2020
'Buzz buzz buzz' went the large wasp in a rather intimidating manner as it tried to gain access to my living-room through the gaps in the small partially-opened window that it had just passed through - 'swat swat swat' replied i, rather frantically, with a hastily rolled up newspaper, on a sunny day back in circa 1988(???)...
'Why did you do that???' said a bright female Voice, very clearly indeed, inside my head, in a somewhat upbeat and quizzical manner - 'because i was stung by a swarm of wasps when i was very young and they frighten me' replied/responded i, within mind, somewhat automatically...
'Oh, i see' replied the female Voice in a somewhat playful manner - very clearly indeed once again...
'I wonder why She didn't know that???' thought i - assuming that She must be some sort of lifelong Guide who was accompanying me anonymously throughout this particular Earthly life/sojourn of mine (i had in actual fact already had a number of separate/independent dreams with one particular presumed female Guide within each of them)...
'I wonder if this could be a sign that i may be going mad???', thought i a little later, in a seriously considering manner - for although i had experienced such within-mind Communications since i was a wee child, they had only occurred very occasionally indeed, and i had been living a fairly solitary life for quite some time after all, and had heard (been conditioned to believe perchance???) that such conditions can cause such things to happen/arise...
...Although i had correctly reasoned that i could still function quite normally within the 'real' world, so that particular prognosis didn't seem to fit at all - but hey, maybe i would/could be the last person to know such a thing, thought i further...
This was the incident that resulted in me going to a Christian Spiritualist church for the first time ever - as i felt that i had questions that needed answering...
And as so-called 'coincidence' would have it, shortly afterwards i read an article in a delivered free weekly local newspaper about a psychic/clairvoyant who had been unsuccessfully working with the police in an attempt to recover the body of a child who had been murdered years earlier - and said newspaper had given her full name and address, strangely enough...
In the event i had decided to wait for a month to pass by before walking to her very close personal address, as i very much felt that such a published article would probably result in many people wishing to seek out her services for themselves...
So, a month later i walked to her bungalow, knocked on her door, and chatted to her for a while before being invited back the following week - she had told me that i was 'psychic'; a word that i most probably looked up in my dictionary (to discover the exact meaning of) upon my return home...
Anyway, when i returned, as agreed/invited, the following week, there was another lady present who, as tea was being made, asked me an unremembered question to which i replied that i had been told that i was 'physic' (as in physics), to which she replied 'Oh, you mean psychic' - and later, before taking my leave of such company, i was directed to a local Christian Spiritualist church (CSc1) in order to continue/further such a personal Spiritual enquiry...
So, on the date of the following week's public meeting i made my way to CSc1, but alas i arrived around ten to fifteen minutes late - and when the locked front door was opened i was was told that i needed to go to CSc2, which i found to be rather strange/coincidental, as most of my family lived reasonably close to it (i later found out that the male who had thusly redirected me was himself 'mediumistic' btw)...
And thus was it that myself and a few family members paid our very first (successful) visit to the inside of a Christian Spiritualist church - an occasion whereby then followed regular weekly visits, for quite some time thereafter...
We each got individual messages fairly regularly, and would generally discuss them afterwards - however, more often than not we would struggle to remember what had been said to us, and so i purchased a fairly good quality miniature cassette holding dictaphone in order to solve such a problem...
I, of course, had gotten my David Niven message, stating that He and Others were helping me with a novel i was writing at that time ( she actually saw Him clairvoyantly, much to her own surprise (gob-smacked), stood immediately behind me), from a very excellent clairvoyant indeed - she had been asked (and had accepted for a short period of time) to go up a level by giving messages to much larger audiences, along with two other presumably noted Spiritualist mediums (a little like Doris Stokes used to do perhaps)...
Another accompanying relative had been told on more than one occasion that he had healing abilities - resulting in both of us attending the weekly healing evenings in order to be instructed in how to 'heal' people who used to come to receive such 'healing'...
If my memory serves me correctly, i had basically tagged along in order to accompany such a male relative - however, much to my own surprise, i was soon 'healing' a regular better than the healer who taught me had previously done...
The person in question apparently had an arm problem that otherwise caused him constant discomforture, and when asked about my 'healing' ministrations, compared to the healer who was teaching me, he stated that with me he was free of any discomfort for the whole week, whereas with the healing teacher such discomforture returned after 4 or 5 days - and that the difference with my 'healing' was that such energies were cold rather than warm ones...
Whilst practising some healing on my dad's knees, he independently noted the same thing btw - healer 'Joe' at your service eh...
At some point in time we were told of another local Christian Spiritualist church - and it was there (CSc3) that mum goaded my very sceptical dad into attending...
...Whereby he was walked through part of his earlier working day in great and accurate detail by the same very excellent clairvoyant medium - this, very much to his credit, instantly turned him from a non-believer into a believer; simply because of such a Spiritualist medium's undeniable accuracy...
At a later point in time, due to individual messages received, the majority of our small group (including my dad) were invited to join a newly formed weekly 'awareness class' - which was run by the female president of CSc2, who used to lead us into and through a guided meditation before individually asking us what our own personal experiences had been...
On the very first evening i had seen an owl flying through a forest - and although it was a black and white vision, what astounded me most was the sheer detail of the owl's wing feathers; twas something that i had never knowingly experienced before...
Another thing that, rather pleasantly, surprised me was that dad also gave a quite detailed account of what he had seen during such a guided meditation also - hidden depths eh...
On another occasion, i think i had nothing more than a peaceful guided meditation - however, when i opened my eyes i saw, with incredible clarity and detail, one of the other meditators seemingly wearing a pair of spectacles (she wasn't really wearing them, but she might as well have been)...
I found that i could even see the 'glint' from/of each lense - apparently such spectacles were previously worn by a friend of the president of such a Spiritualist church, and that it would have been only days from what would have been such a friend's birthday, had she still been on the Earth-plane of existence...
Such an unexpected occurrence then caused me to look at each other meditator in turn to see if any of them were 'wearing' spectacles also - one other meditator was; it was my fellow healing relative who was apparently wearing the silver oblong-framed spectacles of his late father; i decided that i would tell him in private afterwards, as his rather problematic father had 'died' when he was still a teenager, and i decided that this was the correct thing to do...
Such a decision caused me to get a bit of a telling off by the very same said very excellent clairvoyant medium at the next public demonstration of mediumship at Csc2 - i was told very firmly that i must always give what i have received; meaning, i guess, that i should always share with the group what i had received within the group...
I came to learn that different Spiritualist mediums work in different ways - for example, some know exactly who a message is for; others see a 'light' above the message receiver's head; and others work through a process of elimination, with the person whom the message is for, eventually being the only person who can relate to each and every consecutive piece of information given...
...And then there is the trance medium of course - there was one that i used to enjoy seeing at CSc3...
She was quite a tall slim lady with very nicely styled hair, who always wore a very classy looking long dress - she always gave a fairly long and thought-provoking philosophical discourse before giving out messages to members of the audience...
I had initially assumed that she was of an Iranian-type decent, until her dialect changed to a Scottish one when she started on the messages - something that took me quite by surprise when i first saw her working...
Which then leads me nicely to the time when a Spiritualist medium at CSc2 publicly asked for a lift home, after having given a public demonstration of her mediumship - my healing relative volunteered; resulting in 3 of us accompanying her home...
It would seem that she felt obliged to give us some Spiritual feedback, as a way of paying her fare i guess - anyway, she seemingly spontaneously told me that i was a natural trance medium; twas the one and only time that i was told such a thing...
I think the president at CSc2 must have been 'told' the same thing, as it seemed to have caused her some concern(???) within our awareness class - if only she had known that i had absolutely no intention of ever being such a 'trance medium' eh...
The third male in the car (if my memory serves me correctly) was a reformed alcoholic called Jim - he was born in southern Ireland and later transfered to England with his family...
The first time he ever went into a pub and had an alcoholic drink he realised what he had been missing all his life - his mother had apparently been drinking through the duration of her pregnancy with him...
I found him to be a very interesting person (as he seemed to find me to be also) - resulting in me being invited 'round to socialise with his family on many occasions, and for me to duly invite him 'round to my place for a number of in-depth chats also...
I remember phoning him up once, in a light-hearted manner, to ask him if he fancied going to the 'spook house' - it took him somewhat by surprise initially,until it dawned on him what i was suggesting; a visit to CSc1...
So along we went, only for a rather comical medium to ask if we were together, before giving us both a combined message - she told me in a sort of congratulatory way that i would be doing what she was doing, only for me to inform her that i wouldn't...
I could see Jim smiling in a somewhat knowing way as he was sitting to my immediate left - she then told me once again that yes i would be, to which i once again insisted that i wouldn't...
...Causing her to inform me that it may take five or seven years, but that i would definitely be 'on the platform' doing what she was doing - 'no i won't' was my simple matter-of-fact reply...
Jim and i had, by this time, reached the point whereby we had become somewhat negative(???)/sceptical(???) about the whole thing really, as we had both realised that you couldn't really prove beyond any doubt that the 'deceased' who were passing messages via the many assorted Spiritualist mediums, were in fact whom they purported to be - hence Jim's knowing smile...
In depth discussions eh - oh well, at least said Spiritualist medium took it all in good heart, fortunately...
I think what she was really trying to say was that the opportunity was there if i wished to take it sometime in the future - well perhaps so anyway...
She was actually a very entertaining Spiritualist medium, who had started off such a message by using the word 'spooks' or 'spook house', which very much took both of us by surprise and caused us to chuckle - 'They', apparently, had been somehow privy to my earlier 'spook house' comment/invitation to Jim over the telephone...
I remember Jim making a surprise visit to my place, in a rather agitated state of mind, once - apparently he hadn't agreed with what another male had said to him, and so had decided to find a sense of solace within the company of his good friend; me...
Unfortunately for Jim, i agreed with the other person's point of view, and so told him so - 'i thought you were supposed to be my friend' was Jim's rather surprised reply, as he was seated in the chair opposite me...
To which i replied, 'what if i told you what you wished to hear, and then during your 'life review' (after having shed his mortal coil) you had learned that if i had told you the truth, it would have changed things for you, resulting in you having more desirable options for/during your next incarnation/life, how would you feel about me then???' (or words to such effect anyway) - at which point Jim simply looked at me for a while, before a smile broke out on his previously rather serious looking face...
'You're a strange one', he replied, in a much more relaxed manner - which was somewhat heartening to hear, as i had, only a little earlier, thought that he was about to storm out in indignation...
Such in-depth conversations were in fact very much instrumental in me moving on from Christian Spiritualism, to continue my Spiritual journey within Buddhism instead...
Jim had earlier been a regular at such a Buddhist centre and wished to return - and i had decided/realised that i really knew nothing about meditation...
So moving on to a Buddhist environment, where people supposedly knew exactly what they were doing, seemed like the right thing to do (Buddhist traditions have been around for centuries after all - and meditation is simply what they do, so who better to go to right???)...
...Especially so because i had a wish to distance myself from David Niven and his 'Crowd', and from all thoughts of 'serving Spirit' as it was referred to - as i had found myself having written a poem entitled 'The Calling' sometime earlier within my 'Christian Spiritualist journey' which would seem to have indicated what They had in store for me...
Also, i had seemingly been led to read a book whereby John Lennon had seemingly spoken though a Canadian trance medium(???), whereby he had said (if my memory serves me correctly), 'We're going to put on a show, so write it down in your little black book there'...
...Something that made me think, rightly or wrongly, that He was being rather presumptuous, as, from my perspective, such People had already lived the latest of their lives/incarnations here on planet Earth - so to presume that they were going to continue to do so, through a presumably within trance-state me, was a rather cheeky and completely unacceptable thing to presume as far as i was concerned...
...Especially as such a 'trance-state' situation did not appeal to me in the slightest - it was in fact a complete 'no-no' as far as i was concerned...
Addendum at 6 February 2023...
Talking of full moons (see Bits 'N' Bobs at 5 February 2023) ...
Shortly before i decided to move on to Buddhism, to learn to meditate 'properly', we (the class attendees) were all about to enter CSc2 in order to attend another one of our weekly 'awareness classes', when i noticed that there was a large full moon hanging inth clear blue evening sky above us...
...Causing me to 'sing', rather spontaneously, 'I used to be a Spiritualist, but i'm all right nowooo' - much to the notice of CSc2's accompanying president, who's reaction was one of confusion(???)/surprise(???)/interest(???) - i can still actually remember such a look on her face btw...
...Simply not yet knowing that such a Buddhist meditation centre move was shortly to take place...
The Buddhists, of course, could very much see this as all being part of 'the chain of interdependent origination' (one action leading to another, in very simplistic terms), whereas Spiritualists would probably (more correctly???) see it as a portent/omen/herald - tis a link that i only became aware of early this morning, as i was doing something else, btw - interesting huh...
(https://www.ourquantumparticulates.org/videos/a-spiritualist-journey)