come full circle and I decided to end the conversation. It was then that they attacked the healing. ‘You can only be healed by a priest,’ I was told. It did not seem to matter to them that the priest giving the healing may not be a natural healer. ‘Jesus Christ would be working through him,’ they said.

‘But surely the Church preaches that Christ is within all of us,’ I remarked.

‘He is,’ was the reply. ‘But he will only work through those who have been ordained.’

I suggested that we should stop at that point, and they left. I believe that everyone should have their own point of view as long as it makes them happy, and I do not believe that you should try to force your opinions on others. This usually brings unhappiness.

I had been thoroughly grounded in the church’s teachings, and many of them did not make sense to me. The spirit teachings did. The healing continued, and so did the mediumship. I did not know then that the second year was going to be even more incredible than the first.