Читать книгу Soul Rescuers: A 21st century guide to the spirit world - Natalia O’Sullivan - Страница 9

I saw my first ghost when I was very young. I remember being in my cot and seeing a strange-looking person standing before me in a purple robe. He looked quite like the mysterious Dr Fu Manchu, the Chinese character in the books of Sax Rohmer. This spirit was obviously a Mandarin Chinese. He had disappeared by the time I was about seven years old and we had moved to a different house. He appeared to me 20 years later through a psychic channelling medium. He said his name was Ching Ling and that he wished to help guide me through my life. He was my first experience with the spirit world.

I also recall seeing other spirits who used to come and stand by my bed. It never occurred to me to ask who they were or why they were there. After all, we used to say a prayer in school asking ‘angels to guard us while we slept’, so it seemed only natural that these were the angels of my prayers, even though they looked more like people than angels.

So, by the time I was 13 years old, I had already experienced psychic encounters, as well as religious enlightenment. The religious moment came after my first confession. I was brought up as a Roman Catholic. After the first confession, the initiate is expected to turn up for a full confirmation ceremony and to receive the life of Christ. I stood up and immediately felt ecstatic, immortal, as though anything in life could be achieved or made possible. I had visions of angels. I was probably about eight years old at the time. I talked about how I felt to my peer group at school. We had all had different experiences, but mine seemed quite special. At that time I knew I loved God and Jesus, but I was in love with Mary, I believed her to be the Mother of the World.

However, there is a large gap between the ages of eight and 13, and by this time, though a lot of my original faith had held fast, the injustices of the world seduced me into questioning my relationship with the Church. The ‘angels’ had long since disappeared and my visions of immortality had been overtaken by my interest in listening to rock ’n’ roll on radio’s Saturday Club. The chart hits of the day and my growing awareness of girls became central interests in my life.

When I was 13 my maternal grandfather died. Grandfather Cooke was one of those ‘salt of the earth’ characters who work hard all their lives for little financial reward. Neither did he expect any charity. He was born during the 1880s, when everyone knew their place, whether rich or poor. He would not have called himself a Christian, but he did believe in Jesus. In fact he told me that his brother once saw Jesus walking through the living room, ‘as plain as day’. This vision of the Lord was probably enough to lend him the faith to prepare him for the afterlife.

He died on the chimes of midnight on New Year’s Eve 1960. Grandmother Cooke moved into our small flat the very next day. In a hurry she had neglected to bring along some essential things, which I was asked to go and collect.

It did not bother me going to the house, I always had a good relationship with my grandparents and I was very happy to help out in any way I could. It was only when I arrived at the front door that I had my doubts about going in. It was not the ghost of my grandfather that worried me, but I had to walk past the cupboard on the landing where the ‘bogey man’ lived. I had been brought up in this house from my birth until I was seven years old and when I broke the rules I was threatened with the bogey man. Much later in life I learned to understand this fear lay within my imagination, but at 13 the bogey man represented the Devil himself, ‘Old Nick’. I stood shaking with fear, a sweaty hand clutching at the key which would unlock the door. I was rooted to the spot for what seemed like an eternity. Time had stood still, life had frozen and I could not move my hand. It was only when a friendly dog barked that I snapped out of this entranced state. Slowly I turned the key and the door slid wide open.

Walking over the threshold of that old Victorian terraced house was like walking into the land of the dead. I had never before encountered anyone close dying or being dead. What struck me was the whole atmosphere of the house. It bore inside me and created a feeling of being wrapped in a blanket of cold sweat. I moved as fast as my jellied legs would carry me. First, I went to the living room and pulled a knife from the drawer. This was not to kill a ghost or assailant, but should I encounter the bogey man in the cupboard, I would be as ready for him as any 13-year-old boy would be when stricken by fear!

The house felt heavy, it heaved with death and even possibly ghosts, but I had no fear of them. As they had never bothered me in the past they were no threat now. I felt safe in my relationship with the otherworld. But still I could not call the angels to drive the bogey man away.

Eventually I passed my test of manhood by confronting the cupboard, my curiosity proving greater than my fear. Very slowly I lifted the latch. The door creaked open and squeaked, as it probably had not been opened since Queen Elizabeth’s coronation in 1953. The old cupboard housed a flagpole, still with the Union Jack furled around it. The only other object I saw was an old trumpet gramophone which I had never heard being played. I shut the door, gathered my grandmother’s things and walked out of the house. This was the only time I feared a confrontation with a being, imaginary or otherwise. I felt I had passed my first initiation.

It was around this time I experienced vivid dreams, which were frightening, but at the same time very entertaining. I would go to bed awaiting the next instalment. It was much like watching television. The characters, however, seemed real. They were moving through life and death scenarios, always violent, which culminated in the eventual death of the character who appeared to be me. Night after night this hero was killed and the shock always woke me up in a cold sweat, wondering where I was.

After a while, the dreams became an indelible part of my life, haunting me, taking me over. I changed my hairstyle, the clothes I wore and my personal hobbies and interests in line with the dream characters. Then one night the dreams just stopped, as if someone had taken the video cassette out of my mind and put it away so I could never find it again afterwards.

Many years later I would experience a sequence of events which would uncover the mystery attached to those early dreams. At night the world of ghosts embraces our living world through dreams and visions. The spirit world crosses over the subconscious and touches on the magical or the terrifying, until the mind has time to work out the past or the connection with the otherworld.