28. An unpleasant case of foot in mouth

Hi everyone. How is your spiritual journey going this month? Mine has been up and down more than a braless peri menopausal woman on a wonky see saw.

I think I’ve worked out why I haven’t found spirit yet. The problem is that I’m socially inept. So much so that even the spirit world has decided to give me an extra wide berth. I’m frankly a liability to spirit AND the spiritual movement.

Some time ago I went to a funeral of an old friend who had been a prolific and talented tarot reader. I turned up a bit late at the wake and the room was already chockablock full of spiritualists, mediums, tarot readers and psychics. I hadn’t realised that so many of his friends and colleagues were spiritualists of one sort or another. Then I had one of those thoughts. If there was ANY possibility of something mystical happening then SURELY it would happen here, in a room full of spiritualists all honouring their recently deceased spiritual friend!

So whilst I was amongst them, I was also keeping an eye out for anything unusual going on. You know, floating teacups, spinning hairpieces, the usual stuff like that. Nothing peculiar did happen…that is until I got up to make a speech in front of the whole crowd. I’m gonna be honest with you, I’m not proud of what happened next.

My own mum couldn’t be at this wake, she was on a yacht in the South of France (sound familiar?), so she had written a tribute for me to read out. When it was my turn to speak I stepped gently to the front of the crowd and turned to face my audience. (I was not used to public speaking). Everybody went quiet and a hundred psychic eyeballs locked onto me. As I gazed around the room in wonder with the speech in my sweaty hand I took a deep breath, opened my mouth and these words came out:

“Hello everybody. I am now going to channel my mother”.

And I proceeded to bend my knees so as to shorten my height. Reeeaally slowly.

It was meant to be a joke. Simply because my mum is absolutely little, do you see? I was intending to read it out in the style of my tiny mum, hence the droppage of my height. Anyone who knows my mum could have guessed that. It honestly wasn’t a claim to mediumship! However as I said the word “channel” there was a considerable intake of breath from the spiritualists in the room, and a fair few of the kitchen staff at the back. They looked absolutely amazed and their wide eyes locked onto me in wonder. Someone dropped a teaspoon.

As I recognised what was happening, and I realised my spectacularly stupid choice of words, it occurred to me in that moment, that it would have been a fantastic moment to actually BE psychic.

But alas, as I’m not actually psychic, all that happened next is that possibly my very first hot flush slowly crept up and then raced through my entire body towards my burning face. I felt like a blood blister on legs. (Note to self: Google ‘can chronic embarrassment bring on your menopause?’).

I addressed the room:

“When I say channel I don’t mean…I mean she’s NOT dead!”

Cue confused looks from the audience.

“My MUM that is! MY MUM’S ALIVE!!”

Cue muffled sobs from deceased person’s family.

“SHIT sorry I didn’t mean……bollocks…SORRY! But I’m not one of you…I mean I can’t do what….sorry all I meant was…”

And it went on like that for, ooo some time.

So do you see what I mean? I don’t blame the spirit world at all. I’d give myself a wide berth if I could.

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27. Do spirits hang out at the morgue?

So I took my mum to see Tony Stockwell at the Arthur Findlay College. At times he threw out details to the crowd and they seemed pretty accurate, which is wonderful if you are already a believer. But if you’re not then you can’t know for sure can you? It makes me a little bit sad that I can’t just go with the flow and believe anyway, but I can’t seem to. So as an experiment I have decided to also look for spirit in other ways. I’m going to try to cut out the middle man you see. Which is why last month I ended up in the morgue.

No wait, don’t panic, it happened like this…

Out in town one afternoon I happened to find myself at the same lunch table as an actual real life Funeral Director. I couldn’t believe my luck! So in the spirit of NOT TRYING TOO HARD I switched chairs so that I was sitting next to her. And we started talking about spirit. OK in fairness I was talking about spirit. She was trying to decide between chicken or fish whilst attempting to tune me out. Almost as if she knew what was coming. I asked her if there was any chance that I could visit her funeral business to see if I could ‘feel’ anything. Amazingly she agreed. She then also added rather loudly that I was under no circumstances permitted to get into a coffin. Like THAT had even occurred to me yet.

So it came to be that one drizzly afternoon after lunch, a little like when Frodo left the safety of Hobbiton to venture towards the ancient and secretive Mines of Moria, a short and somewhat gluten-heavy hopeful skeptic carefully tottered up the high street towards the Funeral Director’s place of business, to rather nervously enter those heavy doors through which few would dare to enter. Unless they’ve made a proper appointment of course. In advance. By phone or via email.

The funeral director was kind enough to show me around the premises and to explain the work that they do. She didn’t seem remotely concerned that I had taken out my pad and pen and was chanting gently to myself. Or that I kept squinting up at the ceilings with my head insanely cocked to one side as if looking or listening for something. She didn’t even seem bothered that I kept jumping slightly.

*Note to self: Book appointment at Opticians….floaters are NOT spirit entities wafting in your eyeline.

**Updated note to self post appointment: Next time your Optician appointment rolls around, do not under any circumstances have herring and onions for lunch and then forget to brush your teeth before leaving the house for said appointment.

I was blown away by the Funeral Director’s professionalism. Her empathy and compassion was simply awe inspiring. Her sensitivity and attention to detail in every aspect of the job was overwhelming. She made me realize how completely pathetic my own career choice is. She showed me the visitors room, the office, even the different styles of coffins that you can get. My favourite was the one which had ‘RETURN TO SENDER’ stamped on it. I was also shown beautiful ‘ashes into art’ pieces, where you can have a little of your beloved’s ashes incorporated into a piece of jewellery or a paperweight. It was really gross. And totally beautiful. As I looked around the different rooms, outside I could hear the distant drum of thunder, just helping to add that touch of drama to the experience. I peered into a vessel containing ashes (I was probably a bit too keen on doing this if I’m honest), and she explained that sometimes as a funeral director you have to deal with the fact that some ashes are never claimed by family members at all. How sad is that?

Finally it was time to head to the morgue. As we stepped outside into the courtyard and towards the morgue doors, as if on cue thunder and lightning cracked almost directly overhead. Inside the mortuary the room was very large, clean and mostly bare with a massive fridge containing individual compartments, none of which were open. The embalming table was also not occupied. There was a beautiful open coffin in the middle of room. Again not occupied. I didn’t get in the coffin because I keep my promises, but I couldn’t hide my interest. I fondled the varnish and made do.

I tried to tune in whilst in the morgue, as I had tried to tune in in the visitors room. I had even tried to tune in to the ashes. By the time I was trying to tune in in the toilet I realized that I probably didn’t have what it takes to tune in. I stopped trying to tune in so hard for fear of giving myself a hernia.

My experience at the Funeral Directors was emotional, amazing, enlightening and wonderful. As I walked back to my car in the sopping rain I felt relieved, blessed and grateful for people like her. Nobody should be scared to visit a Funeral Directors, it’s really rather beautiful, and the care given inside is utterly remarkable.

And so my long and possibly fruitless journey continues. Well at least I know there’s a comfy silk lined single bed with a comedy tag line option at the end of it.

26. Psychic fairs, phones and fumes.

Hello guys, do you remember when I started this journey I said I was going to be honest about the whole spirit quest experience? Well I’m going to be honest now and say that more recently in terms of the courses, demonstrations, tarot readings, medium readings and the psychic fairs, I’m not REALLY feeling nearer to finding any answers than when I started.

In fact it mostly feels like I’m moving eeeever so slightly further away.

Some people have said:

“You’re trying too hard! You’ve got to stop looking so hard for it!”

But that’s frustrating. If I’m actively looking then I’m looking too hard? So you are saying that I have to stop looking to find it. But that doesn’t make sense to me because I was a healer for some years and then stopped looking for 12 years to raise a family. I didn’t find it whilst I WASN’T looking for it then either. Ho hum.

Maybe I’m just not built for it after all. Even if I DO vibrate for no apparent reason. I’ve been thinking about this a lot, particularly since the last psychic fair I went to with my mum…

————————-

Obviously I got lost on the way, but that’s a given. We both arrived at the Golf Club way before the event was to start so the room itself was shut. The reception area however was open, a large sticky floored room with a grubby pool table and a small bar. One solitary bloke sitting at the bar simply refused to take one of his eyes off me, and the air itself was imbued with an absolutely overwhelming smell of wee. I turned, gagging, to ask my mother what she wanted to drink when I realized that she was no longer standing beside me but was already outside lightly spritzing herself down with Chanel.

So Mum and I sat outside in the fresh air for some time, sipping tea in the sunshine and shrieking every time a wasp flew past. OK that was me. Not her. She just brushed them aside with a perfectly manicured hand. We were looking forward to the appointments that we had booked with one of the recommended mediums inside. Pretty soon though we realized that although about a dozen stalls must have been set up in the hall by the stallholders, we hadn’t seen one single paying punter arrive. Apart from us two. No joke. Once the event opening time had passed and we STILL hadn’t seen one single person wander into the hall, we began to feel sorry for the stallholders and even a bit responsible. Ok that was also absolutely just me. Not her.

It was then that I decided that it was up to us to represent THE WHOLE OF THE GENERAL PUBLIC.

Mum was rather alarmed to see me stand up and announce that out loud. I had also thrown my fist straight up in the air like Supergirl. She started muttering about ‘having a nice glass of wine’ and ‘getting far away’. I however, felt empowered because I was open and optimistic and NOT TRYING TOO HARD. So I ignored her protests and dragged her by the arm into the hall.

Once we got inside I had to wait for mum to stop complaining that I’d ruined her jacket by pulling on it, and we took a moment to gaze around us. I tried to ignore the heady combination of aromas: lavender, sage and urine from the room, and very expensive perfume from my mum. We blinked. A lot. There were about 10 tables dotted around the room. Regardless I was optimistic and BEING OPEN and everything, although mum had covered her nose with her Prada bag.

Both of our appointments were with the same lady, a lady dressed in many colours. She even had a crystal ball on her table. I’ve never seen a crystal ball at work so I was excited, although sadly she never got round to stroking it. What she did do was greet the both of us, ask my mum to sit behind me, and then ask me for something I wear all the time, a piece of jewellery.

 

I wasn’t wearing any. So she asked for my phone. Yup. That’s right. She wanted my mobile phone.

Now look my lovely medium friends, please tell me if I’ve got this wrong, but surely it would make more sense to ask for my hand? My hand is more ME than my mobile phone is ever likely to be. I carry my phone with me most places but I do put it down sometimes. And it’s only on a monthly contract. I carry my hands all the time! Anyway I hand over my phone after making the usual quips making sure she wasn’t likely to be scrolling through it whilst asking me to meditate, wink wink. She didn’t wink back. The bloke at the bar got momentarily excited though. The medium proceeded to read me, whilst holding my phone. These were some of the things she told me:

“You are quite close to your family, can you understand that?”

Now I didn’t realize this immediately but my face took on a questioning expression and my finger slowly lifted itself in the air and pointed backwards over my shoulder, at my mum who was sitting on a chair behind me…

“Did you meet my mum?” I asked.

“I like your phone case. You are quite creative, can you understand that?” I nodded.

“I’m seeing long haul travel. America. Are you planning a trip?” I shook my head.

“You are a kind person. Yes you like to help others. Can you understand that?”.

At this point my sister’s voice was shouting at me from inside my head. Now she really IS skeptical. In fact she’s so skeptical she makes me feel like I’m already a believer! I’m thinking that, bless this lady for reading for me, but this is so generic it’s meaningless to me. I don’t mean to be rude. Or ungrateful. Really I don’t. Yet this is how I feel. I can’t believe in what she’s doing because she’s not telling me anything that couldn’t also relate to everyone else in the room.

That’s obviously if there WERE any other punters in the room I mean. It’s still just us two in there, quietly absorbing a million molecules of wee wee.

Also what I actually want her to be talking about is my favorite dead person, not whether or not I have a nice phone case. I don’t know if it’s ethical to ask her about this, but I also don’t want to lead her in any particular direction. In my mind I’m willing my particularly favorite dead person to shake her by the shoulders and shriek:

‘I’m here! Cut the crap! Get off the phone! Tell her my name!”

But that doesn’t happen.

And then it’s over. Once I’d handed over my £40 I slowly walked back to my mum and glumly waited for her to take her turn. I couldn’t read her expression because she still had her sunglasses on and was holding a hanky to her nose.

—————————

More recently I went to another medium event and afterwards as I was driving home in the dark I managed to drive straight over an innocent bunny rabbit on the road. I was utterly and completely mortified. I murdered my first rabbit whilst on a spirit quest. It’s almost as if the spirit world were saying…”don’t bother us love…you haven’t got it. You’re not gonna get it. Watch out for that rabbit”.

So it’s been a mixed start to the year, but it’s not ALL been bad so far. I enjoyed going to the Mediumship Development Circle for those few months. In fact when I’ve asked THEM who THEY rate as an accurate practicing medium, one name has continued to come up, Tony Stockwell: http://www.tonystockwell.com.

When I realized that he was giving a Mediumship demonstration at the Arthur Findlay College a few weeks ago, not 15 minutes from where I live, I just KNEW I was destined for a return visit!

So a few weeks ago that’s exactly what I did, and yes of course I forced my mum to come with me too. I don’t like NOT TRYING TOO HARD all by myself after all.

25. Something happened!

Guess what?! Something happened! A few months ago during medium circle night, it was a subtle but actual “Heck Something’s Happening!” moment, and it took me a while to process it, but now I’m ready to share it with you. So get comfy, slip into your onesie, open that secret bag of pork scratchings and put your reading glasses on.

No? Just me then.

DECEMBER CIRCLE NIGHT
It’s another dark and cold night outside, but we’re all safely tucked up in one half of the hall, the partition wall is again in place and circle has begun. The actors are still rehearsing their ‘play’ on the other side of the partition so we are subject to the usual shrieking, shouting and dragging of chairs from their side. They are SOoo dramatic. Don’t they know we are trying to contact the Spirit world over here? The Spirit world is really really quiet! REALLY quiet! The actors don’t take too kindly to being asked to keep the noise down either. But this time our group leader is prepared for battle. She has an armful of drums, a plan and her potty mouth. She’s brilliant.

Whilst the actors now sound like they are replicating the invasion of the Body Snatchers, we turn all the lights off and sit in darkness. I hear the sound of the drums coming out. I’m told they are Bohdran drums. All wide and flat and beautifully painted. So in the darkness at least 3 or 4 of the circle gang start drumming out a single beat in a slow powerful rhythm:

‘BOOM’….’BOOM’…’BOOM’…BOOM..’…

over and over. The sound is deep and slow, resonating and soulful. The actors have gone quiet. I can only imagine the looks on their faces. I bet they are peeing in their togas. The drumming continues and our leader begins a guided meditation. It’s lovely. Now, sitting in the darkness I also have a drum but it doesn’t look like the others. I’ve got it in my lap, feeling my way around the top of it. It’s small and squat rather than wide. I’m suddenly wondering if my drum sounds like the others. Also I haven’t had any guidance on drumming before. Am I supposed to beat the same rhythm as the others or just improvise? Well…because I’m an idiot and because I come from a family of musicians I decide to embrace my hitherto unexplored natural drumming talents. I pick my moment to join the slow and majestic booming but rather than match the others, for some insane reason I decide to drum BETWEEN their beats, assuming mine will sound like theirs. Unfortunately as I begin, the rhythm bouncing around the room now sounds like this: …

“BOOM”…”plink plonk!”…”BOOM”…”plink plonk!”…”BOOM”…”plink plonk!”…

This is definitely not what I was hoping for. With every spiritual and resonating ‘BOOM’ everyone is now subject to my rather humorous comedy toy drum. And now we’re all in a rhythm, I can’t get seem to find my way out of it.

“BOOM”…”plink plonk!”…”BOOM”…”plink plonk!”…”BOOM”…”plink plonk!”…

Quite frankly I’m embarrassing myself. They must think I’m such an idiot. I’m glad the lights are off. We continue to drum and I’m finding it really hard to keep up because all of their drums are so beautiful and in low synchronicity together, but my drum sounds like it’s farting helium sweets in comparison. Then to make matters worse all the other drums start to speed up and to keep up I’m having to exert my little farting drum like a maniac, until ALL the drums start to blur into one majestical sound…and then everything stops.

But not without a few last manic parps from my own drum because of course I didn’t know that we were done.

Turns out I’m most definitely not any kind of drummer.

After we recover from the drumming, the lights are switched on and we prepare for the next lesson. We partner up as we are going to give each other a spirit reading using the techniques we’ve learned. We are told that it’s important to vocalize and keep talking about what you see and feel, because the more you vocalize the better everything flows. So after my partner has a go, under instruction I visualize centering myself and raising my energy and then when ready, I open a door in my mind. My partner helpfully suggests opening the door just a little bit but typical me, I choose to throw that door wide open.

And that’s when something ACTUALLY happens.

My body starts to vibrate very finely, from my boots up. All the way up my legs, through my body, along my arms and down to my fingers, up to my neck and up through the top of my head. Not massive vibrations like I’ve been attacked by a pneumatic drill, but most definitely a strong fine ‘thrumming’. It is a most unexpected feeling. So with my eyes wide I ask my partner what the heck is going on, and she says that the vibration is ‘their’ energy mixing with mine. Now this is what I’ve been hoping for. Some tangible ‘change’ in my physical world that I can see or feel, to prove that ‘something’ is happening. And here it is, actually happening. Amazing.

So ‘they’ are here then. Spirit. I can’t see anything out of the ordinary. But I’m really enjoying just feeling what I’m feeling. Next I’m encouraged to invite them to stand to my side, and hopefully they will somehow relate to the person sitting in front of me. I don’t have much sense of anyone here, but I vocalize and give her what I imagine that I CAN sense: a man holding out his hands with some material or something draped over them, stooped over. I can’t honestly say that this is MORE than my imagination, but then it is my first go. My partner can’t relate to what I am giving her unfortunately but I’m pretty chuffed regardless. Just feeling this marked physical change is enough to show me that SOMETHING is going on. We sit for a few more minutes and then the exercise is over.

Thank you, circle gang 🙂

I leave the session a bit bedazzled, get in the car in a giddy daze and drive home. Ever since, I’ve been wondering if I can replicate that sensation again, so I’ve been practicing, and at first I couldn’t do it. But now I feel it every day. Even when I’m not intentionally focusing on it. It’s a clear vibration, and it’s especially strong around my neck and my hands. How strange and curious. Perhaps there is a way forward for me using this? We’ll have to see what happens next.

So what do you think about this vibration thing? I’m totally not making this up, it’s very very real. 🙂

———————————–
Other things I’ve been doing recently:

1. Two medium readings.
2. Meditation.
3. Practicing gratitude.
4. Learning to shut up and listen more carefully.

Interestingly, I also recently participated in a 2 week online ‘ENERGY ALIGNMENT METHOD’ course. It has been a fascinating process, it’s all about the Law of Attraction. I didn’t actually manage to finish the whole course, but even with my partial knowledge it has started working for me, lots of things have moved forward since doing it and I can highly recommend it (and yes I did have to put my skepticism aside in order to take part!). I don’t know whether it was coincidence, but whilst doing the course, lots of material things that had been on my wish list for years actually finally manifested and are now in my life. Thanks Yvette Taylor for running this most unusual course! I’ll put some links on the blog when I get permission.

For one of you who wanted to know the specifics about the tarot reading I went for, (you know who you are ;-)) I haven’t found out how to translate my audio cd to text, but the one most memorable moment for me was when my tarot reader said:

“if you haven’t already booked your holiday this year then if it was me I really wouldn’t bloody bother, because you are going to have so much aggro at the other end it probably won’t have been worth the trip”.

So that’s enough about me this month, how have you lot been? Any close encounters of your own you feel ready to share? 🙂

24. Spirit, secrets and spontaneous human combustion

For the past few months I’ve been attempting to rediscover the inner spirit that I apparently left in a soggy mess in a dark corner of the Arthur Findlay College. That’s:

‘The Worlds Foremost College for the Advancement of Spiritualism and Psychic Sciences’

in case you haven’t heard of it yet. So in order to do this this I’ve been spending all of my time in serious meditation. OK that’s not quite true. I’ve definitely been meditating once a week though…OK look, I have tried it, but to be honest I think I must be doing it wrong. It’s harder than I thought.

Subsequently, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about thinking. How many thoughts do you reckon you have in a day? The internet says that it’s at least 50,000 thoughts a day. Imagine that. Would you like to know how many thoughts I wrestle with whilst attempting morning meditation? No? Well I’m going to tell you anyway. I’d say most of the big ones and at least 10,000 of the little ones. The big meandering thoughts occur about 2 minutes into meditation. They go a bit like this:

“That candle’s going to fall over and set my feet on fire.” Or:

“Should’ve worn my old bra, this one’s going to cut me clean in half.”

Or my own personal favorite:

“Christ I hope Lily got to school ok. She could be abducted from that hideous school bus and halfway to a foreign country right now, being forced into her new life in slavery.”

That last scenario has a complete back story, my imagination during meditation goes all the way with that one, despite my best intentions. I could write for Eastenders. The littler thoughts however, mostly consist of shorter phrases such as: “stop fecking thinking!”, “deep breath in” and “what’s that smell?”

I read somewhere that proper meditation is where you can find the space BETWEEN thoughts. You know what I think about that? Fat chance.

In order to get into the right head space I’ve also decided to adjust my reading matter. My current book is called ‘KILL ME instead’ by Dean R Koontz. It’s fair to say that my preferred reading matter usually leans towards the gory and bizarre. Essentially as far from spiritual as one can get. In fact whenever Mark asks me to read a random passage out loud in bed at night (I know I know, we’re living the dream, right?), the sentence usually contains the words ‘axe’ or ‘brain’ or ‘arterial spray’.

But today I’ve put that book away and picked up another one. I bet this new book doesn’t feature any murderous cats eating their way out of their owners, or terrifying plane journeys where the passengers suddenly disappear mid flight, leaving only their dental fillings, pacemakers and wigs behind.

This new book I’ve opened up is called “THE SECRET” by Rhonda Byrne. Have you heard of it? I have no idea what the secret of THE SECRET is, but already my noisy brain is confused by the title. It’s got THE SECRET in it, but it’s a book. You know, what you can buy from a shop. Did the author want it to remain a secret? If so she’s gone about this all wrong. Anyway when I find out what THE SECRET is, let me know if you want me to share it with you. This could be a game changer after all.

UPDATE:
I was reading THE SECRET in bed last night. I’m agog (my favourite word, as you probably know) with excitement. I can’t wait to find out what IT is. I feel like I’m on the brink of something magical and wonderful. I shook the book at my husband in bed and I asked him rather generously:

“Once I know what THE SECRET is, would you like to know what IT is?”

And would you like to know what his response was?

He said…“No”.

He then picked up his copy of the Chimp Paradox and turned back to his reading.

Like I said. Living the dream.

————————————————–

OK so onto things I’ve been doing to help me on my journey:

1. I went for a tarot reading. What a lovely lady. She had a massive cat on the desk. She was extremely thorough with the cards and quite impressive. Admittedly she did let me pat the cat for 10 whole minutes before mentioning that he had full blown cat AIDS. She was probably preoccupied, by dealing me a very worrying set of cards which now means that I’m too scared to book any holidays for between say, 12 to 18 months.

Oh, that and I must make sure to tell my sister that all of HER dreams are about to come true. So that’s nice.

2. I’m currently in the middle of a two week online course which is focusing on energy realignment. Currently I’m totally stuck on clearing blockages around ‘frustration’. I don’t feel any different yet. I have no idea what this will feel like at the end, but if it feels like ANYTHING, then I’ll be impressed.

3. I’m getting ready for my gong bath, I’m really looking forward to this. According to Google:

“The gong bath is a one hour immersion in sacred and healing sound wherein the gongmaster activates the full sonic potential of the gong and bathes the listener with sustained waves of primordial sound.”

Holy crap that sounds brilliant and uplifting. My only worry is that in the deep historical recesses of my mind, I seem to recall some relation between sonic resonance and spontaneous human combustion. Is that just me? If I go to a gong bath and end up exploding… oh…wait. Hence the bath.

I’ll take my big towel just in case.

23. The recovery position

Hello lovely readers, are you still out there? Are you all still riding the skirts of a delicious bacon covered turkey high? Or dragging yourself off to work this month with a confused, puffy and slightly resentful look on your face? I know which one I’m doing.

The feedback I’ve had about my posts from you guys has been varied and wonderful. There have been lots of opinions on table tipping, ranging from quite a few saying it’s “mostly bollocks”, to others offering to include me in their own table tipping session. I’ve been searching on twitter a fair amount and I’m learning A LOT. For example did you know that there may be some relation between flatulence and spiritual shifts in energy? Of course I won’t be putting that into practice again anytime soon. It’s bad enough dealing with it on an ad-hoc basis don’t you think?

So it’s been over a month since doing the course at the Arthur Findlay College, which I like to quote as being:

“The Worlds Foremost College for the Advancement of making yourself look like a total numpty’.

I’m the numpty, in case you were wondering. I don’t blame the College. It’s doing exactly what it was built for. Actually I think it’s an amazing place, especially if you already cradle that magical nugget of belief in the palm of your hand. If you do, then what a simply magical place! In fact I hope that the AFC never reads this blog otherwise they will probably ban me from returning, and weirdly enough I would definitely consider going back there in the future.

Unfortunately more recently I feel that whatever inner spirit I may have had, has since shrunk to the size of one of those mini babybels (you know those little cheeses that lurk inside waxy red coats because they are presumably angry little mini cheese divas who strop around complaining about the cold). I’m struggling to reach inside and find ANY inner spirit now. In fact I’ve been looking for it ever since. With a pair of sodding tweezers. I need to find it again.

I hope that it won’t take long. After all, it’s inside my physical body somewhere right? I’ve only got a finite amount of body for it to be hiding in. Admittedly there’s more of it since Christmas (cheers Santa). But surely my inner spirit is bound to turn up somewhere…on the inside, cowering under my back fat, or squeezed into an arse cheek. Actually that would make a LOT of sense. Once I’ve found it I can stretch it out flat with my sacral rolling pin, blow it back up and then crack on with searching for the spirit above, making sure that there’s a nice tight knot at the end so I don’t end up parping it away by accident.

 

So I have lots of things planned to help me find my inner spirit:
1. tarot reading.
2. medium reading.
3. gong bath. You heard me.
4. I also need to find some good meditation techniques. If you have any tips or techniques then please do post them in the comments, it would be ever so helpful, and maybe we could ALL benefit from your own experiences.

Oh yes and lastly, do you remember the night I got home from the AFC, when I almost burnt my bedroom down with the poxy oil burner? Well that night ended up being even more confusing than I could imagine. I went to bed and had a lucid dream. In case you don’t know, lucid dreams are:

“any dream in which one is aware that one is dreaming. You are conscious even though you sleep.”

In the dream I was with 2 army soldiers. I became lucid and this is what I said to them, as fast as I could:

“Right guys, I’m lucid, please put your clothes back on. I’m in my subconscious which is fabulous and all that, but we all know that this is only going to last a couple of minutes so let’s be quick. I need help finding my inner spirit and then finding the spirit above. This has GOT to be a good place to start hasn’t it? Can you please help me?”

And they looked at each other rather bemusedly, consult a chart, and then they agree to book me onto the next available course, I feel relieved. Then I wake up.

So that’s good news isn’t it. Wait…what just happened? I’ve been booked onto another spiritual course…in my dreams? But I don’t know when the course is! They didn’t give me ANY paperwork! How am I supposed to know where to go?

What a numpty.

22. Arthur Findlay College (Part 5 of 5)

SATURDAY 28TH NOVEMBER

Hey everyone, sorry it’s been so long! Christmas got in between me and blogging, at least 5 roast dinners got in the way of me sitting on any upright chair comfortably, and 6 tins of Celebrations have left me resorting to maternity pants and my indoor bra. Please say it’s not just me?

So here is the final chapter in my Arthur Findlay adventure, for any of you who still want to know how things panned out. If you can’t remember how ridiculous I was, then feel free to re-read the previous post here, https://goo.gl/cM2Psq and if it made you giggle at all then please let me know by commenting, and I won’t feel quite so tragic. Are you ready? Then I’ll begin…

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So as I walk back to my chair in the lecture room, after the embarrassing and absurd incident in the garden just now, my mind is cast back to other times in my life, whereby I have felt the same way, which is equally as embarrassed and ridiculous.

Like the time when I was younger I spent a summer holiday on a farm, and to kill time I went off on my own and found a lone cow in a field. And in the spirit of self entertainment I spent a whole ten minutes slapping flies off that cow’s back and catching them to collect in a jar (with the intention of showing fly filled jar off to amazed and impressed younger sister)…until a strange rumbling started to emanate from the cow’s throat. It then dawned on me that I should have checked a few things before I started this hearty arse slapping session of fun. I looked underneath the cow. Oops. definitely NOT a cow.

So basically I was bull spanking. Sorry mum if you’re reading this, and no, it’s not a legitimate extreme sport as far as I’m aware. I was suddenly most alarmed. I bolted upright, turned and immediately fast-walked away from the bull, and it immediately started following me. And the faster I walked the faster the bull followed, snorting heavily (actually to be fair we were both doing that but for very different reasons). In under a minute we were both in a flat run, I was shrieking, and streaking towards the safety of a far away gap in the hedge, but I could hear his mighty hooves thundering ever closer and I knew I would simply never reach safety in time. So in a split second of bonkers thinking, I stopped running. And I whirled around to face the bull in it’s fat snotty face. I probably looked as terrified as an overweight turkey in December but quite frankly at this point I had no choice. We stared at each other for a heavily sweaty moment. Facing the bull I slowly took one step backwards, and then another. He never took his bloodshot eyes off me. But he didn’t follow me. I kept walking backwards right out of that field. So I’m thinking that the bull thing may have been my first totally embarrassing and idiotic incident. I hadn’t thought about that experience much, until tonight.

But I’m thinking about it now, and I ponder the events so far, and I pray that nothing else as ridiculous happens tonight in class. We are now back in session. The teacher tells us that we shall be performing Psychometry, which, according to Wiki is:

“a form of extra-sensory perception characterized by the claimed ability to make relevant associations from an object of unknown history by making physical contact with that object”

I’m feeling exhausted now, but this should be ok. I’m putting my best foot forward, doubts aside, pure intentions and all that. We all sit in a semi circle, having each taken one object from our own belongings and placed it on a table underneath a cloth, so nobody can see what anyone else is doing. Bald guy gets up first, mooches over to the table and picks up an object, he then sits on the podium next to the teacher, holds the objects and sits in contemplation. He struggles to get much of anything.

I put my hand up to go next.  “Choose something which speaks to you” the teacher sings. I pick up a very pretty ring, it’s quite large and it has diamonds going all the way round it. I stand in front of everyone, rolling it around in my palm. For a moment I truly feel like Frodo Baggins as I now stare into the ring. Actually now I come to think of it, hobbits and me have got a lot more in common than I might care to admit. Is this the first time I’ve considered this? Wait, fascinating concept though it is, how about saving it for later? Shake it off. I look deeply into the heart of the ring, aware that everyone is waiting. But now I’m trying to see if I can remember that evil rhyme from the Lord of the Rings that was engraved into Frodo’s ring. “One ring to rule them all…”..oh yeah. Feel pretty smaug..sorry SMUG now. But nothing insidious is engraved on THIS ring as far as I can see. Lawks, all Frodo had to do was put ON the damned ring to get his answers! Argh focus goddamit! Why is it so hard to empty my  ludicrous mind?

I take a long deep breath and try again…”This ring feels quite heavy and large, feels like it might belong to a man rather than a woman.” Ok good start. “I feel that this was a thank you gift. It feels like the owner of this ring has been through some very very dark troubled times. He’s been through a lot and been searching for answers for years, but he’s now finding them”. I carry on for a few more moments and then finish off and shrink exhausted back into my chair. Turns out that the ring belongs to bald guy. Of course it does. At that point I remember seeing the ring on his hand earlier in the day. FFS. So not as much Psychometry as I thought.

Everybody else takes their turn with varying degrees of success and then the lesson is complete. The teacher talks about tomorrow’s schedule but I feel utterly and thoroughly drained and I know that I can’t take any more. It’s not working for me and I’m not coming back tomorrow. Once the lesson is over everyone walks down to the bar area, and I pick up my stuff. I find Goth girl and give her my email address, and then I leave the college. I drive with an exhausted heart and a blank mind, I can barely wait to get home.

Once I’m home I go upstairs and run a bath. I’m emotional. I remember that earlier in the week I’d bought myself a little second hand essential oils burner to try out, I wanted lavender to help soothe me if I needed de-stressing. So I pour in the complete bottle of lavender essential oil into the little bowl, light the candle underneath and go have my bath. I come back later to gaze at my lovely little oil burner, and I immediately feel my throat tightening up. Odd. My eyes start to water. Wow this burner really works, I say to myself as I give a little cough to try to clear my throat. This must be what spirituality smells like, and I’m mesmerized by the ever so strong lavender vapour wafting up in ribbons of steam from the bowl. “Isn’t it lovely?” I croak to my 11 year old daughter who has just come into the room, “see how beautiful and spiritual that lavender mist is?”. She takes one look at the oil burner and raises one eyebrow at me. “That’s not mist mum. It’s smoke. You’re going to get us all killed’ and she walks out. I’m practically chewing lavender exhaust as I grab her Ipad and Google oil burners. Oh yes. You have to fill them with water first.

Choking, I blow the candle out, open the windows to the biting wind and get under the covers, shivering as cold angry air sweeps around the room. Sniveling, I bury my head deeply under the pillow and I pray for the blessed oblivion that preferably only sleep can offer.

21. Arthur Findlay College (Part 4 of 5)

SATURDAY 28TH NOVEMBER

I leap through the now seemingly empty corridors of the Arthur Findlay College at night, skidding round corners and bouncing through doors, with my nostrils flaring, my eyebrows furrowed and my hair flying behind me.

I’m like Supergirl charging off to fight evil. Ok maybe Supergirl is pushing it, I can see that. I am 47 years old after all. Supergirl is probably innapropriate. Forget I mentioned it. If you want to see a real Supergirl check out my cousin. She’s pretty awesome and the closest thing to an actual superhero that I know of ;-). I think there should be much older, slightly less athletic superhereos in action though don’t you? We definitely don’t see enough of those. Superheroes wearing stretchy jeggings. Wearing a utility belt. Containing lip salve, tissues, a spare pair of pants, tic tacs and a packet of wotsits for emergencies.

Anyhoo, where was I? Ok so I’m running, and I can’t lie to you, I’m not a light runner. I’m a clomper, Boot Camp Bates will tell you. (https://flickeringlightblog.wordpress.com/2015/11/12/13-psychic-circles-sit-ups-and-signs/). My boots are thudding heavily on the carpet marking my passage. It doesn’t even occur to that there might be CCTV cameras following me. I could SO do with not being noticed right now. Also the rather oversized zips on both sides of my lesbian boots (my sister’s words, not mine) are jangling hysterically against the leather, I sound like an angry overweight Santa chasing a car. It does occur to me that anyone studying in the rooms either side of this long corridor might actually  mistake my pounding for something spooky. Especially if they are deep in meditation. I might be the reason why there are accounts all over the web now of students of the AFC writing in their blogs “Definitely haunted! Heard a hundred raging ghosts ripping up the halls!”.

But there’s no time to think. I’m not stopping (I’m not sure I can anyway, my momentum is formidable). Either way my mission is clear. Find my way the hell outside of this building and out into the hysterical black night, to find my destiny. It’s not the brightest idea I’ve ever had. I can say that now looking back, but in the moment I seem to have lost all reason.

I come across the final set of doors, the doors to ‘The Outside’. I SLAM my way out of those doors with both hands using all my body weight behind them (more than necessary to be sure), sending both doors FLYING open and BANGING wide open on their hinges against the stone walls behind them. The freezing air hits my face and takes my breath away, I haven’t slowed down and there are about 5 steps before me leading from the porch down to ground level. I leap over the steps, avoiding them all and land on the ground below in a karate pose JUST like Uma Thurman in her yellow jumpsuit in ‘Kill Bill’, both legs wiiiide apart and a pretend samurai sword in my hands. Admittedly I’m wearing jeans and they really don’t appreciate being stretched in this manner. I adjust my crotch with one hand as I look around with wild determination in my eyes.

I can hear screaming, but we’ll get back to that. This is what I can see. The building is shrouded in blackness and covered by a swirling mass of leaves and branches from overhanging trees and ivy. The darkness is lifted only by occasional external lights shining onto the ground, and the wind is so aggressive it’s shaking every branch around and extraordinary shadows are being cast EVERYWHERE. But these are no ordinary shadows, they are moving super fast, like a black and white movie that has been speeded up. It is literally unnerving. The speed of it! It looks like those old films when certain frames have been spliced out so that the image is jumping around all the time. Faster than I can keep my eyes on it. I look straight ahead into the darkness expecting at any second to be sucked into a television set with white noise raging from within it, before I remember that I’m not actually in a scene from that Poltergeist film. My eyes are then drawn up to the corner of the house where the security light is beaming. The leaves are being throttled against the bulb of the light and that’s what is casting these bizarre lightning fast shadows, I can only think that the wind is being trapped up in that corner and shaking everything faster than humanly possible. The screaming however is absolutely still happening.

Ultimately, what I didn’t realize was the impact that my exit would have on my surroundings. At that same moment that I was preparing myself to burst through that last set of doors, two poor unsuspecting students were huddled together on chairs on the porch having a smoke, and they were also watching the scary shadow show on the ground below them, and they had worked themselves up into a right old frenzy talking about spirit and ghosts and whatnot. So there they are scaring themselves twankless, smoking and whispering and shivering in the cold darkness, and all of a sudden the double doors BURST open and a wild fricking maniac flies through them, hurling herself down the steps and into the night! They are thrown off their chairs, fags akimbo, screaming to the high heavens as they think something HORRENDOUS has burst through into their actual physical world. Can you imagine their fright?

 

I finally locate the source of the screaming and spin around, these two unfortunate girls are huddled together, shrieking, their eyes wild and frightened, hands tightly wound together, their face cheeks pressed tightly against each other as they watch me in horror, shaking, to see what happens next. After a few seconds, where we all have time to reflect deeply on what has just happened (or that could just be me), we all very very slowly relax and stand up straighter (and I rearrange my crotch again and smooth my jeans down slowly. They are definitely going in the outside bin when I get home). One of them says to me in a thick German accent:

‘For FUCKS ZAKE you nearly gave me ze FUCKING HEART ATTACK!”

And then we all burst out laughing. And we don’t stop for a full 3 minutes. Big awesome gut wrenching hysterical laughter that doubles us all up and leaves us weeping into our sleeves. Snot and tears leak out of the majority of my orifices. And just like that all of the tension in my body has gone. (And a fair amount of body fluid.)

Once we have recovered from the drama, the laughter has given way to giggles, the adrenaline has gone, and the cold starts to seep back in, we all take a moment to individually acknowledge my stupidity in our own minds. I then help them pick up their fallen fags, and we all go back inside, to the final session of the evening…

 

20. Arthur Findlay College (Part 3)

SATURDAY 28TH NOVEMBER

We all sit down in our chairs and are told to get into pairs with someone new and start channelling. Goth girl and I catch each other’s eye. We decide to hide by the big bay windows practically behind the long heavy curtains and give it a go. Or at least PRETEND to give it a go. My brain has a little giggle at the thought. I reckon we’d be great at pretending to channel dead people. I used to love drama. I don’t know Goth girl at all, but she looks like she could whip up a right palava with just a wand and a whisper. We could give everyone else a right old scare! More giggling inside my brain.  Oops. I was worried about this happening. It’s a tendency of mine, to get giggly when things get bad, and make jokes and laugh at inappropriate moments. You should see me at a funeral. I’m hysterical.

It’s SO cold sitting by the dark bay window but it’s worth freezing our actual tits off because we are partially hidden from view and the teacher is nowhere to be seen. I bet she’s playing strip poker on the ceiling.

“Shall we have a go?” I say, and Goth girl agrees. I switch on and try to concentrate. Then I catch myself and try not to concentrate. Hmmm. Turns out trying not to concentrate is hard. I pull my scarf closer around me as the chill creeps down my neck. I try not to concentrate a little bit harder….I’m looking just behind Goth girl’s shoulder and beyond the massive window into the darkness of the grounds outside. The bitter wind has really picked up and is throwing itself around and howling like Kate Bush in a blender.

I now feel as if there might be a man in my mind’s eye, a thin man, not a joyful man, so I pass what I get onto her. He has caused some trouble in his life or has been the reason that there was difficulty, like a black sheep. His head is bowed and his heart is heavy. Goth girl takes a little of this but it’s hard to be sure, for either of us. I try to give her more but don’t get very much further so I ask why he has come. I feel that he has come to say that he understands the difficulties he caused and he acknowledges them. That’s all I can give her.

It’s then her turn to channel for me. She can see a grandmother figure, very proper, always made up impeccably, lipstick and hair. A very strong woman, didn’t take any crap. It does sound quite a lot like my grandmother on my dad’s side actually. I’m quite impressed. We continue trying to swap information but soon start to dry up, and then we spend a few moments discussing the act of channelling, the class, the cat, the college and a bit of the world. We look at the windows wondering if we could climb out before anyone stops us. I start to feel a bit better.

Suddenly the teacher sweeps into our field of vision and plonks herself down next to us. “How have you been getting on dears?” and her wonderful motherly approach instantly makes me emotional, despite my best intentions. I heave a big wavering sigh, and I feel tears prick at my eyes. I want my own mum, but she’s not here. (She’s not dead mind! She lives! In Hampstead oh yes, and a very nice place it is too!). I look into the eyes of my learned teacher. Oh dear here it comes. I simply can’t bullshit. I want to stop myself from what’s coming next, but Goth girl has gone very quiet although her eyes are so large, so I let our teacher have it:

“I’m sorry…but I just.don’t.get.it.” And I give her everything on my mind, the chat at lunch, the table tipping, the need for validation, the scarf, the desire to ‘feel’ something, the feeling of trying too hard, being rubbish, failure, everything. And I finish off (rather wonderfully I think at the time) by saying all at once and in one breath:

“So if I, someone who is searching for validation and who would from this moment happily devote the rest of her pork filled life to mediumship, were to ask someone like you, a truly respected and learned medium, to step up to the podium and ask your spirits to just move something 1mm to prove that spirit is in this room tonight, would you do that?”.

She promptly bangs her fist on the table and exclaims ‘ABSOLUTELY NOT!’.

And there goes my heart again, did you see it? Sliding slowly out of my chest and down to the floor like a slippery glob of fake ectoplasm.

She decides to help us go through our readings with each other but I’m not feeling supported OR engaged now. Her observations of the man I saw contradict my own observations which don’t help, and I’m relieved when the lesson is over and it’s time to dinner.

As we drag our heavy feet back to the canteen I am momentarily lifted by the sight of meat pie, and I’m already wondering how long I can make this pie last before I have to go back into class for the last session. I double up on gravy. Still feeling down. And a bit tearful. When I get to the dessert trolley I can see it’s sticky toffee pudding! My mood lifts but then I realize that there is no squirty cream (mandatory if you ask me), only custard. Yuck. I can’t tell you how much I loathe custard. Custard is disgusting. Yet whilst my inner voice yells “NO! What the cock are you DOING?!” I find myself spooning the custard slowly over my sticky toffee pudding, whilst actually pouting and stifling a tiny whimper. I’ve possibly never felt emotional eating as keenly as I’m feeling it right now, as one half of my brain continues to shout at me ‘what the pisscock are you doing, you frigging HATE custard!” and the other half is saying ‘I don’t give two actual TWATS! I’m eating it ALL!”. I eat my huge bowl of sticky gooey emotions with a big fat (unbendable) spoon. Yeah whatever Yuri Gellar.

As I sit at the table with Goth girl and some others, I listen to their conversations with half an ear. I hear one person say ‘this course cost me £350. I’ve just been thinking what I could have spent £350 on at the shops’ which makes custard nearly come out of my nose in surprise.

After dinner there’s plenty of time to roam the building. Outside it is pitch black and the wind is screaming, and as I walk back into the lecture room which is again vast and empty, I open my heart to the spirits around me and I beg again for a sign, a glimmer. It’s their last chance to show me a nugget of magic before I leave. I walk to the bay window and I look outside into the depths of the raging darkness…and that’s when I see it.

Something utterly bizarre. Something SO bizarre that it actually shocks me and I keep my eyeballs fixed onto it for a moment to be sure it’s not my eyes playing tricks on me. Something freakish is happening outside in the grounds. Right Now. Something UNNATURAL. I’ve never seen anything like this before in my whole entire life and I’m not even joking.

I’m going to grab this moment by the balls. Absolutely. Without question. So I drop my stuff and start RUNNING. I race out of that vast empty room as fast as my short fat hairy legs will carry me, hampered as I run only by the sudden burping and the wish that perhaps after all I shouldn’t have forced down all that fecking custard.

I race towards the black screaming wintry night outside…

19. Arthur Findlay College (Part 2)

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…