Читать книгу My Life As a Medium - Betty Shine - Страница 8

At the end of 1973, my energy had increased one hundred per cent. I felt like a time bomb waiting to explode. Subtle, yet tenacious, the spirits were there watching, guiding, protecting and, at times, an absolute pain.

My personal belongings were beginning to move around the house of their own accord, and sometimes disappeared altogether. It was frustrating and time-consuming trying to locate them. Like naughty children, the spirits seemed to be testing my patience, and I could see no sense at all in their behaviour. If there were mischievous entities trying to lighten the atmosphere they did not succeed, and their actions always made me angry.

I confided these peculiar happenings to a friend who was helping with some odd jobs around the house. He laughed, and told me that it was just my imagination. When he next looked for his toolkit it had gone, and he accused me of having moved it. I assured him that I had done no such thing and we spent the next hour searching for it, but to no avail. He was extremely agitated by this time and went back into the room in which he had been working to fetch his coat. There, in full view, was his toolkit. Sitting on top of the bag was a St Christopher medal he had lost earlier that year. His face was an absolute picture.

When he left, he said, ‘I will never again disbelieve the stories you tell me. Today I have had proof positive that there are things that ordinary people may never see, feel or understand, but they are there. Somehow, it’s a comforting thought.’ He hugged me and laughed. ‘I’ve learned a valuable lesson today. I don’t know everything.’ ‘Nobody ever will,’ I replied.

On another occasion a female friend asked me if I could locate her wedding ring, which she had lost the previous day. I closed my eyes and asked for help in tracing it and a few moments later was given the location. It was in my own bathroom! We decided to investigate and to our amazement found the ring lying on the side of the bath. My friend was shaking. ‘Betty, what on earth is going on?’ she asked. ‘I lost this ring in my home and it turns up in yours.’

‘I have no idea,’ I replied. ‘This is the family bathroom. It’s never used by anyone else.’

In that instant a woman’s voice came through to me. ‘Tell Jim he must not use his car until he has checked the brakes.’ Jim was my friend’s husband and I gave her the message.

‘Who was she? Did she give a name?’ she asked.

‘No, she didn’t,’ I replied.

‘Don’t you think that is a bit odd?’ I laughed, and said, ‘She certainly didn’t hang around, but I do think you should ring Jim and warn him.’

She did so, and a look of complete bewilderment came over her face as she spoke to her husband. She replaced the phone.

‘I can’t believe it,’ she told me. ‘He said he’d had a strong feeling that something was wrong with the brakes so he took the car to the garage to have them checked. He is waiting for the result.’ My friend smiled. ‘He is a real sceptic, you know. Perhaps this will make him think.’ The next day she called to tell me that the brakes had been stripped on one side and could have caused a serious accident.

Two weeks later, the mysterious voice contacted me again, and told me that she was Jim’s late mother. This time she wanted to give him some advice about his business. Her prophecy was later to be proved correct and prevented him from losing a large amount of money.

Whenever I felt the need to be peaceful, I would go into my healing room. By the simple act of walking into the room I was transported to another world a world of love and beauty and forgiveness. It was so easy to close my eyes, daydream and just drift off. For as long as I can remember I have used this easy way of meditating.

One day, however, an unfamiliar voice interrupted my reverie by calling my name. As he spoke I began to feel light-headed, and felt myself drifting into a deep trance state.

‘There will be great changes in your life,’ he told me. ‘You are being taught by the finest minds. Do not argue with them.’ There was a pause, then he continued, ‘The path you are on was of your own choosing.’ I tried to ask questions telepathically but my mind was not functioning. When I was finally able to think logically the voice had gone.

On opening my eyes I could see a white haze swirling around the room, forming intricate patterns. It disappeared finally into a whirlpool of its own making, and I wondered whether I was being shown the door from one dimension to another.

Still feeling sleepy, I thought about his remark that the path was of my own choosing. If this was true, and there was no reason for me to suspect that it was not, why had I selected it? Why had I pursued a singing career? Why had the events of the last year all come as such a shock? There were so many questions I wanted to ask, but the answers were not forthcoming at this time. Nevertheless, I did agree with the first part of his message. It was quite obvious that I was being taught by the best when I was healing.

It was during a healing session that I was shown another aspect of mediumship. I was with a woman who had recently lost her brother. She told me that there were only three members of her family left, and that this had left her in a very depressed frame of mind. As she was speaking I could feel a presence in the room, and a man’s voice said, ‘Tell her it’s her brother Jack.’ I passed on the message, and asked whether he was the brother who had just died. She told me that Jack was her eldest brother and that he had passed on three years ago. It was Barry, the youngest, who had just died.

Jack spoke again. ‘I want you to concentrate, so that my sister will be convinced we have survived.’ I presumed he meant himself and Barry. Then, in my mind, I was shown a photograph. There were about ten people in the picture and I could see them all clearly.

‘Tell her that she has an identical photograph at home.’ I duly passed this message on, and Jack then told me that he was going to give me the names of the people in the photograph, starting at the top, and going from left to right. I told my client what was happening, and indicated that she should find a pen and paper. As the names came through she wrote them down. When Jack completed the list, he told her that everyone he had mentioned sent their love, and that she was being cared for. Tears flowed when the communication came to an end, and looking at the names, she recognized the family she had lost.

‘Why aren’t you in the photograph?’ I asked.

‘Because I took it,’ she told me. ‘We’d got together for my mother’s birthday and I wanted to use my new camera.’

I asked whether she still had the photograph.

‘I believe I have. I’ll look for it when I get home, and give you a ring.’ She telephoned that evening to tell me that all the names were correct, and so was the order Jack had given.

She visited me once more, for healing. As she left she said, ‘I haven’t suffered from depression since I last saw you, because death doesn’t frighten me any more.’ She held my hands and smiled. ‘You see,’ she went on, ‘I know now that I will one day be reunited with my family, and they will be cross with me if I waste my life in the meantime.’ I never saw her again, but always received a ‘thank you’ card at Christmas.

After this episode there seemed to be a spate of ‘survivors’ showing me photographs and using the same process that Jack had done. It became obvious that there must be a system of telepathy and that everyone wanted to get in on the act.

The mediumship was going very well, until a female communicator began to speak in French. When I explained to my client that I hadn’t the faintest idea what was being said she explained that her father was French, and that the communicator was probably her paternal aunt.

‘Well I’m afraid I’m going to have to pass on this one,’ I told her. Suddenly, the aunt stopped using her voice and communicated telepathically – so the messages were conveyed and everyone was happy. I have been able to link people of all nationalities by this method. Occasionally they forget halfway through the conversation and resort to their native language, but a gentle reminder soon brings everything back to normal. There are moments when things go slightly awry, of course, but the laughter that ensues is a healing in itself.

There was one conversation that particularly moved me. It was that of a young French lady who had died in a fire. She told me that she felt no pain as the flames engulfed her because her mind had precipitated her death and had left her body before it was burned. The recipient of this message was her aunt, who was sitting beside me, weeping gently. She told me later that she had suffered terrible nightmares since the accident, supposing her niece to have died in agony.

A very similar story was that of a young man who had fallen out of a ten-storey building after a night of drinking. He contacted me whilst his mother was receiving healing and told her that his mind had left his body as he had fallen. He felt nothing as he surveyed the body lying on the ground.

‘I felt as though I was a mere bystander, looking at a stranger,’ he told us.

These stories have brought great comfort to those whose family and friends have died in similar circumstances. The mind protects and leaves when physically all is lost.

I was beginning to enjoy the survival evidence I received whilst giving healing. It was obvious that it brought enormous relief from pain and suffering and was, in fact, an alternative method of healing.

I was also perfecting the art of meditation, and through it was given an insight into another dimension. I had already seen a little of it as a child but now, years later, it was as though I could walk on air and I seemed to float effortlessly over mountains and valleys. I was taught that the thought was the deed. Simply think yourself somewhere and you were there. The temperature around me never changed, whether I was in a green valley or the desert, and it was always comfortable. I felt as though I was being bathed and massaged by the warm air around me, and the atmosphere was always charged with a vibrancy that one never experienced on earth. The colours were as I remembered them from my childhood. There was a brilliance, even in the pastel shades, that was hypnotic, and the perfume-laden air was intoxicating. When I was not in a meditative state I questioned whether these journeys were real or imaginary. In my heart I knew they were real, but how could I be sure? I did not want to fool myself. It was to be months before I was given the answer.

One day I slipped from a meditative mood into a trance, and found myself walking through seemingly endless corridors. The walls and ceiling of the building were transparent, and emanated a silvery light. As I reached the end of the corridor I saw my mother waiting for me. Other family and friends gathered round and we hugged and kissed. I remember asking if this were real and my mother told me never to doubt it. I wanted to stay but was informed that I still had a lot to do. When I finally awoke I knew that I had indeed been with my family and friends.

On subsequent visits I was shown halls of music, where each tone was matched by colours cascading down from the ceiling like a waterfall. I was shown how one can, with the necessary talent, think a building into existence, or think a bowl of cherries onto a table. The examples were endless and I was always enthralled at the visions before me.

These were to be confirmed time and again by survival evidence. I was entertaining some friends one evening when I saw a woman standing behind one of my female guests. I described the lady and gave her name, and was told that it was an aunt who had been dead for some time. My friend asked why her aunt was here.

‘I want to tell you that I shall stay with my father until it is time for him to come with me,’ was the reply.

‘How long will that be?’ my friend asked.

‘A few days,’ her aunt said. ‘He will feel no more pain.’ Then she left.

I thought it strange that my friend seemed happy to receive this message until she explained that her grandfather had suffered so much in the past year that death would be a merciful release for him.

Her grandfather indeed suffered no more pain, and died three days later. Proof that our loved ones ease our last moments and help us on our journey was given to me in so many ways.

I was once visiting an elderly lady in hospital when I saw a female spirit sitting at the bottom of the bed. She told me that she was waiting to take her mother ‘home’. I asked the patient if she had any family.

‘No!’ she said. ‘I did have a daughter, but she died in her teens. I’m sure I shall see her again.’ I described the visitor, and she confirmed that it was her daughter.

‘I expect she has come to fetch me,’ she said in a matter-of-fact way.

‘Or to give you reassurance,’ I suggested, trying to be positive. The old lady smiled knowingly. ‘I think she knows best,’ she said. She died a week later.

A small boy, who was in the last stages of cancer, came to me for healing. Ten minutes into the session a man stood in front of me, told me that he was the boy’s grandfather and that he would like to speak to his grandson. I asked the parents if they would permit me to pass on the messages. They agreed, and told me that they had spoken to their son about the afterlife, and that they believed his grandfather would be waiting for him.

‘I have come to tell you how beautiful it is where I am living now,’ the grandfather said. ‘I had never seen real colour before I came here. And the birds are magnificent, they look like a firework display as they move through the air. There are animals everywhere and they are loved by everyone.’

‘Will I be with you?’ the boy asked.

‘Of course,’ he was told. ‘I can’t wait to show you around. I must go now. Be seeing you.’

The parents tried to hide their tears for the sake of their son. They were still hoping for a miracle cure, but knew that they had just been given the answer. The little boy was ecstatic. He could not wait to see his beloved grandfather again, and spoke of nothing else during the remainder of the healing.

He died two months later. His mother told me that he had held conversations with his grandfather whilst in a coma. ‘There is no doubt that he could see and hear him,’ she said. The grandfather had arrived to ease the boy’s last days on earth, and had also given the parents immense pleasure knowing that he would be waiting for their child. But most of all it had relieved them of much pain and despair. Through the power of mediumship they had received a miracle.

It was at times like these that I realized the importance of mediumship. It is a talent that goes beyond anything that can be given by other professionals, and is a vital link between two worlds. With it comes a responsibility that can make or break you. ‘Is that what is happening to me?’ I asked myself. ‘Am I being tested to find out whether I can survive the onslaught?’ In the past 18 months I had certainly experienced phenomena that were absolutely incredible.

At times I found the whole process quite unbelievable. I had never had any inclination to involve myself with the paranormal in any way; my life had been too full of other interests and I knew nothing of spiritualism. The idea of visiting a spiritualist church would have been entirely alien to me.

However, I was taken to several spiritualist churches by a friend who thought that it would ease my path and provide some of the answers to my innumerable questions. But I soon closed that particular door, realizing that I had to find out the truth about this very extraordinary profession, for myself. I decided to follow a solitary path, mainly because I did not want to be brainwashed by the thoughts of others. If this was to be my future, and it was certainly beginning to look as though it was, then I had to break down all the barriers and come face to face, not only with myself, but with the power behind the phenomena.

One particular episode taxed my imagination. A small boy, who had been receiving healing from me, told his mother that he had seen me sitting on his bed during the night. ‘She was wearing a long blue gown, and smiled at me,’ he said, and though his mother questioned him for some time, intimating that he could have been dreaming, he was adamant. ‘I know I wasn’t dreaming because she woke me up when she sat on the bed.’ When his mother told me the story I was nonplussed. As far as I knew I had been safely tucked up in my own bed.

A similar story was given to me by another patient. Her husband was in a London hospital suffering from emphysema, and she had asked me to give him absent healing. When she visited him the following day he told her that a blonde woman wearing a long blue gown had visited him during the night. She asked him for a description; when he gave it, she said, ‘Oh, that’s Betty,’ and explained that she had asked me to give absent healing. She could not contain her excitement when she recounted the story to me. ‘How do you do it?’ she asked. I could only tell her that I hadn’t the faintest idea.

These nocturnal ‘visits’ were to become a regular occurrence, and were a complete mystery to me until a familiar voice – who I was by now calling my guru – told me that the mind leaves the body in sleep and can move around freely and show itself as a spirit form, exactly the same method as when someone dies and then appears as a spirit.

‘But how can these people see me when they’re awake?’ I asked.

‘Because their mind is still partly out of the body. We can only be seen with the mind,’ he answered. ‘Mind energy consists of the same elements as our dimension.’ It was a relief to know that somewhere, somehow, I was not harbouring a strange wardrobe and wandering about at night. Obviously my mind had a mind of its own!

One evening, feeling particularly drained after a full day’s healing, I sat down in my favourite armchair and drifted off into a light sleep. I awoke with a start when I felt the pressure of hands on my shoulders, but although I looked around there was no one there. I stood up and searched every room in the house, but I was definitely alone. I returned to my armchair, sat down and closed my eyes, and immediately felt the pressure on my shoulders again. I must admit it felt a bit creepy, and this time I simply could not move. I thought I recognized the feel of the hands but could not quite place it. Quite suddenly I was relieved of the pressure and found that I could stand. I walked around the room, feeling a bit odd, when something to my right caught my attention, I turned, and standing before me was my mother. I was so moved that I could not utter a sound. She smiled and disappeared. Trying to recall the vision later I could not remember whether she had been solid or transparent. I decided later that I had probably seen her as both as I had moved from one dimension to another.

There were times when I felt that the spirits had completely taken over my home. I would occasionally catch a fleeting glimpse of a spirit form if I turned suddenly, and it was this experience that taught me that the spirit world is not ‘out there’ somewhere. It is all around us. It is the energy counterpart of this planet and when we die our minds, free once more, spin through an energy vortex and, quite simply, go home.

In my first book, Mind to Mind, I told of the spirits that I could see walking through my bedroom as a child. Now I was being shown, once more, that this seemingly solid world of ours is but a shadow to the spirit world. This is why entities are able to disappear through doors and walls, and walk through wardrobes.

This conviction was confirmed one night when I saw the spirit form of a deceased friend quite literally walk through the wardrobe in my bedroom, sit on the bed and then it disappeared. A minute later he came up through the floor and stood laughing at the foot of the bed. I could sense him saying, ‘Well, what do you think about that!’

I found it quite extraordinary that I was accepting these visitations so easily – a far cry from my childhood when I habitually walked backwards, bumping into everything, because the church had convinced me that the devil was following me and waiting to pounce if I misbehaved. At least that is how my young mind interpreted it. And I hated the idea of a guardian angel. It sounded so GOOD! The entities that shared my life now were normal; there was no goody-goody stuff with this lot, they were just ordinary beings going about their lives, albeit in another world. I was finally beginning to like the ‘feel’ of this new experience, and loved the warm embrace of the energy that surrounded me, especially when I was healing.

All my life I had felt that there was something wonderful waiting to happen. When I fell in love I used to think, ‘This is it.’ But after a while I would realize that it was not ‘the happening’ yet, that it was still to come. I used to lie awake at night sometimes, wondering what it was going to be. I would frequently stare at the night sky, seeking the answer amongst the stars and beyond, but nothing could have prepared me for what was happening to me now; this, surely, must be the supreme ‘happening’.

But as in everything, there has to be another side of the coin and that for me was my continued apathy toward the idea of giving ‘sittings’. When I did give in I made sure that the room was bright and cheerful. There were no dark rooms with red lights for me – that would have totally depressed me. Although my clients were always moved and overjoyed by the outcome, I was unable to rid myself of the restlessness that I felt throughout the whole sitting. I had so much energy!

I often thought how stupid I would feel if no one wished to communicate and we had to sit in complete silence. But the challenge was to come in an entirely different way, and although I have recounted this story before I think it is still worth recalling, if only to help would-be mediums.

Within a few minutes of giving one particular sitting, I was given a picture of a pink elephant, and for a moment I wondered whether my client was an alcoholic. The picture appeared in my mind three times.

‘I’m sorry I haven’t said anything yet,’ I told her, ‘but quite honestly all I’m getting is a picture of a pink elephant.’

She was delighted. ‘I cannot thank you enough,’ she replied, ‘that is all I wanted to hear.’ She explained: ‘When my husband died he told me that if there was an afterlife he would show me a pink elephant. I’ve already been to several mediums, and was beginning to think that there was no life after death.’ She looked a little shamefaced, and went on, ‘I have to tell you that I deliberately thought of something else so that you couldn’t pick it up telepathically.’ Then she asked me why the other mediums had not picked it up.

‘There could be many reasons,’ I replied. ‘Perhaps your husband wasn’t around to pass the message on. Or, if they did get the message they might have felt a bit stupid.’ I smiled. ‘I must admit, I thought you were going to laugh at me.’

‘I’m so glad you told me,’ she said. ‘You’ve made me very happy.’

When she had gone, I wondered how many mediums had left out a vital piece of information whilst passing on survival evidence, simply to protect their own reputations. I was beginning to realize how much courage and intelligence one had to have to become a good medium. Receiving the messages was only a small part of the whole. Throughout the first two years, a pattern evolved both in healing and mediumship. A new experience would result in a spate of similar occurrences.

Whilst I was giving healing to a young woman, her brother came through and showed me a book with a thistle pressed in it. She understood this because he had promised that this would be his way of showing her that life did exist after death. She was understandably shaken, because she had not expected the information to be given to her during a healing session. She had visited several mediums previously, to no avail, and as her brother had been dead for four years she had completely forgotten his original promise.

On one occasion when I was giving a friend counselling, the beautiful scent of a rose filled the air. She recognized it immediately as a rose her father had loved when he was alive.

‘He promised to send me a rose if he survived,’ she told me, ‘but the perfume is even better.’ Just as she was about to leave she found a rose lying next to her handbag. It was the same variety that her father had grown and loved.

I had a similar communication whilst healing a man in his fifties. He most definitely did not believe in the afterlife, and I often pulled his leg about it. I was in a quandary. What should I do? I had to pass on the message although I knew 1 would be giving him ammunition for the future if it did not make any sense to him.

‘There is someone here who wishes to communicate with you,’ I said.

‘You must be joking,’ he replied. ‘You’re having me on.’

I smiled. ‘I promise you I’m not. His name is Peter, and he’s saying that he still owes you a fiver.’

‘Bloody hell! That’s my brother-in-law, and that was the last thing I said to him before he died. It was a joke, because he’d owed me the fiver since his wedding thirty years ago.’

‘He’s telling me that he’s definitely going to return it to you, to prove once and for all that he is still alive. There you are,’ I went on, laughing. ‘And he doesn’t like the way you speak to me about the afterlife!’

Peter then passed on several messages of a private nature, and when he had finished my patient was completely nonplussed and rather put out. ‘I’m going to have to think about this before I tell the family. They’ll think I’ve gone barmy.’ ‘Well, let me know if you get the five pounds,’ I joked. A month later he rang and told me that when he had got into his car that morning a five pound note had been lying on the passenger seat! It could not have been placed there by anyone else as he had the only set of keys. The spirits are very fond of leaving money around for some reason and they seem to favour the five pound note. I have been the recipient of many of these notes, and have found them in the most unlikely places.

It was now 1974, well into the second year of these incredible happenings, and I was being urged by a number of people to ‘take to the platform’ – the platform being spiritualist churches and the like. I had already been informed by the first medium I had visited that I would not work from the platform and that my work would always be confidential. I could well understand this, as I am a very private person. I had been the grateful recipient of messages from mediums who worked in the churches, so it was not a question of disapproval. It was simply not me.

‘But all good mediums take to the platform,’ my friend informed me.

‘Well, this one won’t be doing so,’ I told her. I also knew that I had a lot to learn and that I needed to do this in the privacy of my own home.

The more I thought about this issue the more important it became when I thought about the very private messages that came through, and the tears and laughter that ensued when I passed them on. There are as many people who wish to keep their lives a private matter between themselves and the communicator as there are those who do not mind sharing their messages with others. I fall into the former group, so I suppose it is inevitable that I have elected to work confidentially.

Many people believe that it is only women who seek help and guidance through mediumships, but this is not so; I had many men ask for my help. They tended to book evening appointments and I frequently worked until eleven o’clock at night. I believe that they felt at ease with me because very often the outcome of a sitting would be just as much a surprise to me as it was to them. During one of these sessions a man spoke to me.

‘My name is Carl. Would you tell my son that I did not leave my wife destitute as he believes.’

The man sitting opposite me stared in disbelief as I gave him the message. Then he said, ‘I’m afraid my father is wrong. We’ve looked everywhere for the life insurance policy that he always said existed, and there is no sign of it.’

The father spoke again. ‘Do you remember, as a boy, creeping up behind me when I visited the cellar?’ There was a pause as I passed the information on to my client, who answered in the affirmative. ‘Do you remember what I was doing?’ the father asked.

My client looked puzzled and said, ‘No, I don’t know what he was doing.’

It was here that the voice stopped and instead I was given the picture of a cellar. At the side of a workbench someone was taking a brick out of the wall. A hand reached into the space and brought out a box. Then the vision ended. The son was stunned. ‘I had no idea what he was up to when he went down there. The crafty old devil.’

He then told me that he had been extremely worried about his mother’s future. ‘Although she has her own home,’ he said, ‘she only has a small pension. I’m helping her, but with three children of my own it is very difficult.’ He laughed for the first time. ‘I hope there is something in that bloody box.’

And there was. Speaking to me a week later he told me how he had rushed to his mother’s house and after a hasty greeting had gone down to the cellar. Examining the wall at the side of the bench he had found the loose brick and the box. Inside were three life insurance policies, worth in the region of eighty thousand pounds.

If he had not sought help from a medium, those policies would have remained hidden.

Every day seemed to bring such wonder to me, and I wanted to share my experiences with the whole world. But, intuitively, I knew that it was too early. Although I was a relative newcomer in this field I had already seen the destructive influences at work and I knew I had to wait until I could prove myself under the most trying circumstances. In fact, I waited twelve years. More of that later.

Occasionally, my life was disrupted by an aggressive individual. One such person was the father of a small boy who suffered agonizing pains in his legs. The mother had brought the boy to me and the pain had receded after only two visits. It was then that the father decided he did not want the boy to receive healing. He would not give a reason but threatened the mother with dire results if she brought him to me. Fortunately for her son she chose to ignore the threats and continued with the healing.

One day, whilst I was healing the boy, the front door bell rang, and continued to ring until I opened the door. A man rushed past me, opening doors until he found the healing room. At this stage I had no idea who he was. When I entered the room I realized he was the boy’s father. He and his wife were having a terrible row and the child was crying. I managed to calm them down and sat talking to them for several minutes. Amidst all this confusion a spirit voice told me to get the mother and child out of the room. I turned to the woman and suggested that she take her son to my kitchen and make us all a cup of tea. She agreed. Left alone with the father, I told him that someone was trying to communicate with him.

He exploded! ‘I don’t want to listen to all this rubbish,’ he said. ‘That’s why I don’t want the boy coming here.’ I continued. ‘It is your grandmother, Mabel.’ On hearing his grandmother’s name he became speechless.

‘She’s telling me that out of all her grandchildren you were the one who used to show her kindness and respect. Is that correct?’ I asked. He nodded and I continued. ‘She is telling me that your aggression stems from the fact that you always longed for a child to share your interest in sport, especially football, and that you are devastated by your son’s disability.’ The man covered his face with his hands and quietly sobbed.

I got up and locked the door. I did not want his wife and son to see him this way. Placing my hand on his shoulder, I said, ‘Mabel is telling me that she had impressed upon your wife to bring your son to me as the medical profession could not help him.’ At that point the messages ended.

I waited for the man to compose himself, then said, ‘Your grandmother has made such an effort to help. What is there to lose? Allow your son to have healing. You never know, Mabel may be able to conjure up a miracle or two.’ He stared at me. ‘But I don’t believe in it.’ ‘Well, let my belief carry us all,’ I suggested.

I left him alone for a few minutes and then returned with his wife and son. We sat in silence for a while and then, much to the mother’s astonishment, the little boy’s father said, ‘Well, son, I think we will both be bringing you next week.’ He had his reward when his son put his arms around his neck and kissed him.

Six months later they were playing football together. The child never looked back, and he and his father had a very special relationship from that day on.

On another occasion a woman arrived for healing. During the treatment I heard a man’s voice saying, ‘Beth, you must get out, you’re in danger.’ I asked my client about her home life as I felt that was where the danger lay. It became obvious during the course of the conversation that I was right, and I decided to pass the message on to her so that we could discuss it. It did not seem to come as a surprise to her at all, in fact, she was very calm. She simply said, ‘I know.’ I asked her why she was not prepared to leave and she told me that her husband was mentally ill and would not seek treatment. He was becoming so aggressive that she was afraid he would commit suicide.

The voice spoke again. ‘Tell her this is Len, and I want her to leave now as she is making it too easy for him.’ I passed the message on to her, and she told me that Len was her late father-in-law. We discussed what he had said and I urged her to leave, if only for a few days. I was extremely worried about the situation, as I could hear the urgency in Len’s voice. Before she left I suggested that she should think very carefully about the information she had been given. Two days later she telephoned to say that her husband had tried to attack her so she had left and was now staying with her sister.

Three months later she came to see me and told me the whole story. Apparently, her husband had suffered a nervous breakdown the previous year but had refused to visit his doctor. He would not allow any of his family and friends to help him and had simply given up. He had lost his job, and had locked himself away in his home refusing to see anyone at all.

When Beth had returned home after visiting me he had insisted on knowing where she had been and when she refused to tell him, he became angry and attacked her. She realized, perhaps for the first time, that she was in danger, and decided to take Len’s advice and get out. The outcome was that with no one to lean on, her husband eventually sought help from his doctor, who recommended counselling.

Beth told me that it was Len’s messages that had been the deciding factor when she had left. She realized for the first time that her strength was encouraging her husband’s weakness. Now his health was restored, they were back together, and were extremely happy.

Beth had decided against telling her husband about the spirit messages. So she was surprised one day when he said, ‘You know, all the time I was ill I felt that my father was with me and was trying to tell me something. I wish I knew what it was.’

‘Well, perhaps one day we’ll visit a medium and you’ll find out,’ Beth replied.

‘You must be joking,’ he said. ‘Ydon’t believe in all that stuff.’ Beth just smiled.

I find it quite extraordinary that thousands of people who believe their late family and friends are often around them also insist that there is no life after death. It is totally illogical. And, many of those who do believe will not visit a medium because they are afraid their loved ones will speak to them.

I was also astonished to find that many clients who received wonderful survival evidence were unable to believe what they had heard and half suggested that I had been checking up on their family. I have never had the time to check my own family trees, let alone hundreds of others!

Everyone I met assumed that I had sat for years in a development group and were astonished when I told them that it had all more or less happened overnight. I am far too impatient to sit around waiting for something to happen, but when it does I take advantage of what I have been given. That is why in these first years I really had a great time. I could not wait for the next instalment, and when it came I was like a child with a new toy. I played with it, challenged it and, needless to say, marvelled at it. As I did with the next experience.

I was quietly reading a book one evening and became aware of a swirl of energy around me. Placing the book on the couch, I looked around the room and found that I was in the centre of a moving landscape of colour – pink clouds, orange hills, blue waterfalls and brilliant white fountains, a kaleidoscope of different pictures, landscapes filled with the beauty of colour, moving and changing all the time. I was entranced. Then a voice said, ‘Colour changes everything.’ It certainly did. When the energy silently slipped away and I was left once again with my ordinary room, I felt cheated. From that day on I brought more colour into my life. I also experimented with colour healing and found that it was extremely beneficial, especially with distant healing.

Time and again I marvelled at this incredible world that was being shown to me. It made everyday surroundings appear so dull. My whole life seemed to be on a roller-coaster, and there was no way that I could control the brakes. When I was tired, I often tried to shut it all out but could not. If it was not amazing phenomena it was small things, like the sound of the telephone ringing in my ears, warning me that my own phone would ring in a few seconds. Or the sound of a dog barking in my head – though we had no animals at that time. My belongings continued to disappear and reappear in the most peculiar places. This still annoyed me! There were whirlwinds of energy that felt as though someone had opened all the doors and windows on a chill winter evening. I felt a hand stroking my face whilst I was healing. I had become quite blase about the beam of light in the hall as it appeared so often. Sometimes there was someone inside the beam but very often it was empty. I had begun to think of it as a spaceship, which was really strange as I have always been bored to tears with things like the Star Trek films on television. However, it was the appearance of spirit forms that held my attention. How wonderful they were! And how incredible it was to study this phenomenon that had first manifested when I was a child, when I hadn’t a clue what was going on. Now, thirty-five years later, I still didn’t know an awful lot but at least the added years had given me the gift of reasoning – even though that was being taxed at this time.

I remember one incident in particular. I had finished healing for the day and was just about to leave the room when I saw a spirit form taking shape from the feet upwards. This was no ordinary spirit. It was a man with long white hair, whose beard practically reached his waist. He was wearing a white gown that swirled around his feet. My first thought was that he looked like Father Time, or at least how I would have imagined him. My legs were shaking so much I had to sit down. I waited for some kind of communication, but there was nothing. Then objects began to dance around on the table and the room seemed to shake. It was scary. I was staring at the old man and our eyes appeared to be locked together in some kind of beam. Then, just like a melting snowman, he disappeared into the floor and was gone.

It was incredible to say the least, and I was longing to tell someone about it, but felt that my family and friends had already been pushed to the edge with my new-found talents. I was intrigued, and for days I tried to recreate the image of this man. Who was he? What did he want to tell me? Had he been trying to communicate telepathically? I certainly did not feel any benefit from him having appeared, and had received no extra knowledge. At least not yet. It was to be a week before I found out what I had been given. Whilst speaking to a friend I realized that when she mentioned someone’s name I knew everything about them. I asked her to test me by mentioning names that were unknown to me, and the results were amazing. Previously, I could give an outline of the personality, but now, I was being given minute details about their lives, and their future. Somehow, this man had given me a line straight through to the Universal Mind. It was an incredible discovery, and a talent that enabled me to help people who were unable to visit me.

One such person was a lady who was bedridden and totally dependent on her family. She wrote to request absent healing and, at the same time, asked whether I could suggest Christmas presents for two nieces and a nephew. The names and birth dates were listed at the bottom of the letter, and as I studied them I had a picture of all three children. The two girls were totally different personalities; one was rather excitable and the other quiet, and as I thought about them individually I was able to recommend suitable gifts. When I linked into her nephew I knew that he would like a dartboard.

A month later I received the following letter:

It is with great regret that I have to tell you that my aunt died four days after Christmas.

I thank you from the bottom of my heart for helping her with the children’s presents. She was overcome with joy when she saw how thrilled they were with her gifts. Needless to say, the children will treasure them and they will remind them of a very loving and lovely person.

I have only one question: How did you do it? I am fascinated.

How could I tell her when I did not know the answer myself ?

My life was becoming stranger than fiction, and at times I had the feeling that my home had become a time capsule. Visions of the past and future were constantly being relayed to me. The visions I did not like were those that showed disasters waiting to happen.

One night, in a dream, I saw an aircraft crash into some palm trees on the water’s edge, and I watched as it crumpled on to the beach in slow motion, the blue sea lapping over the wings of the aircraft. In the distance I could hear people crying for help, and then I woke up.

I woke my daughter, Janet, and told her that there had been a terrible plane crash. I was quite distraught; the vision was still in my mind and I felt as though I had been a part of the tragedy. Although I knew the crash had happened on a tropical island I had not been given a name or a date, and it could have happened anywhere in the world. The frustration was immense. Eventually I went back to bed.

The following morning I turned on the television, expecting to hear about the disaster. There was nothing. For the next week I listened to every news broadcast, and when I still heard nothing about the crash I decided that it had only been a dream after all.

Two weeks later I was looking at the television and was shocked to see my dream being re-enacted on the screen. The plane was going across the screen from right to left, exactly as I had seen it. It crashed into the palm trees and landed on the edge of the beach, and I heard the newsreader say that many lives had been lost. I was devastated. What was the point of giving me the vision if I was unable to help? Why wasn’t I given the time and place so that the accident could have been averted?

Whilst meditating some time later, I was told that I was to become part of a group who help accident victims come to terms with the fact that they are dead. When someone dies in this way they cannot understand why people in this dimension cannot see or hear them because for a time they still feel normal. I asked how I could help, as it was obvious to me that the majority of relatives and friends would not be visiting a medium. I was told that I would be helping whilst in a sleep state. Although it all sounded very interesting, I still could not see how I could fulfil this role.

A few years later a woman came for a sitting and I told her that there was a young girl, Sara, who said she was her daughter. The woman held her head in her hands for a few moments. When she looked up, she said, ‘I have been praying that she would contact me. What does she have to say?’

‘She is telling me that she brought your attention to a newspaper article about me,’ I replied, laughing. ‘Why should she want to do that?

‘I don’t know,’ Sara’s mother said, ‘but she’s right. Someone had left their paper on the train and I was attracted to your photograph and read the article. It was then that I decided to visit you.’

‘Your daughter tells me that you have always wondered whether she suffered when she was killed in the car crash. Is that right?’

‘Yes. That thought is always with me.’

‘She wants you to know that she did not suffer at all.’ I paused. ‘That’s strange, she’s thanking me for easing her path and for being there when she needed me.’

The mother frowned. ‘How could you have helped her?’

I explained about the activities of the rescue service. She found it hard to understand – and so did I! But this was only the beginning. There were to be many similar messages given to me in the future. That particular sitting continued for an hour, bringing mother and daughter together for the first time in two years.

At this point in time I was beginning to feel frustrated with many aspects of my life, not least the inability to find time for myself. I was now working twelve hours a day, six days a week. I tried not to work on Sunday.

Family and friends were urging me to take it easy, but what could I do when there were so many people needing help and guidance? There was already a four-week waiting list. If I cut down on my working hours that list would grow longer, and I feared for the health of some of my patients. I made the decision to reduce the hour-long appointments to half an hour.

Now, in 1975, I was in the third year of my healing and mediumship.