MY STORY
Very early in my life I felt that my life had some para-normal dimension to it. Of course I did not have the intellectual grasp of such things.
My experiences were such that they did not fit into the ordinary, taken-for granted, everyday world that I found around me and which was constantly reinforced by my family and neighbours. Then at the age of three, I felt my life had some as yet undisclosed shape to it. It was not exactly a quest or a journey, although later I might have used such terms. It was rather that there were other dimensions to life and that these dimensions would be revealed more clearly as I went through life.
At the age of three, the experience was so vivid that it has never really left me. I was simply doing something so ordinary that this in itself could not have been a ‘trigger’ for the experience. There was nothing in the external world that could have occasioned it. I might say that this is true of innumerable recorded experiences of the numinous. This refers to a sense of transcendent reality, something outside our normal experience but is at the same time both near and real. At the time, it is nearer and realer than anything one is extremely familiar with. I was then simply jumping down some steps in our garden. Suddenly like a flash of lightning I became aware of myself as an individual self. ‘Who and what am I’ I felt. ‘Where did I come from, why am I here, what is my destiny’. All these thoughts were attached to a feeling of utter strangeness. It was not frightening. It was a kind of celebration. ‘I am alive, I am here’. Nothing could explain it. I simply existed. ‘How could it be’, I thought . It took the whole of eternity to bring me into existence, here and now. In addition to these thoughts there was a vague powerful feeling that everything would be alright. Even though I might be harmed in the worldly sense I could not be harmed in a deep sense. As long as I was true to this newly disclosed self I would be in a state of well-being, even if all the external circumstances of my life were speaking the reverse. I also felt that I was part of a spiritual world. This newly disclosed self when it was in touch with itself was in touch with this spiritual world.
Our minds or spirits are not confined by our ordinary awareness of time and space. Most of the time we inhibit the world of everyday objects and events. But human nature is more expansive than this common-sense world would suggest. We can be liberated into new worlds of spiritual knowledge and understanding that we can scarcely dream of. We have it in our power, if we would only develop this power, to be conscious of a reality outside this ordinary world. We might theorise or speculate about this other mode of existence but our efforts are limited because our thoughts and feelings are largely conditioned by and rooted in the world of getting and spending and attempting to provide a decent standard of living and quality of life for ourselves and those who are dear to us. This ordinary world is a kind of forgetting. If we are not careful we forget the real nature and true needs of those whom we love and to whom we are intimately attached. Of course in all this, even when we are unaware of it, we are accumulating spiritual resources. It is a matter of how we connect with it.
But I emphasise that there is a world that transcends this one. We can get in touch with it: and it can get in touch with us. I see my vocation as one of trying to bring the two worlds together, so that we can see our lives, hopes and fears as a whole. It is the neglect of this wholeness that separates us from ourselves, from others and from the spiritual world which is our true home. Our worldly concerns make the spiritual world imperceptible. It is no distance at all if we learn how to open ourselves up to it. Our access to this world is uneven, tentative but sometimes it floods in.
We do not get to the spiritual world by reason and the intellect. Just as we truly get to know other people when we love them or feel pity for their afflictions, so we get to know the spiritual world, and the truths it can reveal to us, by opening our minds to it. Psychic phenomena are a general term for those experiences which put us in touch with spiritual reality. It is possible in moments of illumination to see behind the veil of appearances, to feel the presence of normally undisclosed truths about who and what we are, to hear reports about those most intimate yearnings and anxieties that we habitually protect ourselves from and to pursue those intimations about those aspects of ourselves that are often quite invisible to us. We can, then, given the right attitude of mind get behind, see through and break down those barriers which prevent our perceiving how things are in there deepest nature. We need to unfold what is already there.
I have already said that I began to see my life taking a certain direction very early in life. I felt that there was more in Heaven and Earth than the cool intellect can ever dream of, if I may refer to Shakespeare’s Hamlet. I came to myself and the spiritual world together, albeit in a childlike way. I see now that my personal development and spiritual growth have gone together. It has been an unfolding and I have been party to it. In one sense I have always been aware of the spiritual dimension to life but it came to a new wonder when I experienced myself and the world to which it truly belonged when I was three years of age. Since then my life has been a spiritual journey, even during the setbacks in the world of ordinary time and space, objects and events.
My spiritual growth has been a steady series of illuminations and insights, persisting even when my personal life has been arrested in the short run. Yet we find spiritual nourishment even in the most adverse circumstances. What may seem spiritual deadening may have hidden messages. We may be sustained and uplifted by the most uncompromising occurrences. We must find a spiritual use for the most spiritually uninspiring events in our lives. We can turn the most dire experiences into spiritual resources. Indeed we may be presented with what we most wish to avoid so that we might triumph over them and gather them into nuggets of wisdom.
I have used the word growth often. This word implies that things change but also they change for the better. For many of us this may seem to be contrary to all our experiences. But I believe that our lives have a pattern and that we can discern this pattern if we orientate ourselves to the intimations we receive from the world beyond our everyday experiences.
Our normal everyday world is constructed out of information that we gather from five windows that look out onto what we take to be reality. These windows are sight, hearing, touch, taste and smell. This is how our shared everyday world is built up. But we have additional powers of the spirit which are more developed in some people than others. Yet all people have these powers potentially. We all belong to the spiritual dimension because we are all spiritual beings.
Those extra-sensory or para-normal powers give us unmediated experiences of reality beyond the normal one. These powers belong to the inner world. Our inner worlds can communicate. Sometimes we have to make use of the objects and experiences of the ordinary world to facilitate communications. But when we are speaking of the spiritual world, the objects and experiences of the everyday world act as channels to this spiritual world. Furthermore there can be direct access to the spiritual world where the things of this world are inappropriate or an encumbrance. It is through such phenomena as mediumship, clairvoyance, precognition, regression, telepathy and spiritual healing that the spiritual world become evident to us. These phenomena capture the way that our personalities are transformed by forces that the five windows of normal perception cannot reach. This is not to say that the two worlds do not interpenetrate. This world is illuminated by what we receive from the spiritual world.
This is what I mean by spiritual growth. But when we grow spiritually, we enrich our ordinary lives to. Outward appearances may seem to belie this claim. All I can say is that from my own life when things are right on the inside, that is our inner spiritual nature, and then things begin to have a brighter aspect on the outside. There are inner transformative powers at work on the inside and these give us the strength and insight to find purpose and meaning on the outside. As I have said before, I have long been assured that no matter what goes wrong in my life all will be well and I shall be safe no matter what may befall me in the course of life’s vicissitudes. When things have been particularly bad for me there has often been an upsurge of a sense that I am secure, that I am protected, that I am safe. I can also state that many people have felt this sense of deep security that I experience can infuse their lives too.
This sense of deep security has gone along with thoughts about the growth in self-knowledge, feelings of transcendence, intuitions of the marvelousness, awe and mystery of created things and a certain impulse to share in the energy of nature. In fact I have often felt a great infusion of energy from the natural world and also felt that I can be a vehicle for the transmission of this energy to other people in times of need. But people too can be a source of energy and give it back as spiritual nourishment. In all this I experience a profound peace.
I have said that I’ve always been aware of a sense of spiritual growth in my life. I should also say that I have always had the sense that I have been an inhabitant of the spiritual world. Of course this is in no way incompatible with living a full life in the everyday world. I should say further that I have always been motivated by feelings of beauty and kindness. My affinities with the spiritual world have given me greater affinities with people in the time-bound world.
I have often received messages that might appear to be against the interests of my clients but I have always been guided by a sense that my ultimate duty is to further the well-being of those with whom I share a common bond in our spiritual journey together. For instance it was once disclosed to me that a client would indeed die, as she knew, of a terminal illness. I saw, though, that she would live longer than was diagnosed. She did live longer and at the time there was an unspoken knowledge between us that we shared in a secret belief that all would be well. I should state again that love and joy is the element in which spiritual truth lives. Just as I have a deep love for things wild and natural, so I have a deep respect for the reality of the people with whom I share spiritual disclosures.
As I have said I have always had the sense and experience that I have inhabited a parallel spiritual world. I recall that my playroom in an attic was filled with friends, but these friends were not of the normal kind for they were never seen outside the attic nor were they common friends of my school mates. But they were real and full of wisdom. They told me about my future ill-health but also about the spiritual resources that I would develop to help me survive and eventually flourish. The adult world was excluded and often I was mildly rebuked for carrying on conversation of which adults were left out. As we become adults we gradually lose this sense of spiritual presence.
At this time an old man used to wander the whole house. He was mischievous but I liked him. He was the source of truths which only later did I fully understand. He told me about future unhappiness but also about the way that I would be strong and the way that kindness feeds on itself and overcomes misfortune. I was told that the more you put into life, the more you get out of it. One can tap into positive forces and reinvigorate one’s life. I was also told that Heaven and Hell are self-generated. They are not places on another plain of existence but are here and now and the result of the way we live our lives. The crucial thing was to find ways to turn failure into success and ways to revitalise arrested lives. I could identify people who were locked into failure and even desperation. They were represented as people with blank, featureless faces, as though their personalities had vacated their bodies. I realised that there existed a power for good that could rescue such people.
A deep and formative experience occurred when I had to have an operation after long periods of illness. I am not sure whether it was one of those out-of-body experiences that are reported of people who, perhaps, are at the point of death. However, I was transported at a speed faster than light and then suddenly I was enveloped in flames. The fire was built up of people and each flame was a person. But the whole experience was suffused with joy and happiness. One mature flame-lady told me that I could now return. The operation was a success and young as I was I sensed that I had been given a new strength and this would aid my recovery and be a source of future health.
Years later I discovered in my research into astrology that my sign was Aries the fire sign-and that my ascendant was Leo, a fire sign too. The moon was in Sagittarius, which is also a fire sign. It is no wonder that the fire healed me. The parallel spiritual world exhibited itself in many ways when I was young. Materialisation was quite common. I might mention that I have experienced preternatural phenomena in the grounds and buildings of many religious settings, particularly Cistercian Abbeys of Fountains and Kirkstall. I have seen and felt presences that belonged to the past. These included monks and the religious practices of the day. Again, alongside these experiences I felt great freedom and an outpouring of life. Leeds the town of my birth is always spiritually evocative for me. In the past I received so many spiritual visitations that I now feel that the common sights and sounds are so charged with life-giving energy that I can absorb this energy and transform it into healing powers. This is true of other places I have resided in too. I have said already that nature is a source of power for me and of course nature is everywhere about us.
At the heart of what I have been saying is the felt assurance that all is well no matter what befalls us. I have been told that I am safe no matter what and that I can generate security in others. My contacts with the things of the spirit testify to these assurances.
My experiences were such that they did not fit into the ordinary, taken-for granted, everyday world that I found around me and which was constantly reinforced by my family and neighbours. Then at the age of three, I felt my life had some as yet undisclosed shape to it. It was not exactly a quest or a journey, although later I might have used such terms. It was rather that there were other dimensions to life and that these dimensions would be revealed more clearly as I went through life.
At the age of three, the experience was so vivid that it has never really left me. I was simply doing something so ordinary that this in itself could not have been a ‘trigger’ for the experience. There was nothing in the external world that could have occasioned it. I might say that this is true of innumerable recorded experiences of the numinous. This refers to a sense of transcendent reality, something outside our normal experience but is at the same time both near and real. At the time, it is nearer and realer than anything one is extremely familiar with. I was then simply jumping down some steps in our garden. Suddenly like a flash of lightning I became aware of myself as an individual self. ‘Who and what am I’ I felt. ‘Where did I come from, why am I here, what is my destiny’. All these thoughts were attached to a feeling of utter strangeness. It was not frightening. It was a kind of celebration. ‘I am alive, I am here’. Nothing could explain it. I simply existed. ‘How could it be’, I thought . It took the whole of eternity to bring me into existence, here and now. In addition to these thoughts there was a vague powerful feeling that everything would be alright. Even though I might be harmed in the worldly sense I could not be harmed in a deep sense. As long as I was true to this newly disclosed self I would be in a state of well-being, even if all the external circumstances of my life were speaking the reverse. I also felt that I was part of a spiritual world. This newly disclosed self when it was in touch with itself was in touch with this spiritual world.
Our minds or spirits are not confined by our ordinary awareness of time and space. Most of the time we inhibit the world of everyday objects and events. But human nature is more expansive than this common-sense world would suggest. We can be liberated into new worlds of spiritual knowledge and understanding that we can scarcely dream of. We have it in our power, if we would only develop this power, to be conscious of a reality outside this ordinary world. We might theorise or speculate about this other mode of existence but our efforts are limited because our thoughts and feelings are largely conditioned by and rooted in the world of getting and spending and attempting to provide a decent standard of living and quality of life for ourselves and those who are dear to us. This ordinary world is a kind of forgetting. If we are not careful we forget the real nature and true needs of those whom we love and to whom we are intimately attached. Of course in all this, even when we are unaware of it, we are accumulating spiritual resources. It is a matter of how we connect with it.
But I emphasise that there is a world that transcends this one. We can get in touch with it: and it can get in touch with us. I see my vocation as one of trying to bring the two worlds together, so that we can see our lives, hopes and fears as a whole. It is the neglect of this wholeness that separates us from ourselves, from others and from the spiritual world which is our true home. Our worldly concerns make the spiritual world imperceptible. It is no distance at all if we learn how to open ourselves up to it. Our access to this world is uneven, tentative but sometimes it floods in.
We do not get to the spiritual world by reason and the intellect. Just as we truly get to know other people when we love them or feel pity for their afflictions, so we get to know the spiritual world, and the truths it can reveal to us, by opening our minds to it. Psychic phenomena are a general term for those experiences which put us in touch with spiritual reality. It is possible in moments of illumination to see behind the veil of appearances, to feel the presence of normally undisclosed truths about who and what we are, to hear reports about those most intimate yearnings and anxieties that we habitually protect ourselves from and to pursue those intimations about those aspects of ourselves that are often quite invisible to us. We can, then, given the right attitude of mind get behind, see through and break down those barriers which prevent our perceiving how things are in there deepest nature. We need to unfold what is already there.
I have already said that I began to see my life taking a certain direction very early in life. I felt that there was more in Heaven and Earth than the cool intellect can ever dream of, if I may refer to Shakespeare’s Hamlet. I came to myself and the spiritual world together, albeit in a childlike way. I see now that my personal development and spiritual growth have gone together. It has been an unfolding and I have been party to it. In one sense I have always been aware of the spiritual dimension to life but it came to a new wonder when I experienced myself and the world to which it truly belonged when I was three years of age. Since then my life has been a spiritual journey, even during the setbacks in the world of ordinary time and space, objects and events.
My spiritual growth has been a steady series of illuminations and insights, persisting even when my personal life has been arrested in the short run. Yet we find spiritual nourishment even in the most adverse circumstances. What may seem spiritual deadening may have hidden messages. We may be sustained and uplifted by the most uncompromising occurrences. We must find a spiritual use for the most spiritually uninspiring events in our lives. We can turn the most dire experiences into spiritual resources. Indeed we may be presented with what we most wish to avoid so that we might triumph over them and gather them into nuggets of wisdom.
I have used the word growth often. This word implies that things change but also they change for the better. For many of us this may seem to be contrary to all our experiences. But I believe that our lives have a pattern and that we can discern this pattern if we orientate ourselves to the intimations we receive from the world beyond our everyday experiences.
Our normal everyday world is constructed out of information that we gather from five windows that look out onto what we take to be reality. These windows are sight, hearing, touch, taste and smell. This is how our shared everyday world is built up. But we have additional powers of the spirit which are more developed in some people than others. Yet all people have these powers potentially. We all belong to the spiritual dimension because we are all spiritual beings.
Those extra-sensory or para-normal powers give us unmediated experiences of reality beyond the normal one. These powers belong to the inner world. Our inner worlds can communicate. Sometimes we have to make use of the objects and experiences of the ordinary world to facilitate communications. But when we are speaking of the spiritual world, the objects and experiences of the everyday world act as channels to this spiritual world. Furthermore there can be direct access to the spiritual world where the things of this world are inappropriate or an encumbrance. It is through such phenomena as mediumship, clairvoyance, precognition, regression, telepathy and spiritual healing that the spiritual world become evident to us. These phenomena capture the way that our personalities are transformed by forces that the five windows of normal perception cannot reach. This is not to say that the two worlds do not interpenetrate. This world is illuminated by what we receive from the spiritual world.
This is what I mean by spiritual growth. But when we grow spiritually, we enrich our ordinary lives to. Outward appearances may seem to belie this claim. All I can say is that from my own life when things are right on the inside, that is our inner spiritual nature, and then things begin to have a brighter aspect on the outside. There are inner transformative powers at work on the inside and these give us the strength and insight to find purpose and meaning on the outside. As I have said before, I have long been assured that no matter what goes wrong in my life all will be well and I shall be safe no matter what may befall me in the course of life’s vicissitudes. When things have been particularly bad for me there has often been an upsurge of a sense that I am secure, that I am protected, that I am safe. I can also state that many people have felt this sense of deep security that I experience can infuse their lives too.
This sense of deep security has gone along with thoughts about the growth in self-knowledge, feelings of transcendence, intuitions of the marvelousness, awe and mystery of created things and a certain impulse to share in the energy of nature. In fact I have often felt a great infusion of energy from the natural world and also felt that I can be a vehicle for the transmission of this energy to other people in times of need. But people too can be a source of energy and give it back as spiritual nourishment. In all this I experience a profound peace.
I have said that I’ve always been aware of a sense of spiritual growth in my life. I should also say that I have always had the sense that I have been an inhabitant of the spiritual world. Of course this is in no way incompatible with living a full life in the everyday world. I should say further that I have always been motivated by feelings of beauty and kindness. My affinities with the spiritual world have given me greater affinities with people in the time-bound world.
I have often received messages that might appear to be against the interests of my clients but I have always been guided by a sense that my ultimate duty is to further the well-being of those with whom I share a common bond in our spiritual journey together. For instance it was once disclosed to me that a client would indeed die, as she knew, of a terminal illness. I saw, though, that she would live longer than was diagnosed. She did live longer and at the time there was an unspoken knowledge between us that we shared in a secret belief that all would be well. I should state again that love and joy is the element in which spiritual truth lives. Just as I have a deep love for things wild and natural, so I have a deep respect for the reality of the people with whom I share spiritual disclosures.
As I have said I have always had the sense and experience that I have inhabited a parallel spiritual world. I recall that my playroom in an attic was filled with friends, but these friends were not of the normal kind for they were never seen outside the attic nor were they common friends of my school mates. But they were real and full of wisdom. They told me about my future ill-health but also about the spiritual resources that I would develop to help me survive and eventually flourish. The adult world was excluded and often I was mildly rebuked for carrying on conversation of which adults were left out. As we become adults we gradually lose this sense of spiritual presence.
At this time an old man used to wander the whole house. He was mischievous but I liked him. He was the source of truths which only later did I fully understand. He told me about future unhappiness but also about the way that I would be strong and the way that kindness feeds on itself and overcomes misfortune. I was told that the more you put into life, the more you get out of it. One can tap into positive forces and reinvigorate one’s life. I was also told that Heaven and Hell are self-generated. They are not places on another plain of existence but are here and now and the result of the way we live our lives. The crucial thing was to find ways to turn failure into success and ways to revitalise arrested lives. I could identify people who were locked into failure and even desperation. They were represented as people with blank, featureless faces, as though their personalities had vacated their bodies. I realised that there existed a power for good that could rescue such people.
A deep and formative experience occurred when I had to have an operation after long periods of illness. I am not sure whether it was one of those out-of-body experiences that are reported of people who, perhaps, are at the point of death. However, I was transported at a speed faster than light and then suddenly I was enveloped in flames. The fire was built up of people and each flame was a person. But the whole experience was suffused with joy and happiness. One mature flame-lady told me that I could now return. The operation was a success and young as I was I sensed that I had been given a new strength and this would aid my recovery and be a source of future health.
Years later I discovered in my research into astrology that my sign was Aries the fire sign-and that my ascendant was Leo, a fire sign too. The moon was in Sagittarius, which is also a fire sign. It is no wonder that the fire healed me. The parallel spiritual world exhibited itself in many ways when I was young. Materialisation was quite common. I might mention that I have experienced preternatural phenomena in the grounds and buildings of many religious settings, particularly Cistercian Abbeys of Fountains and Kirkstall. I have seen and felt presences that belonged to the past. These included monks and the religious practices of the day. Again, alongside these experiences I felt great freedom and an outpouring of life. Leeds the town of my birth is always spiritually evocative for me. In the past I received so many spiritual visitations that I now feel that the common sights and sounds are so charged with life-giving energy that I can absorb this energy and transform it into healing powers. This is true of other places I have resided in too. I have said already that nature is a source of power for me and of course nature is everywhere about us.
At the heart of what I have been saying is the felt assurance that all is well no matter what befalls us. I have been told that I am safe no matter what and that I can generate security in others. My contacts with the things of the spirit testify to these assurances.
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"Everyone has some degree of psychic ability, after all we are all spiritual beings in human form"