SATURDAY 28TH NOVEMBER
I’ve forgotten to mention a key component in the previous post. DOH. What happens just AFTER the fondling, but just BEFORE the lunch.
Our final morning session: we are put into pairs and instructed to have a go at connecting to spirit above, just a short go, in order to give a reading to the person in front of us. We are told not to edit, not to think too much, just to ‘feel’. So we pair up and I get a threesome. I have the first go. I look at the lady in front of me. I ‘switch on’, and I go immediately blank. I look into her eyes and just wait. Then in my head an image of a lady pops up so I start talking…“I’m going to try not to edit this because then it’s my mind getting in the way so I’ll just go for it.” My recipient nods. “I feel like there’s a lady, not TOO old, her hair still has colour in it, she’s rounder than average and I’d say mid 60s, 70s. Does any of this make sense to you?” My recipient squishes up her face and replies “erm…well…. pooossibly”. She doesn’t sound convinced.
I carry on: “Shes showing me an apron and she’s in the kitchen.” My recipient shakes her head. “No. Sorry”. I’m feeling far from confident. This still feels like my imagination. Total guesswork. OK don’t give up, let’s see if I can get some more specifics. “I’m feeling as if she had trouble with her right leg, but it’s the chest area which is what she ultimately died from.” No hits. I feel a bit deflated. I give up and try reading for the other lady in our little group. The results are also mixed. But I do ‘see’ a small child by her side which I mention, and she tells me that that would make sense and it’s not the first time that she’s heard that. So that’s something. After a few moments we switch and it’s their turn to have a go. Throughout the process I’m doubtful that anything I’m ‘seeing’ is anything more than imagination. We finish the session and follow each other to lunch, I’m slightly deflated.

We all sit down to a wonderful buffet. I choose chicken goujons and salad, and the most wonderful creme brulee ever, it has delicious raspberries hidden inside. What a treat! I’m sitting with about 8 other people at the table, directly opposite a young goth looking girl, she has long black hair and mesmerising eyes. I whisper to her “so what do you think so far?” She whispers even more quietly to me “I don’t know. Isn’t this just our imagination?” Her voice is so quiet I lean over to hear her, and we begin to chat quietly. I’m curious because, although I’ve really been enjoying the course so far, I haven’t seen or felt hide nor hair of spirit. So I’m wondering what other people are getting. “You haven’t felt or seen spirit at all either?” I ask…
“Oh haven’t you?” Pipes up a lady at the far end of the table. “I saw two actual spirits not half an hour ago, standing behind that woman there!” and she points to someone across the room who is heartily tucking into a salad.
I’m amazed and confused. “You saw two spirits? Did you see them with your ACTUAL eyes (I’m pointing to my eyes now) or just, y’know, with your MIND’S eye?”. “Oh with my own eyes yes!” She says. Now I’m agog. “How long have you been actually seeing spirits then?” “Oh about 3 weeks now”.
Goth girl and I are both bedazzled by this information, and we look at each other, perplexed. So some people here ARE actually doing it! So why haven’t either of us felt anything yet?
We start talking about validation. Part of my issue with believing all this, is that I’ve not had any clear validation that there is life after death. I’ve never had a one on one reading with a medium before. I have no proof that I am convinced by. And I really truly feel that I need something tangible BEFORE I can believe. I simply can’t believe without some nugget of ‘otherness’, you understand me don’t you? I used to do healing, and I studied under the SNU in order to do so, because I thought that was what you had to do in order to practice. But even whilst I was doing it, I was never 100% sure that I was actually ‘channelling’ spirit. I was very clear that the healing worked, in that people felt better, but was it coming from spirit? I couldn’t be sure.
However so many people here seem to just be believing and getting on with it. My feeling is that they are obviously way further down the spiritual road than I am, and it occurs to me that perhaps I shouldn’t have come here to do this course WITHOUT already having some faith in my pocket.
I then switch tables and talk with some other students about having the courage to learn to be a medium if you don’t know if you believe that spirits exist at all. Can the two even go hand in hand?
Regardless, I feel sure that if spirit CAN be found, then surely THIS weekend is the time and THIS venue is the place to find it? Two students opposite me start talking about their ‘proof’, they’ve both seen table tipping. I’ve never heard of this phrase before. I had to look it up for you guys:
“Table-turning or table-tipping is a type of séance in which participants sit around a table, place their hands on it, and wait for rotations. The table was purportedly made to serve as a means of communicating with the spirits.”
Both of these students don’t know each other, but they explain that they are both convinced that their individual experiences were real. I’m agog. Again. “Hang on” I say. “So you are telling me that you all sit round a large wooden table, and you all have your knees under it?” “Yes that’s right, but nobody’s knees are touching the table and the lights are on”. I’m having trouble with this in many ways and for obvious reasons, on the one hand I think that they must have been duped by naughty knees, but the other option is that it was real, for both of them.
“Ok” I say, “So I’m having trouble getting my head around something. I feel that I need some validation that what I’m doing here really does involve spirit. I’ve never seen table tipping, never had a medium reading before so I’ve no proof. Now you are telling me that spirit has enough strength to actually move a massive table which has many people sitting around it? So if spirit DOES have that kind of strength, do you think if I asked our teacher to help, she’d be able to ask her spirits to move my scarf 1″ to the left? Because surely my scarf is lighter than a table?”
“Oh no” he replies, “It doesn’t work like that”. They continue discussing various points and laughing about ‘rubbish’ mediums and the terms they use e.g. “I see an old man. Was this person quite poorly before he died?” and they chuckle amongst themselves… and I excuse myself. I have some thinking to do and now I’m a little frustrated.
I walk back into the large empty lecture room, and I’m talking to whoever is listening in my head. “Do you exist or not?” “Come on spirit, let’s do this.” “I’m here, I’m ready, show me, let me feel it.” I’m walking around in the room, and breathing, and listening, and trying to be open and receptive, and I continue to feel nothing. Then the bald guy then comes in and asks me how I’m doing. I tell him about my conversation in the canteen concerning the table tipping. “Oh yes I’ve seen that too, it’s amazing”. I’m taken aback. Am I the only utter wanker on the planet NOT to have seen any fricking table tipping? Is this a common past time around England? Is table tipping on a par with say, picking your nose? Or opening up a secretly stashed packet of pork scratchings? Are people all over England having table tipping Tuesdays, Witchy Wednesdays and seance Sundays? Frustration bubbles over. “Ok” I say “You’ve also seen table tipping? Nobody could have been faking it? No fingers, knees? Bits of string pulling the table? Unexpected landslide? Too much nightnurse? Simple dodgy DIY?” “Oh no” he says “It was totally authentic table tipping in that prison cell, no doubt about it”.
There is a slight pause between us. I move on. I mention the scarf thing, “If spirit can move a table, then in a place as spiritual as this, where we are all looking for spirit contact, why isn’t spirit moving stuff around the room just to reassure us that it’s really here? Or why can’t it move a match 3mm just for us if we ask nicely, as it could change our lives and make us dedicated to the cause?” “Oh no, spirit doesn’t work like that.” Ah. That little nugget.
I just don’t get it. He’s very assured, totally relaxed and confident, and in comparison I’m getting more confused, frustrated and uptight by the second. He then says to me something like “You’re saying that you’re open to this experience but I don’t think you are. Maybe you don’t have the right attitude to do this”. He’s looking at my body posture. And that pisses me off just a little bit. “Hang on.” I say. ” I’ve committed myself to this journey, I’ve invested time, energy and money into this weekend just like you, of course I’m open to this, of course it’s what I want”. But I can feel my emotions bubbling up and hear the tension in my voice, and because the veins on my forehead are starting to bulge and my arms are crossed tighter than two thumbs up a pigs arse, I can see why he is looking at me with just a touch of his own skeptism.
I leave the room to get some air. He’s probably now levitating in his chair. Maybe I am NOT cut out for this at all. My hopes and and my intentions for today are scattering like butterflies in the wind and I’m losing all sense of direction.
I have to make a decision. “What am I doing here?” I feel like crying. I wish my sister was here. She’d make me laugh by running through the halls singing ‘BOLLOCKS!!’ at the top of her voice. If my ever reasoning dad was here he’d have everyone renouncing spiritualism and converting to Pantheism by the end of the afternoon, of their own volition. (He’s very persuasive).
I whisper to myself: “I could just leave.” “Bald guy’s not right is he?” “Maybe he’s right.” “It must be me.” “I’m obviously not cut out for it. Otherwise I would be sensing something!” Everyone else seems to be falling over spirit in this place. Apart from me. And goth girl. And I don’t know where she’s gone. Maybe she’s now levitating with bald guy. I can feel a sense of desperation taking hold.

My thoughts are all over the place. I go back into the room to pick up my bag and coat…and suddenly everyone else comes strolling in, followed by the medium teacher clapping her hands and announcing “Right everyone in your chairs, we’re going straight into more channeling with the spirit above, let’s get into pairs and start immediately”…
My heart sinks… can I stand to be here for one more moment? I don’t even know if I truly have the right anymore…
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