MEDIUMSHIP AND AWARENESS [2]: LECTURES IN THE LIBRARY
The Arthur Findlay College Grounds, Where The 'Resident Spirits' Were Touching My Face.
The First Day With Mathew
The lectures that I attended, were held in the library. It was a cosy and atmospheric room, with huge velvet drapes, featuring old carpets on polished floorboards, dark ceiling, high bookshelves and an amazing lifelike portrait of Mr. Findlay himself. The lessons began with a few words on the course and then with us being partnered off with people, in order that we start 'picking up' on the dead. I had no idea what to do and I had not known what to expect from the course, since my main experience had been with my angels. Furthermore, I did not intend to become a medium, since I felt that contacting 'the dead' involved too much responsibility, and I certainly wouldn't like to fail someone, in something as serious as that. I was really here through a sense of curiosity. I wondered what mediumship was all about. It obviously involved spirits and yet it never felt very spiritual. It felt mysterious and kind of two dimensional.
|
The first day was filled with lectures and practise work with Mathew, as our lecturer. I felt very fortunate to be in his class. Mathew was a talented medium and teacher. My first impressions was that he obviously knew his subject matter. He was small and stocky man, with a clean shaven head. He wore glasses. He also had a heart for children and a wicked sense of humour. One of the other students said, that the male lecturers teaching at the college were gay. |
"Nearly all male mediums are ...," she said. I wondered why this was and deduced that perhaps they needed to be more in contact with the 'feminine side', in order to intuit the spirit world. Mathew was to quickly teach us, that as 'mediums', we were to be like telephone receivers and that we were not required to think. Instead, we were to act as living conduits, for the spirits of the dead, in order that they be able to contact the living. In otherwords, our own presumptions, thoughts, feelings, fears, doubts, questions and egos, were not allowed to hinder or block this communication.
I quickly noticed, when working with a superb student medium, Helen, who was also enroled in Mathew's class, that as soon as she tried to second guess something, she got it wrong. But when she didn't think [interfer] with the spirit, she was spot on.
As the course progressed, I was to notice that the spirit world, that the mediums were contacting, as part of their training, appeared to be very structured, with no suprises. The deceased relatives, friends and acquaintences, all came through on cue. This nearly always involved some strain, on behalf of the 'trainee student medium'. Yet the struggle was all from the medium's end, in trying to avoid second guessing and thinking for themselves. It was basically about them giving up the control, of their own minds and this proved to be the primary challenge, for many in attendance.
I noticed exactly the same occurring with myself. This amazed me. The channelling that I had been involved in, for most of my life, was about receiving knowledge from the universe, but it had also involved my own editing and analysis, introspection and participation. Mediumship, on the other hand, was about total surrender, to the 'spirit' of someone who had died. It was a selfless, charitable and compassionate act, in order to unite the dead with the living. I did note that many of the students, were simply doing it as part of a religious ritual, in their local spiritualist church groups, that may or may not have a Christian component. In which case, the puropse of the mediumship, was to give evidence of soul life after death and to allow the deceased, to comfort and reassure those, that were still living. In this instance, mediumship became part of a spiritual ritual, rather than a money making business venture, that relied on the vulnerabilities of grieving relatives, so I was perfectly okay with this.
In affect, we simply had to let the spirits do the thinking and talking, while allowing them to use our bodies, our minds and our mouths. If this was the case, then I wondered why they just didn't come straight out and contact their loved ones directly, rather than using a third party? But as Mathew was to teach us, there were definite rules to this spirit work, and this was not one of them. He explained that there had to be a spirit, a sitter and a medium. That was the way it worked. The mediums struggled, the sitters were anxious and with very little variation in their behaviour, much like a factory producion line, as 'the spirits' spoke through them.
A Sensible Spiritual World
It was very early on in the course, that I noticed that I was not doing what the other students were doing. While they appeared to be getting 'dead people' coming through, I was getting children. From the moment the I began to chanel, in an attempt to pick up the dead relatives, of who I was partnered up with, I was seeing children in my mind. Whatever I was doing, it was not the same as the other students, who all seemed to receive similar messages, from the dead. They were polite and ordered messages, that included: 1. The dead proving they existed, through providing factual information and 2. The dead giving a message, either reassuring the sitter, that they loved them and that they were okay, or that they were sorry about something they had done to the sitter, while they had been alive. Mathew said, "We deal with a very sensible spiritual world in mediumship." He did not believe in poltergiests or faeries, saying that they were part of human imagination. He dismissed The Mackenzie Poltergiest, as being in the imaginations of those involved. I knew that he was wrong, but there was no point in causing a disruption in the library. He was a good tutor and so my guides instructed me to simply listen.
But soon all kinds of psychic phenomenon began to happen around me, at the college and in my mind, I saw the spirits responsible for this. As for the mediumship, I just wasn't any good at it. This was immediately noticed by Mathew. In so far as I could tell, he was a gifted medium. Yet at the same time, he seemed to not understand things like poltergiests. I put this down to narrow minded academic environment and its influence upon him. But he also said that faeries did not exist. I was perfectly outraged by this. I turned to him and said, "How can you say that fairies don't exist? I don't get any dead people. All I get is angels and faeries." "There's no such thing as faeries," he replied. "That's all in your imagination." Mathew went on to say to the class, that the world of the dead was a sensible and ordered place and that there was no room for fantasy, which he attributed to our imaginations. Unfortunately for me, the spiritualists did not believe in faeries or angels. They only believed in a universe of dead people, where mediums were both psychic celebrities and passive conduits.
I wondered how someone with so much knowledge, could dismiss faeries. Also, I didn't see the world of the dead, as being structured and sensible. The spirits were not behaving sensibly around me. They seemed to be breaking all the rules and then this was reflecting badly on me, in making me a reluctant wild card, amongst the other students. I saw the spirit world, as an invisible interdimensional place, where anything was possible. Mathew was obviously coming from a school of thought, called spiritualism. Yet I wondered how he could dismiss every paranormal incident, where faeries, ghosts and angels were seen by thousands of people throughout history.
Faeries Could Be So Elusive and Full of Mischief, But I Loved Them Just The Same.
The difference was, that they were dealing with human beings, whereas I was not. I was not picking up on what the other students were. The student mediums, all seemed to pick up on exactly what they were meant to, with amazing and detailed accuracy. Meanwhile, I was picking up on children. Mathew was quick to point out, that the children were in my imagination, adding, "You are too much in the spirit world and too worried about them. You are with the sitter. You've got to be here."
But then the other mediums began to pick up on the children as well, particularly the little boy with shoulder length hair. These children were beginning to disrupt the group, but Mathew simply moved on and ignored the confused looks, on the faces of several of the other students. I noticed this and I wanted to know what was going on?! It was as if whatever was feeding these images into my consciousness, was now doing it to others as well. I also noticed, that wherever I had stood and picked up on something, that if another student moved into that space, they would pick up on exactly the same impressions. During the classes, I noted that if I projected my 'auric field' as Mathew refered to it, into the personal space of the medium sitting opposite to me, that they would start to see two children, whom I actually thought were two of my multiples, manifesting on the outside of the body that we inhabited. It was only after I focused my thoughts away from the mediums, who had been placed with me, that people I once knew [and who were now obviously deceased] seemed free to come through, such as my great great grandmother, grandmother, father, grandfather, old school friends, and a young man who had died tragically. But it seemed more like an impression, that the other student, was picking up from me.
Not only that, but spirits were coming through other student mediums asking if; they could be my friend and telling me that they loved me and to 'wish me well on my spiritual journey'. This was not what we were meant to be doing, which was picking up on each other's deceased relatives. Even when I got outside the lecture rooms, mediums, seeming to be controlled by spirits, would come up to me and tell me how beautiful I was. One older medium said, "you are so beautiful, that I could just squeeze you!," while making hand gestures as if to pinch my cheeks. Another female medium cornered me in the bar and said, "You are beautiful" over and over and over again, ... around one hundred times, which caused me to feel very uncomfortable.
I was actually a hopeless medium and I was far from being physically beautiful. The only claim I could make, was my reliance on my guides (who were angels) and the relationship and communication, I had built up with them, over the past years. In fact, while I loved the college, I felt like a failure and I was frustrating to other students, because I was not picking up on their deceased relatives, whom they desperately wanted to hear from. Two of the women in my class became disappointed and angry, acting aggressively towards me, when I didn't fulfil their expectations as a medium. It didn't help that I had virtually lost my voice for the entire week, that I was at the college, so that I could only speak in a hushed whisper, keeping any confusion or doubts that I had, in regards to 'mediumship', to myself.
|
On top of this, the lecturers were not friendly or supportive and either ignored me, or moved away from me quickly. A female tutor named Simone, half jokingly refered to me as 'a vampire' and when I attempted to be friendly to her, believing that she was just being defensive and insecure, she dismissed me with disdain. I didn't understand what the 'big deal' was, but I mentioned to Mathew, that I was concerned that I may be kicked out of the college. Simone appeared to instantly hate me, having no reason to. |
Whatever 'sensible spiritual world', that we were meant to be involved with, as part of the course, seemed to be out of my reach. Whenever I was involved, the spirits seemed to be intent upon breaking all the rules. I was not sure about the dead either. While I was utterly mesmerised by the lessons, it felt not quite real somehow, like the dead had their own consciousness, but that they were cardboard cut outs. I was becoming more and more disturbed, ... perhaps 'mediumhip', is just not for me.
The College Reading: The Dead Have Not Died.
The next lecturer that I was to be taught by and who had a definite impact upon me, was Colin. As I walked into Colin's class, again, being held in the college library, I passed by a podium and in complete disregard of the rest of my body, my right arm shot out and knocked twice on the podium behind Colin and in front of the class.
Colin asked, "Are you all right?" As I went to sit back down, I glanced at the podium that had a plaque on the front of it. The wording was as follows: 'Presented to The Arthur Findlay College, Stanstead Hall April 1968 by Robert and Eileen. It read 'Arthur'. I sat down thinking, Arthur? Does that mean King Arthur? But I did not resist getting back up and going over to read the rest. Oddly, 'Robert' and 'Elieen' were the names of my grandparents now deceased, with Robert being my pop's middle name and Eileen being my nan's first name. 'Hall' was their surname. I was later to find out from my mother, that 'Arthur' was the only true love, in my nan's life. Mum said, that nan kept a serviette from 'Arthur' and had wanted it buried with her, when she died.
My first two days at the college were tumultuous. They involved swinging from, I don't do dead people, to Where are the dead people? The first was coming from the elemental selves within the psyche, who did not entertain the idea of mixing with the human dead, or hanging out at cemeteries. There were concerns about them 'infecting' our consciousness, with human concerns. The second was from human children, who demanded to know where the dead people were. But as we were to see, interaction with 'humans' at the Arthur Findlay College, was to be different, than anything we, as a multiple system of selves, had ever experienced previously. As I walked out of the library, after the lectures had ended, on the second day, I was still considering leaving the course. As I approached the door, I was thinking to myself, I don't do dead people, when a book suddwenly leapt at me from a shelf, in response.
It said, THE DEAD HAVE NOT DIED. Beside this book, was the number six and above it someone had signed my initials 'CH', onto another book spine, with silver marker. It was exactly the way that I would sign my signature, with the 'C' looking like a 'J' and the curl in the 'H'. As the Irish lady and fellow student noted, when the three details were seen, they made a shape of their own, it made the shape of a tick, thereby adding the 'approval' of the universe. The spirits wanted me to keep trying to contact the dead. They wanted me to stay at The Arthur Findlay College. I interpreted this as 'my decision to stay, being the correct one.' I chose to stay on the basis of this, despite my feeling betrayed, that my guides had not taken my side, on my idea to leave the college. In my journal I wrote, "Today, I am very pleased that I did stay."
The Arthur Findlay College Grounds, In Stansted England, Were Like A Slow Moving Dream. |
