Betty Shine Mind
Betty Shine Mind
Betty Shine Mind
My close friend Betty Shine has an appropriate surname. Good humour, bubbling
energy and down-to-earth honesty seem to radiate from her warm and attractive
personality, making her any child's idea of the perfect aunty.
Over the years, Betty has been kind enough to give me healing on many occasions.
Usually, I arrive at her home with my energy reserves seriously depleted and in a low
state of health. When I leave her, I invariably feel marvellously renewed, refreshed and
once again ready to continue whatever task life has set for me. For those healing sessions
and for her cheerful loyal friendship I shall always be in her debt.
No matter how remarkable you may consider the evidence in this book to be, it
cannot convey all the extraordinary abilities and gifts which Betty has in abundance. To
appreciate these rare qualities you must meet her yourself. If you are lucky enough to do
so, you will know exactly what I mean.
Betty Shine has many things to say. These are the results of years of concentrated
effort and hard work. Being Betty, my friend writes in the same way that she thinks and
speaks: straight out, with no mumbo-jumbo.
This is a rare book, written by a rare person. I know that you will enjoy reading it,
many times.
My wife and I will never forget the look of blessed relief on our daughter
Marylla's face when, despite long journeys throughout the storms of that grim winter,
Betty came many miles to give her healing. Although she was unable to halt the process
of the cancer, which eventually caused Marylla's premature death, Betty Shine brought
our child something very precious: the gift of comfort and mental peace. For that alone I
can never thank her enough.
Betty, my dear friend, may this book help many others, as you have so often
helped us.
Bless you and those who work with you.
Michael Bentine
PROLOGUE
A Journey of Enlightenment
'Come in, Betty. Your mother, Alice, has been waiting for you.'
I had just entered a darkened room lit by the glow of a small red lamp, and a tall
slim man was shaking my hand. I had never visited a medium before, and I had only
come because I was desperate. Now I nearly ran away. Charles Horrey looked kindly
enough - but how on earth did he know my first name, let alone the name of my mother
who had been dead for five years?
As soon as I was seated, he said: 'Your mother has been wanting to communicate
with you for a long time. She would like to ask your forgiveness.'
I was startled; I already knew that my mother had been trying to communicate
with me, but I couldn't think of anything I had to forgive her for.
Mr Horrey went on: 'She says she could have given you
more time.' That did make some sense. 'Now she is giving you something you
always wanted, but in a different way.'
'What is it?' I asked.
'I don't know. . .' For a few moments Mr Horrey sat in silence, his head tilted as
though listening. Then he said: 'You are going to be a great healer.'
Me - a healer? This was ridiculous! It wasn't what I'd come to hear at all. How
could I heal others when I was ill myself?
My thoughts raced as he leaned forward. 'You have been ill for seven years.'
That was true. I had decided to see a medium because I had been troubled for the
last few years by inexplicable attacks of dizziness and palpitations; lately they had been
getting worse, and I was afraid I was going to die.
He went on: 'You have been a very obstinate woman. A doctor has been trying to
work through you all this time, and you haven't been listening. This is what has made you
ill; because you haven't been using the healing energy it has built up in your system.
Once you start healing you will be better.'
Then he delivered another bombshell. 'You are also a medium and you have been
developing your mediumship through the focus that was chosen for you: hand-reading.' It
was true that for many years I had been doing medical hand analysis for friends - but
mediumship? 'This will now stop. In future you will have the knowledge without using
the hand as a focus.'
My expression must have shown how I felt about becoming a medium. Mr Horrey
looked at me quite sternly, so I sat quietly listening to the rest of his message.
'In the next three months you will not only have the ability to see spirit people; you
will also hear them.' He didn't know, of course, that I had already seen spirit people more
than once. 'You will have clairvoyant sight and will be able to diagnose illnesses.'
I'd never thought of myself as anything but an ordinary unimportant person. I
looked at him and said: 'I couldn't
sit in a room with a little red light all day; it would drive me crackers!'
'My dear girl,' he said, 'that happens to be my choice. You may choose your own
way of working. You will not work from the platform; all of your work will be
confidential.'
Then he took my hand and held it while he said: 'Remember everything you have
been told. There are many psychics in the world, but few are chosen.'
I thought: Whoever does the choosing must have made a mistake; I'm sure they've
got the wrong one! My picture of psychics simply didn't tally with my picture of myself.
Mr Horrey looked at me a little sadly. 'You know, it doesn't give me any pleasure
telling you this. It's an extremely difficult path to follow, and you will have to spend the
rest of your life helping others. It's not a job I would have chosen. Like you, I had no
choice but, unlike yourself, I can only sit here passing on messages. I could never heal; I
don't have that kind of power.'
'But how the hell can I heal people?' I burst out.
'You already are healing people!' he told me. 'You've been holding people's hands
when you read them, haven't you? Well, you've been healing them! Go away and try it.'
The whole sitting lasted about an hour. Mr Horrey told me more about my past,
my future, my healing career -there was so much that I really couldn't take it all in. It was
all totally unexpected and rather frightening.
As he drew to a close, he told me: 'You are the most powerful psychic I have ever
met in the thirty years I have been doing this work, and you have a great future as a
healer. You will achieve incredible results, and you will travel all over the world.'
I stumbled out into the daylight and reeled back to work, wondering what on earth
I was going to tell my husband and daughter. Back in my office, unable to concentrate, I
went over and over the conversation in my head, trying to make sense of it. I was
beginning to see myself in a new light. I had never thought of myself as psychic. Yet I
realized that many of the things which had happened to me, which I had taken for
granted, other people might consider very strange - psychic, in fact.
I had no idea that from this point on my life would never be the same again.
Although Mr Horrey had given me some extraordinarily accurate information about
myself, I knew nothing about healing and had no intention of becoming a healer. I
certainly had no idea that, at the age of forty-six, I was about to embark on a whole new
career.
Not until much later was I able to look back calmly and see that from the start my
whole life had been directed and guided towards this end: that I had in fact been on a
journey, which I now think of as a journey of enlightenment.
For as long as I could remember, I had been visiting another dimension. When I
was two I smashed my forehead in a fall, affecting the optic nerve and necessitating an
operation. Perhaps the blow to the head triggered my psychic abilities; whatever the
cause, one minute I was lying in a hospital cot, the next I found myself in a totally
different place.
I was in a garden full of colour: there were flowers like no flowers on earth, with
huge, brilliantly coloured trumpets which I could have crawled down, and exotic, brightly
plumed birds with long tails. The colours shimmered, constantly changing in tone: a
flower would be deep orange one moment and pale apricot when I looked again.
It was a remarkable and very beautiful experience that has been repeated
continuously throughout my life, changing in certain details as my life has changed. From
that time onwards, whenever I wanted to, I could just close my eyes and travel to this
magical place.
As soon as I entered it I would find myself walking down a narrow path which
wound between a tall hedge of plants, seemingly placed there to prevent me from seeing
what was beyond. At one point, to my right I would pass a rectangular pool round which
sat groups of people in long robes, silently communicating with each other. Some people
were being dipped in the water, as if they were being baptized.
I never walked to the pool, but kept to the path as though I had an appointment. I
would pass under an arch of leaves and then turn right to climb up a grassy slope, which
felt soft and springy underfoot. At the top I would enter a small hexagonal building with
a domed roof; inside, it was light and very peaceful.
From the first, I had an inner knowledge of what to do. I would go to a chair, sit
down and wait. After a while, someone would enter and sit behind me. Though I never
looked round, I somehow knew that this person had a thin face, kindly eyes and long
light-brown hair. He had no name and he never spoke; we simply sat in silence. What
seemed like moments later, I would stand up and leave. Instantly I would find myself
back in the 'real' world.
My early childhood was very happy. I was born in Kennington ten years before
the start of the Second World War, the middle child of three. My mother was very loving,
deeply religious, and blessed with a sense of humour. My father worked in the hotel
business, which meant that we saw very little of him in the evenings and even at
weekends; but he was a very caring man and a lovely father. He came from a family of
artists, singers and musicians; he was a gifted amateur artist himself. We lived in a
working-class community of terraced houses, a secure environment in which all the
families knew and cared about each other.
The highlight of the week was Sunday, when my father took the three of us to see
his mother, who lived in an imposing Victorian house in Kennington Lane. A small
woman with a powerful personality and great courage, she had given birth to thirteen
children, several of whom had died young. A life-long spiritualist, she was very psychic
and used to hold long conversations with her dead sons which she would relate to us
when we arrived on our weekly visits. Since we grew up with this we accepted it as
normal; my father seemed to accept it, too, although not a spiritualist himself.
I found my grandmother fascinating. She often made accurate predictions about
future events; even my mother had to admit that she was often right, although
spiritualism was quite at odds with her High Church beliefs. Sometimes I, too, knew
when things were going to happen. I remember telling my mother, correctly, that a
neighbour was going to die. She told me quite sharply not to say such things; I think she
felt that by voicing them I was actually bringing them about. Anything smacking of the
psychic terrified her.
I loved going to church, not because I was particularly religious but because I
welcomed any opportunity to sing. When I was about eight my mother was horrified one
Sunday to find me singing in the street with the Salvation Army! I was thoroughly
enjoying myself, and was mortified when she dragged me away in disgrace. Not only was
I singing in the street, but with the Salvation Army of all things!
At school and at home I was always being told off for day-dreaming; it was so
easy to slip into my other world for a few minutes that I did it without thinking.
Sometimes my mother would say: 'You've been somewhere else, haven't you?' But when
I told her about my journeys she dismissed them as day-dreams.
I know now that my garden was and is absolutely real, existing in another
dimension. I also know that during my visits there I was being taught telepathically by
my silent companion, for when I returned I would be aware of things that no one else had
taught me. For example, I understood as a very small child the spiritual law that whatever
you give out you get back. This made me very anxious when I heard my mother running
down a friend behind her back; I knew that it would hurt her, and told her so!
I always felt extremely close to nature: I could hear the trees talking to each other,
and when I lay on the ground in our local park I could hear the grass growing. When I
told my mother this, she used to laugh at my imagination. Later, in the country, I felt the
streams were talking to me.
From a very early age I could also hear a man's voice speaking softly in my ear
from time to time; I knew that he was a different person from my silent teacher. He was
very protective: he would say 'Stop!' as I was about to run across a road without looking,
or before I did something forbidden at school; at other times he reassured me when my
courage was failing, or gave me advice about my school work.
I never connected these experiences with my grandmother's psychic powers or my
mother's religious beliefs. My grandmother's discussions about her dead sons were
always very matter-of-fact, and she never mentioned spirits. My mother told me that we
all have a guardian angel who is always with us - an idea I found quite terrifying. I used
to look round for it, thinking it was disapprovingly watching everything I did.
My protective voice was simply a normal part of life, and I assumed that everyone
heard voices. Then, when I was about eight, I mentioned to my best friend something
'this man' had said. 'What man?' she asked.
'This man who speaks to me. Haven't you got a man speaking to you?'
'No,' said my friend, giving me an odd look. 'That sounds really weird!'
I was genuinely surprised to learn that she didn't have a person, but from then on I
kept quiet about mine.
My first ten years were perhaps the happiest of my life. Then came the war. The
next thing I knew, we were being evacuated, sent to the country for our safety away from
the London bombs.
My brother and sister went together, but for some reason I was evacuated on my
own. For me and many others, it was the beginning of a nightmare. Dazed by the whole
situation, not understanding what 'war' meant, I found myself with hundreds of other
children being piled on to a train. From time to time I looked out of the window: until
then my horizons had consisted of rows and rows of houses and the local park. The
country was obviously a huge park without railings.
We arrived at a small Berkshire village which seemed like the end of the world.
We were met by a billeting officer, who handed each of us a bar of Cadbury's chocolate I'd never had such a large bar of chocolate to myself! He then trailed us round from one
home to another, finally taking me to what seemed a very large house, where I was
introduced to the lady and gentleman who were to look after me. The house was very
gloomy, and Mr and Mrs E seemed very old; they must actually have been in their sixties.
The first thing Mrs E did was to take my bar of chocolate. I never saw it again. I
was shocked; stealing was a terrible thing to do, and this lady had stolen my bar of
chocolate. Her husband, Tom, looked sympathetic, but under his wife's steely gaze was
clearly afraid to say very much. I was afraid, too, and with good reason.
Life with these people was wretched: physically and emotionally, I was starved. I
was only given hot food at weekends when Mr E was at home; it was cooked on a little
meths-stove, and always tasted of methylated spirits. I walked two miles to school every
day with rhubarb sandwiches for my midday meal; my tea consisted of two pieces of
bread and margarine, and on Wednesdays a piece of lardy cake.
If I dared ask for more, the Lady, as I thought of her, would tell me that she was
given half a crown a week for my keep, and that was all I was going to get! I was too
frightened to tell anyone, least of all my mother, in case I was sent to bed with no food at
all. I remember the hunger to this day.
At school, which was held in a church hall, I learned that some of my
fellow-evacuees were happy and comfortable. Others were very miserable and homesick.
Many, including myself, were treated as servants by the people to whom they had been
entrusted. I had to do housework when I came home from school, and spent Saturday
mornings polishing every single piece of cutlery and silver! The Lady only spoke to me
to give me orders.
One Sunday I tried to run away; I had walked two miles before Tom E caught up
with me and took me back. He told me I would get no Sunday lunch, but for some reason
this threat wasn't carried out. Perhaps, after all, the Lady had a conscience, or perhaps
Tom intervened on my behalf.
One night, about four months after my arrival, a bomb dropped immediately
opposite the house, shattering all the windows. There was no electric light in my room, as
Mrs E was too mean to put blackout in the upstairs windows. When she came in with a
candle I saw a piece of glass quivering like a spear in the headboard, an inch above my
head. I thought: I could have been killed!
I believe the shock must have opened up my psychic awareness. One evening
about a week after the blast, I was lying in bed in the dark when suddenly somebody
walked in through the closed door. I stared, transfixed; I could make out the shape of a
person - whether man or woman, I couldn't tell. It was followed by others: streams of
shadowy-looking people began walking across the room and out through the opposite
wall.
My first thought was that when they walked through the outer wall they would
drop to the ground outside and do themselves an injury. Someone ought to warn them!
Then I became scared. Not daring to disturb the Lady, I pulled the sheet over my head,
hoping whoever they were would go away, but whenever I popped up for air they were
still there. I must have fallen asleep at some point, but I felt as though I was awake all
night.
This visitation was repeated nearly every night; eventually I became quite used to
my 'misty people' and even quite friendly towards them. Although they ignored me,
having people of my very own was a kind of comfort. Especially since, while they were
about, I had lost another source of comfort; I could no longer hear the voice of my
invisible friend, who had so often spoken reassuringly in my ear.
The probable explanation for this, although I could not know it then, is that these
experiences were all normal steps in my psychic development. Other mediums have been
through similar stages. There will be a phase during which one's clairaudience is
developed, enabling one to hear voices; this may fade for a period while clairvoyant sight
develops. Then may follow a time when sight and sound disappear, and healing comes to
the fore. Finally the medium has a full range of abilities on which to draw.
It seems likely that during the period of 'misty people' I was simply looking into
another dimension, in which these people were going about their ordinary business. There
are many dimensions in the universe, some of which can be seen by psychics with
clairvoyant sight. (For a scientific comment, see page 136.) At the time, misty friends
were better than none, and when I left that house they were all that I missed!
wanted to help them. I raced home to ask my mother if I could become a vet. The answer
was a most definite no; nothing I could say would make her change her mind! Although I
eventually stopped thinking about it, much as I loved my mother I never really forgave
her for that.
I left school at fourteen and went reluctantly to work in a series of offices; I could
never get excited over debit and credit notes, typing and the evening post. One of my jobs
was at Benson's, the advertising agency. In those days 'Benson's girls' wore smart
uniforms with a little cap, which I did enjoy; it made me feel very grown-up.
I made the most of my leisure-time by going dancing in the evenings, and at one
of these dances, on VE night, I met my future husband. I was sixteen; Leslie, an aircraft
engineer, was two years older. For the first time I had someone with whom I could
discuss serious subjects; he also shared my interest in music. I still loved singing, and
used to practise arias around the house, learned from listening to the radio. It was a happy
time. We were separated while Leslie did a three-year stint with the occupation forces in
Germany, but before he left we got engaged.
Shortly after the war ended my father had a leucotomy to relieve the pressure on
his brain. Something went terribly wrong, and when my mother next saw him he was a
completely different person; my kind generous father had been left with persecution
mania.
During this worrying time my grandmother took my mother to a demonstration by
the famous spiritualist healer the late Harry Edwards, at Kingsway Hall in London. My
mother found him so inspiring that she used to write to him at his healing-centre in Shere,
and went to his lectures whenever she could. She would still never have anything to do
with what she called 'the occult', but she regarded healing as a religious activity rather
than as the occult.
In 1947, Leslie had just come home on leave for Christmas when our happiness
was suddenly shattered. The police came on Christmas morning to tell us they had found
my father's possessions on Putney Embankment; he had drowned himself. On Boxing
Day my mother went over to Kennington to tell my grandmother the news; as she
reached the steps of the house my grandmother came out and said: 'You don't have to tell
me. I went down with him.'
It was a horrible period; my father's body wasn't found for a month, and I prayed
and prayed that it was all a mistake and that he was safe. Every time someone came to the
door I hoped it was him.
After his death, my mother received many letters from people, often strangers,
telling her how my father had helped them, often financially. We had known nothing of
had no idea that I had given birth to another natural psychic! This birth, like the first one,
was tough; on both occasions I nearly lost my life. I think that each time the stress pushed
me a little further along my destined path: becoming a healer often involves going
through some very difficult times.
On the positive side, marriage gave me the chance to fulfil at least one of my
ambitions: early on Leslie encouraged me to go to a singing teacher, who told me that I
had a dramatic coloratura voice which could be trained for opera. I thought that six
months would be plenty; I had no idea that opera singers need ten years' training before
starting to look for any reward.
It is not easy to break into the operatic world; nevertheless I kept at it. With much
hard work I became a freelance singer, which fitted in with having a family. It was a
hectic life, and fraught with disappointments; fortunately, I had plenty of energy, and
Leslie was very supportive.
Singing occupied some twenty years of my life, and I was very sad when I had to
give it up. But that career is over, and I prefer not to look back. It is only relevant to my
work now in that the training taught me to appreciate the value of discipline, and to be at
ease on a platform when lecturing and taking seminars.
My back continued to be painful, and I often went off to sing with a bottle of
Disprin in my pocket. I also suffered badly from pre-menstrual tension; one day, some
twelve years after my marriage, I read in a booklet by Barbara Cartland that this could be
relieved by taking calcium. I started taking bonemeal tablets, and was so impressed with
the results that I began reading everything I could about vitamin and mineral therapy.
This was well before the current interest in nutrition, and some of my friends thought me
cranky. However, I studied the subject in depth and became quite an expert.
While I was developing this interest, I had to undergo a minor gynaecological
operation during which my legs became locked almost over my head. When I was
X-rayed in this agonizing position it was found that I had a ruptured disc pressing on the
sciatic nerve. It was an enormous relief to know that my suffering had a physical cause!
I was offered surgery to end the pain, but it would have locked the vertebrae,
making it impossible for me to bend, so I refused. I decided instead to cure myself with
vitamin and mineral therapy and yoga. I was teaching myself yoga from a book by Indra
Devi, a well-known Indian teacher, and the whole family used to join in. It gave Janet a
good start; she now teaches yoga herself.
My back wasn't completely cured until some years later. I had been told that as I
grew older the ruptured disc would shrivel and stop putting pressure on the nerve; when
we went to live in a hot climate this speeded up this process. But I don't think my cure
would have been so complete if I hadn't strengthened my spinal muscles with yoga and
taken lots of vitamins. Meanwhile, it was only my ability to leave my body and find
another dimension that enabled me to carry on.
Some inner urge was pushing me to investigate other aspects of health, and I also
became fascinated by hand-reading. On my thirtieth birthday my children had given me a
book on palmistry; it was the start of a sixteen-year study which led me into medical hand
analysis. This is quite a fine art; I learned to take palm-prints, using printer's ink and a
sheet of glass, in order to examine the tiny dots and breaks in the lines which reveal a
person's health and nutritional status.
I began reading the hands of friends, relations and colleagues - everyone who
called left our house with inky palms! I enjoyed it, and my knowledge of vitamin and
mineral therapy enabled me to advise people on what supplements they needed. I found
that I was able to help a lot of people with their problems, emotional as well as physical.
Some people regarded my palm-reading as 'the occult', but I always denied this
strenuously. To me it was clearly quite scientific, and I never thought of myself as
psychic. Yet throughout these years some strange things happened, of the kind known as
psychic phenomena.
As soon as we had moved into our own home I noticed that objects were
repeatedly being moved: I would put a watch down on a dressing-table and when I
looked for it, it would be gone. Then, when I looked again a little later, there it would be.
I think many people have this experience without realizing it, because the obvious
explanation is that one hasn't been looking properly! But this happened too often to be
explained away so simply.
I also used to hear conversations going on in the street outside in the middle of the
night - often gossipy conversations between two women. I used to jump out of bed in
annoyance, but could see no one, and Leslie couldn't hear the voices at all. I don't think
that these were ghosts; rather, that my mind was going back in time to tune into
conversations that had happened some time before.
One night I dreamed that a friend of my mother, who had been in a coma for a
year, came to tell me she had died. She gave me some specific instructions: everyone was
to buy a separate wreath and not put their money towards one large one! At six o'clock
next morning I rang my mother to tell her, apologizing for ringing so early. She replied:
'Don't worry. I heard about it an hour ago.' We had to laugh over the instructions: during
her lifetime the lady had been constantly giving orders!
In those days I said very little about these experiences, except to Leslie who was
forced to share them. I knew that people would think me odd; I also felt that they were
My mother's appearance had been so solidly alive, I thought she had really
returned from the dead. But why had she come back? What had she wanted to say? I felt
sure she had been trying to tell me something, but couldn't fathom what.
About a month after my mother's visit I suddenly started to have choking attacks;
for up to an hour I would find myself unable to breathe, while my heart palpitated wildly.
It was extremely frightening, and Janet thought more than once that I was going to die.
I had only just begun to learn Spanish, and after some fruitless efforts I gave up
trying to communicate my problem to the local doctors. I tried to ignore it, but the attacks
continued. Since many doctors put strange symptoms down to a 'woman's age', I assumed
that the cause must be 'my age' - which was forty-two. I could find no other explanation.
Janet and I became very close in Spain, and began to share experiences in a way
we hadn't been able to do before. There was not much to do in the evenings, so to pass
the time we practised projecting ourselves mentally to the nearest village. We'd take a
look at what was going on there - which of our friends was in a particular cafe at a certain
time, for instance. Next day we would check, and about eight times out of ten learned that
we were right. We never connected this game with psychic abilities; it seemed perfectly
logical to be able to extend our minds in this way.
In 1974, Janet and I returned to England. Our departure was overshadowed for me
by having to put my cat and dog to sleep. It was a terrible decision to have to make; I had
no right to take a life, and I was very close to them. But I knew they would never survive
being parted from me in quarantine, and leaving them behind was out of the question. At
least the local vet was a compassionate man; I had often taken sick strays to him to be put
down in the English way - with an injection, rather than with arsenic as the Spanish
custom was.
Afterwards the vet walked four hundred yards up the road to where I was sitting in
the car, and held my hand. I couldn't speak; I just sat sobbing. Throughout the journey
home I could think of nothing but the animals, and I grieved for them a long time. I was
helped only by the thought that they had had more love than most pets get in a full
lifetime.
Leslie had found us a flat in an old house while we looked around for more
suitable accommodation. When we met our landlord, a vicar, he seemed very nervous and
made a point of insisting that we should have no dealings with the occult. We assured
him that we didn't indulge in that sort of thing and had no interest in it - which we hadn't.
We were all too busy trying to reshape our lives.
However, the atmosphere was rather spooky, and some time after we had left that
house I heard it had been exorcized. Some strange things happened while we were there.
Once, when I was alone in the house, I left the water running for a bath. I returned to the
bathroom five minutes later and found that the taps had been turned off. When I turned
them on again, the water ran quite normally. Another time, we were all having a meal
when we heard a loud crash from the bedroom. The door of the wardrobe had been lifted
off its hinges and thrown against the wall; it took three of us to replace it. I laughed and
said: 'Somebody's trying to tell us something!'
Janet was lying in bed one evening when she was frightened by hearing a man's
voice speaking to her; then the bedroom door opened, although no one was there. Later,
when she met her first husband, she recognized his voice as the one she had heard. The
memory still sends chills up her spine.
My attacks of dizziness and choking were steadily getting worse, and were now
accompanied by excruciating stomach pains. They frequently disrupted my life, and were
alarming as well as painful. Once, when the palpitations were particularly frightening, my
doctor arranged for me to have an electrocardiogram, but the results provided no
explanation. I was beginning to feel quite desperate.
One evening I was lying down in the gathering darkness chatting to Janet.
Suddenly she exclaimed: 'Look, there's a light!'
I followed her glance. In a corner of the room was a blue light, just like the one I'd
seen when Harry Edwards had been sending me healing. It stayed there for about an hour
without moving.
We watched it, fascinated. I had never told Janet about the first light, and she was
very curious about it. I had no idea why it was there, but assumed that it meant there were
spirit people around.
After a few months we moved to a flat in Sutton. It was vast, taking up two storeys
and with no less than three halls. Our bedroom was like a ballroom! We were able to buy
it very cheaply, which was extremely lucky as we had lost most of our money. The stress
of running his own business had affected Leslie's health, and he began working as a
minicab driver, which suited him much better. I had to work, too, despite my attacks.
There was no way I could return to singing, so I took an office job.
During our three-year separation Leslie and I had inevitably grown apart; now it
was clear that our marriage was under strain, which did not improve my health. I felt so
ill that I became convinced I was going to die.
While travelling to work one day I was idly turning the pages of a book on hand
analysis when I came across an advertisement for a well-known medium, Charles Horrey.
Remembering that my grandmother could predict the future, I decided to find out whether
my attacks were going to finish me off altogether. Scared at what he might tell me, I
nevertheless felt impelled to make an appointment with him the following week. I had no
idea that this meeting was to mark a complete turning-point in my life: that the attacks I
had been suffering from had been caused
by a build-up of unused energy; that I would be told that, far from dying, I was to
live and heal others!
My sitting with Mr Horrey left me in a state of total confusion. I couldn't believe
that I was a healer. Yet Mr Horrey had spoken with total conviction. I was in no doubt
my mother had been communicating through him. I recalled her appearance in Spain, and
the feeling that she had been trying to tell me something. Since my return, too, I had often
been aware of her presence and had even heard her voice, reassuring me that everything
was going to be all right.
Now Mr Horrey had said: 'Your mother is giving you something you always
wanted, but in a different way.' She had known how upset I was when she had stopped
me becoming a vet; perhaps she was trying to make amends by getting me to become a
healer. Well, that was certainly different.
'You are already healing people,' Charles Horrey had said. I remembered all the
people who had rung up after I'd analysed their hands and said: 'You know that vitamin
you recommended? Well, I haven't got it yet, but I felt so much better after seeing you.' I
had always assumed they felt better because they'd been able to talk to someone. Surely
that wasn't healing?
When I got home I went straight into the kitchen where we sat in the evening, and
told Leslie and Janet everything. They listened in silence, clearly fascinated.
Then Janet said: 'Trust Nanny to make you a second Harry Edwards!' Laughter
brought us down to earth again. 'What will you have to do?' Janet asked.
'He just told me I would be taught, and when I asked by whom he said it will be
automatic. He said thousands of people would be sent to me for healing.'
After recovering from the prospect of queues of people at our front door, Leslie
said: 'Well, if getting rid of all this healing power will help you get better, perhaps you
should do it.'
Leslie seemed to be accepting the situation; I was still in a state of shock and
wonderment.
So far my experiences had been just that, my own private experiences; hand
analysis had been a relatively light-hearted exercise. The idea of passing on messages to
others and having people relying on me for healing became more ludicrous every time I
thought about it. I decided to wait and see. After all, I had a living to earn.
I said to Leslie: 'There was something else. The medium told me he could see a
white horse in a field and beside it a man. The man's name was Tom, and he said that
Tom was asking me to forgive him.'
My husband laughed. 'Who on earth is Tom?'
'I haven't the faintest idea!'
For several days we tried in vain to work out Tom's identity. Later, the same
message was repeated by two other mediums. Tom and the white horse became a running
joke.
One reason I found it hard to accept that I was a healer was that I thought healers
had to be 'holy', and I wasn't! From my days in the theatre I had acquired a rich
vocabulary, and my sense of humour was pretty earthy. I was clearly quite unsuitable,
and this really worried me. I was more ready to accept that I was psychic. It began to
dawn on me that when reading people's hands I often found myself making accurate
statements which were not based on the lines and dots I was studying so scientifically.
After talking with Leslie and Janet I went into my bedroom and sat quietly. I
closed my eyes and said in my head: Look, I've got a terrible vocabulary, and I'm not at
all holy, and if you don't think I'm the right person I think you should leave me alone and
go off and find someone else.
Immediately I felt a great surge of power in the room, and a sense of spirit people
being all around. Even the furniture seemed to move. I thought: This is ridiculous; they
obviously don't care what I'm like!
That was the first of what was to be a positive onslaught of psychic phenomena
which was to continue for three months. It was as if, by accepting that I was a medium, I
had released a mental block which allowed a tremendous, almost explosive, opening-up
of my psyche.
I'd seen and heard spirit people all my life, but this was different. From then on,
the whole place seemed to go mad. I saw spirit faces everywhere - faces of all kinds and
nationalities, on walls, on the carpet, around the television set, coming and going,
appearing and disappearing. I could hear people whispering and talking around me nearly
all the time. Often this was accompanied by a kind of pulsating energy, which used to
make me almost rattle. I didn't understand it at the time, but I know now that this was due
to the power of the energy that had been built up in me.
A couple of days later I was chatting with a friend of ours who had been crippled
with backache for over a year. I told him about my visit to Charles Horrey; he, too,
thought that the idea of my becoming a healer was highly comic.
I said jokingly, 'Let me try on you!' and laid my hands on his back. Neither of us
believed anything would happen. I asked if he could feel anything, and he said: 'No. But
it feels good.' Then: 'Oh, I can feel some heat!'
'Can you? Can you really?' I grew quite excited, though I could feel nothing in my
hands. 'Well, if you think it's worth it, I'll carry on.'
Then he said: 'Good Lord, it's getting hotter and hotter! Your hands are burning!'
When it felt like time to stop, I asked if he felt better, and he said: 'No!'
'Well, that was a waste of time!' I remarked. Obviously I had no talent as a healer.
When we next met two days later he said: 'Do you know, the pain in my back
disappeared the next day and I haven't had it since!' I was more thrilled for him than for
myself. Perhaps, after all, I could help others in this way.
I soon had an opportunity to try out my powers of mediumship, too.
Everyone in the office knew I read hands, and a director of a company which
shared the same building, a man I'd never met before, asked me to give him a reading. I
looked at his palm and heard myself telling him on no account to have anything to do
with boats; it would be dangerous.
To my horror, the poor man literally had a fit! He slumped to the floor, knocking
his head, and passed out cold. I just stood there, dumbstruck. When he'd been looked
after, one of my colleagues told me that he was epileptic - and had just invested money in
a small fishing fleet!
That evening I was telling Leslie this story when a lady arrived and introduced
herself as the director's wife. I thought she'd come to berate me, and immediately started
to apologize; I told her the incident had put me off hand-reading for ever.
'Oh, I do hope not,' she said. 'I've come to ask you to read mine!'
I had to refuse. There was no way I wanted a repeat performance that evening.
When I walked through the drawing office the next day, all the men were sitting at
their desks with gloves on!
For a couple of weeks I tried to push out of my mind everything that Mr Horrey
had told me. I was forty-six, I was working very hard, Janet was having problems which
needed my attention, and I was already helping people in the evenings with hand
analysis. I didn't see how I could find the time to be a healer, even if I had the ability which I seriously doubted.
I was still resisting the idea. Healing simply wasn't me. Hand analysis was logical
and scientific; all of this seemed illogical. I thought that a healer was a special sort of
person possessed of some magical secret. I didn't feel at all special, and had no idea how
healing was done. I used to look at seriously crippled people, and read about people with
cancer, and think: I couldn't do anything about that! It was a long time before I realized
that it is not the healer who does the healing; that we are simply vehicles for healing
energy, or life force, and that other minds are helping us.
However, encouraged by my success with my friend's back, I did offer to lay my
hands on one or two friends with aches and pains. To my great surprise, they seemed to
feel better. Despite myself, I was beginning my career as a healer. My life suddenly
became extremely busy; in the evenings, after a day's work in London, I would be healing
and giving sittings at home in Sutton.
The transition was far from easy. Phenomena continued to come thick and fast,
sometimes frightening in their regularity and even ferocity. On a perfectly still night a
wind would howl through our room; sometimes our bed would move. Leslie went out to
sleep in the car at four o'clock one morning because he couldn't stand it. If I hadn't known
I was psychic, I'd have been very worried. And any husband but Leslie would probably
have taken me to see a psychiatrist!
Among the less enjoyable events was the time when I tried to turn over in bed one
night and found I couldn't move. I seemed to be pinned in place by something as solid as
a rock. I woke Leslie: as he put the light on I felt the 'rock' disappear. I know now that it
was energy that had built up around me whilst I slept.
About two weeks after all this started I was at work in my office when I became
aware that I was not alone. I looked up to see standing in front of me a man with a
thoughtful face and a shaggy moustache. He was wearing a frock-coat and small metal
glasses and was so obviously from another age that I realized immediately that he was a
spirit. He wasn't a 'misty person': his top half looked quite solid, but he seemed to fade
out from the frock-coat downwards!
It was the first time I had seen a spirit I didn't recognize, and I was fascinated.
Telepathically my visitor conveyed to me that he had been a member of the London
School of Medicine, and wanted to work with me. He also told me his name, but I was so
surprised that I promptly forgot it.
I couldn't imagine how I could work with him, even if I wanted to, so I took in
what he had to say without replying. Then he was gone. Well, that was interesting, I said
to myself, and returned to my typing.
A few days later, I was in the office again when a voice told me to take up a pen. I
found myself writing down further information about the doctor. He had specialized in
arthritic conditions and heart complaints and wanted to help people through me. I
couldn't understand how he could do this, or why he had picked on me. At home I told
Leslie about this visitation. I said: 'What the hell does he mean? How on earth can I heal
people with arthritis?' I still had no idea how healing worked. I put the doctor out of my
mind.
Meanwhile the phenomena continued, some of them thoroughly enjoyable. I had
never had any artistic talent, yet suddenly at work one day I found myself producing
rather good drawings of faces. Unfortunately, this gift only lasted a couple of weeks - I
had had visions of becoming an artist. It seems that this kind of thing occurs during the
development of many psychics. It is as if you are being put through a training course and
tried out at different skills. The ones that suit you, you are allowed to keep! Evidently, I
hadn't passed the drawing test.
I was quite open with my friends about what was going on, and they got used to
being greeted with: 'You'll never guess what's happened now.' Only one suggested that I
should see a psychiatrist, which I found hurtful; whatever was going on, I always had my
feet firmly planted on the ground. But people are frightened of the unknown. Later on,
some of my friends, to whom I gave a lot of clairvoyance and healing, talked about me to
people who didn't know me, and were ridiculed for it. This bothered them so much that
they didn't contact me for some time.
Although I was hurt, I knew that like so many people they needed time to come to
terms with the existence of the paranormal.
There were bumps and thumps in the flat, and my bed used to move of its own
accord. Objects disappeared and reappeared without rhyme or reason. Before the
telephone rang I would hear it ring in my head and know that there would be a telephone
call within minutes. Spirit people were appearing continuously, similar to the misty
people 1 had seen while I was an evacuee, which I found a kind of comfort. I also heard
voices trying to communicate with me all the time; the information they gave me was
always for others, never for me.
Almost daily I would see a beam of light in the hall (not unlike the teleportation
device in 'Star Trek'). Within this would appear people dressed in robes; I found them
beautiful rather than frightening, and their presence usually heralded yet another
fascinating new experience. In this world of both real and misty people it was difficult to
take in the magnitude of what was happening.
I decided to see Charles Horrey again for guidance. He reassured me that these
kinds of thing can happen to anybody who is a true medium. He also said that the
phenomena would continue until I was absolutely convinced of the powers that were
being channelled through me.
'You may not like them now,' he added, 'but when they stop you will miss them.
You are going through the most exciting time in your mediumship. Enjoy it.'
He went on: 'I understand you've started healing?'
I said: 'Yes, but I still don't understand it. I don't know what I'm supposed to be
doing.'
Mr Horrey repeated that I was already healing and was being taught; I should not
go to any development groups as I could rely on my own experience. Then he began
speaking about a doctor who wanted to work through me. 'I'm being told that you have
had information about this doctor before,' he said, 'that he has contacted you. Have you
been to see another medium?'
I said: 'I've never been to any medium except you.'
'That's very strange, because he is insistent that he has already been in contact with
you.'
Suddenly I remembered the doctor who had manifested in my office. I really had
forgotten about him.
'Oh, that's what he means!' said Charles Horrey. 'He's actually appeared to you!
You must carry on working as a healer. Doctor Watson was a specialist in arthritic
complaints, and you will have the ability to cure arthritis.'
I had to make an effort not to laugh. I thought: What on earth could I do with
arthritis that the doctors can't achieve?
My doctor friend visited me twice more soon afterwards. Some of my
hand-analysis clients used to tell me that they felt better when they listened to my voice,
and if they needed help I would talk to them on the phone. During two of these calls, the
doctor appeared and stood by the telephone during the conversation.
I visited Charles Horrey four times in all. On my fourth visit, he said: 'How many
times do I have to tell you I cannot teach you anything? Go away, and work!' I was not to
see him again for thirteen years.
As soon as I began to heal regularly my health improved. Once I allowed the
energy to flow, my choking fits stopped and I felt on top of the world. (I still have to be
careful not to get a build-up of energy, since it flows through me all the time; if I stop
healing for a while for any reason, I go round healing my plants and my dogs.) I know
now that it can take at least twelve hours for the energy to be absorbed by the patient's
body and used for whatever purpose it is needed; that was why my friend's back wasn't
cured immediately. Now all the energy I had been blocking over the last seven years was
unleashed, and people felt the benefits very quickly.
Although our marriage was approaching its natural end - for one thing we were
both so busy we hardly saw each other - in my healing work Leslie backed me all the
way.
Just as Charles Horrey had predicted, all sorts of people began ringing for
appointments, all by word of mouth. Leslie was responsible for many of them: people
would get into his taxi complaining about their aches and pains, and he would say: 'Go
and see my wife!' Pleased patients told their friends; people even began ringing from
abroad asking for absent healing. It was quite extraordinary. Equally extraordinary was
the fact that they were getting better!
Although I was healing successfully from the start, my mind was in a turmoil
when I tried to work it all out. I still thought that healing was some form of magnetic
energy from myself, and not from any other source. I carried out my own investigations
over about two months and was convinced I was right, until a patient told me that when
she had gone to bed she had felt hands on her chest and had gone to sleep very quickly,
and another told me that someone had drawn the curtains while she was in bed. Well, that
certainly didn't tie in with my theories.
I had accepted by this time that I was in communication with another dimension.
But - I really don't know why -I was reluctant to believe that it was an outside force that
produced the healing energies, or to accept that doctors who had died were working
through me.
How did they work through me? Why was this energy channelled through one
person and not through another? I didn't want to feel that someone else was in control of
me, and kept constructing my own theories, only to have them proved wrong. I think this
is actually the best way to learn! Having to acknowledge you are wrong shakes up your
preconceived ideas and makes you think.
Against Charles Horrey's advice, I did go twice with a friend to a development
group run by a spiritualist medium, but I giggled so much I couldn't go back! Everything
was taken so seriously, and I couldn't believe that things were as complicated as was
made out. My friend said she was glad when I left the group, so that she could
concentrate on what was being said!
Mr Horrey was right again. It has always been very important for me to find things
out for myself, and ever since then I have stayed away from groups. But there were so
many things I wanted to know! My curiosity at last got the better of me, and I visited a
psychic bookshop in London. Perhaps I could help myself without clouding my mind too
much.
It was difficult to choose among the quantities of books on healing, mediumship,
and evidence of survival after death. I wondered why this information was not available
in general bookshops. It saddened me that the world at large was ignorant of so many
remarkable facts because people weren't being offered the choice of reading.
Over the next few years I read everything I could. I rejected quite a lot, but there
was enough sensible information to help me understand what was happening. Another
way in which I learned was through the information that I was given to pass on. I would
find myself relaying spiritual messages that made sense to me as well as to the recipients.
It is clear - and other mediums confirm this - that people like me are chosen to do
our work. I've often been asked who does the choosing, and I always answer: 'I wish I
knew! Because I'd like to have a few words with him!' I was often aware, however, that
certain people were training me, particularly when I was healing, including the doctor
who had first made contact with me. I saw a lot of him during these early days, and began
to be able to communicate with him telepathically. One day I conveyed to him my
anxiety that my earthy language made me unsuitable to be a healer.
The message I got back was: 'Betty, if you'd ever heard a surgeon talking while
he's operating, or doctors talking among themselves, you'd know their language is
abominable!'
So perhaps they thought they'd got the right woman! I must hasten to add that
since I've been healing my 'language' has automatically been toned down.
Other spirits arrived, wanting to work with me. Two of them I have hesitated to
write about, because 1 realize that the stories sound so incredible.
There was a phase when I began seeing rather frightening pictures of snakes, and
found myself writing a lot of poetry. I was in bed one night when a man appeared and
said: 'I'm William Blake, and I'd like to work with you.' It was he who was sending me
these drawings.
At that time I had no idea who he was. All I knew was that I thought his pictures
were creepy. I said: 'Please go away. I don't want this.' When a friend told me that Blake
was a famous mystical artist and poet I went to the library to find out more about him,
and saw drawings exactly like those he had been sending me.
After about two weeks of being shown these terrifying pictures, I finally said to
him: 'Look, will you please push off!' I never saw him again.
Soon afterwards a little man arrived, very French-looking with a beard. He told me
he was Louis Pasteur; he, too, wanted to work through me. I had heard of Pasteur, but
couldn't believe that someone so eminent would want to work through me. He came three
times before I was convinced. I ought perhaps to have told him I'd be delighted to work
with him. But I wasn't really delighted; I was rather overwhelmed and wondered why
he'd chosen me. However, I didn't tell him to go away, either, and I can only say that each
day brought the most incredible healings. I had never seen Pasteur's portrait; out of
interest I looked him up in the library, too, and was fascinated to find that he looked
exactly like his picture.
Until now, I've never mentioned these visitors to anyone except my family,
because I feel rather embarrassed about it. I myself am very suspicious when mediums
talk about contacting the spirits of famous people; it's a world in which it's all too easy to
name-drop! But I can only say that it happened.
New phenomena kept occurring. One morning when I awoke I was astonished to
see a large eye looking at me from the ceiling above my bed. It was about the size of a
dinner-plate, complete with eyelids. Intrigued, I stared back. It was a kindly eye and it
gave me a tremendous feeling of peace. It was so real that I pointed it out to Leslie, but
he couldn't see it.
This eye followed me everywhere I went. It appeared on walls, carpets and
furniture, even on the floor; practically everywhere I looked the eye would be looking
back at me. Like all the other phenomena, I became accustomed to having it around.
About nine months later I was looking in the mirror when I suddenly saw that the
eye was identical with my own; I realized that this was the third eye that I had read about,
and that what I was experiencing was its opening. I had never before accepted that we
have a third eye, but there it was. My eye and I lived happily together for another two or
three years and then it disappeared. I missed it; I always found it a great comfort.
At about the time the eye first appeared, I began to see auras. The first time this
happened was a magical experience. We had a cage-bird, a cross between a linnet and a
roller canary, which we used to let free to fly around the bedroom. It would sing so
loudly that Janet, who is also a musician, couldn't hear herself playing her guitar!
One day while the bird was sitting in the window singing I saw the most beautiful
blue light glowing around it. When it stopped singing this light seemed to be contained
within what looked like a pencil outline close to its body; then when it began to sing
again the blue aura expanded to about half an inch all around. It was very beautiful and
quite awe-inspiring. I have seen many thousands of auras since then, but that one made
the most impact on my senses.
Soon after seeing the aura around the bird, I began to see auras around people; as
time went on I learned to interpret their colours. I also began to see - as if someone were
showing them to me - what looked like tubes running
through people. I became aware that, where there was a blockage in a tube, that
was the area where I should put my hands, regardless of where the pain was felt. Later,
through my reading, I realized that these tubes corresponded with the meridian lines of
Chinese acupuncture.
After the first three months the phenomena stopped being so violent and
unexpected, though they have continued in various forms to this day. I was healing
regularly, and by now I was enjoying it very much. As Mr Horrey had foretold, most of
my early patients had arthritic problems. Then, after two years, there were six months
during which I had a spate of patients with Meniere's disease, followed by three months
of people with visual problems.
I was clearly being trained and tested. How this training takes place is very
interesting. Some healers stop at one problem and become specialists in that; in my case I
seem to have passed the whole course, because I now get patients with every problem
under the sun.
Over the next few years I was to see hundreds of cases, some of them very severe.
People came who had given up all hope of ever using their limbs fully again; almost all
were able to return to normal activity. As time went by, the time it took to heal them
became shorter; quite often it was instantaneous.
Practically everyone could feel a tremendous heat or tingling going through their
bodies, and I could feel vibrations going through them; sometimes the couch seemed to
vibrate as well. My hands were automatically guided to the part of the body that needed
healing, regardless of the location of the pain.
Sutton, whenever I relaxed in my favourite armchair, I would feel her hand gently touch
my shoulder; it was very comforting. I told Leslie and many friends but I never
mentioned it to Janet, because I thought it would make her nervous.
One evening, after I'd been healing for about two years, Leslie and I went out to a
party leaving Janet alone with our Doberman bitch, Lady. We returned at half-past
midnight to find that Janet had spent the evening locked in her attic bedroom with the
dog, quite terrified. While she was watching television in my armchair, a hand had been
placed on her shoulder. I told her not to worry, it was only Nanny, and it happened to me
every evening. 'Why the hell didn't you tell me?' said Janet.
This brought home to me the fact that Janet was very psychic, and I began
confiding in her more about my own experiences.
My mother contacted me in every way she could. Whenever I went to a spiritualist
meeting she would always be up front! It makes me laugh to think that my mother, who
wouldn't have been caught dead at a spiritualist meeting in her lifetime, haunted the ones
I went to after her death!
Janet used to accompany me to these meetings, although she didn't really approve
of my going and felt I didn't belong there. I had no desire to become a spiritualist, or any
other kind of 'ist'; but I was still learning, and was interested to see how other people
worked. I was often disappointed that public demonstrations of mediumship and
clairvoyance came over as a kind of music-hall act, and very glad that I didn't have to be
a platform medium.
One or two mediums, however, impressed me by their
intelligence. It was one of these who gave me a further message from the
mysterious Tom with the white horse. I still had no idea who he was. The mystery was
solved at last when I caught a very bad flu virus, during which I left my body several
times. Opening my eyes at one stage, I saw a white-haired man standing at the foot of the
bed. He said: 'Betty, please forgive me. I could have helped you and I didn't. It was
cowardly.'
I couldn't believe it. He was the husband of the awful woman I had been billeted
with as an evacuee - and of course his name was Tom! I put my hand out to him, but he
had gone. And now I remembered the white horse, which used to be in a field opposite
the house. Tom was a nice man, and I had always felt terribly sorry for him even as a
child.
From that moment I began to recover from my flu. Tom had obviously been
healing me.
In 1982 I had been healing for seven years. Four years earlier I had given up my
job to heal full-time and I was healing all hours of the day. It was hard work, but I loved
helping people, and was pushed on by the thrill of seeing people get better, after suffering
so much myself.
My private life was less happy, however, and Leslie and I had just agreed to
separate when he became seriously ill. He had had worrying symptoms for some time but
hadn't had them investigated, possibly frightened of what the doctors might tell him.
While I was in Spain he and our son Geoffrey made a hang-glider, and when they tried it
out he had an accident and damaged his shoulder; this old injury gave me an opportunity
to give him masses of healing.
Now it turned out that he had cancer of the intestine, requiring a major operation.
Fortunately, although the growth was definitely malignant and the doctors said he had
had it for years, it was not of the worst kind; I feel this must be because of all the healing
he had been given.
Just before he came home to convalesce, some tubes which had been inserted in
his stomach were removed. Two days later one of the wounds split wide open, and we
hastily called the surgeon. He said that this was not uncommon, and that it would take six
weeks to heal. He couldn't stitch the wound because the flesh round it was too thin and
tender, and we had to dress it with pads from the chemist.
I gave Leslie a lot of healing that day. He was sleeping in a single bed beside
mine; all of a sudden in the middle of the night he woke me up, exclaiming: 'Jesus, what's
happening to me? Look at my arms and legs. I can't control them!' I looked, and his arms
and legs were moving around all over the place.
I knew what was happening, because some of my patients had had similar
experiences. I said: 'Oh, that's good. You'll be better in the morning. You're being given
some wonderful healing!'
'I bloody well hope so,' said Leslie.
When we went to change his dressing in the morning the wound had completely
healed. We called the surgeon, and after he had examined him I told him that I was a
healer and had given Leslie an hour's healing the previous evening.
The surgeon took this information calmly. He said to Leslie: 'All I can say is, you
are a very lucky man to have a wife like that!'
Leslie went on to make a rapid recovery, and has never had to have any
Three months later I was browsing in a bookshop and there in front of me was a
book called Phone Calls from the Dead. I bought it, and couldn't wait to get home to read
it. I was amazed to find that others had had the same experience, including perfectly
ordinary people as well as mediums. Reading this made me feel less alone. But when I
recall that conversation I am still filled with a sense of the miraculous.
I stayed on in the huge Sutton flat, and for the first time had to deal with paying
bills and the mortgage. It wasn't at all easy, and I worked very hard. People would
telephone me for guidance from six in the morning till one o'clock the next. Some just
turned up on the doorstep; others telephoned from abroad in the middle of the night
asking for clairvoyance and healing.
It was a mad life, but there was some phenomenal healing going on! I was also
supported in some incredible ways. I often worked late into the evening; I would put my
supper to cook in the pressure cooker and then, totally absorbed in my healing, forget
about it. The gas would always be turned off at the right time, and the food would be
perfectly cooked.
Soon after Leslie left a bill arrived for 85, which I couldn't pay, and I was
extremely worried about it. I am an avid reader; when I next opened the book I was
reading, there was a five-pound note. I thought I must have left it in the book myself; but
that week, every time I took a book from a shelf, no matter at what page I opened it, there
would be another five-pound note!
I found this as incredible as my mother's telephone call. The notes continued
arriving until I had acquired 80. Then they stopped for two days. Then, after doing some
spring cleaning, I went to the front door to greet a patient and there, on the mat, where I
had just been vacuuming, was a five-pound note, making up the 851 needed.
I have never received any more money in that way and certainly don't expect to do
so. Funnily enough, another phenomenon worked in quite the reverse way. Shortly after
this I was asked to attend a seminar in Segovia and before I left I bought sixteen pairs of
stockings to make sure I didn't run out while I was abroad. I put them in a drawer until
the time came to pack; when I opened it
every single pair had vanished. I just hope that whoever received my stockings
needed them more than I did!
Though we kept in touch, Leslie was no longer my husband. Some other close
friendships had broken up for various reasons, much of the past had been washed away,
and I was very alone. I felt rather depressed, and very sad.
At this point, Michael and Clementina Bentine came into my life. An acquaintance
told him that I was in a distressed state, and asked him to ring me.
So out of the blue one day Michael rang me, saying: 'I understand you're in
trouble.' I was amazed. Michael has had many tragedies of his own, and is a very busy
man; I thought it was quite lovely that he should think about helping a complete stranger.
After we had talked for a while I felt my sadness lifting for the first time for ages. Then I
said: 'Excuse me, but I think your wife is in trouble.'
I diagnosed, correctly, that she had a frozen shoulder, and I heard Michael call out:
'Clem, you must come and hear this!' He asked if he could bring her for healing, and of
course I said yes. Although she had been to all sorts of therapists, her shoulder was
completely cured after one healing, which was nice - she told everyone she'd had a
miracle cure!
The Bentines were wonderful to me; they used to pick me up at weekends and take
me to their home. We became very good friends, and I became hooked on Clementina's
cooking!
Michael is very psychic. In November 1983 he told me: 'The man you are going to
share the rest of your life with will be living with you before I return from America next
May.' He added: 'It's someone you know already.'
I said: 'Michael, anyone I already know - forget it!'
He smiled and said: 'Wait and see. You'll be living in a cottage in the country.'
Some time before I had given a sitting to a businessman. He had been back several
times; I liked him, but would never in my wildest dreams have thought of Alan as a
suitor. I hadn't seen him for six months when he suddenly got in touch with me, this time
to offer me help; he felt he owed me a lot since the clairvoyance I had given him had
been extremely useful. I met Alan for lunch, and by the following March we were living
together.
When Michael returned to this country in May, he and Clementina invited us for
lunch. When he opened the door to us Michael said: 'That's him! That's the man I saw!'
Alan said: 'Thank God for that!'
After we moved into our current home - in the country, just as Michael predicted all kinds of phenomena started up again! Objects disappeared and reappeared again, and
there have been one or two other odd happenings. Alan has taken it all in his stride. He
has also put a stop to my working all hours of the day and night, and encouraged me to
write this book; without his support I could not have written it.
I have now been working as a healer and medium for thirteen years. I have never
advertised or sought publicity, but as I have become better-known I have been asked to
give lectures and teach. I have taught in schools - I have a particular empathy with
teenagers - and have taken many seminars abroad.
Now I have the opportunity to do what I have been wanting to do for a long time:
to write this book so that my message will reach a wider public. It is a message about
healing, about mediumship, about the survival of the mind after death, and about the most
amazing phenomenon of all - which I call mind energy.
PART ONE
Spiritual Gifts
ONE Mind Energy
Mind no longer appears as an accidental intruder into the realm of matter: we are
beginning to suspect that we ought rather to hail it as the 'Creator and governor of the
realm of matter'.
Sir James Jeans, astronomer
Healing is the most wonderful form of complementary medicine you can have.
To many people healing is a mystery, a combination of mysticism, religious faith
and the miraculous. If there is a mystery, it is only because people choose to make it so:
there are logical explanations for most things if one cares to look into them. Healing is
simply the transmission of life force, the energy that sustains every form of life.
Human beings are first and foremost energy beings. Everyone has an energy
counterpart which both occupies the body and extends beyond it as the aura: it is this
which supplies life, health and vitality to the physical body. When the energy system
breaks down or is blocked in any way, related parts of the body cease to vibrate with life
force, and this creates ill-health in the physical system.
Although there are still some sceptics, the concepts of the life force and the energy
system are becoming increasingly accepted today. Many of the alternative or
complementary methods of healing, such as acupuncture, have been based on these
principles for centuries, and those of us who constantly use and work with energy
experience 'miracles' every minute of every day. I believe that a full understanding of
depression. 'Yes,' she said, 'that's really why I came to see you.' The complaint she had
told me about on arrival was a result of her depression.
I have always recognized the importance of positive thinking, and had already
written some notes on the subject. I gave these to her to use at home, and in addition to
receiving healing she worked at acquiring a new, positive attitude. This helped her
considerably. Several healings later, the funnel-like appearance over her head had gone,
and the energy was a complete circle radiating outwards.
That experience made a great impact on me, and I began studying the energy
around the heads of everyone who came to me, and of people everywhere - in trains,
buses, crowds - wherever I went. It was only after looking at thousands of people in all
sorts of circumstances that I came to call this energy 'mind energy'.
I am convinced that recognizing the importance of mind energy could change
people's attitudes to negativity and positivity the world over. I have seen so clearly the
effects of thought on people's physical energy and health: how positive thinking
stimulates it, causing the energy to expand outwards, while negativity draws that same
energy downwards, eventually causing congestion throughout the body.
Everyone who is depressed has the same appearance. It always looks as if the
energy is being drawn down in a funnel shape, through the top of the head and down into
the body. In every case I can see how depression and negative thinking come to create an
unnatural pressure on the brain, literally depressing and compressing it. I see, too, how
this affects the electro-magnetic field around the head and that if it continues unchecked
it eventually causes congestion in the energy counterpart and alters the body's
biochemistry.
Yet in only twenty minutes passing an even greater energy through the body with
healing can dislodge the compression and reverse the direction of the mind energy,
enabling both mind and body to begin to heal.
In a healthy positive person the energy pulsating around the head is quite amazing.
It surrounds the head as far as just below the ear, and is separate from the aura around the
body. It can extend outwards ad infinitum, unlimited by space. The ability to see this has
brought new meaning to the concepts of 'open'- and 'closed'-mindedness. In an
open-minded person the expansion of the energy can be tremendous, whereas
closed-minded people literally draw their minds in so that not only are they unreceptive
to new ideas but they have also cut themselves off from the ability to attune to other
people and even to nature.
Mind energy stimulates the physical functions of the brain, and it is fascinating to
watch it expand and contract as someone is thinking. The brain itself is a 'junction-box'
for the mind. In Sance to Science, Meek and Harris write that Dr Wilder Penfield, one of
the first brain researchers to begin to raise questions about mind-brain connections, has
permanently removed massive segments of a patient's brain, but still the 'mind' seemed to
carry on as before without disturbance of consciousness. Similar findings have been
shown on a television programme on the same subject, in which a woman's mind was
found to be normal, though 85 per cent of her brain was 'inactive'. A superb illustration of
the power of the mind is Christopher Nolan,
the young man who recently won the Whitbread Book of the Year prize. Despite a
damaged brain, he has enabled his powerful, intelligent and talented mind to fly free,
unhampered by physical limitations.
When I first recognized the significance of mind energy I was tremendously
excited. If positivity could reverse the energy, bringing about such incredible changes,
then this was the secret of a healthy successful existence; this was the key which we all
hold to our own destiny. I encouraged people even more strongly to get rid of, or at least
control, negativity. In those who persevered the change was astonishing: their mind
energy became bright and expansive, positively vibrating.
Mediums have always been able to 'see' the energy fields around the body; with
the increased recognition of Kirlian photography, which shows these fields on film, they
are beginning to be taken seriously. Perhaps in the future mind energy will also be
captured in this way. After all, it has already been captured in art.
When I had been studying mind energy for some time, I walked into a church one
day on impulse. Inside, I found myself looking at a painting of Christ, and at the halo
round His head. There were some paintings of the saints, with their haloes; I looked at
these, too, in astonishment.
It was quite shattering. Like everyone, I'd seen pictures of haloes all my life
without thinking about them. Only at that moment did it dawn on me that they were
identical with the energy I had been studying. Although most human beings have lost this
faculty, I believe that the first illustrations of haloes were made by artists who had the
ability to see the radiant energy of the mind.
My understanding of mind energy inevitably influences my diagnosis. Clairvoyant
diagnosis is not the same as a medical diagnosis. It is the ability to diagnose the state of
the patient's energy counterpart, where the physical problems begin; in fact I can see
physical problems showing up in the
energy field at least two years before they manifest in the body. And of course the
state of the person's mind energy strongly affects the state of his energy counterpart, and
must therefore be included in my assessment.
In clairvoyant diagnosis, I view the energy field around the body (the aura), the
energy channels flowing through it, and the chakras or energy centres going down the
body. I can also see the parts of the body which are under stress, as the energy
counterpart occupies the body, taking the shape of the organs.
The aura is often described as having seven layers; I see only three, but for
diagnosis this is quite enough. The very specific aura immediately round the body, which
some people refer to as the etheric, is the one I use the most. Its colours are constantly
changing as people's thoughts and states of health change; but there are definite patterns
relating to particular conditions, and by constant observation I have learned how
particular physical problems show up in the energy counterpart.
I get an overall picture when people first arrive. For example, if someone arrives
after a recent quarrel the aura will be shot with red, mainly in the mind energy, although
red streaks will also appear in the body aura. In someone with nerve problems, the first
thing I will see in the aura is a kind of dirty green. In arthritis the aura contains a dull
yellow shade; some people come complaining of rheumatism or arthritis, but when I view
them I see not this dull yellow but a bright mauve. This shows that the problem is not
arthritis, but stress, causing overactive adrenal glands and producing too much acid in the
system. Bright mauve is a very common colour!
The auras of cancer patients often contain a lot of dark lifeless-looking patches.
Dark areas appear in the body, too, where an organ has been removed; the energy still
takes the shape of that organ but is much duller. When I see this, I check whether the
person has had an operation; sometimes they haven't, and I then need to find out what
that dull patch indicates, so that I can deal with it.
Also within the body, I can see the energy channels which correspond with the
meridian lines of acupuncture and shiatsu; I believe the meridians were discovered in
ancient China by people with clairvoyant sight. To me they appear as narrow
whitish-yellow tubes. When I see an almost colourless section, diminished in
circumference, I know there is a blockage in this area of the meridian preventing the free
flow of energy; during the healing session I will work to release this.
Then there are the chakras, which some people refer to as energy centres. These
are seven vortices in the energy system which draw in the life force from the limitless
supply of cosmic energy in the universe, and control its flow through the body. They
occupy approximately the same areas as some of the most important organs and glands of
the body.
There are a number of books on yoga and on the chakras themselves which
describe and illustrate this system. If you want to study this subject further, some I can
recommend are listed at the end of the book. You may find that books vary in their
descriptions of the colours, positions and functions of the chakras. This is not to say that
anybody is 'wrong'; it is simply that people's perceptions differ.
I see seven main chakras, never more than two at a time, according to which part
of the body I am working on. Going down the body, they are positioned at the top of the
head, the forehead, the throat, the heart (in the centre over the breastbone), and over the
spleen, just below the ribs on the left-hand side. Then there is the solar plexus chakra
over the navel, and the important one at the base of the spine which is the seat of what is
known as kundalini energy. In addition to these seven I see a very small one over the
gall-bladder.
The chakras look like whirls of moving energy, roughly circular in shape although
the one at the brow, relating to the third-eye area, is oval. They each contain predominant
colours, and any change in the usual colour will indicate
that something is wrong. During healing, I concentrate on the energy fields until
the colours have returned to normal.
I'm told that my perception of these colours differs from some traditional accounts.
I honestly don't think this is important: if you show the same colour to ten different
people, they will describe it in ten different ways. It's possible that every medium has his
or her slightly differing method of diagnosis and set of colours. What is important is to
experience things for oneself, and be true to that experience, rather than parroting other
people's ideas. (So if your experience is different from what you read in books stay with
your own unique thought.)
At their centres, the chakras are like whirlpools, constantly drawing in the life
force or cosmic energy all around us in order to support the energy counterpart. When
people are ill one or two chakras are likely to be under-energized, and these will need
attention while I am healing. Sometimes chakras become too energized, because while
they automatically draw in energy they don't automatically discharge it. In these cases the
vortices look like tangled balls of wool.
Any disruption in the energy system will cause a problem in the physical body,
which is the province of medical diagnosis. When a new patient comes I like to have their
medical history and diagnosis before I scan the body to see how far it coincides with what
I see. It's surprising how often it differs - not because doctors are necessarily wrong, but
because conventional medicine doesn't take the energy system into account.
Very often the outward symptoms of an illness appear in quite a different area
from the site of congested energy; clairvoyant diagnosis therefore complements medical
diagnosis. Everyone I have given healing to has had his or her energy system blocked in
some way or another. The advantage of healing is that a healer with clairvoyant sight can
transfer energy directly into the congested area, and can cure or relieve so-called
incurable complaints by clearing the blockages and revitalizing the energy.
The transference of energy opens up the energy channels in the patient's body,
which uses it for whatever purpose it needs it. It can take twelve hours for results to be
noticed, while the energy works through the system. This is the first step to a cure; when
it is revitalized in this way, the patient's body heals itself. Although I sometimes speak
about 'curing' this or that disease, I view the whole of life first and foremost in terms of
energy, so it is more accurate to say that the congested energy causing the physical
ailment has been removed. I also recommend healing as a preventative. If the energy
system is revitalized three or four times a year to keep all the energy channels open, it
should be possible to maintain optimum health.
Most people assume that healing energy comes from the healer's hands. In my
experience healers draw in and radiate energy out from all their chakras, but especially
from the chakra in the navel area. I have tried standing behind someone with my own
hands behind my back; the person will still experience enormous heat in their lower back.
During a healing session, however, I use my hands as a channel, and most people
experience heat or tingling coming from them. In addition my mind energy links up with
the patient's mind energy; experiments have shown that healers' brainwaves pulsate at a
very low frequency, and after a while the patient's brainwaves will pulsate at the same
frequency.
A very simple technique I use quite often is to adjust the aura. Sometimes I will
see that a person's aura doesn't extend evenly all round the body as it should; it will bulge
on one side and look very thin on the other. So I manipulate it until it's evenly balanced,
lightening the areas that are too condensed. I also make sure that it comes down well
below their feet; the aura extends downwards as well as all round and above the body.
An unbalanced aura can result from shock, stress or disease; the same thing can
happen to the mind energy. Many times I've opened the door to someone and seen a
bulge on one side of his head, like a hat worn on one side. When I ask, 'Do you find
you're suffering from an imbalance?' he says: 'That's exactly what I've come to you about.
I can't walk straight!'
This is because the bulging mind energy makes him feel one-sided, and afraid of
falling over. People are sometimes diagnosed as having medical or neurological
conditions, when all they have is unbalanced mind energy which can be put right very
simply. Some people bump into things, or describe themselves as 'clumsy'. I've suffered
from this myself: from childhood I was always banging into doors, or putting a cup down
on a table only to have it crash to the floor.
Once I realized what was wrong, I cured myself overnight. It was shortly after the
time when I looked in the mirror and realized that the eye I was seeing was one of my
own. I saw my own mind energy in the mirror, too, and realized that it was protruding on
one side. Feeling a bit silly, I put my hand up to my head and patted it as if it were untidy
hair. To my surprise, I saw it moving into place. And after that my 'clumsiness' was gone!
Since then, I have regularly treated myself by smoothing out my aura and mind energy.
Some people come to me after having every conceivable kind of hospital test,
without a medical diagnosis being reached. In such cases clairvoyant diagnosis is a
godsend. Many conditions which have baffled medical science are caused by negative
energy pressing on a vital spot which undermines the efficient working of a major organ.
Treatment applied to the organ alone does not remove the congestion which is at the root
of the problem, and too often drugs actually cause more congestion within the body.
Take, for example, a man who came to me with high blood-pressure. Despite
being treated by his doctor, and eventually by a consultant, his blood-pressure had
steadily increased. When I viewed his energy system, I could see large areas of congested
energy around the abdomen, in the groin and around the heart. Small areas of congestion
were also scattered throughout the rest of his body.
I started by laying my hands on his abdomen, gradually easing the congestion and
watching it as it cleared. When he came for his second appointment he told me his
blood-pressure had already returned to a satisfactory level. He visited me four times in
all, and when I last heard of him five years later his blood-pressure was still normal. He
was just one of hundreds of people I have been able to relieve or cure in which high
blood-pressure has been the main contributory factor, yet medical treatment has not
touched the cause in the energy system.
An interesting illustration of the importance of the energy body is the case of
'phantom limbs', amputated limbs in which the unfortunate person still feels pain. Ask
anyone who has had an arm amputated where their fingers are, and they will point to the
area, and even hold the apparently empty air. They can feel the whole limb because its
energy form is still present, and it is this excess energy, no longer attached to the
physical, that causes the pain. Using a more powerful energy, the life force, can reduce
the phantom limb to the same size as the remaining part of the physical limb. The pain
factor can then either be greatly relieved or completely eliminated.
I have demonstrated clairvoyant diagnosis at seminars both in England and abroad.
I ask for a subject from the audience and then go through his body from head to toe
giving my findings; I also receive 'mind pictures' of past accidents and operations.
Sometimes there have been doctors present who have backed up my diagnosis.
Anyone who treats the spine, like osteopaths and chiropractors, will understand
the following story. I have taken part in several seminars at a well-known public school.
At one of these I was working with a group including four of the masters, a doctor, and
one or two other people. One of the masters told me he had been having terrible problems
with his stomach for about six months; at one point he'd been dashed off to hospital in
agony, but they hadn't been able to find out what was wrong.
I looked at him; I thought I could see what the trouble was but I wanted to be sure.
I said: 'Would you mind very much lying face down on the floor?'
He obligingly lay down, wondering what I was up to. 'It's my stomach,' he said.
I said: 'Well, I want to see your spine.'
I told him I could see that he had a problem with one of his vertebrae, right
between his shoulder blades.
'What's that got to do with my stomach?' he asked.
I said: 'To be honest, I don't know, but I know that when it's put right your
stomach problems will go.'
At that point the doctor stepped in and said: 'My mother was an osteopath and
taught me osteopathy. May I just go down the spine and have a look?'
He examined the man's spine, came to the same spot and said: 'You're absolutely
right. Do you mind if I deal with it?' And there and then he manipulated the vertebra.
Afterwards he told me: 'You chose the only vertebra that can cause pressure on the
part of the central nervous system that affects the stomach.' He was very surprised,
because it was obvious that I have no medical background. 'I'll tell you something else,'
he said. 'Unless you're an osteopath as well as a doctor, you wouldn't know about it.'
I've since been told that many of the mysterious pains that people experience in the
chest and abdomen may be caused by problems in the spine. The schoolmaster had no
further trouble with his stomach after this.
I am very careful about what I tell patients during diagnosis; I would never say
anything that would frighten them or lead them to expect the worst. Sometimes you hear
of healers making wild statements or alarming prognoses; I have been embarrassed to be
present sometimes when so-called healers have given 'diagnoses' that were totally
inaccurate. When this kind of thing happens, it's not surprising that doctors become wary
about healers. It is vital to be responsible about what you see, and not to invent what you
don't see! Any kind of diagnosis, medical
Healing should be a beautiful experience for both patient and healer. It's sad that
people are still frightened of the 'unknown', when what they think of as the unknown is so
peaceful and loving. When I am healing or giving counselling, a feeling of peace
pervades the room. It is as though outside pressures no longer exist.
I have always kept my healing-rooms simple - no candles, no incense, no little red
lamps! They are furnished with just a table or a desk, a couple of chairs and a medical
couch on which the patient can sit back or lie in comfort. In Sutton I had the ceiling
painted blue, which people found very peaceful to look at. In my present house, the room
overlooks an enclosed part of the garden, which is also very peaceful.
A healing session lasts for half an hour to an hour, depending on the person's
condition; I usually give an hour to people who are seriously ill. The healing itself doesn't
take this long, but I need the time to talk with them and listen to their problems, and also
to give them the clairvoyant advice and information which come through me while I heal.
I prefer it if people come having had a medical diagnosis and, if necessary, X-rays.
Unfortunately, many people have had bad experiences with doctors and hospitals, and
don't want any more to do with them. However, I would always encourage anyone who is
having medical treatment to stay with it. (The very occasional exception is when I see
that medical drugs are not only not helping but also actually damaging the system, as in
Jenny's story on page
I93-)
People often ask me if the patient has to have faith, to which I sometimes say: 'No,
but / do!' I have healed some extremely sceptical people over the years. It is true that a
receptive attitude and trust in the healer do help; without this kind of rapport the
relationship is likely to be shortlived - the feeling is usually mutual, and visits cease of
their own accord. Faith, however, is a different matter; it is very difficult to have faith in
something until one has proof that it works. Incidentally, I think that calling healing 'faith
healing' is very confusing, particularly as other labels such as 'spiritual healing' are used
to describe the same phenomenon. As far as I'm concerned, everyone who heals from
what I call 'the source' is simply a healer.
During healing nearly everyone becomes deeply relaxed; quite a few go to sleep
on the healing-couch, and some feel exceptionally tired for at least twelve hours
afterwards. This is because the energy counterpart of the physical body has been
manipulated, vibrated and stimulated in an unaccustomed manner. When people are
suffering from severe tension, simply being able to relax can bring about changes very
rapidly. I also encourage them to help themselves by teaching relaxation techniques to
practise at home.
The mother of one of my child patients came to see me with pains in her legs
which, she said, 'felt like lead from morning to night'. Doctors had dismissed her
complaint as 'a woman's problem'. By the time she came to see me she was, as she put it,
'totally lost, and wondering if I was losing my faculties'. I knew exactly how she felt,
having been through plenty of stressful times myself. An ability to empathize is very
reassuring to people under stress, particularly if they haven't been taken very seriously by
their doctor.
As she lay on my couch with my hands on her, she told me she felt totally relaxed
for the first time in what seemed like years; she could feel her legs tingling and the
tension flowing out of her. She worked at practising relaxation
and positive thinking at home, and has never been troubled with pains in her legs
since that first visit.
One side-effect of relaxation is that everybody produces incredible tummy
rumbles! Some people are rather embarrassed about these unspiritual sounds. 'I've just
had lunch,' they'll say apologetically. 'It's not your lunch; it's the healing,' I explain. 'It's a
good sign actually: it means the intestines are relaxing and releasing gases.' It even
happens to people who aren't having healing themselves but are sitting in the same room.
I also deliberately use my ability to make people laugh if I think laughter will
release the tension sufficiently to allow the healing energies to penetrate. It's fascinating
to see what happens when someone laughs: the mind energy bursts through the top of the
head as though from a steam engine - it looks as though people are literally 'letting off
steam'.
Healing is very safe; in the thousands of years it has been used there has never
been a recorded case of anyone being physically injured or dying as a result of it. It is just
not possible - with healing, you simply can't give the wrong drug or perform the wrong
operation! It is also very powerful. Many people underestimate its power because at the
time all they experience is some tingling and heat, and a very calm period of relaxation.
Then they phone me next day to tell me they have experienced phenomenal effects.
I have heard of people being disappointed in healing, especially if they have been
misled by an over-optimistic healer, or of course by a charlatan - there are some around,
unfortunately. It is a great pity when this happens. There are also some people who
expect healers to be instant miracle-workers. It is true that instant miracles do
occasionally happen, but for most people healing takes a little longer. If someone's
energy is very depleted, several healings may be needed before their system is charged
enough to affect the physical.
In some people the physical has deteriorated to such an
extent that no amount of energy can stimulate it to effect a cure. However, I never
tell anyone at first meeting that I can't cure them, any more than I would guarantee a cure.
I ask them about the medical prognosis - which is usually completely hopeless - and then
try to find out where the problem is, what's happening, how the life force isn't getting
through and why. To safeguard against disappointment on both sides, I usually suggest
that they have four to six sessions, so that we can monitor the results. After this it should
be clear whether they are reacting favourably or not. Even in seemingly impossible cases
miraculous things have happened, and even those who are past curing can be relieved by
the removal of congestion.
For the last two years I have been specializing in cases that have been labelled as
hopeless, and I know that healing can not only remove pain but also extend lives well
beyond the medical prognosis. Many terminally ill people have been able to enjoy their
final months and have died peacefully, without pain, when according to all the medical
forecasts they should have been in agony.
There are still people who insist that all healing must be psychosomatic. This is
rubbish! For one thing, healing works just as well with animals as with humans - if not
better, since they don't put up any barriers. (The vets who get the best results are those
who, like some doctors, are natural healers.)
I had been healing animals without realizing it since I was a child. As a little girl, I
made up for my mother's refusal to let me have a kitten by talking to every animal I met;
there were plenty about in the streets, many of them strays. I found I had an empathy with
them and, if they seemed unwell, just holding them in my arms made them better.
Animals love healing; they accept the energy and then usually go to sleep, often
remaining flat out for the rest of the day! It would be wonderful if human beings could be
so accepting and so relaxed, instead of rushing back to work or busy domestic duties! A
period of rest and quiet is an essential part of the healing process.
I remember Mandy, a lovely golden retriever who had arthritic hips; the first time
she arrived for healing, Mandy wagged her tail so hard she sent everything flying! It was
as though she already knew that she would be cured. At each session she would settle
herself down on the carpet; as soon as I placed my hands on her hips she would sigh with
contentment, gazing trustingly up at me with her beautiful eyes. It was a joy when, a
month later, after only four sessions, her arthritis was completely cured. Unfortunately, it
isn't always possible to bring about a total cure with older animals, but healing can still
help them to run instead of walk, and enjoy life to the full as long as they can.
Two years ago I had to give healing to Flossie, our miniature Yorkshire terrier. We
have another bitch called Tessa, a black Labrador type; the two are very good friends,
despite the fact that Tessa weighs forty pounds and Flossie only four! One day Alan was
about to take them for a walk when Tessa, in her excitement, jumped up in the air and
came down with all her weight on Flossie. Poor Flossie was completely flattened, and for
some minutes Alan thought she was going to die.
For a few days we were quite concerned about her; however, we took her to the
vet and I gave her masses of healing, and she was up and about a week after her mishap.
But some time later we discovered a lump in her groin, which was obviously causing her
discomfort. Alan immediately took her back to the vet, who diagnosed a large hernia
which had to be operated on. We were very worried at the idea of her having an
anaesthetic as she is so tiny, so I gave her intense healing over the five days before the
She had a thrombosis seventeen years ago, and had very bad varicose veins. Healing is
very effective with varicose veins; I can actually feel them slipping underneath my hands
as they straighten out, and they did on this occasion.
Afterwards Jean took her usual walk home, across a field. When she came to
climb the stile she felt as though somebody actually lifted her up and over - 'I was so light
I couldn't feel myself on the ground,' she told me. But she rang me up in alarm next
morning because her legs were so bruised; she thought something must have gone
terribly wrong! I assured her it was quite normal, and actually a good sign. As always, the
bruising disappeared after twelve hours, and her veins are now in excellent condition.
Jean also experienced another extraordinary side-effect which you are unlikely to
find in any medical textbook. I had been giving her absent healing for a back condition
when she rang me up in great excitement to tell me about 'the most incredible experience
she'd ever had in her life'. While she was having her bath that morning the water had
turned bright blue!
This phenomenon has happened only three times in my experience; once, when I
was living in Sutton, it happened to me. I had been overworking and was so tired that I
fell asleep in the bath; when I woke up the water was a bright electric blue. I couldn't
think what had happened, and kept looking round to see whether something had fallen
into the bath, although I knew nothing could have done.
I lay there thinking: I don't believe this! I never get over the wonder of this kind of
experience. Although I use colour a lot in healing, I have no idea where this blue came
from.
I use a number of specific techniques in addition to laying on of hands. One,
which I call the laser beam', is for conditions such as cellular congestion, meridian lines
that are hard to unblock, or any area which is not responding to ordinary healing. I use it
especially for eye problems. With my mind I form a 'laser beam' of powerful energy, like
a very fine steel rod, and direct it towards the trouble-spot until it clears.
I use my mind to do other things, too, such as 'operating' to remove congested
energy. For example, if there is an energy congestion in the stomach caused by stress, I
create mental instruments and make a cut down the body, so that I can pull out the tangle
of energy just like a ball of wool. Sometimes it goes on for a long time, until suddenly the
last bit is pulled free. Then I use the 'laser beam' to seal up the cut.
You may say: 'But that's just imagination.' That is to underestimate the power of
the imagination. Once you realize its possibilities, whatever you want to do with your
mind you can do: the thought is the deed. I don't tell people what I am doing until
afterwards, but while it's going on they say: 'My God, that feels better! I feel as if
down?' I tried to calm him by explaining that he was being manipulated by unseen
helpers. His eyes widened even more and he said, 'I don't think I like this.' (Since those
days, Shirley herself has become very psychic, and Fred has learned to live with it!)
The most powerful manipulation I ever witnessed was about ten years ago. David
was a young amateur footballer who visited me a lot because he was always damaging
himself. He arrived one day in a state of desperation: he had smashed his foot and ankle
very badly, and the hospital had told him they could do nothing more for him. He was
accompanied by his father, who watched the whole session.
Whilst I was healing David, a voice asked me to take my hands away. I told him
what I was going to do and why, and moved well away from him. Then we all three
watched in amazement as the injured leg was lifted up, pushed about and thoroughly
manipulated. I have said that healing is painless, and most of the time it is, but in this
instance I could tell from his voice and expression that David was in considerable pain.
After it was over, however, he was able to get down from the couch and walk
about absolutely normally and painlessly. His father said: 'Betty, if I hadn't seen this for
myself I would never have believed it!'
While they were still there the unseen manipulator informed me that he had been a
physiotherapist and trainer with a famous football team. He had died in an air-crash
which was widely reported at the time, and now wanted to heal athletes through me. He
went into some detail about the crash, giving me the names of the people who had
survived, which enabled me to check and confirm his identity. He was a very well-known
trainer in his lifetime, and obviously a very compassionate man whose compassion
continued after his death.
Sometimes I am told to stand aside to allow a psychic operation to be performed.
The first time it happened was with a lady in her seventies suffering from diverticulitis. I
told her that I was going to take my hands away, and a moment later she said: 'Betty, I
can feel hands inside me, doing something right down inside of me! I really can feel
hands!' Again, this sounds much weirder than it actually is. People find it unusual,
certainly, but not at all unpleasant or painful.
It is fascinating to watch: I can see hands moving over and inside the patient's
body; sometimes I see the faces of the spirit surgeons, too. These operations are nothing
like the psychic surgery practised in the Philippines, which is reportedly accompanied by
lots of blood and mess. The people for whom I am a channel operate on the energy
counterpart only.
One young woman was due to have a hysterectomy for fibroids when she was
recommended to see me. A psychic operation was decided on, and as I watched I could
see the energy counterparts of the fibroids, three opaque lumps of energy, actually being
lifted out of her body and then disappearing. She could feel hands inside her, but no pain
at all. When she went back to the hospital they could find nothing to operate on! It seems
that by removing the congestion in the energy counterpart the operation enabled the
physical fibroids to shrink and vanish from the body.
The energy counterparts of our organs are not duplications of the physical organs,
in the sense of having all the cells and blood-vessels and so on; it is simply that the
energy occupying that area of the body takes on the shape of the organ concerned. When
there is a problem with, say, the womb, the liver or a kidney, that part of the body has
become congested with negative energy which must be released. The spirit doctors work
on it by removing the energy form, reviving and re-energizing it, and perhaps rebalancing
energies which have become distorted in some way. When they return the revitalized
energy form to the body it stimulates the physical organ into action. Sometimes I do this
operation myself, drawing the energy out with my hands and stimulating it before
stroking it back in.
I am always aware of guidance and have learned to trust my impressions totally.
For instance, when I started using colour healing I thought for a time that I had to work
out what colours were needed and how to project them. Then I realized that the
appropriate colours were being beamed down anyway. I don't know whether it is the
healer's energy or the patient's need that attracts colours, but they arrive unasked for, and
it is clear that there are spirit helpers who know which ones to give.
Nearly all my clients see colours to some degree while being healed. Sometimes
two or three shades come in together like a rainbow, and play around the patient. One
beautiful example of this was when I was healing a young woman who was herself very
psychic. She was lying there with her eyes open, when she said: 'Betty, can you see what
I see?'
I said: 'Tell me what you can see.'
Then she described a whole spectrum of colours greens, blues, yellows and purple - which I, too, was seeing, isn't that wonderful!'
she exclaimed. It was. It looked exactly as if they were being beamed down by someone
with a spotlight.
I have had so many experiences like these that I can be in no doubt that other
minds work through mine, in a mind-to-mind contact. It seems that my part is to provide
an energy field which allows the spirit healers to come in and do their work. They are
obviously people who have used these skills before, and want to continue using them for
the good of mankind. The energy that comes from them is extremely powerful; the
patient can often feel it, and may describe it as 'electricity on their face' or 'feeling
electrified'. As a result, the whole healing-room becomes charged with energy. For a long
time now it's been almost impossible for me to tape-record anything in this room without
tremendous interference.
These days I usually put a new tape on to record while I'm healing; I ask people to
bring their own. My healing-room is very quiet, and when they hear the recorded sound
people find it very reassuring to have positive proof that there are extraordinary energies
in action.
Another therapy I use quite often came to me as a total surprise. When I had been
healing for five or six years I went to see Nella Taylor, a very talented medium. She
knew absolutely nothing about me beforehand, but she told me: 'You used your voice for
singing; over and over again you went up the ladder and you were pushed down again.
That's because your voice wasn't meant to be used in that medium; it was meant to be
used in the medium in which you are now working.'
Now she tells me! I thought. But I couldn't make out what she meant, unless she
was referring to the fact that people felt better when they heard my voice over the
telephone.
About a year later, I was healing a boy of thirteen who had a bed-wetting problem.
He was nicely relaxed and we were chatting about his school work when I felt a powerful
presence coming in. Then I heard myself speaking in a quiet voice. 'Close your
eyes,' I told him, with no idea why I was saying it. 'You will feel your eyelids become
heavy. You will not be able to open your eyes; you will not want to open your eyes. Your
body is becoming heavier and heavier. You will never wet the bed again.' I repeated this
several times.
The child was by now in a meditative state, though his occasional remarks showed
that he was aware of everything that was going on. The whole session lasted about twenty
minutes. Still allowing myself to be guided, I brought him back to normal alertness.
He had thoroughly enjoyed the experience. 'Gosh,' he said, 'that was marvellous! I
felt as if I was flying, and I saw all these marvellous colours.' He never wet the bed again.
Like so many things that have happened to me, this experience was totally
unexpected. Somebody - I had no idea who - had definitely taken over and guided me.
Some time later I was passing a secondhand bookshop with Leslie when I told
him: 'I've got to go in. There's a book in there I have to have!' Inside, I went straight to a
thick, closely printed volume on hypnosis by a Dr Albert Moll, first published in 1889. (I
have never seen his name mentioned anywhere else.) When I got home I sat down and
read it, and as I did so I had the odd experience of knowing exactly what was going to
come next.
I had never had it in mind to apply hypnosis to anyone, and it was something I
avoided having done to me. Like many people, I didn't like the idea of someone else's
mind taking over mine. However, ever since then I have used hypnotherapy regularly in
conjunction with healing, when it's appropriate. It has proved invaluable with allergic
conditions, which are often stress-related, and I also use it to help people give up
smoking or to slim. I explain to the person concerned that I am not taking over their
mind, and ask them to tell me what they would like me to suggest to them so that we are
both working together. Usually they want to be turned off sugar or cigarettes or
something similar, and using hypnosis I am therefore working on their suggestions and
not mine.
An important aspect of my work is absent or distant healing: giving healing to
someone who may be hundreds of miles away. It is a wonderful example of the power of
mind energy, which has no limitations and can travel any distance. I have given absent
healing to people all over the world, and have acquired total faith in it. The success rate is
phenomenal, and I recommend it as an alternative to contact healing, particularly if
people live far away or are too ill to travel - including accident victims in coma. When
the first contact is made I ask the person concerned, or somebody close to them, to phone
me weekly to keep me up to date with their progress. In nine out of ten cases I receive a
phone call within twenty-four hours informing me that the sick person is already much
better.
I am usually contacted by phone, and also quite often by letter, with the patient's
name and a description of the medical problem. As soon as I'm given the name I get a
clairvoyant diagnosis. This can be very useful, as in the case of a woman who rang me
from America to ask for help as she had been feeling unwell for some time without being
able to discover the cause. As we were speaking I learned clairvoyantly that she had
diabetes. On my advice she went to see a specialist who confirmed the diagnosis. I gave
her absent healing every day for two or three weeks, and at her next appointment with the
specialist he told her that the condition had completely cleared.
In absent as in contact healing I know that it isn't all up to me, and the first thing I
do is to ask whoever's listening: 'Will you please help this person?' If you have an
expansive mind - a mind that extends out to other minds and other dimensions - someone
will be listening, and they will always respond. I understand from communication with
the minds of the so-called 'dead' that a medium's mind shines like a beacon in other
dimensions.
I know this to be true and that my thoughts are being picked up and acted upon.
you see at fairs or in window displays, but not usually in hospitals. When my friend
called next day I mentioned it to her, and she promised to make enquiries. Three days
later she phoned to say the child's mother had bought an outsize toy bear and stood it by
her daughter's bed on the day when I had given healing.
This ability to observe from a distance can be extremely useful, especially if
someone is very sick. I may learn, for example, that the circumstances they are living in
are making them worse, and can then suggest ways to improve them.
Absent healing can also work in reverse. A sick person who thinks about me can
automatically contact the healing energies around me and receive help, even if I'm not
aware of it myself. One day Alan was in terrible pain with back trouble; he was without
his car and about to walk up a very steep hill. He stood still and thought of me, saying:
'Betty, please help me.' The effect was immediate, the pain went, and he climbed the hill
effortlessly. Everyone who visits me for healing has tried thinking of me in this way at
some time or other, and no one has been disappointed.
Just recently I had a letter from an elderly patient with cancer; he was lying in bed
quite ill, he wrote, when 'a lady appeared'. Although she didn't look like me, she
reminded him of me. At that point his wife came into the room to tell him that I had just
phoned and had been giving him absent healing. Other people have recognized me by
their bed when they have been ill. I believe this experience is quite common among
healers.
As with contact healing, absent healing can produce some quite powerful effects.
I've told you about Fred, who was scared when his arm was manipulated. A couple of
years later his wife Shirley phoned to say he was in hospital after having a heart-attack,
and please would I help. She gave me the name of the hospital, and I told her that healing
would begin immediately.
That evening, after visiting the hospital, she phoned me again. Fred had asked her
if I was giving him healing; when she told him I was, he said: 'Would you please tell her
to stop, because I levitated off my bed and I was frightened to death!'
This feeling of levitation is very common. People don't actually levitate physically
but, because the energy counterpart is being stimulated and there is so much energy
around, it feels as if the body is weightless and floating. Despite Fred's alarm, the healing
was very effective: he underwent numerous tests, but no trace was found of the
after-effects of a heart-attack or of any other form of illness.
Another very physical phenomenon occurred with a man who didn't believe in
absent healing. He came with his wife, and while I was healing her he asked if I could do
anything for his in-growing toe-nail: he had suffered pain in his toe for years and had
been to doctors and chiropodists to no avail. When I said I would give him absent healing
he thought I was joking and laughed. I pointed my finger at him and said: 'Wait and see!'
When they returned a week later he told me that two days after that last visit he
had been in agony. To relieve the pain he had lifted his toe-nail away from the flesh with
a nail-file - whereupon, a calcium ball the size of a small pea had popped out.
It was obvious that this had been inside the toe, pressing the flesh up against the
nail and causing pain all these years, not an in-growing toe-nail at all; this kind of
calcium formation can occur with some arthritic conditions, like gout. He and his wife
examined the toe with a magnifying glass but could find no sign of the place where it had
come through the skin, not so much as a pin-hole. After that, he had no further trouble
with his toe.
Although this type of phenomenon had occurred before whilst giving healing it
was the first time it had happened with absent healing. I was sorry to learn that they'd
thrown the calcium ball away. I'd have liked to see it.
Absent healing is wonderful for animals, and I've treated more animals in this way
than by contact healing. It can deal with a surprising range of problems. One summer, a
friend asked me if I could do something for her dog who had insect bites all over his
body. She had applied a variety of lotions to no avail, and the vet had told her that many
other dogs in the neighbourhood had the same problem. It was a beautiful summer, and
the grass everywhere was infested, so that every time the dog was taken for a run it was
bitten all over!
What I did was to visualize a protective coat of energy all around the dog. Two
days later my friend told me there was no sign of any further bites. This happy situation
lasted throughout the summer even though other animals continued to get infested!
About ten years ago, I discovered that it is possible not only to protect an animal
against insects, but also to communicate with the insects themselves. Janet and I were
sitting in the garden in Sutton on a beautifully still and sunny day when we suddenly
found ourselves covered with flying ants. For the next hour they wouldn't leave us alone;
we were very annoyed, because we had been enjoying a rare break to sunbathe.
Eventually, Janet had had enough, and ran indoors for cover. I called out after her that I
would speak to them - really intending it as a joke. However, I thought: Why not?
Although they are a different species, we share the same life force and the same planet
with them.
I sat quietly in the sun, covered in ants, and closed my eyes. I asked them to leave
us alone, and directed them to an overgrown patch at the end of the garden. Almost
immediately they began to leave. Soon the garden, which had been covered with little
winged bodies, was totally ant-free. I called Janet, who found it hard to believe that I had
done it - even I thought it could be a fluke. So after that I experimented for a while, to see
whether it was or not.
Not long after the flying ants episode a South African visited me for healing for
back trouble; as we talked he asked me jokingly if I could 'do anything' with animals -his
home in South Africa was overrun by wild dogs. I thought it would be fun to have a go,
and asked him next time he came to bring me a large-scale map of the area. He brought
the map, and after his next healing session we studied it together. I asked him to show me
an area where I could direct the dogs to go, where they wouldn't be such a nuisance. He
picked a spot, and I told him I would do my best.
With his back better and his holiday over, the South African returned home. I
worked telepathically on the dogs, asking them to leave his home and go to the
designated area; after a month, as I hadn't heard from him, I stopped. Then, four months
after he had left, the South African telephoned me out of the blue. He told me that the
wild dogs had left his property three months before - but the biggest surprise of all was
when he had passed the place we'd chosen to send them to. He had never seen so many
dogs in one area, looking - by wild dog standards
- fit and well. They had obviously found a good food-supply.
Over the next few years I persuaded cockroaches, moles, wasps, bees and other
unwanted creatures to move to other quarters! Mediumship is rather like owning a rough
diamond that has to have every facet polished before it becomes whole and powerful.
This particular gift was the polishing of another facet. After a time, I realized that I was
quite often performing these feats simply as demonstrations and that I was dissipating
valuable energy that I should be using for healing. So I will only do this now if it is
genuinely affecting someone's physical or mental health.
However, I still believe that before deciding to finish off so-called pests - who
have a perfect right to be here -it's worthwhile trying to contact them to ask for their
co-operation. Why not try it yourself? One important point is that they should always be
directed towards a safe place. There must never be any intention to eliminate them, which
would be completely contrary to the purpose of healing energies and mind energy.
One day I had a frantic call from a friend of a friend whose daughter's bedroom
had been invaded by ants; they were creeping in and out of the cracks in the plaster, and
the little girl was so terrified she had to be moved out of her room. I asked for the
address, and also for the location of a place where the ants could safely go as an
alternative dwelling. After some discussion, we agreed on a large pile of old leaves and
branches which would not be used for a bonfire.
Using the same method as with the dogs, I sat down and mentally communicated
with the ants, explaining that they would be killed if they stayed, but would be quite safe
if they moved down the garden to the woodpile. I did this twice a day for two days.
On the third day the woman phoned to tell me that the ants had suddenly gathered
together and marched out of the window like an army! Her husband had followed
them, and they actually finished up in the woodpile we had directed them to. The
couple had plastered over the cracks in the walls, and their little girl was happily back in
her own bed. They found it quite unbelievable.
For large animals like horses absent healing is a wonderful answer, particularly
when they are suffering from emotional problems. Animals are just as capable of
suffering from stress and loss of self-esteem as human beings, as I learned in particular
from a horse.
I was contacted one day by a man who told me that a stable-girl at the riding
school he attended was very concerned about one of the horses in her care. The horse had
a large bald patch on his side which was permanently raw, and whenever he went out he
started to limp and had to be returned to his stable. He had been taken to an equestrian
hospital off and on for two years, but they could do nothing for him.
I asked for the horse's name and the location of the stables. With this information
in my mind I sat down, closed my eyes and found myself immediately in telepathic
contact with the horse. I learned that he was very unhappy: he had once been a racehorse
and had loved the roar of the crowds. However, following a leg injury he was sold for
private use, which he hated. He disliked the stables, and he was distressed at having been
given a new name.
I was given his real name, and telepathically I promised him that it would be
returned to him. I also suggested that he should think of himself as 'King of the Stables',
which he surely was.
Five days later, I had a phone call from the stable-girl to say that the patch on the
horse's side had healed and he no longer limped. She also told me that her employer had
been furious when she found out that she had consulted a healer, and had nearly sacked
the poor girl. However, she confirmed that I had been given the horse's correct original
name, and she informed the owner that he must restore this to keep his horse happy. The
owner and myself never communicated directly, but he must have taken notice because I
heard that the horse continued to be healthy and apparently happy.
Six months later the man who had first told me of the horse's plight came to see
me, absolutely delighted. After his usual weekly ride he had visited the horse's stable, and
there above the door was painted his original name, just as I had promised. Who knows
how my unseen friends had managed to influence the owner?
Just recently I had another occasion to have telepathic communication with a
horse; this one belonged to Alan's secretary, Caroline. She was delighted when she first
acquired Talisman, and he was a popular topic of conversation in the office. After a few
weeks, however, Alan noticed that Caroline wasn't herself and asked her rather
tentatively whether she had a problem. She told him she was upset because she would
probably have to sell her horse; he had become exceedingly difficult to catch, and she
often had to give up after chasing him round the field for hours. She was worn out!
That evening, when Alan told me about Caroline's problem, I said I would have a
word with Talisman. Straight away I sat down, closed my eyes, and visualized Caroline
with her horse. Using his name, I was able to make telepathic contact with him; probably
a few horse-loving minds also linked up with me to help. I conveyed to him that life
would be more peaceful if he obeyed Caroline's call.
Next day, when Alan asked after her horse, Caroline said: 'I can't believe it! Last
night he came straight to the gate when I called him!' Talisman has behaved perfectly
ever since.
There is one snag. Every time Caroline calls Talisman, the two horses with whom
he shares a field also come galloping up and try to follow him through the gate! Alan has
told me I must be more selective in future!
Although holding a telepathic conversation with a horse may sound a little odd to
some people, I don't think any real animal-lover will find it that unusual; Barbara
Woodhouse, for instance, seems to have had a very similar gift. After all, people have
had telepathic relationships with their animals since the beginning of time.
For mind-to-mind communication to take place in this way, animals must have a
certain amount of mind energy. I have never studied it as I have in humans, but when I
look at animals I can see a glow around them. Some animals are quite psychic and
attuned, and it must be their mind energy that enables lost cats and dogs to travel long
distances and find their way home.
Because of the incredible power of thought, absent healing can be carried out quite
rapidly. If I have an enormous number of people to heal, I simply put all their letters
together, or write their names on a sheet of paper; I put my hands on them, close my eyes
and put energy into them, saying mentally: Please help everyone here. That's all that's
needed: the thought is the deed.
I find it surprising that some people are sceptical about the power of absent
healing, yet still expect to get results from prayer. They pray to someone or something
they can't see or even begin to comprehend and yet they have such faith. I very rarely
pray for help, because I feel strongly that having been given a mind I should use it in a
positive manner all the time instead of asking someone else to do the job for me. When I
give absent healing I know there are minds picking up information and organizing the
energies, but I also visualize and use my own mind in a positive way.
I believe more prayers would be answered if the people asking for help also did
something positive at the same time. Somewhere along the line we must become
self-responsible. Each one of us has been given mind energy to use. We should allow it to
strengthen and expand, not keep it imprisoned within the confinement of limited beliefs.
All the same, there have been occasions when absent healing has been taken
completely out of my hands; it's as if, the moment I'm told about a problem, someone has
already seen to it. When I first met my agent, John, he told me he had suffered from a
severe wheat allergy for five years. He had to be extremely careful what he ate, and his
wife baked special bread for him. I said: 'Oh, I'll do something about that for you!'
Afterwards, though, I was so busy thinking about our discussion that I completely
forgot! Two days later I was sitting in the sun-lounge day-dreaming when a voice said:
'Ring John and tell him he's been cured.'
I felt very guilty as I'd forgotten all about it. I rang John at once and passed on the
message. Although he'd previously been sceptical, something must have convinced him,
because he said: 'Right! I'll have a wheat day tomorrow.'
Still feeling guilty, I thought I'd better back up the cure with some absent healing.
But as soon as I started to direct energy towards him I was blocked. I tried again, and was
blocked again. Then a voice said: 'The job has been done; the job is finished.'
It was comforting to know that as soon as John had told me his problem the
message had been received and dealt with.
No matter where you are in the world, absent healing can bring peace and a cure.
It is also extraordinary how people have been mentally uplifted by the influence of the
healing energies, with absent healing just as much as with contact healing. Their friends
remark on how they have changed and how much more positive their outlook has
become.
I have given absent healing to more people than I can possibly remember, but
there are a few that stay with me, especially children, and I shall be writing about some of
these later on. I have many times been asked to help children who have been given only a
short time to live; after absent healing they have recovered rapidly. Although I am used to
the powerful effects of healing, such cases still make me believe in miracles.
THREE
Mediumship
The public at large love to look upon mediums as mysterious, magical or evil,
depending on what stimulates them most! I would like to explain some of the mysteries
surrounding mediumship and try to correct the distorted image that many people conjure
up in their minds when the word is mentioned.
Most people are unaware of the energies that surround us all, and even those who
are aware may not give much thought to them. Why should they? Earning a living and
looking after a family are enough to occupy most people's minds. It is only when things
go wrong and the normal channels prove inadequate to help that people look for someone
who can offer them hope and peace.
Perhaps you have lost a partner or a relative. You may have heard about survival
evidence, but you are frightened to visit a medium because you have heard peculiar
stories about them. Let me reassure you. When you visit a reputable medium you will
probably come face to face with a quite ordinary-looking person, who will certainly put
you at your ease. If you find yourself with any other kind -don't go back!
Practically all professional mediums and healers are down-to-earth ordinary
people who do not consider themselves to be special. They use their talents every day and
accept them as normal rather than as paranormal. Just as with any gift - whether it's
music, carpentry or surgery -the more the gift is used, the more adept the user becomes.
To be a medium is to be a teacher: mediums are fed with information for the
benefit of mankind. We none of us know it all, but at least we can use our professional
skills to help others to learn. All types of teacher are needed today; not least, truly
spiritual teachers - who should not be confused with religious teachers, not all of whom
could be described as spiritual!
I have only visited four mediums in my life, all of whom were excellent. If I need
help for anything, from medicine to car maintenance, I always try to find the most
talented and highly recommended professional. Seeking a medium should be exactly the
same; if you don't want to be disappointed or misled, be sure to choose the very best.
Recommendation from someone who has already been helped is usually the safest way,
but if you don't know of anyone personally there are organizations you can contact. (Two
are listed at the end of the book.)
My healing work and my mediumship constantly overlap. Healing, I must confess,
especially when they are given information that turns out to be accurate. Like any form of
addiction this can be dangerous, negating the person's independence and
self-responsibility.
I have also been told many times by clients that after having received clairvoyance
they feel that they can sit back and allow things to happen. Then, when the predicted
events don't happen straight away, they become frustrated and sometimes angry. When I
realized that people were sitting back and doing nothing I felt quite upset, and didn't want
to give any more clairvoyance - in fact my friends think I'm mean because I am unwilling
to give them sittings. But I honestly find that, much more effective than predicting
wonderful futures, is to tell people about mind energy and encourage them to use it to
create their own wonderful futures!
Three years before I met Alan I visited a medium in London who told me that the
man with whom I was to share the rest of my life would come to live with me when the
daffodils were out. Every year as the daffodils came and went, I used to joke about it.
'Where is this man?' I'd complain to Janet. But I didn't take it too seriously, and carried on
with the rest of my life.
I love daffodils, and one autumn I planted a thousand bulbs in my garden. It was
about a month later that Michael Bentine told me that the man who would share my life
would be with me in the spring. The following March, Alan and I were enjoying together
the most beautiful spring I can ever remember, with daffodils everywhere we went! I
should also have been told to plant my own!
Simply waiting for things to happen is negative. I teach positivity and self-help;
negativity of any kind is harmful, not only to ourselves but also to those around us.
However, giving clairvoyance is a part of my work, and it is always interesting when my
predictions are fulfilled. This can take time: clairvoyance may show you the end of the
road, but not all the footsteps leading up to it or all the little paths leading off it before
you reach your destination. You have to walk that road and work out your own life
whether you know the future or not.
When people find they have to take the steps themselves, or start going up one of
those side-paths, they may think: This is nothing like the clairvoyance I was given! Then,
perhaps two years later, they'll ring up to say: 'You'll never guess what's happened!
Everything has turned out exactly as forecast!'
You also get the sceptics, who, rather than sit back and wait, go and do the
opposite of what the medium has recommended! One of these is a publisher friend called
John: over a period of two or three years he asked me regularly for clairvoyance, and then
deliberately went against any advice I gave him. This was partly because he didn't want
his decision-making influenced by anyone else, partly as an experiment to see whether
his behaviour would alter the outcome. In fact it never did; what I predicted always
happened!
This gift is part of my personality, and there's no question of switching it on and
off. It can arrive at any time and any place. I can be sitting at dinner enjoying the
conversation, and suddenly I am given information concerning one of the guests. When
clairvoyance arrives spontaneously like this, it is usually for a purpose. Sometimes it is to
convince the unconvinced. Because of the nature of Alan's work, we often entertain; at
one dinner-party I told an overseas client, who was rather sceptical about my work, that
his right-hand man would leave him within three months. He said this was most unlikely;
his colleague had been with him for twelve years. About three weeks later he phoned
Alan to say that the man had given notice.
Usually the purpose of spontaneous clairvoyance is to comfort and reassure
someone who is anxious or under stress. I also feel that when it comes unsought it is
much more reliable than it might be if I were giving sittings for hour after hour. Mediums
often have to interpret the information they receive; if they are unwell or tired, there is a
risk of their giving an incorrect interpretation. The well-being of the client must always
be uppermost in the clairvoyant's mind; I always make sure that what I give to others has
come to me so clearly that I can't be mistaken.
My friend Louise received very detailed spontaneous clairvoyance on her first
visit to me for healing, which was also our first meeting. She had just embarked on a
second marriage and in the autumn of 1983 she and her husband, anxious to start a new
home together, had started looking for a country cottage in Oxfordshire.
However, I immediately saw that they would be moving to Sussex, where they
would be near a commuter line. (Louise has to travel to London for her work.)
Accordingly, the couple began house-hunting in Sussex. At first
they had no luck, but on her next visit I was still certain that Sussex was where
they would find their dream cottage. The clarity of the pictures given to me was amazing;
I could see the South Downs and the surrounding countryside as if I were there.
And I had further information for Louise. 'Although you can go on looking,' I said,
'the cottage will in fact find you.' I described it to her as I saw it: 'It has hills in the
distance, it's surrounded by trees and there is some sort of pond adjacent to it. Although
there is a large house next to it, I don't think you will be able to afford that one. The
cottage is not free at the moment, but you will be in it by next summer.'
Within a week, Louise had received a phone call from her sister to say that her
husband's uncle had just died, leaving everything to his sister. The property included a
big house in Sussex which had been sold, and a cottage next door which the sister was
thinking of selling. Louise asked me to go and see it with them; before we set out she
showed me a photograph of the cottage. I said: 'Yes, this is the house I saw. It belongs to
a woman who has only about three weeks to live.'
When we drove down there it was just as I had seen it: a charming rosy brick
cottage, next to a large, beautiful but dilapidated house - which the couple could certainly
not have afforded! It was in a country area, but near a commuter line. The garden, which
included a sunken lawn, was bordered by trees and had an uninterrupted view of the
South Downs at one end - all exactly as I had seen it. But I was puzzled. I told Louise:
'This is just what I saw, but there is no water. I know there was water.'
The new owner was very ill and was in fact to die within a month, but before then
Louise and her husband took me to meet her, along with a young cousin. While I gave the
sick woman some healing to relieve her pain, Louise and her husband walked in the
garden with the cousin. He suddenly burst out in an embarrassed way: 'There's one thing I
ought to have told you about the house. When my uncle bought it, there was a pond
where the sunken lawn is, so it may be very damp!'
That was obviously where I had seen the water. Could the previous owner have
been giving me the information and showing me the scene as he had seen it the first time?
He had obviously loved the place, and I feel sure that he wanted the next owners to love
it, too. Louise tells me that the house, with its calm beauty and ancient atmosphere, feels
very important to them both; it has not only given them roots, but is also a source of
inspiration to her husband, who is a writer.
The actual purchase was dragged out by legal complications and the sale of
Louise's London house, but in August 1984 they finally moved in. A curious and pleasant
postscript to the story is that not long afterwards Alan and I moved to our present home,
which is ten minutes' walk away!
After their move, Louise wrote to me: 'During all this doubt and worry, the power
of your clairvoyance and the accuracy in detail after detail and your assurance that we
would eventually live in the cottage kept our spirits and determination going.'
However, knowing it's all going to come right in the end doesn't mean that you can
stop making an effort.
Another potential misuse of clairvoyance is when clients simply want
decision-making taken out of their hands, which isn't good for anyone. Sometimes I've
asked these people, 'What do you want out of life?' and received the answer, 'I want
someone to tell me.' But we were all given minds with which to plan our own lives. Most
people know at heart what they would like to achieve: the best help you can give yourself
is to visualize your goal in your mind and work steadily towards it.
It is your life, and there is always a choice. If you can train yourself to have 'clear
vision' by being positive and independent and working hard for your ultimate goals, you
hold your fate in your own hands. It's always best to try to make positive decisions for
yourself, and only seek clairvoyance when the situation is confused.
One situation I have learned to avoid is giving clairvoyance to both partners in a
troubled relationship. The clairvoyant can only too easily be used as a scapegoat; each
partner can bring out information given in confidence and use it as a weapon against the
other, instead of taking responsibility for their own feelings and opinions.
Clairvoyance is very useful for surveying houses! If I am given an address, I can
immediately list any existing problems. Only recently I did this for a friend: I could see
that among other things there were two defective slates and a cracked gutter, although the
builders were supposed to have completed the roof. They were sent back to have another
look, and this time they found them! I have detected faulty damp courses which have
eluded the surveyor, and I can also tell whether there is a bad atmosphere, or whether the
neighbours are likely to be difficult - all extremely useful to anyone before buying a
house.
One young couple came to me about six years ago; they were interested in a
house, but the price was suspiciously low, and there seemed to be a great deal of secrecy
concerning the previous tenants. I was able to tell them that the previous tenants had
suffered serious health problems because the house was built above a stream.
Underground streams, however deep, usually have an adverse effect on health, and I
advised the couple not to buy. They took my advice; later, the existence of the stream was
confirmed by a well-known dowser.
Another helpful clairvoyant gift is my ability, on being given a name, to describe
the owner's character: it is as though someone shows me a file with all the relevant
information in it. I can't remember how many thousands of names I have been given over
the years, but the detailed summing-up I receive always turns out to be accurate. I am
often asked how this can be, when so many people have the same name: I can only
assume that someone who is aware of the person concerned is responsible for beaming
the information to me.
When Alan was about to visit Hong Kong for the first time, he made some
appointments in advance. He gave me the names of three Chinese contacts he was to
meet, and I wrote down the clairvoyant information I was given about them - they were
all three totally different. He phoned me a week later to say I had been right about them
all. He still used his own judgement, as he always does, but this extra knowledge
reinforced his confidence.
East, where he had already spent some time studying. More important, the move would
introduce him to some high-powered and influential people, who would be of great help
when he came to fulfil his destiny.
I knew that he was on a spiritual path, and would eventually help other people. I
told him about some of his previous lives, which he had shared with his wife, and
reassured him that there were people looking after him and channelling him in the right
direction.
Our talk continued for a long time, and Andrew was so overwhelmed by all I told
him that he forgot to ask for hypnotherapy. In a recent letter to me, he comments: 'I
cannot really adequately describe the feelings of tremendous inner peace and well-being I
felt after my visit. I had felt at a very low ebb, but after leaving, a profound feeling of
relief and happiness.'
The fact that Andrew's future was already planned out for him didn't mean that it
was all made easy. As he says, 'You're pointed in a certain direction, and then it's up to
you.'
It happened that he had already been interviewed by a company which was
considering opening up a branch in Singapore, but had heard no more from them. Shortly
after his visit to me, they asked him to prepare a proposal about why and how they should
set up a Far Eastern branch. He prepared the proposal, which involved a good deal of
work, and again heard nothing for some time.
After a six-week wait, he telephoned them because the firm he was with was going
through major changes, and he felt it would not be right to take part in these if he was
leaving. This time his proposal was accepted, and he was offered a three-month trial
period to set up the headquarters in Singapore. He achieved this successfully in August
1986, and has been working there happily ever since. He has since written to me that he
has met the important people I told him of, and 'everything you forecast has come true.'
Incidentally, I saw Andrew several times for healing after that first visit; he was
still failing to beat his smoking habit on his own, and the following June I gave
hypnotherapy for this. Since then, he has never wanted to smoke.
As for his spiritual path, he says he would describe himself as 'a very ethical
businessman', and feels that the experience he is gaining now is in some way preparing
him for a future in which his talents will be of use to others.
It always surprises me when people ask me about my religion. Healers and
mediums belong to all sorts of religion, but healing is a beautiful spiritual experience. To
me there is an important distinction. Religion is a man-made concept, with sets of rules
based on the Bible or other religious books. Spirituality is your spontaneous reaction to
life: if you are a loving and compassionate person, you won't need rules to stop you from
doing wrong or harmful actions; you will simply not want to.
Truly spiritual people are those who have lived and learned through many
lifetimes, and have acquired love and compassion as their minds have expanded. There
are levels and degrees of spirituality, according to how far your mind has progressed.
Spiritually progressed people do not need to be guided by religious dogma; in fact I find
that they have a code of honour and a tolerance that I don't always see practised by some
people who regard themselves as religious!
We all have a perfect right to believe what we wish according to our spiritual
awareness. What we haven't the right to do is to impose our ideas on others or crucify
them if their beliefs differ from ours. We all have different paths and we should follow
the one that brings the most peace and satisfaction to ourselves. So I always advise
people to listen to what others say, ignore it if they wish, but never ridicule them.
What is most important to my spiritual beliefs is the certainty that we continue
living after death. Like all forms of energy, mind energy is indestructible; therefore the
mind cannot die. Only the brain, which is matter, dies. I have seen mind energy leaving
the dying, and I am convinced that this is the part of them that lives on - the spirit in fact.
The mind simply moves into another dimension where it is free from its limiting physical
counterpart; it is able to help with healing and to communicate through mediums.
It is a great pity that something so wonderful should appear to many people to be
fearful. The people who want to communicate are the friends or relatives they loved
while they were alive, and their personalities are still exactly the same. But in the
dimension they now occupy they are able to see much more clearly and further ahead; no
longer locked in a time-capsule, as we are on earth, they are able to warn us or guide us,
and if linked to us by love can also share in our joys or anxieties. (I believe that we
ourselves escape from being time-bound by leaving our bodies in our sleep. That is why
some dreams are predictive, and also why, when we go to sleep with a problem, we often
wake up with the answer.)
In both this dimension and the next, we learn lessons which help us to progress.
Most of us go through many reincarnations, each one with a specific purpose. As we
progress through numerous journeys of enlightenment our spirituality hopefully
increases, and as the mind expands the mind energy becomes finer and finer. Most of us
around today are on a low-to-middle rung of the ladder; only a few people in this
dimension are truly progressed spirits.
In this sense, I don't think that most healers and mediums are terribly 'spiritual'.
What all mediums have in common is that they have expansive mind energies, which can
reach out and touch into the next dimension, and are capable of acting as receivers
through which the 'dead' can communicate, in mind-to-mind contact. I get rather annoyed
when people expect mediums to be 'holier than thou'. They need to be down to earth, or
they would lose their human touch and their ability to cope with the very earthly
problems they confront, both during their development and daily in their work.
Compassion is more important than either intellect or an oversensitive 'holi-All good
mediums are people who are willing to serve and help others by passing on messages
from the dead. This activity, incidentally, expands the mind further.
There are people who disapprove of efforts to contact the 'dead'. I have never tried
to contact the dead. They are so busy contacting me that I am usually relieved to have a
break! Over centuries the minds of the deceased have been trying desperately to prove to
the living that there is survival after death. Accepting this message would remove the fear
of dying and make our present lives far happier.
There is no doubt in my mind that I have been taught by unseen people all my life.
I have been persuaded to seek knowledge and discouraged from wasting time. When I
have ignored their advice, my way has been blocked, and nothing goes right until I am on
the right path again. It is through this guidance that I have learned about mind energy,
and that the mind and the personality survive the death of the physical body.
One question I have been asked time after time is whether there isn't a danger of
evil minds communicating. Let me put that fear to rest for good. There is no chance of
attracting a 'nasty' if you visit a genuine and positive-minded medium or healer. Someone
who is working continually to alleviate suffering can only attract like minds.
I know that I have been taught by the finest teachers, and one lesson has been
repeated again and again. There is a universal law that dictates that whatever we give out
will be returned in full, often many times over. I have also been taught that love unites,
hate destroys. Love and compassion are the link to the power that manifests through a
good medium or healer. Love in its purest form is the ultimate energy.
Healers and mediums absorb knowledge all the time, and it can come in a variety
of ways. Sometimes a voice speaks clearly to me while I'm occupied with something like
washing up. At other times information is impressed on my mind less directly,
particularly if my mind is in another dimension, as it is when I'm healing. The realization
of what I have been given will come later: I may be writing or meditating when a
fascinating idea will come to the surface. (My editor says it sounds like putting a
programmed disk into a word processor; all the information is on it, but you can't read it
until you switch on and bring it up on the screen!)
It is often suggested that survival evidence is obtained through telepathic
communication between the sitter and the medium. I have tested this theory time and
time again; it is certainly possible for some basic information to be picked up in this way,
but the quality of a genuine communication is quite unmistakable. As you will see from
the stories in the next chapter, it is quite usual for evidence to be given which can only be
confirmed much later on, when more information has come to light.
Telepathy is really the ability to alter your mental wavelength, enabling you to
attune to another mind. My ability to communicate with the minds of other species is
purely telepathic. Some people can cultivate and practise telepathy, but more often than
not it occurs by chance - most people have had the experience of 'knowing' when a friend
was about to ring.
Thought is vibration, therefore mind interaction is invariably 'like to like': only
minds with the same vibrational frequencies can communicate with each other. Minds
with differing vibrations would be unable to do so. This is why, incidentally, some people
will find themselves getting better survival evidence from one medium than from
another, who in turn may give brilliant evidence to someone else. (Another reason why
not all mediums are brilliant all the time is that there is a great demand for their services.
It is so easy to fall into the trap of overworking and, as in any job, when fatigue creeps in,
talent - psychic or otherwise - suffers.)
My psychic talents have for years brought peace, happiness and hope to people,
not through any knowledge of mine but from those, now deceased, who have
communicated through me. I have seen people transformed in minutes as I pass on
information which only they could possibly identify with. Details of names, addresses
and past experiences leave them in no doubt who the messages are from.
I have seen spirits standing or sitting beside people in restaurants, pubs, trains,
buses, airports - in fact just about everywhere! I don't have to be very quiet or create a
special atmosphere. If you are totally psychic, there is no need at all for dim lights and
hushed surroundings. I also find that evidence given in everyday settings is often more
easily accepted by people who might be too sceptical, or too scared, to visit a medium.
When I was living in Sutton, the telephone rang constantly with requests for
absent healing. It was fascinating how spirit people used to appear as soon as I answered
the phone. Sometimes it was quite unnerving for the person at the other end when I told
them I had a deceased relative or friend standing beside me who wanted to communicate
with them. The evidence was often so detailed that it would go on for an hour. Spirit
people still arrive when people telephone me, but these days I no longer have the time to
continue at such length.
The first time I saw a spirit actually waiting for someone to arrive, I walked into
my healing-room and was surprised to see a shadowy woman sitting in one of the chairs.
She sat looking straight ahead of her, as if expecting someone, so I left her alone.
When my next caller arrived a few minutes later, she looked exactly like a
younger version of the presence in the healing-room, and I told her I thought her mother
was waiting for her. When we went in the spirit was no longer visible, but she
immediately began communicating with her daughter through me. In order to materialize,
spirits have to make use of the energies available; then, when they want to communicate,
they generally disappear from view since there may not be enough energy to do both. To
project themselves into this dimension both visibly and audibly requires a tremendous
effort.
For an hour my patient's mother talked about their family, giving names and
addresses, and messages for family members. Some of the information meant nothing to
my sitter; this quite often happens, but when I ask the person to check it out with other
relatives the meaning always becomes clear. As this young woman was leaving I asked
whether she and her mother had looked alike; she laughed and told me they had always
been mistaken for each other. Then she thanked me profusely; knowing for certain that
her mother had survived the death of the physical body had made her feel quite
differently about life.
Since then I have had countless similar experiences. I can't recall how many times
I have been told, 'You have changed my life' - always, I am happy to add, for the better.
So many minds are trying to change all our lives
for our benefit; for thousands of years they have been desperately trying to prove
the survival of the mind. Yet we still doubt.
The dead have various ways of contacting us. A very common phenomenon is the
healing-room being suddenly filled with the most beautiful fragrance, usually the
favourite perfume of a relative who has chosen this way to identify herself. Another
method with which I am experimenting is through tape-recordings. Despite the regular
interference, I still record whilst healing because sometimes interesting things happen.
Once when we played a tape back we could hear the sound of coughing. The
person with me identified it as his father, who had died of emphysema; he said he could
never forget that sound. I've never - so far - recorded the voices of spirit helpers.
However, on one occasion a friend brought a brand-new tape which we recorded on
while healing. On playing it back we were very moved when we heard the most exquisite
music; sadly, the next time we put it on the music had completely disappeared.
I experiment with tapes all the time; most of the results have been mediocre so far,
but I am convinced that at some time the voices of the so-called deceased will use this
method of communication. I have also done some experiments on the interference with a
well-known physicist. He told me that the sound is called 'white noise'; it seems that the
energies around me are affecting every known wavelength. Once when we were in the
middle of recording a voice called out 'Hey!' in a rather comic-sounding Cockney accent,
startling us both. The house was perfectly quiet both inside and out; his wife was also
present in the house, and we all agreed that the voice could not have come from outside.
Some minds choose quite comical methods of communicating! Indeed, since
practising as a professional medium I have enjoyed more humour in my life than ever
before. This might seem odd to anyone who believes that communicating with the dead
should be a serious and solemn affair. But you can't be miserable when the so-called
'dead' are as hilarious as they were in real life.
I don't think the communicator in the following story was intending to be funny,
but we've laughed a lot about it since. My friend Fred is an electrician, and worked in
partnership with his father-in-law before the latter's death. Very early in my healing
career, his wife Shirley asked me to give hand-analysis sessions to herself and a friend. (I
was still at the stage when I didn't quite trust my powers of mediumship and was using
the hand as a focus.)
On the night they arrived I asked Shirley to sit downstairs whilst her friend
Margaret and I went up to the small room I used when I wanted to be peaceful. When we
returned Shirley said: 'You poor thing, what terrible neighbours you've got! All the time
you were upstairs someone was jumping on the floor with hob-nailed boots!'
I looked at her in astonishment. Our Sutton flat was built like a castle, solid as a
rock, and the first few months of frantic phenomena had stopped. Margaret and I had
heard nothing. 'Perhaps it was the pigeons,' I suggested. Shirley looked at me
disbelievingly. Before her session we looked through all the upstairs rooms, but found
nothing unusual.
During Shirley's reading, without realizing what I was doing I let go of her hand
and said: 'Your father-in-law is saying that when rewiring factories Fred should attach a
piece of string to an electric cable and tie it to a mouse's tail; put a piece of cheese at the
far end and it will be easy for the mouse to pull a new wire through the conduit.' It
sounded so nonsensical that Shirley and I looked at each other and burst out laughing. I
said: 'I'm sorry about that. I expect he was just pulling our leg.'
When we finally went downstairs, Margaret was as white as a sheet. 'I've heard it
as well - just like someone with hob-nailed boots jumping on the floor. What on earth is
it?' I was as puzzled as they were. It was quite different from the sort of phenomenon I
normally experienced - somehow much more earthy and physical.
Shirley rang me next day to say that she had given Fred his father's message while
they were in bed, and he was flabbergasted. On their last job together his father had said:
'What we need in this business is to put a piece of cheese at the far end, and attach the
electric cable to a pet mouse's tail and run it through!' Fred tells me that since then an
electrical gadget called a 'mouse' has actually been invented to do just this.
Then, just when Fred had decided it was time for sleep, Shirley mentioned the
noise that had puzzled us all. This was almost too much for Fred, who went quite white.
He told Shirley that before his father did any electrical job in a house he would always
jump on the floor to see how safe it was. What's more, he always wore boots, which
made an awful noise. Fred was quite shaken and didn't want to know any more.
But Shirley and I always have to laugh when we recall that evening, and the spirit
who leaped around in hobnailed boots!
Fred and Shirley have received a lot of healing and clairvoyance from me. At one
time when Fred was coming regularly for healing his father made contact at every
session. Through me, he gave Fred the names of people who would offer him contracts,
together with the exact nature and value of each one. He was always right; it became a
weekly occurrence for Shirley to ring me to say that, once again, confirmation had been
received.
Fred never quite got used to these communications! But it was his father's way of
giving help when it was most needed, and a perfect example of how, even after death,
people who care for us can give us not only love but also very practical assistance.
There are thousands of people walking the streets today who have had wonderful
survival evidence but are too afraid of what people might think to talk about it openly. It
is rather like an underground movement, unseen and unheard until there is an explosion.
Perhaps this book will help light a fuse.
FOUR
The Survival of the Mind
He who sees this does not see death; He sees neither illness nor suffering. He who
sees this sees all that is, He attains everything everywhere.
Cbandogya Upanishad, vn, 2.6, 2
In 1985 a young man lost his ex-wife and children in a particularly horrific
fashion. The story, with all the ingredients of a murder mystery, grabbed the newspaper
headlines. For the bereaved young man, this was real life and not a thriller. By the time
he contacted me a year later, although someone had been accused, the mystery, as far as
he was concerned, was still unsolved. He had been through an enormous amount of
cultivated a babyish voice because he was the younger by a few minutes. A little later, I
heard this younger voice saying: 'You'll know that I'm Nicholas.' That, said Colin, was
what he always used to say, to make sure he wasn't muddled up with his brother Daniel.
Daniel never felt the need to make that distinction.
Michael gave him two names, one of them mine, and said: 'Don't tell me anything
else about yourself, because the less I know, the more value there will be in what the
medium will tell you.' Although I lived relatively far away, there was apparently
something about the name Shine that appealed to him. In the summer of 1986, some three
months after reading Michael's book, he telephoned me.
All he told me about himself was that his first name was Colin. Immediately, I got
a strong impression and said: 'My God, your nervous system is in tatters! It's shot to
pieces! Did you have a nervous breakdown two or three months ago, or come close to
one?' He agreed that he had - though he hadn't thought that his voice betrayed the fact but that he felt a lot calmer now.
I went on: 'You need healing yourself, but I can give you absent healing. You have
a good friend with you, who's with you the whole time, and he's sort of looking after you.'
Colin, thinking of a pal who had been staying with him to keep an eye on him,
said: 'Yes, that's right.'
'And he died in a road accident about three years ago.'
'What?'
'He seems to have been with you for the last eight months. Does that ring any
bells? He's someone you had a very good rapport with.' Colin immediately remembered
that eight months ago he had heard of the death of a good friend he had once worked
with, who had been killed on a motorbike about two years earlier. Suddenly he began to
understand why everything around him was beginning to fall into place.
While we were still on the telephone I received a great deal of clairvoyant
information which I passed on to him. I told him: 'Your friend is saying that the project
you are working on is very, very important, and you may have to go out on a limb over
it.'
Colin was very impressed by this, as it wasn't a phrase he had heard used much,
but he had just read Shirley. Then an older man came through; I described his
personality, and Colin recognized it as his father-in-law. This man was very angry about
something; I told Colin that the man himself would have to deal with it. This bothered
Colin, because it seemed to be something over and above the terrible events, and he
couldn't understand what it was. (Now he does, and the reason will probably be made
public in due course.) The man now started shouting about someone called David. 'Who's
David?' I asked. 'This man is saying that David knows all the answers.'
'That'll be his nephew.'
'Well, David knows all the answers, and at some time or another David is going to
have to tell you.'
At this point, knowing that David's evidence was important and also confidential,
Colin made up his mind that I had given him enough survival evidence to convince him.
He decided to tell me that his full name was Colin Caffell; it was his ex-wife Sheila, the
model called 'Bambi', who had been murdered with their two children and her parents in
a mass shooting at an Essex farmhouse the year before. Her brother Jeremy had by now
been charged with the murders.
The police had told David Boutflour not to speak to anyone, including Colin, so no
one at that time knew that David was the person who found a blood-stained silencer in
the gun-cupboard, as well as other evidence showing that things had been set up to
incriminate Sheila. Colin has been writing his own story, so I won't go into further detail
about the shootings. But many of the things that 1 was able to tell him did not make sense
until much later, some time after the trial.
Colin was simply glad to know that the twins were well and happy, and greatly
comforted when he learned that they had made the transition in their sleep. I told him:
'They're laughing. Every time they come through, they are laughing.' Colin told me that
was how they were in life; everything struck them as hilarious! 'Although it's tragic,'
I said, 'it's almost as though they made the transition so quickly they didn't have
time to think about anything.'
'What about Sheila?' he asked. 'Did she know what happened?'
I said: 'Your wife has been put into a state of rest. She is being looked after.'
I was then given a great deal of information about Colin's work. 'Do you do
sculpture?' I asked. He told me that he was a potter by profession, but had just started
experimenting with sculpture; he was planning a sculpture of Sheila and the twins. I told
him: 'It's not a gift you were born with; it's been given you for a purpose. A sculptor has
attached himself to you for his own progression, and because he has the same vibrational
rate as you. He's been given the job of helping you.' (At that time I couldn't give the
sculptor's name, but later on when I spent an evening with Colin I was given the name of
Rodin. And, later on still, another medium also told Colin that Rodin was working
through him.)
I then told him that eventually that particular gift would leave him, once it had
fulfilled its purpose. 'The last two sculptures you'll do will be of your children, because I
can see them finished. Then that will be the finish of that part of your life. You will have
paid a debt, as it were - not that you owe them anything, but it is your debt to yourself.
It's almost as though the living minds of your children are going to enter these pieces.' I
could also see that he had a gift as a writer, and that in future he would be helping people
through writing and lecturing.
After our first session Colin felt greatly reassured. He checked over the tape and
transcribed it; there were a few things he felt that I might have picked up telepathically,
but overall he was convinced. He played the tape to a very sceptical friend of his, Brian,
who had previously warned him against visiting 'occult types'. Brian was amazed at the
transformation in him. 'So much light shone from him and still does,' he wrote afterwards.
'It was as though Betty had almost brought the people who were lost in the tragedy back
to him. He was totally convinced they were well and happy.'
Brian, who is in the music Business and was going through a bad time himself,
decided to come to see me, too; he made an appointment without telling me of his
connection with Colin. I was able to advise and help him; numerous people came through
whom he could not fail to recognize, among them one of Colin's twins, Daniel. He
reminded Brian that he used to sit on his shoulders to try to reach 'a big silver balloon in
the air' in a place full of flashing lights. Brian recognized this as a mirror ball hung from
the ceiling that Daniel had wanted to play with at one of their performances. He found
this all the more convincing because only Daniel would sit on his shoulders. Nicholas
considered it too babyish!
For the no longer sceptical Brian, the coup de grace was when a little boy called
Harry also came through, wanting to say 'Hi! and thanks for the chance to play the piano!'
Brian was staggered; three years before he had been in a band that had played at the
Royal Albert Hall. Harry was about twelve, a keen young pianist whose parents were
friends of Brian. Before the performance Brian had invited him to come early for the
sound check, and to have a look at the keyboard instruments. The band had let Harry play
the Steinway grand piano for the sound engineer to set the test, and for ten minutes or so
Harry had played the piano at the Albert Hall, pure happiness written all over his face.
Harry had died tragically shortly before Brian's visit. But what he recalled was that happy
occasion, not the sadness of his death.
Colin was quite satisfied with the evidence he had been given at our session, but
he received even more when he joined us for dinner one evening shortly before
Christmas. Once again the twins came through, still laughing and happy, and we all had
to put down our knives and forks and listen to what they had to say! Interestingly, they
mentioned that someone called Ollie was 'still sad'. Ollie was a friend of Colin who had
taken his own life when
the twins were quite small; the point of this message seemed to be that suicide is
not an answer! I have also had many suicides who have come through quite quickly and
have found peace of mind; clearly, it is we ourselves who eventually have to make the
effort to progress.
Next, the twins told Colin not to forget to hang his Christmas bell again this year;
they were referring to a Christmas wind-chime with a model Bambi attached to it, which
hung on a rose-bush behind their grave. Colin didn't discover until his next visit to the
cemetery that it had gone missing and had to be replaced - the twins were evidently there
ahead of him. And then they told us: 'Mummy's back. She's awake. She's been to see us.'
Later on, Sheila herself came through and sent a personal message to Colin.
Since that time, Colin has been growing and progressing as a person. He has been
both sculpting and writing, has been to a number of workshops on healing and similar
subjects, and visited the spiritual community of Findhorn. Above all, writing his own
book has helped him to make sense of what must have seemed a total waste of so many
lives.
Few lives are really wasted. I have included Colin's story at length because it
contains so many of the things I teach: that the mind and the personality do not die, that
we come here with a purpose, and that what we don't learn or fulfil in this life we carry
on to the next. It also shows the value of mediumship and survival evidence.
In my experience people only receive information from the 'dead' when they are in
need, or when there is a real purpose behind the communication. That's why people who
visit mediums simply out of curiosity can be disappointed. The main purpose of survival
evidence is to prove to those living in this dimension that the mind does not and cannot
die; this explains why some messages from the 'dead' appear trivial to those not
personally involved. Those unexciting messages concerned with small domestic details
show that the communicators are still watching over the people they care about.
Many of my clients have told me that they never thought they would find
themselves sitting talking with a medium or a healer: that they'd never been able to
understand why others needed to seek such help. Nevertheless, there they were, sitting in
my room, because they were in desperate need and could think of nobody else who could
help them. Probably the most common reason for the 'dead' wishing to communicate with
their friends and relatives is simply to bring them peace of mind. This happened recently
with my daughter Janet. She had a very close friend, a pupil at her yoga class called
Annette. Long before she fell ill, she and Janet used to have deep conversations about life
and death and what the afterlife would be like. Annette often used to say: 'If anything
happens to me, I shall certainly come back and let you know.'
Annette had a lot of stress in her personal life, and at only forty-three she became
riddled with cancer; even so, she managed during her last few months to be of great help
to someone close to her who had severe problems. When she died, Janet was
grief-stricken; knowing that your friends survive doesn't stop you missing them. One
evening, while meditating, she thought: The person I'd most like to hear from is Annette.
It happened that the next day I had invited Charles Horrey - the medium who had
originally told me I must be a healer - to lunch; I wanted to thank him and tell him how
I'd been doing in the last thirteen years. Janet was not with us, and didn't even know he
was coming. In the middle of the meal I was chatting to Charles when he said: 'Hang on,
I must stop you, Betty, because I have Annette here.'
It was quite clearly Janet's friend, who told us that she was glad to be released
from all her pain; that she was now totally happy and peaceful, and thrilled to find herself
in a very beautiful place.
Janet was thrilled, too, when I told her about this; it was just what she needed at
that time. Although she herself has given some extraordinary survival evidence, and has
often received it from me, it was the first time she had heard it from another medium. It is
nice that it should have come through Charles Horrey!
Some people object that visiting mediums is a way to avoid going through the
grieving process. This isn't my experience. Coping with the death of someone we have
loved dearly, or even an acquaintance with whom we have spent time, is always difficult.
What we are really suffering from, however, is our own selfishness. This is something we
have to deal with throughout life, but death really brings it home to us. Of course it is
normal to grieve. However, most people go to mediums a little while after a death when,
like Colin and Janet, they have been through the grieving process and feel that enough is
enough. When grief continues too long it is very unproductive. Learning that their loved
ones are alive and happy releases people from their negative grief; they themselves can
become happy and positive again, and get on with living.
If you think about it, death, whether through accident or through disease, occurs
because of the breakdown of the physical body. When we cease to be healthy, and
suffering goes on a long time, death is a gift. Therefore, we should be happy for those
whose minds have been freed from pain. I have known some people who, knowing that a
relative is going to die of a painful or debilitating disease, have been able to do their
grieving beforehand. The grief is not suppressed, but when that person finally leaves
them they are able to feel glad for and with them. This seems to me a very positive
approach.
I don't believe in visiting mediums time and time again; this kind of obsession has
given mediumship a bad name. If you want to keep in touch with someone and send them
your love, you can always sit quietly and think about them. If people want to see me
more than twice for survival evidence, I try quite firmly to dissuade them. I point out that
it isn't healthy to go on living in the past, nor is it good for the person who has moved
into the other dimension and needs to get on with life there. Mentally hanging on holds
them imprisoned by your mind. If they come back later without being sought after, then it
will be of their own free will and for a good reason, not because they feel obliged to keep
reassuring the bereaved.
Children are perhaps the hardest of all to let go of; the death of a child is always
tragic. When a mother or father receives evidence that their child is happy, and
continuing to learn and grow, it can bring them enormous comfort and help them to let
the child go. In fact bereaved parents are in constant touch with their children, did they
but know it; the children are obviously aware of this even if the parents are not. Very
often after a child has come through the mother will say: 'Isn't that strange - I've been
dreaming about him!' I will explain that she has not been merely dreaming but has
actually left her body during sleep to be reunited with the child. (This is also the case in
many dreams about 'dead' friends and loved ones.)
In fact the mind is ageless, in the sense in which we understand ageing. But the
spirit of a departed child will come through as a child, and will even continue growing up
in the other dimension in order to show the mother that life continues after death. Colin's
twins told us that when they first arrived they were being looked after by a relative. There
are people in the other dimension who choose to help children; in Colin's case a woman
came through whom he couldn't remember but who had had a strong connection with
Colin's own childhood. Later he learned who she was, and that she had lost her own twins
at birth. Now she belonged to a group whose task was to take care of children. She told us
that the twins were very happy, and continuing their lives as they had here, each
following his individual path.
Quite often people are truly liberated by death, especially if the mind has been
trapped and is unable to express itself in an impaired body. One day I was giving healing
to a young Australian when a young man came
through; he told us that he had drowned in a pond near his home in Australia. He
described his home and the surrounding countryside, and added that although he had been
very happy on earth it was only now that his mind was free of his body that he knew what
it was to be a whole person.
My client listened intently; he clearly knew who the young man was, and appeared
very moved as the message went on. The speaker was insistent that he should relay his
words to his mother in Australia, telling her how much he had loved her and thanking her
for the love she had given him. At the end of this very touching piece of survival
evidence my Australian friend told me that the communicator had been his brother, who
in this life had suffered from Downs syndrome. Later, he told me that the message had
indeed brought peace to their mother.
We do not stop learning after death; on the contrary, it is important to continue to
progress spiritually, which includes making up for past mistakes or for any hurts we may
have caused to others. It is not unusual for minds to come through to ask forgiveness for
something they have done, or failed to do, during their lifetime.
One young woman, Jilly, was sitting with me when her father, who had died two
weeks before, came through and begged for her forgiveness. 'There is nothing for him to
feel guilty about,' she said, but he was adamant that there was, and that he was very
unhappy about it. 'I changed my will,' he told her, 'but I promise you I will make it up to
you somehow.'
About a week later Jilly learned that her father had left his entire estate to a
woman he had just met, rendering his daughter homeless. She was heartbroken, though
she was helped by recalling her father's promise.
Three years later, her paternal aunt died unexpectedly, leaving Jilly a small
fortune, and telling her in a letter that she had felt it only right to leave her the money
because she had been so wronged by her father. Coincidence? I don't think so. I have
heard too many stories like this to
believe they could all be coincidences. When people make promises in the other
dimension, they keep them, and her father must have impressed his wishes on his sister.
Incidentally, Jilly had not told her aunt, or anyone else, about her father's messages,
knowing they would not have approved of her visiting a medium!
Sometimes a mind will come through simply to help someone they were fond of in
life. Jean and her mother, Mrs G, had never visited a medium or a healer before.
Although Jean came for healing, their beliefs about life after death were totally changed
in one and a half hours.
Jean had been in a car accident in America, and specialists there and in Britain had
advised her to have her spleen removed as she was bleeding internally. She wanted to
avoid this if she could, and on the recommendation of a friend got in touch with me for
healing. I'm glad to say she completely recovered after two healing sessions and no
operation was necessary.
On her first visit she brought her mother with her, and it was to Mrs G that I
suddenly found myself passing on advice concerning her finances. What I was given was
so extraordinarily detailed and specific that I could hardly believe it myself. It was even
more of a shock when the communicator told me who he was. In his lifetime he had been
a very well known financier; there could have been no one in the world better able to
advise on finance.
When I told Mrs G his name, I laughed because it seemed so incredible, but she
looked at me seriously and told me that this man had been her greatest friend and had
always advised her when he was alive. Her whole face was illuminated; she didn't need to
tell me what happiness this contact had given her.
I had no idea who Jean and her mother were before they came to see me. There
could have been no question of telepathic communication between us since the action
advised by her unseen friend was not in her mind; in fact, she told me, she would never
have thought of taking the course he recommended! I learned later that she had done as
he suggested, and that it turned out extremely well.
In the last hundred years all kinds of mediums have made their appearance in this
country - trance, physical and mental mediums, some of them of very high quality. Yet
there are still closed-minded people who claim that at best they have nothing to offer and
at worst they are charlatans. It is true that because psychic phenomena can't always be
produced to order some mediums in the past became afraid of failing and being ridiculed,
and decided to cheat a little. This was their downfall, and it did no service to their cause.
All the wonderful things they had proved were discounted because someone with no
understanding of mediumistic gifts had something to hang them with.
One of the most dramatic pieces of evidence I have ever witnessed was on the
platform of a local spiritualist church-hall. This was early in my healing days, when I was
still exploring the psychic field, and we were promised an evening of 'transfiguration'. I
managed to persuade Janet to accompany me, which she did with great reluctance!
I had no idea what to expect. I had read about transfiguration and knew that it was
a very rare gift, hardly ever seen. I set off for the meeting feeling quite excited, though
armed with a great deal of scepticism. When we arrived the hall was packed with several
hundred people; we found our seats and sat quietly for about ten minutes.
The medium's rather theatrical appearance on the platform caused quite a stir.
When everyone had settled down she said some prayers and then explained what she was
about to do: she would lean forward slightly with her hands cupped together, scoop up
ectoplasm from around her and bring it to her face. From then on any spirit person
wanting to make contact would form an image of his face over hers and would speak
directly to people in the audience. I gathered he would use her vocal cords, though quite
how I couldn't work out. In fact, during all these
physical description of a person who is communicating, and the 'dead' can reproduce their
features in transfiguration. The surviving mind, with the memory of its physical
characteristics still intact, is able to project an image that is recognizable to the recipient.
Survival evidence also shows that whoever we are in life we continue to be when
we find ourselves in the next dimension. We do not suddenly become all-powerful and
all-knowing. I am often asked why communications contain so much detail about the
departed person's everyday life. We have to keep things in perspective. For millions of
people on this planet life is fairly un-dramatic and repetitive, a daily round of looking
after or providing for the family, working, shopping, cooking, sleeping, with the
occasional holidays and outings. So what is most deeply implanted in the mind are
naturally the ordinary everyday things.
Nor does dying suddenly make us extremely holy! Let me give you an example.
Alan first visited me for hypnotherapy to give up smoking. After the session had finished
I told him that someone called Jim had come through, saying they had played golf
together. Alan knew at once who it was. Jim then said, through me: 'You never did get a
hole in one, you old bugger!'
He was referring to a long-standing joke between them: Alan and Jim had had a
bet on who would be the first one to get a hole in one. And there was no mistaking the
form of address! On the face of it, this contact could seem rather frivolous, but that was
exactly Jim's way. At the time Alan was in need of the reassurance that there is a life after
death, and for Jim to speak as he always had answered that need.
Some people are shocked when the deceased come out with bad language, but
these lively 'dead' can bring a lot of fun into the conversation. And how else should they
speak? The personality survives death, and if someone had a sense of humour when alive
it will still burst through undiminished during communication.
One day, I was giving healing to a woman when her brother Mike came through;
he had been killed in a car accident two years earlier. For the next hour Mike regaled us
with joke after joke; we spent the whole session laughing! My sitter commented that if he
hadn't come through with jokes it wouldn't have been her brother!
Mike also had a more serious reason for communicating; he told us that he had
been secretly engaged and had died before he could tell his family. During the following
week his sister made a number of enquiries, and with the aid of the information Mike had
given her she managed to trace his fiance and broke the news of his death. The young
woman said that Mike had never given her his home address; when she stopped hearing
from him she assumed that she had been just a passing fancy, and had been too hurt to
make extensive enquiries herself. This is another example of how, if something has been
left undone, the 'dead' person will leave no stone unturned until he can make things right
again.
With my life so busy, I never gave much thought to the afterlife of animals until it
was brought forcibly to my attention. I had been healing for about six years. I was
working very hard and had had a particularly difficult day. As I sat relaxing in the
evening I found myself in the other-dimensional garden that I still visit regularly. I was
making my usual way along the path, when something landed on my shoulder. Perhaps I
should explain that when I am in this garden the experience is quite real and physical; if I
want to, I can touch objects and leaves, and feel them as solid.
This experience, however, was so very physical and so unexpected that it made me
jump! Then I realized that it was my cat! There on my shoulder was the cat who had been
put to sleep when I left Spain, purring and wrapping herself around my neck. It was a
very emotional reunion and a very beautiful one as well as a reassuring experience. Ever
since then, whenever I visit my garden, Sadie is always there to greet me. Sometimes she
jumps on my shoulder; sometimes she just walks along beside me. I had grieved for her
for a long time; now I have ceased to grieve.
I hope this will comfort others who have lost pets. Like people, animals continue
to exist in another dimension, and are still drawn to the people who have loved them.
Much more attention is being paid these days to the process of dying. In the past
the subject tended to be brushed under the carpet; nowadays there are counsellors in
hospitals and hospices to help the dying on their journey into the next life. I feel sure that
older people and the terminally ill - anyone, indeed, who fears death - could also receive
a great deal of comfort from talks by mediums, who could prove to them beyond doubt
that there is a life after this one.
I have often been asked to help relieve the pain of the terminally ill, and have also
often had to tell relatives that the sick person will probably 'die' quite quickly. While
healing can very often prolong life, it will speed up the
process of dying if that is in the person's interests. When life is made intolerable
through illness, healing helps to release the mind energy from the physical body.
Countless people close to death have conversed with spirit people who were
waiting to accompany them on their journey. The joy on their faces when they have
recognized their loved ones is indescribable. This phenomenon happens far too often to
be ignored or passed off as the fantasy of a dying person.
Understanding that the mind cannot die can remove the fear of death once and for
all. James was a dark-haired, gentle, good-looking young man, who never told me his
surname. At only twenty-six, he was facing the fact that he was dying of leukaemia. I
think his main reason for wanting to see me was to prepare himself for death by finding
out all he could about the other dimension. I knew that there was nothing I could do as far
as a cure was concerned; but healing always relieves pain and brings peace, so I saw him
regularly for some months.
During his first appointment James's grandmother came through and, after
confirming her identity by giving her name and describing her appearance, she went on to
describe the house she had lived in and mentioned members of the family by name. She
then gave a graphic account of the dimension in which she now found herself. In
particular she emphasized how beautiful the colours were and how clean everything was!
Finally, she gave a description of four members of the family and details of their careers
which baffled James completely as he knew nothing about them. On his third visit,
however, he told me he had found someone who did know them and that the descriptions
he had been given were perfectly accurate.
He looked at me and said: 'For the first time since I learned I was going to die I
have found peace. You have proved to me that there is a life after death.' He smiled, and
went on: 'I shall have to improve my mind as quickly as possible. I've wasted so much of
my time and I don't want to appear a moron to the people who have to cope with me
when I arrive at my next destination.'
James lived for six months after this, considerably longer than his medical
prognosis. During this short period he read everything he could about the universe and
the collective mind, and when the time came he died peacefully. I know that his
personality continues but, even so, I miss his physical presence. He had a lovely
personality; in fact he was one of those people who seem almost too nice to be here. He
always had a faraway look in his eyes, as though he had only decided to come here for a
short time. I think that some souls come here only briefly for a particular purpose, and
once this is accomplished they leave again peacefully. What James's was, I never knew.
My clairvoyance only shows me what it is necessary for me to know, and we did not talk
about it.
Dying can be a joyful and even exciting experience, and there is really nothing to
fear. When we die, we are taken care of; there have been many accounts by people who
have had near-death experiences, describing how they travelled down a tunnel at the end
of which they came to a bright light and were greeted by someone who loved them. To
people who find this far-fetched, I point out that dying is very like being born, which we
have all experienced. When you come into this world, you travel through the birth canal
and enter into a place where the lights are suddenly bright and people who love you are
waiting to welcome you!
Many of those who have returned from a brush with death describe extraordinary
experiences and visions, during a tantalizing glimpse into the unknown which many of
them find all too brief. I believe this experience can be accounted for by shock dislodging
the mind energy, enabling people to 'see' into the other dimension, just as mediums can.
No one is ever the same after a near-death experience. A new spirituality enters
the very substance of their being, and their thought processes change totally. There can be
no fear of dying, having once seen through our own dimension and tasted knowledge of
the life beyond.
Death is far from being the end. It is a birth into a new kind of life, and into further
spiritual progress. Heaven and hell are within us both here and after death, and it is up to
us to decide which we prefer. There are a few people who do not progress, or progress
only slowly. They include those who have lived really evil lives, and find it difficult to
break the habit even after death! There are also people who are so materialistic that they
become totally attached to their surroundings and never leave them. A woman whose
pride in her home has become the entire focus of her life may want to remain near it.
(That is one reason why houses are 'haunted'! Ghosts are the minds of people who don't
want to move on; love, whether of a place or of a person, can also prevent someone from
moving on.)
You cannot progress spiritually until you have let go and rejected materialistic
values. I do not mean that we should all become hermits and give away all our
possessions. It is more a question of attitude: of whether you own your possessions, or
they own you! Material things will always keep you imprisoned, in this life and the next.
I think that people who do not own a tremendous amount are the happiest; the people
who are contented and peaceful within themselves, who have time to see, to feel, to be,
and to have a spiritual relationship with nature.
Those who do move on report very similar experiences. It is fascinating when they
communicate with descriptions of the next dimension. One young man came through and
described what happened immediately after his death. He found himself standing high up
on a mountain, just as if he'd been dropped by helicopter. He couldn't understand how he
had got there, because he didn't realize that he was dead. Almost immediately he was
approached by a man he recognized as his late uncle, who conveyed to him telepathically
that he was now in the next dimension.
It seems that people find themselves in a variety of locations much as they would
do here when they are born, but they have certain features in common. This young man
described the scenery around him as quite beautiful. Beyond the mountain on which he
found himself on arrival, further mountain ranges and valleys lay misted by a blue haze.
The temperature was like that of a pleasant English summer day but, although it was
comfortably warm, there was no visible sun; this often seems to baffle people who find
themselves in the other dimension! The grass looked and felt the same as earthly grass
except for the vividness of the colour.
It was the colours that astounded him most; they were quite fantastic - just as they
are in my other-dimensional garden. Time and again, people have given me similar
descriptions, always commenting on the wonderful colours.
On arrival in the next dimension it seems that people are first of all taken care of,
in whatever way may be necessary. When I first spoke with Colin Caffell his ex-wife was
being looked after. At the time, I told Colin: 'She needs an awful lot of rest. I feel she's
being looked after. When she eventually comes out of this peaceful rest and realizes what
has happened, everything will be so beautiful that she will automatically accept it.' And,
as we have seen, in due course Sheila was able to renew contact with her children and
communicate with Colin.
Life in the next dimension has been beautifully described by an excellent medium,
Bertha Harris, in her book Traveller in Eternity. Music and concerts play a large part in it,
and it sounds very enjoyable! We also definitely go through some further learning while
we are there. However, after a period there - probably lasting eighty to a hundred years,
though it can be very much shorter - it seems most of us choose to be reborn. (You
always have choices, whichever dimension you find yourself in.)
I feel, too, that people don't necessarily return to this planet, because there are
other planets on which they can be reborn, many of them invisible to us because they are
vibrating on a different frequency. The universe is infinite, filled with worlds
within worlds within worlds! Some of these are on much higher vibrational levels than
the earth; we come back here because we have not progressed far enough to qualify for
these higher worlds.
For many years I have had impressed on me the fact that there is no such thing as
empty space; the thought has fascinated me, but with no qualifications in physics I have
been unable to follow it through. However, when I mentioned this to a valued friend,
Professor E. R. Laithwaite of Imperial College, London, he was kind enough to send me
the following extract by a physicist, which simplified things for me and seems to support
my thinking:
Of all the constraints on Nature, the most far-reaching are imposed by space. For
space itself has a structure that influences the shape of every existing thing.
The idea that space has structure may sound strange, since we usually think of
space as a kind of nothingness that is the absence of structure. We think of space as the
emptiness within an empty container, as the passive backdrop for the lively play of
material things.
It turns out, however, that the backdrop, the all-pervading nothingness, is not so
passive. The nothingness has an architecture that makes real demands on things. Every
form, every pattern, every existing thing pays a price for its existence by conforming to
the structural dictates of space.
. . . Since our brains and perceptual processes have evolved to suit our own space,
we cannot visualize those other spaces, but we have devised self-consistent mathematical
descriptions of them, and we have come to recognize that the spaces in the world of the
very small, in the world of the fundamental particles, and in the world of the very large,
at the scale of the universe as a whole, differ dramatically from the space in which we
live.
(Peter S. Stevens, The Patterns of Nature, Penguin,
1977)
I hope this information will at the very least make you think about 'space'. After
all, there is an awful lot of it which is apparently non-functional!
Before we return to this dimension, we decide to take on a specific task or fulfil a
particular purpose. Knowing this can help us to make sense of seemingly terrible events.
When I was talking with Colin Caffell I found myself telling him that everything that had
been happening to him had happened for a purpose, and had unlocked a compassion in
him that he didn't have before. I said: 'You were brought into this world not to do what
you wanted to do but what you elected to do before you were born. . . You've been
thrown into the cauldron because you were living your life for yourself, and somebody
had to say: "You didn't come here for this, you came here for something totally different.
You are being forced to find the path of knowledge."'
And that is exactly what he is doing now. Colin in fact had not been living an
especially selfish life, but he had not been following his pre-chosen path. By the time he
came to see me he was already back on the right path, but it was good for him to hear it
confirmed, while knowing that his family were now peaceful and happy has given him
the peace to continue.
Among the decisions we make before returning is to choose our parents, whom we
will have known in previous lives. If you want to know more about this, do read Peter
and Mary Harrison's book Life Before Birth, which contains the most fascinating
descriptions by children who remember returning here from the next dimension.
Some of them recalled being pushed into a river and then being in 'Mummy's
tummy'; when I read this I immediately connected it with the pool in my garden, where
people were being bathed. I realized some time ago that it was a pool of energy - the
same energy that I see around people - and this river, it seems, is also energy through
which the mind is pushed in order to reach this dimension.
Apart from it making sense, many of my own experiences confirm my belief in
reincarnation. For one thing, I have noticed that I am very rarely able to get survival
evidence for old people. The parents of people in their seventies or eighties very rarely
come through, in my experience. (My own mother now comes through less and less
often.) And we certainly don't hear from our ancestors, although if they were still around
in the other dimension they might well be interested in their
great-great-great-grandchildren!
It seems to me obvious that people who have been dead for some time have moved
on elsewhere, and I think it very likely that by now they are members of our particular
circles on earth. Reincarnation also explains why we can dislike or fall in love with
people at first sight. If our knees start shaking at the sight of a stranger, it is probably not
a stranger at all; we are actually recognizing a previous very close relationship.
Very convincing to me, too, have been my experiences of regression to previous
lifetimes. At the beginning of my professional career, while healing friends their faces
would seem to blur and I would see a different face superimposed on theirs. I soon found
that, if they continued to sit quietly, without any prompting from me they would then
regress back in time to recall memories of a previous life. I would ask them questions
about how they felt and what they saw, being careful not to put any ideas into their
minds. What was fascinating was that I would simultaneously be receiving clairvoyant
information which tallied with what they were telling me.
This happened very strikingly with Janet. We were sitting quietly together one day
when I saw superimposed over her face the features of an obviously Spanish lady, with
black hair and rather dark skin, looking very regal and composed. (Interestingly, Janet
has always felt more at home in Spain than in England.) Janet began loosening her collar.
I didn't tell her what I could see until afterwards, but when I asked how she felt she said:
'Oh, I'm so hot, I'm so hot!' I could see clairvoyantly that she was in a big house in South
America, obviously part of a ranch as there were lots of horses around.
Janet's regression lasted about half an hour, and she repeatedly complained about
the heat. She told me afterwards that she felt that she was the lady of a grand house, and
she, too, had been aware of the horses. She remarked afterwards that she thought she'd
been rather hard done by in this life. 'This is why I'm always so hard up,' she said. 'I had it
all last time!'
These days I very rarely have the time to indulge in this fascinating experience
solely out of interest. I know that some people can become addicted to exploring their
past lives; on the whole I think we have enough to absorb our minds in dealing with the
current one. However, when regressions occur spontaneously the information that comes
out of them helps to explain certain aspects of our current personality.
Recently I was giving a sitting to a friend when suddenly I said: 'Just keep still,
close your eyes, because I've got something here. I'll tell you about it later.' I could see
her quite clearly wearing a milkmaid's cap and carrying a wooden yoke, and I also saw
the house where she lived. Afterwards I told her that her employers, who owned the
house, had treated her very well, but she had never married or had children. In this life,
my friend desperately wanted children; having been denied them in a former life explains
why she wanted them so badly.
I told her: 'I don't know why, but I'm being told that you're going back to your
roots, somewhere in Devon, and when you get there you'll recognize everything. The
house you are going to buy will have a mountain ash in the garden.'
She exclaimed: 'How fascinating, Betty. We're just moving down to Devon.'
Afterwards she wrote to tell me that she had found and recognized the house where she'd
lived as a milkmaid; and there was a mountain ash in their own garden.
The chief relevance of this kind of experience is that it helps us to understand
better why we are like we are now; it also demonstrates that something in us is
everlasting. That 'something' must be the mind, which carries from life to life things that
have made an impact on it, such as the longing for a child.
One very interesting point is that, while people like to imagine themselves as
former Cleopatras or Napoleons, what usually comes up is something that takes even me
aback. I recently saw someone as a cripple who had cared for orphans during the last
century; never in a million years would I have expected to see this woman as a cripple.
Yet it explains why she, and others with similar past lives, feel compelled to help people
in this life and sometimes feel quite annoyed with themselves when they can't say 'no' to
requests for help! The inner knowledge of what it is to suffer has developed in them
compassion for those who suffer in this life.
Sometimes, if a past-life memory is causing real trouble, regression can occur
spontaneously as part of the healing process. Very early in my mediumship I was giving
healing to a pleasant well-dressed woman when to my astonishment I began to see vivid
pictures of a woman with greasy matted hair clutching an enormous knife as she crawled
over cobblestones in what could have been a prison. Suddenly she plunged the knife into
someone's back. Then, rather like a film, I saw a new picture in which she was devouring
a loaf of bread. It was clear that she had killed someone to get that loaf, and in those days
she would have been hanged for it.
I looked at this nice suburban lady and asked: 'Are you afraid of knives?'
talked together for about two hours exchanging stories about the great healer.
You may wonder why he didn't simply give his name straight away. I think the
reason is that jokingly referring to himself as her 'family doctor' was much more
convincing. Spirits often give clues rather than names; a fraudulent medium could easily
say: 'I've got Harry Edwards here.' The real Harry Edwards pulled her leg, just as he did
in real life. I think it is very likely that, as with doctors and scientists, great healers go on
working from the other dimension, helping and guiding healers in this one. No
experience is wasted, and what we learn the hard way in this life can be used in valuable
service in the next.
Life does go on, and so do we as individuals. We exist for the purpose of
progressing spiritually, in both this dimension and the next. Therefore, whatever level we
are at on the spiritual ladder, it is important to strengthen and expand our minds in this
dimension if we are to make any kind of impact in our future existences.
PART TWO
Healing
FIVE
You Don't Have to Live with It
Having opened the door of hope I know my spirit will soar and untold wonders
will be revealed.
Betty Shine
People often ask what healing can cure. Since healing works on the energy
counterpart and the mind energy it's not so much a question of curing specific diseases as
of working on those energies and encouraging the person's positivity; healing then takes
place naturally.
Over the years I have helped hundreds of people with all kinds of physical and
emotional problems, and I could write for ever about the wonderful healings I have seen.
However, for this chapter I have chosen just a few typical and not so typical cases which
illustrate how healing can cure almost any complaint, provided the physical body has not
deteriorated beyond repair. Some of these people have kindly written their own accounts,
which I shall be quoting to give you an idea of their experiences of healing.
Numbers of people have been to see me after the medical profession had given up
and they had virtually lost hope. One of these was Margery, who had reached the point
where she was afraid of waking in the mornings. She had suffered appalling migraines
for eight years and was having to spend at least one day a week in bed. At her hospital
she'd been told that nothing could be done for her: she would just have to go home and
'live with' her constant pain and misery. Then someone she met at a function gave her my
name. Although she was quite frightened by the idea of visiting me (like so many people,
she had a 'spooky' image of healers), she was even more worried at the prospect of her
pain continuing for ever. Next day she rang up for an appointment.
Margery duly arrived, a woman in her fifties, looking decidedly nervous. The first
thing I did was to help her relax by giving her some healing, explaining what I was doing
as I went along. I found that the cause of her migraines was a tremendous amount of
arthritic calcium in the back of her neck which was pressing on vital nerves in her spine. I
told her what I'd found and after fifteen minutes asked her to get up from the
healing-couch and sit on a chair. Then I placed my hand on her neck - and as the calcium
broke up there was such a loud bang that Margery thought I had broken her neck!
I explained that this was quite usual when I placed my hands on arthritic joints except that this was a particularly loud bang! She was reassured enough to come back the
following week for just one more healing session. After that she made a complete
recovery, and it is now several years since her last migraine.
Another woman with a similar problem was a singer whom I shall call Veronica. I
feel that she was led to me through the unseen helpers who work through healers; I have
learned never to underestimate their power. (Sometimes people come to me in very
curious ways; one was a woman who was sitting on a bus in agony with back-pain. A
perfect stranger sitting next to her handed her a card and said: 'I think you ought to go
and see this lady.' The woman was so surprised she just said: 'Oh, thank you.' The card
had my name on it, but told her nothing about me; nevertheless she came and knocked at
my door. When I opened it, she said: 'I was given this card. I don't know why I've come!'
She soon discovered why when I gave her healing for her back.)
In Veronica's case, she had to go to Leeds to be given my address near her home in
Surrey. She was up there recording a television show when she developed a severe
tension headache, which is not unusual for performers under the glare of studio lighting.
Her dresser suggested she had a massage by a fellow-worker; this young woman turned
out to be a former client of mine who, like many others, had become a healer herself. She
simply put her hands on the back of Veronica's neck, and the headache instantly
disappeared. Since Veronica was only in Leeds for the show, she gave her my name as
someone she could see on a regular basis.
When she first met me, Veronica was surprised and delighted to be told that I had
been a singer, too; there was no need to explain to me the strains and stresses of her life,
and she knew I wouldn't regard her as a 'neurotic theatrical'. She told me that she had
been medically diagnosed as suffering from arthritis of the neck-joints; this kept her in
constant pain, and limited her movements -very disabling for a singer. She was in agony
whenever she hit a high note, and only daily pill-taking made her life bearable.
I was able to eliminate the arthritis completely in a few sessions, and I now see her
about twice a year to 'top up' the healing energy and prevent a recurrence - something I
recommend to everyone; it definitely keeps them healthy, imagine,' writes Veronica, 'no
more pain - no stiff neck - no pill-taking. It feels like a great concrete weight has been
lifted off my head and I am floating on air. Even colours seem brighter after a visit to
Betty.'
Veronica is now a personal friend and it's nice to think that because of healing she
can continue to give pleasure to thousands of people through her art. Healing can deal
very effectively with headaches and migraines caused by tension or arthritis, and although I have not had enough cases to be categorical about it - I have found it to be
equally effective with migraines associated with food allergies.
I believe that allergies to certain foods are caused by an imbalance in the body's
biochemistry that makes people react against the food, rather than the food itself causing
the imbalance; when healing restores the biochemical balance of the body, the allergic
reaction disappears without necessitating any change of diet.
A slim fair-haired young woman knocked on my door one day, hardly able to
speak as she was in the throes of a terrible asthmatic attack. I led her into my
healing-room and without asking any questions immediately began to give her healing.
After about twenty minutes she had recovered her breath enough to talk. She told me her
name was Jessica; she had recently been told by her hospital, after some fifty or sixty
tests, that she appeared to be allergic to everything. If she ate fruit, her mouth and face
would swell up. The family's pet greyhound had to be kept outside, and even so she
suffered almost non-stop from asthmatic attacks. In short, her life was a misery.
I studied the energies around her and could see that they were completely
unbalanced. I offered to see her once a week, and after six weekly visits Jessica went on
holiday to Corfu. From there she wrote to tell me that she was able to eat anything, even
fruit, without any side-effects. After she got back, the greyhound was allowed back
indoors! She had made a total recovery.
Jessica's energy counterpart had been so severely congested that it had simply
gone from bad to worse. Nearly every major organ was compressed by negative energy,
and many other vital parts of her body were unable to function. Healing eventually
dislodged this congestion, so that her body started ticking over normally.
Miserable and disabling as allergic conditions are, some sceptics might dismiss
these kinds of healing as 'psychosomatic' - the result of simply helping a tense person to
relax, or the effect of suggestion on someone already predisposed to be cured. But not all
cures can be explained away so easily; I have found that healing can improve or
completely eliminate some very serious physical conditions, in highly sceptical and
un-suggestible people.
One of these was Jan. When she made her appointment she told me nothing about
her problems or why she wanted to see me. In fact she was deeply troubled by a kidney
disease which had been diagnosed in 1978. Her consultant was obviously loath to give a
prognosis; he had hopes that her condition could be kept under control for five years with
medication, but he also warned her that she should make provision in her home for the
eventual installation of a dialysis machine. Not a nice forecast for an attractive intelligent
professional woman still in her thirties!
At the time of her first visit to me she was on daily antibiotics, and had so far
maintained a 'satisfactory level'. But she was very conscious that her condition was
degenerative and that 'time could be running out'. She said nothing of this to me; she had
decided, as sceptics often do, to adopt the attitude of 'Well, let's see what she can do!'
Jan arrived on a cold January day in 1982, feeling, she writes, 'more than a little
apprehensive'.
A million thoughts raced through my mind. What was I doing, me - the ever
sceptic, waiting at the doorway of a person I had never met? She was sure to be small,
wizened and dressed in black. . . I almost turned away from the door. Fear, curiosity, call
it what you will, held me there. I was to be so grateful for that split second decision.
The door was thrown open and I was faced with a blonde, curly-haired, definitely
not wizened, smiling face. 'You must be Jan. Do come in.' My doubts and fears began to
dissipate and feeling a little more relaxed, I went in.
When I asked Jan which particular psychic talent she required, she quickly
answered, 'Clairvoyance,' thinking this was safest. Her idea of 'this magical thing called
faith healing', she told me later, conjured up pictures of cloaked bodies prancing around
their victims in an almost pagan fashion!
I gave her what she confirmed was an accurate account of her life so far together
with some forecasts for the future, which must remain private. At the same time, I
received information about her kidneys and knew that she was in a very poor state of
health indeed. I didn't wish to worry her too much, so I simply said: 'I do think you would
benefit from healing. May I try?'
Jan seemed to like the idea, although she was still very sceptical and during the
session asked me a lot of very probing questions. I answered them as well as I could, and
she seemed satisfied with my explanation that healing is a psychic science involving the
manipulation of energies. Probably even more convincing, however, was what she
experienced herself.
I was surprised as, whilst lying on the couch there was no more than what
appeared to be the simple 'laying on of hands'. Gradually, I felt this burning sensation at
the back of my throat, quite an unusual feeling, but one I had experienced before when
having one of my many kidney tests. I was told by the doctor that I would experience this
sensation as the dye travelled round my body. And here it was again, but this time it was
the energy I could feel.
I could see that the energy around her left kidney was seriously depleted; however,
I was able to tell her that her right kidney was doing its best to cope with the extra
burden. My clairvoyant diagnosis turned out to be perfectly accurate: shortly afterwards
Jan received the result of an earlier hospital test which confirmed what I'd seen.
I also knew clairvoyantly that she would recover completely, though her steady
improvement was still thrilling for both of us. Jan came for six sessions over two months,
reducing to one a month and then to one every two months; she was eventually able to
come off all medication and to this day remains fit and well. She now sees me perhaps
once a quarter for her 'top-up', to which we both look forward as we have become good
friends. Jan now has total belief in healing and has sent a number of people to me.
It is encouraging to read that the medical profession is becoming more
open-minded about healing; I hope it won't be too long before doctors regularly ask for
the assistance of a healer when medicine is unable to produce a cure. So many patients
are told to 'go home and live with it', or given gloomy prognoses. Yet there is now much
evidence to show that healing can cure many of these 'hopeless' cases. If doctors and
healers could work together, not only would there be far less physical and mental
suffering, but also the National Health Service drugs bill could be substantially reduced!
When Anne Lamey came to see me she was in her early fifties, and had been
suffering pain and embarrassment for over twenty years. In 1954 she went to the doctor
with a terrible pain in her leg from her knee downwards; he diagnosed a strained muscle
but offered no treatment, simply telling her to rest the leg. It was already swollen and
became worse; she had to replace her size 6 shoes with size 7. When she asked for a
second opinion, all that was suggested was that she wear an elastic stocking. The pain
increased, spreading to the top of her leg; finally, after years of worry, the problem was
diagnosed as thrombosis and then phlebitis, for which no treatment was offered.
Walking continued to be agony, and Anne could not even sit in comfort. She took
other medical advice, but to no effect; the thrombosis remained for twenty-three years.
As she worked in a health-food store she knew a lot about alternative therapies and tried
vitamin and mineral supplements, but to no avail. Finally, a relative suggested she should
try healing.
When she came to me in 1980 her leg was still swollen and extremely hard.
Simply pressing the muscle caused bruising, and there was a huge black hollow where
the tissue had deteriorated; it was almost gangrenous. I felt very sorry for her.
During the first healing I could feel quite curious sensations in her leg from the
knee downwards; it was just as if the muscles and ligaments were jumping madly up and
down as they returned to healthy life! Anne could feel it, too, as well as a tremendous
heat. These odd muscle spasms happened every time she came to me. After the first
healing, the tissues of her leg became softer, and from then on she improved steadily. She
came for six weekly healings, and I then recommended her to visit me once a month.
Three months after the first healing session, Anne's leg began to fill out, hair
began to grow again and the formerly blackened part was a healthy colour. Now, after
eight years, it's difficult to see that she had anything wrong at all. Occasionally her leg
aches if she has to stand for a long time, but she has no other symptoms. I see her now
perhaps three times a year.
For twenty-five years Anne had been unable to wear dresses without being
embarrassed about the state of her leg; now she wears them all the time. Only another
woman would understand the happiness this has given her. Her whole outlook on life has
changed to one of optimism.
I have worked with a number of athletes who, through healing, have been able to
take up their sport again almost immediately after an injury. Terry, a young man in his
twenties, had practically given up hope of finding a cure for an Achilles heel problem he
had suffered from for months. When he first ruptured the tendon playing squash, a
fellow-player who knew me begged him not to go to
hospital, where they would put his leg in plaster for at least three months, but to
come and see me instead.
Terry's family had actually been closely involved with healing for many years, and
he was aware that it could succeed where conventional practice had failed; however,
being rather sceptical he took no active part in it himself. He ignored his friend's advice
and went to hospital.
Three months later the tendon ruptured again during physiotherapy exercises! This
time he decided that he might as well see me, though on the Saturday when he arrived he
was actually booked for an operation the following Monday. He was walking with a stick
and in obvious agony. He writes:
I visited Betty very much with the attitude that I had nothing to lose and a great
deal to gain but I would say that I was still resigned to entering the clinic on the following
Monday. But instead of spending another three months in plaster, which I would have
done had they operated, I was up and walking in two days after one session with Betty of
about forty minutes.
After a short while I was able to move a previously immobile ankle and after a few
days was up and walking again without aid. I could see and feel that there was a rapid
improvement and this continued after returning to see Betty on several other occasions.
Having experienced this apparently miraculous cure which conventional practice
could in no way emulate there is no doubt in my mind that healers like Betty Shine have
the ability to initiate a rapid healing process.
When Terry walked into his office that Monday, clearly out of pain when he
should have been lying on an operating-table, his colleagues were totally mystified! In
fact I estimate that my healing has cured about two hundred Achilles heel problems; they
usually respond magnificently. The healing energy has excellent effects with muscles,
ligaments and tendons. Of course, electro-magnetism is now being used medically with
these types of problem; I can't help wondering whether the doctors have been influenced
by healing as, although they are not identical, there is a close similarity between
electricity and healing energy.
Another young man who has often come to see me with sports injuries is David,
the footballer I mentioned in the last chapter. The first time he came he was in quite a bad
state - yet another young person who had been told to live with his pain!
It started when he twisted his ankle and badly sprained two ligaments in his foot.
A physiotherapist treated it with ice-packs, manipulation and ultrasound, and after two
weeks David was pronounced fit to play again, though his ankle was still rather sore. A
month later he sprained it again, this time tearing some tissue around the Achilles tendon.
On the advice of friends he went to see another physiotherapist, who used the same
methods as the previous one and sent him out to play again.
This performance was repeated regularly for the next four years! David saw a total
of nine physiotherapists, all of whom temporarily eased the pain. However, as David was
beginning to realize, none of them offered a cure for the weakness which was now
affecting both ankles. In fact the best advice one could give him was to come to terms
with pain and put up with it! David writes:
I put up with the pain for far too long, in fact it got to the stage when after two
games at the weekend I was crippled, walking with a terrible limp. Before some games I
had to warm up for half an hour before the kick-off to get some circulation into my feet.
To conclude, at the age of twenty my feet and ankles
were well and truly knackered. When it was suggested that I should try a healer
called Betty Shine, I offered no objections because I was prepared to try anything.
On my first visit, Betty explained that the ligaments and muscles had taken such a
battering that my main problem was one of circulation. She laid her hands on my legs and
almost immediately, what I can only describe as an inner heat welled up in my legs. This
heat seemed to ebb and flow like a tide inside me, giving me a hypnotic sensation of
being somewhere else. After two visits I was completely cured!
Since that day I have visited Betty on dozens of occasions for all types of aches
and pains, and have never been disappointed.
A good example of Betty's unique talent occurred when I received a kick in the
groin during a game. A particularly eminent physiotherapist correctly diagnosed a slight
hernia and fitted me up with a makeshift truss. He explained that I wouldn't be able to
play for another month and that I should see him again next week in case the injury
deteriorated.
The following night Betty was able to see me and successfully cured the hernia; I
played again the following Saturday. When the physio did check me over again, he
expressed confusion, but eventually decided he had been wrong because a hernia couldn't
possibly heal in such a short time.
David has had some remarkable healings, including the manipulation I have
already described, and 'other times my limbs would creak, groan and crack aloud as
damaged ligaments and the like snapped back into place'.
The more I went to her the more aware I became of what was happening and in
my trancelike state I was able to imagine what was happening inside of me.
Once I remember seeing what looked like a limp and flattened tubular pipe being
inflated with a red beam of light which flowed along the tube seemingly revitalizing its
life and restoring it to its proper shape.
This was very interesting; David was sharing with me the ability to see his
meridian lines. This heightened vision during healing quite often happens with people
who are psychic, like the young woman who could see colours. David is not in fact
psychic, but very powerful healing seems to enable some people to experience psychic
vision, which is lovely, in the same way that people's colour perception is often
enhanced. Seeing colours as brighter after healing is a quite common experience. When
people receive a powerful injection of life force this expands the mind energy outwards
further than usual, enabling them to link up to the next dimension just enough to
experience colours as they are experienced in that dimension.
John was another total sceptic who came to me with a very physical problem. An
athletic nice-looking man in his thirties, he has his own publishing business and is
extremely astute. We met at a party given by a mutual friend who told the guests before I
arrived that I was a healer, clairvoyant and medium; most of them were keen to meet me,
but John was quite uninterested.
However, when I arrived I went over to him and said: 'I don't know why, but I
have to come and introduce myself to you.' We had an instant rapport, and for a while
chatted away quite happily. When I told him I was a healer he said: 'I don't believe in all
that.' I just laughed and said: 'I heal the non-believers as well!'
While we were talking I understood why I'd felt impelled to talk to him; somebody
called Jack began pestering me to communicate with him urgently, so I asked if he would
mind letting him come through. Still disbelieving, John said he had no objection. The
information came through quickly; Jack said that he had owned a motorbike and sidecar,
mentioned several names and described a variety of buildings in south London. His
urgency was because John's mother hadn't been well recently, and Jack and her other
spirit friends wanted to help her. I told John that he must contact his mother; all this
information was really for her.
A few days later, John phoned his mother and passed this on. She confirmed that
she'd had an Uncle Jack with a motorbike and sidecar; the area he had described was his
home, and the people he had named were relatives she had known when young. She also
said that she hadn't been well, though she was now feeling much better.
The details of the survival evidence were unimportant in themselves, but the fact
that they were accurate gave John some food for thought! About a year later we met
again; I reminded him of our talk and asked if his mother had confirmed the information.
When he told me she had, I pulled his leg and said that I preferred more instant
confirmation ! I was also able to tell him that the survival evidence had been given as a
catalyst to bring him closer to his mother, with whom he had not been on very good
terms.
By now, John's attitude had totally changed from indifference to great interest. He
was even more surprised when I asked him what had happened to his right calf muscle,
which I could tell had atrophied. I had to laugh at John's startled expression as he said:
calcium building up and spreading from a bone in the inner ear (usually as the after-effect
of a virus), which healing energy can easily disperse. I've also had a lot of success with
Meniere's disease.
Another friend of John's was Len, who came while he was here on a visit from
Australia. He had been blind in one eye for twenty years and now, after a series of
haemorrhages behind the other eye, he had no sight at all. His wife had to lead him by the
hand everywhere. He had seen consultants at three major eye hospitals, all of whom had
told him that he had no hope of ever regaining his sight.
After the first healing, John's father took him to London. When they arrived at
Paddington Station, Len announced: , 'I can see the lights!' From that moment on his sight
began steadily to return. When he returned to Australia I continued giving him absent
healing with my 'laser beam' technique. A year later, on his next visit to England, he
came to see me. He walked in by himself, looked at me and said: 'You look exactly how I
thought you would!' It was a very emotional reunion.
Len can now write his own letters, decorate and play golf - with help, because his
long-distance sight is not marvellous. But he can see!
Although it's an area that I love, not many blind people have come to me for
healing; I would like to do more of it. I would certainly never claim to be able to heal all
cases of blindness, but over the years I have brought sight back to about ten people. Of
one of them I have particularly vivid memories.
Peter's blindness had been caused by a disease that strikes young men, and he had
been told it was incurable. He came for about ten healings, and by the seventh we were
both getting a bit despondent as there seemed to be no change. But after the eighth
healing he suddenly said: 'Betty, I can see a candle, flickering, as though being blown by
the wind.' I couldn't be sure what it meant; he was seeing it with his inner vision, and we
were both delving in the dark. But I said: 'Peter, I think candlelight means hope!'
After that the candle never left him; he could see it all the time. His tenth session
was his last with me as he had to move away; I suggested that he go to George Chapman,
a healer who specializes in eye problems. He wrote to Mr Chapman, but before he could
visit him he went on holiday to Scotland. On his first morning there he woke up with his
sight completely restored!
Peter didn't know whether George Chapman had actually received his letter; but,
as I told him, so long as he was cured, what did it matter? Possibly writing the letter had
linked him in with Mr Chapman's healing energies, just as people who think of me
receive help whether I am aware of it or not. I believe now that the vision of the candle
was sent to him as a message to say: 'Hang in there, there is hope!'
There are still far too many cases which are classed as incurable because the
doctors are baffled. The reason is usually that negative energy congestion is pressing on a
vital spot and undermining the working of a major organ or other part of the body.
Despite the incredible feats of medical science, nothing has yet been devised medically
that can detect the most basic requirement of all existence: life-force energy. And so the
real cause of countless complaints goes unrecognized and untreated.
Fred, for instance, whom I introduced in the last chapter, had had a total of
eighty-nine hospital tests in an effort to trace the cause of his problem!
Shortly after the episode of the hob-nailed boots, Shirley contacted me to ask me
to give Fred some healing. He had been suffering from what seemed to be a virus
infection, which had steadily grown worse over the previous year. He had pains in his
legs and hands, and great difficulty in breathing, and had eventually collapsed with a high
fever.
He was tested for all kinds of infection from Lassa fever and glandular fever to all
known viruses at the Hospital for Tropical Diseases. All the tests proved negative, and
Fred was eventually discharged: the doctors could not identify anything to treat!
He came to see me in October 1978, a slim, quiet, rather shy man and a little
sceptical of healing. I couldn't identify the virus, either, but of course I was able to work
on his energy system, and I knew I could get him better. At that point his energy
counterpart seemed drawn totally inwards, into an almost solid mass, rather than having
the vibrating appearance to be seen around a healthy person. He came weekly until
shortly before Christmas, for five sessions in all. Within two weeks he was feeling
noticeably better, and by the end he was completely cured, with his energy system back
to normal. Afterwards he wrote: 'I can now honestly say that I feel better than I have done
for several years - my breathing is normal, I am sleeping well and most of all, I am now
leading a healthy and energetic life once more. As I am still in my early 40s, this is most
important.'
Both Shirley and Fred received a lot of healing and clairvoyance from me. During
one of Fred's healing sessions he told me he had a cancerous wart on his head which was
going to be surgically removed. When I gave him healing, I knew that the operation
wouldn't be necessary, and told him so. Two weeks later the growth had disappeared.
When Fred next visited his doctor he told him what had happened. The doctor
examined him and confirmed that the growth had gone. This doctor was more
open-minded than some; he had heard similar stories before, he said, and wasn't
altogether surprised.
There are some diseases which healing cannot always help, especially when the
condition has advanced too far to reverse it; occasionally, too, I come across a few people
who for some reason just don't respond to healing. These days, however, I am
specializing in so-called incurable cases, and sometimes the results are beyond my
expectations! Currently, for instance, I have been getting good results with a man with
motor neurone disease.
From my point of view, it appears that with this crippling disease the blood-supply
to the nerves going through the muscles has been cut off. As I've mentioned, healing
energy works very well with circulatory problems. This particular man's leg was
completely bloodless when he first came, and as cold as a marble slab; during the first
healing he experienced the energy like a series of electric shocks. When he returned
home his big toe became red and swollen, as the blood-supply returned. On his second
visit, he was already walking about the room with no support, for the first time for
months, and is overjoyed as the use of his muscles returns.
I would never claim, however, to be able to cure motor neurone disease.
Sometimes it takes over the system very rapidly, and once it is advanced, sadly, I can do
nothing about it. But anyone with a disease like this, including multiple sclerosis or
muscular dystrophy, could gain an awful lot of benefit if their muscles were strengthened
by healing energy.
Another disease the doctors find hard to treat, and with which I have had quite a
lot of success, is rheumatoid arthritis, whose effects can be agonizing. Shirley's mother,
for instance, had suffered from it for many years and was in constant pain; she couldn't
even bear to be touched. As is common with this disease, her bones had been affected.
Her legs had become misshapen, and her arms would no longer straighten, so that her
coat-sleeves had
to be shortened. It was becoming increasingly difficult for her to hold a cup of tea
without dropping it.
Shirley brought her to see me in December 1979, and she came regularly at
monthly intervals for four years; since she had to travel quite a distance she couldn't
come more often. It was necessary to keep the healing going because of her age; older
people do need more healing than the young, especially if the physical body has
deteriorated in other ways, as hers had.
Even so, as the months went by a wonderful improvement took place; her legs
began to straighten out, the inflammation left her hands and she became virtually
pain-free for the first time for twenty years. Because I had to move, she was unable to
visit me after those four years and, as happens in old people, the arthritis took over again.
But at least before she died she had some pain-free and enjoyable years which she would
didn't need any mumbo-jumbo. I also remember being bullied by everybody there into
making an appointment with Betty on the basis that it couldn't do any harm anyhow.
Sue never kept her first appointment; by accident or by design she got lost en
route. She phoned to apologize, and agreed to come back bringing her man-friend for
moral support. (I'm always quite happy for people to bring their partners or friends along
with them.) Both were sceptical when they arrived, Sue because she still refused to accept
that she wasn't well, and Dennis because he thought healers were a 'highly dubious
mixture of charlatans, spiritual pontificators and well-meaning, but powerless,
do-gooders!' Sue writes:
I was the first to succumb. Betty was large, lovely, overflowing with warmth and
compassion and a compulsive giggler. I loved and trusted her on sight.
Dennis was knocked out when she politely enquired how successful the operation
on his right Achilles tendon had been. She could only have known about that
clairvoyantly.
Sue seemed very clear about what was wrong with her, and told me she wasn't
going to go through any more chemotherapy or radiation treatment. I am always very
careful what I say when giving people a clairvoyant diagnosis, but from what she told me
I assumed that her medical advisers had put her fully in the picture. I told her that the
most serious problems, and the most difficult to heal, were the breakdown of the
intestinal lining of her lower bowel and the deterioration of the walls of her veins and
arteries. I could also see that she had a blood problem: there were clearly too many white
cells, indicating a form of leukaemia.
When I told Sue this, she said: 'I beg your pardon?'
'Haven't they told you?' I asked.
'No, they bloody well haven't!' said Sue. I felt bad about this, and hastened to
assure her that healing is very good for blood and circulation problems. By the end of the
healing session Sue was very relaxed, and,
. . . profoundly relieved someone was taking a personal interest in me, knew
exactly what was wrong and offered a reasonable but not totally optimistic prognosis. A
few days later, before my next treatment, I phoned the GP who had seen me through my
most difficult days before I had moved south.
'Why didn't you tell me the damn thing was destroying my whole blood and
circulatory system?' I demanded.
'Who the hell was stupid enough to tell you that?' was his reply. 'You've got
enough problems coping with the cancer you do know about, without some
stupid so-and-so telling you that you are riddled with additional problems which
nobody can do anything about.'
It wasn't a typical GP's reply, but then he wasn't a typical GP. . . When I explained
about Betty, his only reaction was positive. He firmly believed that cancer was caused by
emotional and physical trauma or strain triggering off a natural or genetic propensity in
the cell structure. He knew my case history. He'd also seen many people who should have
recovered from cancer just lie down and die, and equally others who'd recovered against
all the medical odds. His advice was, 'If you believe it will help you, go ahead,' and I did.
The fact that I had given her a correct diagnosis, even if it was a shock to her, was
very convincing to Sue. She came to see me regularly for healing after that; she never
once doubted that she would be cured, even though it was some time before I was sure
myself. Quite early on she was given a spiritual operation, during which the smell of
ether made her feel choked and nauseous. The vividness of this experience, and the
realization that there was no way that I could have manufactured it myself, increased her
faith in healing.
Although she had been far from positive at her first visit, once she began to feel
well again and realized that healing could really help her, her own positive attitude
carried her through. At a medical examination some five months later, she told the doctor
absolutely truthfully that she couldn't remember when she had felt so well. He gave her a
clean bill of health; all the tests failed to find any trace of cancer or any abnormality in
her blood. 'As an additional bonus,' says Sue, 'my bowels were regular for the first time
since childhood!'
That was five years ago. In the interim Sue has developed spondulitis and arthritis,
as the aftermath of a serious accident which prompted one company doctor to turn her
down for a job on the basis that she'd be in a wheelchair within three years. She isn't! She
came back to see me and is perfectly fit again. She writes: 'In the past few months I have
stripped wallpaper and plaster, painted ceilings, humped carpets etc. with only the usual
aches and pains. . . Betty has stopped a progressively degenerative disease progressing.'
Not surprisingly, Sue is still anxious about a possible recurrence of cancer. About
four years after she recovered, she started bleeding heavily from the rectum and
immediately panicked. She was in Europe at the time, and her man-friend's instant
reaction was to phone me for help rather than to call a local doctor. I told her: 'Don't
worry, it's not serious, but it does need treatment. Go to the doctor.' She did, and found
that it was simply a non-malignant polyp which was easily removed. She writes:
It's tempting to eulogize someone who has given you the gift of health and
strength and an unexpected lease and quality of life; to wax emotional and to try and find
reasons and explanations for it all. The simple fact is that Betty's particular magic cured
me when the medical profession had given up. Equally I know that she will help me
through any future illness, even if that help means making my inevitable death one day a
dignified and relatively painless exit.
Letters like this are proof of the seemingly impossible being achieved in the
gentlest manner, and that the energies around us can be harnessed and used. Sue speaks
of 'magic'; I would say that a healer is an alchemist who transmutes life force into a
mixture of elements which alter the complex physical make-up of the body, bringing
about changes which are far beyond current scientific expectations.
The attitude of Sue's doctor must have helped her a lot. So many people still lack
the courage to tell their doctors when they benefit from healing; this is one reason why
healing has so long remained an undercover operation. Fortunately, the tide is turning
pretty rapidly and nearly all the people who visit me now speak openly about the help
they receive. To their doctors' credit they very rarely receive a negative response.
It has not so far been possible for me to demonstrate the potential of healing to an
audience of English doctors, but in 1982 I was invited to participate in a medical seminar
on healing in Segovia in Spain. Because it has only recently been possible to practise
healing openly in Spain, Spanish doctors are much more fascinated by the whole subject
than most English doctors. The English have been aware of the existence of healing for
so many years that they tend to shrug it off without really investigating it. By contrast, at
the end of the Segovia seminar all the doctors I spoke to said in heartfelt tones that they
were sorry that something so wonderful had been kept from them! As a group, they were
the friendliest members of the medical profession I have ever met.
I travelled there with Barry Stonehill, a friend who has travelled the world testing
all kinds of alternative healing methods. On the way we stopped in Madrid, where Barry
invited me to meet a friend, an elderly man whom he described as an 'old boulevardier'.
Since he was always on the move, Barry used to drop in on friends abroad at rather short
notice!
When we arrived at this man's house, we were both shocked to discover that he
was blind. He was in his seventies, and had developed cataracts in both eyes which were
not yet 'ripe' to be operated on. Barry at once announced that I was a healer and asked if
he would like some healing; the old gentleman thought we were joking, and just laughed.
The joke, as Barry said afterwards, was on him.
We were going out to eat, and didn't have much time.
I wasn't sure that I could help the man, because his eyes were extremely cloudy, so
I said I would give him fifteen minutes' healing, and boost this with absent healing later.
After the fifteen minutes were up the 'boulevardier' got up, walked out on to the terrace
and exclaimed: 'My God, I can see the flowers!' That seemed miraculous even to me, and
I said: 'Can you?' The old gentleman was quite overcome; he kept saying: 'I don't believe
it. I can see you and I can see the flowers!'
Some of the most fantastic healings, I find, occur when I don't feel I've really done
anything.
An hour later the 'boulevardier' took us out to a restaurant, guiding us all the way
there. He was anxious to know whether his sight would last. I couldn't be sure, because I
had the impression that he didn't take very good care of himself, and hardened arteries
contribute to the formation of cataract; however, when Barry rang him a month or so later
his sight was still fine.
The seminar itself lasted five days, and I worked about twelve hours a day. The
healers and therapists were allocated to small groups for most of the time, and we got
together at the end for a summing-up. In my group, as well as healing I was giving
clairvoyance, survival evidence, clairvoyant diagnosis and hypnotherapy.
There were about five hundred delegates, practically all in the medical profession,
some of whom had brought patients to be 'guinea pigs'. There were a few sceptics among
them, but healings took place that even they simply could not discount. For me, the
outstanding memory is the impact we had on one particular doctor.
One of the people I was asked to take a look at was a man of perhaps thirty, who
had come with his medical practitioner; he had been unable to walk unaided for two
years, and despite numerous investigations nobody had been able to find out why. I could
immediately see clairvoyantly that the artery in his groin was kinked, probably owing to a
thinning of the artery wall, and this was cutting off the blood-supply to his leg. I gave
him healing in the
form of a psychic operation which straightened out the artery, and finished the
session with hypnotherapy to help him stop chain-smoking, which could have been
contributing to his circulation problems.
When we'd finished, the man got up saying he felt very dizzy. He went outside,
walking perfectly normally - and immediately lit up a cigarette! You can't win them all!
On our return journey to Madrid, Barry and I stopped off at a bar on the highway
for a snack. As we walked into the bar we were approached by this man and his doctor,
who were also there. They were delighted. The doctor told us that he had thoroughly
examined his patient and that he had been completely cured. Two years later I heard that
he was still fine.
In years to come, such cures will be commonplace, in much the same way that
past discoveries like electricity, broadcasting and space travel have become part of our
everyday life; and, as our knowledge has progressed, our minds have had to open up to
accept the evidence.
It is still rare for a doctor to seek healing; perhaps half a dozen have come to me in
my thirteen years as a healer. However, even doctors are sometimes told to 'learn to live
with it', and pushed to seek alternatives.
I'd like to tell you Anton's story in some detail, because as a doctor with a totally
scientific training he had been taught to 'question science and to question all phenomena
from a scientific point of view', and was unable to believe in anything without scientific
evidence to back it up.
Anton had worked in the National Health Service for twenty years as a clinical
biochemist and was also a Doctor of Philosophy. In 1976 his younger daughter had
started doing gymnastics; since she was clearly gifted Anton and his wife decided to help
her by qualifying as club coaches, as defined by the British Amateur Gymnastics
Association. They worked hard and, while the child's skills improved, so did her parents'
coaching abilities. Anton went on to teach gymnastics at national level, which meant
supporting children in advanced moves - and that was how he came to damage his left
elbow.
He went to see an orthopaedic surgeon at his hospital, who diagnosed tennis elbow
and prescribed a steroid injection together with physiotherapy three times a week for
three weeks. After three weeks, however, the arm was no better. The surgeon advised a
further steroid injection and a further course of physiotherapy. 'Needless to say,' writes
Anton, 'my arm did not recover.'
The surgeon then suggested an operation consisting of stripping the muscle from
the attachment to the bone in the elbow. This would lessen the pain and allow the irritated
torn attachment to heal itself, so Anton agreed. It was a number of weeks before the pain
subsided and Anton had enough strength to use his arm normally, aided by further
physiotherapy and strengthening exercises. Then, feeling that his body was healed, he
went back to coaching his daughter. As he realized later, this was a mistake.
As a doctor, he found it 'interesting' that, although he had no further pain in his
elbow, his shoulder now became painful and grew worse as he continued coaching. He
returned down the 'well-trodden path to the orthopaedic surgeon', who recommended an
injection in the shoulder, followed by further physiotherapy.
Some five weeks later the shoulder was still painful. Yet another injection was
followed by five more weeks of pain, by which time Anton was practically immobile and
had given up coaching. There was a further injection, and a further five weeks of pain
with still no improvement.
At this point, Anton couldn't lift his left arm even to put a jacket on; his wife had
to help him dress. By now he had received the maximum amount of steroid deemed safe,
and his colleague told him nothing further could be done medically: Anton must come to
terms with the fact that he was disabled.
During this time he had become a consultant clinical biochemist and had been
working closely with a publisher,
my friend John, who suggested he should consider seeing a healer. Like many
scientists, Anton recognized the existence of healing, but since he couldn't understand it
scientifically it was to be several months before he was prepared to try it. One day,
however, John rang me up while Anton was visiting him. He told me 'a doctor friend' was
having problems with his elbow but was very sceptical and could not be persuaded to
visit me personally. I said: i think you'll find your friend's problem is with his shoulder.'
John checked this out, and of course Anton confirmed that indeed the problem was
now in his shoulder. Perhaps that helped him to overcome his reluctance to visit me,
though even after making an appointment he was 'filled with trepidation'; his idea of a
healer was of 'someone who would go into a trance, make some strange noises and really
become quite abnormal'. However, like others before him, he felt he had nothing to lose,
and kept his appointment.
Here is Anton's account of what actually happened.
When I met Betty, I was surprised to find that she was a very ordinary person,
very lively and very friendly. Quite different to what I was expecting. She explained what
she was going to do and that I would probably need to see her five or six times. She then
put her hands on my shoulder and closed her eyes. Her hands became very warm and I
felt extremely comfortable.
Betty then explained that she was receiving messages. There was no doubt in my
mind that she was indeed receiving information from my grandparents who had died a
number of years previously. The interesting thing was that her description of my
grandmother, an unusual person, was extremely accurate. There was no way she had got
any of this information from me. I could not explain it but there
was no doubt that she was learning about me when I was a child.
I had to accept it for what it was. Very difficult if all your life you have been
testing hypotheses and receiving scientific answers. The interesting thing was the
message my grandmother had given Betty - 'I must believe.'
I must admit, when I left Betty I was beginning to believe.
Although it took him over an hour to drive home, Anton's left shoulder was still
hot when he arrived; he asked his wife to feel it, and she could feel the heat, too.
After Anton had visited me once a week for four weeks the pain had gone
completely and he had total movement in his left arm. Being a scientist, however, he still
felt that his recovery could be a coincidence. He tested it out by coaching gymnastics
again, including teaching the somersault that had caused the problem in the first place. I
had actually told him to stop coaching; the muscles and tendons had been damaged by the
operation, and his arm really wasn't strong enough to resume that kind of activity.
However, although he was 'beginning to believe', he had to prove to himself that the
healing had in fact taken place.
About a year later, in 19 8 2, his shoulder not surprisingly became extremely
painful again. He rang me for another appointment: as soon as he arrived I knew at once
that he had been coaching gymnastics again. His pain vanished after one session, but his
tendons had been damaged by the operation, and I knew he would be in trouble again if
he continued his activities. I told him that he must stop, if he wanted to remain pain-free.
Anton was satisfied by now with his experiment on himself, that healing worked.
'There was no doubt in my mind, that healing had removed the pain. Healing had healed
my shoulder,' he writes. Now that he was completely convinced, he decided that he ought
to know more about healing, and came to see me specifically to talk about it. He was
worried about the occasions during his work in the National Health Service when the
side-effects of drugs given to patients were worse than their original illness. Healing
struck him as a 'far nicer, non-invasive technique'. I knew that like many doctors he had
healing gifts himself, and told him so. Writes Anton:
By now I was no longer surprised by what Betty had to say. Her predictions
generally came true. She explained to me that I would be leaving the Health Service. At
the time I was extremely happy and could see no reason for leaving. As it transpired, I
started to help Betty and after a number of months I began to see people by myself at
home to help them with healing. Also, as Betty had predicted, I had become disenchanted
with the National Health Service and decided to leave. I set up a partnership with my
publisher friend and it is becoming quite successful.
at the bedside and hold their patient's hands and say: 'You will feel better
tomorrow.' These doctors were natural healers; they didn't use many drugs, because they
weren't available. By holding the patient's hands a healing energy flowed from the doctor
and the healing process had begun. I have come across several doctors who have been
natural healers without knowing it; they are not only successful medical men; they also
have an abundance of love and compassion.
No one can work really effectively as a healer without possessing compassion for
every living thing; to heal, compassion must be present in the very essence of your being.
Anton came and joined in my healing sessions, which I found very interesting as
he was able to describe people's problems from the medical point of view. Within three
months he was receiving clairvoyant diagnosis, not 'seeing' in the way that I do, or
receiving spirit messages, but through an inner knowing.
This inner knowing - which I am sure many doctors possess - coupled with his
medical knowledge, enabled him to tell people exactly what was wrong, and his healing
became daily more effective. Although he only heals part-time as he has a family to
support, he has the potential to work successfully as a full-time healer. He also has those
essential qualities, compassion and love for his fellow-men.
Long ago when doctors had more time they used to sit
SIX
Helping the Healing Process
think that this is overdone; it doesn't help people who are already ill to be made to feel
guilty about it. However, there is no doubt that the main causes of blockages in the
energy system are stress, negativity, and abuse of the physical body with bad diet,
alcohol, smoking and drugs, medical and otherwise. So, although many ailments can be
cured with healing, to get really well again it is often necessary for people to make
changes in their lifestyle and attitudes. The healing process is not a passive one, and
many of those who have come to me have made tremendous efforts to help themselves.
At the same time, 'self-responsibility' doesn't mean that you have to struggle along
on your own; we are all here to help and co-operate with one another. Seeking and
accepting the help of a healer or other therapist is a part of helping oneself. Very often,
indeed, people need an outsider to show them why they have become ill: it's amazing
how difficult it is to see things for oneself, or to realize what bad habits one has got into. I
know, because for years I was addicted to sugar without realizing it, although my
children could see it!
It is only after becoming sick that many people realize what health really means.
Using clairvoyance, I can always see what changes may be needed but, while I can
advise, it's up to the person concerned to take that advice and heed early warnings while a
cure can still be brought about. I still use my knowledge of vitamin and mineral therapy,
but these days I don't recommend anything until the patient has already had one or two
healing sessions at regular weekly intervals to boost his energy. Once his energy has been
built up it can be maintained with the right nutrition and mental attitudes.
The very first essential for good health is a positive attitude to life; negativity and
stress are at the root of most problems, including self-destructive habits. No doubt from
time to time everyone has been told to 'think positive', and it isn't always easy. As I can
actually see what happens when they do, I can explain just why it is so helpful; for many
people this has opened a hitherto closed door. At the end of their first session I tell new
patients something about mind energy, so that they can practise being positive before
their next visit. When they next come I will be able to see from the state of their mind
energy whether they have been working at it, and this thought encourages them to keep
going!
I also encourage them by teaching them relaxation techniques and mind-expanding
exercises, some of which are included in the last section of this book. Healing
can eliminate negative energy, but the regular practice of positive thought is
needed to prevent a renewed build-up of adverse energies. Unless negativity can be
reversed there is always a risk of falling ill again. In the end we have to cure ourselves
with positivity.
Sue, whom I told you about in the last chapter, felt very low when she first came
to see me, but she was a real fighter. I am certain that her recovery was due to the
combination of healing and her positive attitude. For people who are negative, I always
suggest putting a time-limit on negative thoughts and then, when the time is up, cutting
them off. Being miserly with negative time can change your whole life!
It would be asking too much to expect ill people to arrive on my doorstep radiating
positivity, and indeed most of them don't! But an open mind and a receptive attitude
make a good start; and, if there is also a good rapport with the healer, healing of both
mind and body can take place remarkably quickly. Leah, too, was feeling very low when
she came to see me in 1980 suffering from extreme tension, owing to difficulties relating
to her work, boyfriend, daughter and parents! In addition, she was yet another person
who came 'with considerable trepidation', expecting 'a wrinkled lady with headscarf,
hooped earrings and a regular stand at Blackpool Pier!' Writes Leah:
When the door opened I saw ... a smiling face, with 'welcome' written from one
cheek to the next. Her eyes gazed at me like two lasers and I knew in that instant that any
airs or pretences that I had acquired in my life had to be left on the doormat. She could
see straight into my soul; yet somehow I felt at ease.
When Leah had hopped on to my healing-couch, a number of people immediately
began to communicate with her. Leah says:
I was amazed not only by the accuracy of the survival evidence but also by my
own attitude. I simply was not afraid. I recall quite clearly Betty describing my maternal
grandmother. This was followed by a request for me to be more patient with my mother.
At that time, because of all the stress, I had been quite cantankerous, and I instantly felt
guilty, recalling at least half a dozen instances of gross misconduct and insubordination
on my part!
A great deal more evidence poured forth, much of which really startled Leah. She
was able to identify most of the people who communicated, in particular a young cousin
who had died in a car crash some eight years before; any pieces of information she didn't
understand were confirmed later when she checked them with members of her family.
While all this was going on, Leah was allowing herself to be completely receptive
to the healing I was giving her. She simply soaked it up! When she left, she had to sit for
a moment in her car, to contemplate her new-found composure.
All the tension had gone, and I felt a far greater lucidity of thought than I'd ever
experienced. Betty did not tell me what to do; it was unnecessary. I knew it purely by
instinct. I knew the job had to go and so did the troublesome boyfriend. I knew which
situations in my family called for greater compassion and which for increased rigidity. I
began to arrange my attitudes accordingly and the effects were dramatic.
The effects certainly were dramatic; the turn-round in Leah's attitudes and her
resolution to straighten out her life opened the way for much more happiness to come in.
I had also given her clairvoyance: I could see that she
would travel; I could see her photograph in magazines, and I could also see her
linked romantically with an ambassador! Although her father was a diplomat, she felt the
last prediction was laughable, especially when I told her he would be short, balding and
portly, the antithesis of the men she was usually attracted to.
In fact all these predictions turned out to be absolutely correct. Leah's totally
positive response to that one healing session enabled her to continue developing in both
positivity and spiritual awareness. In this respect healing can be like sowing a seed which
grows despite yourself. Leah went on to do jobs that she would never have thought she
would cope with. And eventually she did meet a man who exactly fitted my description.
She found her 'knees jellifying at the sound of his voice, which seemed to emanate from
the soil, it was so deep and resonant. I simply did not see his face. . . What I saw came
from within, and he had an enormous reservoir of love in his heart.' It wasn't until some
time after this meeting that Leah discovered that he was an ambassador!
Unfortunately, over the last twenty years a very common medical answer to
depression and anxiety has been to prescribe tranquillizers, which block the energy
system further and can actually prevent people from sorting out the problems that are
causing the stress.
Now that it's been discovered that tranquillizers are addictive, many doctors are
much more cautious about doling them out and encourage patients to find other ways of
relaxing. A lot of suffering could be avoided if people under stress would seek the help of
a healer, and back this up by practising relaxation and positive thinking at home. Take
Doris, for example, the sister of Margery, whom I told you about in the last chapter.
When Margery's migraines were cured so dramatically, Doris asked to come and
see me, too. She had suffered untold miseries because of a wrong medical diagnosis. In
fact, just like Margery, she had painful arthritis in the back
of her neck, accompanied by migraines and insomnia, but she had received quite
different treatment from her sister's. Her doctor never looked at her spine; he decided that
the problem was 'nerves' and prescribed accordingly.
The first pills she was given had no effect on her migraines and insomnia; in fact
they added to her problems by creating nervous side-effects. She felt permanently dizzy
and light-headed, which made her afraid of traffic and terrified of going out. The doctor
then prescribed Valium; this quietened the side-effects of the first pills, but the migraines
and insomnia continued. By the time she came to see me she had been taking Valium for
seven years and, like so many other unfortunate people, was totally addicted to it,
although it made her feel like a zombie.
AH chemical drugs have the effect of pushing the energy counterpart out of place,
and the mind energy can be pushed upwards so that the person is slightly out of his body!
A similar effect happens naturally when you are asleep, but going around like this during
the day makes people feel very peculiar. Many of them say they feel as if their feet are
not fully on the ground; in energy terms, they aren't, since the energy has been drawn up
and away from the feet.
When Doris arrived, I saw at once that the colour in her aura was the yellow that
indicated arthritis, not the green of a nervous problem at all. In addition, the mind energy
around the top of her head was only a thin line, instead of a vibrant cloud of energy; I
have seen this same phenomenon in other people with problems of addiction; it may have
something to do with the suppression of electrical currents.
When Doris lay down, I could see yellow energy congested all around her neck,
while dark areas of negative energy throughout her body indicated that some major areas
were under stress. As I gave her healing I said: 'Doris, you've got the same problem as
Margery!' Just as with her sister, calcium was pressing on a vital nerve at the top of the
spine.
I was also able to tell her that the problem had started in her energy counterpart at
the time when she lost her mother, to whom she had been very close, and had manifested
physically eighteen months later. Doris agreed that was exactly what had happened.
I laid my hands on her abdomen, which was very congested because of the drugs;
when that had been partially cleared I went over the other congested areas. When I
treated her neck, we could hear noises like splintering glass indicating that the calcium
was breaking up; this happened on all of Doris's visits, until at last she was free from her
arthritic prison.
Whenever I give healing, people go away afterwards glowing, and I can see a
white light all round them. From Doris's first healing this brilliant white light came in,
taking over all the dark patches and the yellow in her body. But I particularly remember
her second session, because her energy counterpart was simply bathed in a beautiful pale
blue, a very healing colour; it was as if an extra amount of healing energy was being
given her. During this session she told me that she felt at peace for the first time in seven
years.
When she realized how the Valium had been affecting her, Doris made up her
mind to stop taking it there and then. I warned her to cut down her dosage by degrees to
avoid withdrawal symptoms. However, Doris was determined, and threw her pills away
overnight.
As a result, she did have extremely bad withdrawal symptoms for about two
months, although regular healing made these attacks less ferocious than they would
otherwise have been. One evening between appointments she phoned me to ask for help;
she was due to meet some friends to celebrate her birthday but felt too ill to make the
journey. I told her she would be able to go to the party; meanwhile she should just sit
quietly until I phoned her back. I then gave her absent healing, visualizing her whole
body surrounded in healing energies. I knew she would be all right.
When I rang her after twenty minutes she told me that after she sat down she lost
all consciousness; when she was awakened by the telephone she thought she must have
been asleep. But she felt so good that she knew she had been completely taken over by
the healing energies. Later that evening she rang to say that she was at the hotel having a
wonderful party!
Doris eventually stopped having withdrawal symptoms. She has not taken any
drug since she first came to see me some six years ago. Doris was a case of severe
addiction to tranquillizers and, although she didn't take my advice about dropping them
slowly, her determination to take responsibility and fight the addiction was a vital factor
in her recovery.
As a rule, I suggest to people who are on tranquillizers that they should only take
one if they need it. Usually the healing energies smooth away their anxieties to such an
extent that they need the pills less and less, and find themselves stopping gradually and
naturally. Rather than giving up, they simply forget to take them.
Addiction comes in many forms. People who become hooked on medical drugs
are usually innocent victims, but where cigarettes, alcohol and certain foods are
concerned most of us have some choice, at least to start with. Smoking and food
addictions I can usually help with hypnosis, provided the person really wants to give up. I
think my attitude helps as well; as a former sugar addict, I can understand what it means
to be hooked on something. When people realize I am not going to judge them, and know
exactly what they are going through, the rapport helps with the healing.
Drink is a rather different problem; alcoholics really need more time and attention
than I can give them, so I always suggest that they go to Alcoholics Anonymous, who do
very good work and provide emotional support. If someone has already joined AA and
stopped drinking, healing can of course boost his energy system and help him to feel
better, but only the alcoholic can take the first steps.
Much the same is true of non-medical drug addicts. Again, most of them need
more time and attention than an individual healer can give, though if healers were
brought into withdrawal programmes they would certainly have a part to play. At one
point, however, I found myself working with several young drug addicts who came to me
through friends.
Drug addiction is a very worrying problem, not only for the obvious reasons, but
also because drugs can attract very negative energies. One day I was visited by a boy in
his teens, who came because of a knee injury. While I was healing him, I felt a very odd
energy around him; I went cold and shivery, and had a feeling of repulsion. I asked him
how he was feeling, and he said that while he was with me he felt safe, but there were
times when he felt suicidal.
At that point I was given a clairvoyant message that he was on drugs. I checked
this out with him, and he admitted that he was. I described the unpleasant energy I could
sense around him, but didn't go into too much detail because I didn't want to frighten him.
I explained to him that the drugs had affected his mind so that it had become alien to his
true nature and had attracted unwanted negative energies. He wasn't surprised; in fact he
was relieved, because that was what he had sensed himself. When he was alone he, too,
could feel when these unpleasant energies were around, and felt cold and shivery and
frightened. This is why many drug addicts feel paranoid: it's not just their imagination;
they are actually attracting negativity.
We had a long talk, and I promised to see the young man once a week for the next
few weeks. 'You can get rid of this feeling,' I told him, 'but it will mean a lot of hard
work, and a change in your attitudes to life. I don't mean that you have to change your
personality; simply that you will go back to being the nice person you were before you
started taking drugs.'
It was to be several months before, together, we brought about a really positive
change by strengthening his mind energy and boosting his depleted physical system. You
have to feel better in yourself before you have the strength to use your mind to the full,
especially when your strength has been sapped by drug-taking! We both went through
many heartaches, but in the end he did change. He came off drugs, and the negative
energy was eliminated. Once more he was in command of his own life, which is as it
should be.
As this story shows, negativity can be dangerous. I have already mentioned
Universal Law; it is a vital message that during my years as a medium has been repeated
constantly. Whatever you do in thought, word and deed, pleasant or unpleasant, will
return to you in the fullness of time. It may not necessarily come from the person you
have loved or disliked, but you cannot escape from the effects of your own actions. We
have no choice but to accept responsibility for what we do.
The Law of the Universe is unbending; there is no escaping it. I have studied
people and situations for years, and in the end, no matter how long it may take, what one
gives out comes back. Everything, whether it's anxiety, a piece of malicious gossip, or a
loving and positive thought for someone else, takes the form of energy which in the end
we will attract back to ourselves.
Universal Law cannot be changed. That is why this message cannot be ignored.
Unless we accept this fact and change, even in small ways, our own destruction and
eventually that of the earth will be irreversible.
This message has been preached by every major religion throughout time. It is
obvious that many people today are becoming aware of it, and I believe the tide has
started to turn, but progress must accelerate if we are going to make waves. There are
hundreds of young people who have become vegetarian, and who are trying to prevent
cruelty to animals. Ecologists everywhere are trying desperately to reverse the situation
created by man's destruction of nature. More and more ordinary people are not only
aware of the plight of others but are also taking action to help them.
We owe it to ourselves and to the people with whom we live to create a peaceful
and loving environment. We also owe it to the whole world to share our peace and love
and help those whose lives are beset with uncertainty and trauma. We can't all be saints,
and I'm sure most of us don't want to be! But it will make life easier in the end not to give
out any disagreeable vibrations; the energies we put out return to us in some form or
other, and negative thinking will attract negative vibrations and even happenings.
Among the drug addicts who have sought my help, an understanding of Universal
Law and the realization that ultimately we cannot escape from responsibility have been
one of the main factors in their cure.
It is sad that young people turn to drugs for inspiration, when we can all contact
our creativity in much happier ways. I have worked with a number of young musicians
who have been addicted to all kinds of drug, believing that they enhanced their creativity.
The danger is that drugs may give the young some kind of glimpse into another
dimension, so they will ignore the fact that they are damaging their bodies and their
brains. When they have healing, and experience phenomena such as colours coming
through, they begin to understand that drugs are not the only way to touch into other
worlds!
These musicians included Matt, who first visited me in 1983. He was twenty-one,
a slim tense young man. He had dislocated his right shoulder several times during the
previous eighteen months. Doctors and private specialists had told him that the only
treatment available was a fairly serious operation which was not always successful. It
would have left him with restricted movement and, as Matt puts it, 'I had been putting off
After practice I felt strong enough to cope on my own without stimulants, e.g.
drugs and drink, for about four months. [He had one small lapse, after which he kicked
his habits altogether.] Throughout this time I felt the real person within me strengthening.
I started to see that there is such a thing as self-healing, particularly in terms of releasing
mental tension and in understanding oneself.
During the years since, Matt and I have seen each other often as friends, and from
time to time I've given him a lecture if he has seemed in danger of lapsing. 'Sorry about
that!' I'd say when I was through, and he'd say: 'Oh, no, I needed it!' He has come through
with flying colours. In my opinion he has courage and a remarkable non-materialistic side
to his nature. He continued his progress by attending my daughter's yoga lessons and has
gone from strength to strength. Janet and he have also become firm friends and she has
spent a lot of time with him. He has been worth all the effort.
I am sure that the turn-around in Matt's healing process was largely due to his
taking the vitamins and minerals I recommended. If people's energies have become very
depleted, for whatever reason, it is difficult for them to feel
strong enough to be positive. I recommend supplements to most of my patients,
usually after the first two or three healing sessions, and I am convinced of their value.
Having been a vitamin and mineral therapist for thirty-odd years, and once
considered a crank, I was interested to read, just as I was writing this part of the book,
that medical research now shows that proper nutrition and an adequate supply of vitamins
can bring about an increase in children's intelligence and improve delinquent behaviour.
Of course this has been known in natural health circles for many years.
All true healing must be a whole healing, and to remain totally happy, healthy and
youthful as long as possible you must feed yourself properly. Many people who come to
me with physical problems like a sprained ankle will tell me they've smoked and drunk
all their lives and feel fine. But no one really gets away with it; when I look at them
clairvoyantly, I often find that they have blocked arteries without realizing it.
As a very basic guideline I advise cutting out white flour, white rice and white
sugar, and eating as much fresh fruit and raw vegetables as possible. Eat white meat and
fish rather than red meat; the hormones and other injections given to cattle nowadays are
only too easily absorbed into the body. If it's possible to eat unsprayed, organically grown
fruit and vegetables, all the better. I also recommend avoiding coffee, which can have
harmful effects, particularly on people suffering from depression.
I don't have the time these days to act as a nutrition counsellor, but there are many
good books on the subject; those by Adele Davies are excellent, and I recommend them
to anyone who is interested in going more fully into the subject of diet. As far as vitamins
and minerals are concerned, I can strongly recommend Nutritional Medicine by Dr
Stephen Davies and Dr Alan Stewart, whose recommendations are in total accord with
what I have always practised.
These days it is all the more important to keep our bodies fit through proper
nutrition because there is so much pollution of the environment. For many years now I
have been aware of the harm to humanity caused by diseases from outer space. Since I
am not a scientist, I realized that nobody was likely to take my views on this very
seriously. However, I found them echoed in Diseases from Space by Fred Hoyle, a
scientist who has always been thirty years ahead of his time.
Today, scientists are concerned about the hole in the ozone layer above the earth,
which is allowing too many ultraviolet rays from the sun to penetrate our atmosphere.
This could result in an increase in skin cancer, cataracts and other diseases, and an upset
in the delicate balance of the world's climate and life-support systems. The cause is now
recognized as chemicals from aerosol sprays and polystyrene fast-food cartons! It is to be
hoped that some action will be taken on this before it is too late: already the hole in the
ozone layer has increased by 15 per cent in the last year.
We must all take some responsibility for the welfare of the planet, as well as for
our own welfare. We can all support the earth's natural ecology, even in comparatively
small ways: for example by refusing to use sprays of any kind.
It is rare for me to ask people to stop taking medically prescribed drugs. It's not
my aim to work in competition with or opposition to doctors; healing should be
complementary to conventional medicine. Medical treatment alone may be best for a
patient at certain times. For example, I have found that people with serious mental
problems generally do best with medically prescribed anti-depressants; I have also found
that they can be reassured by explaining to them that the drugs make them feel a little
unreal because of their temporary effects on the energy body.
However, if I see that medical drugs or hormones are actually causing serious
problems without benefiting the patient, I suggest that perhaps the tablets could be
reduced or given up for the time being, while healing is being given. Jenny is a case in
point; she is also an example of how a positive personality can help to complement the
healing process.
A lovely great-hearted lady in her thirties with her own printing and design studio
in London, Jenny used to suffer badly from frequent migraines, accompanied by bouts of
vomiting. The fact that she was very unwell when she first came to see me didn't subdue
her personality; she's on the large side, and I remember her taking one look at my rather
narrow healing-couch and joking about whether she'd fall off it!
Jenny had woken one Saturday with 'a thundering migraine, as usual', but had to
go to her office to finish some work for a film premiere that evening. Too ill to drive, she
ordered a cab; the driver happened to be Leslie. She warned him she would have to stop
several times to be sick. He was very concerned about her and couldn't believe that she
was actually going in to work; when he delivered her to her office he gave her my
business card and said: 'Ring this lady. She will sort you out.'
Even though she was feeling half-dead Jenny got straight on to me; she found that
even hearing me on the phone made her feel a little better. In fact as soon as Leslie gave
her my name and she started thinking about me her mind energy would have
automatically come into contact with the healing energies around me. We made an
appointment for the following week; in the mean time, I told her to sit quietly for a little
while, and relax and breathe properly. Her migraine didn't go immediately, but she did
stop vomiting. She came to see me a week later; I'll let her tell you what happened.
Betty immediately made me feel at ease. She ushered me into her healing-room
and asked me take off my shoes and lie on the couch. She told me to relax and
explained that she would place her hands all over my body - starting from the feet
- and try to find the cause of these migraines.
Her hands felt very hot and hovered over my tummy. Betty said, 'What are all
these scars?'
I explained that at the age of sixteen, I had a thirteen pound growth removed from
my womb and that I had had four further operations since then in the same area. In fact, I
had just spent a week in a hospital in Wimbledon as a private patient and had been told
that after all these operations my body was not functioning properly. I had endometriosis,
and had apparently been suffering from it for a long time. It became worse from time to
time and caused a lot of side-effects.
I could see that the lining of the womb was in a mess, and very inflamed. When I
gave Jenny my diagnosis, she said: Thanks! I've just paid a hospital five hundred pounds
for that information! And it took them a week to find it out.' Endometriosis is the
development of the womb lining, the endometrium, in other parts of the body; nobody
knows what causes it, but it can create a lot of pain and misery, and also infertility. Jenny
goes on:
I had been taking hormone tablets for about two years and after this last spell in
hospital my dosage had been increased. Betty immediately told me that my tummy
problems were the root of all my troubles, especially my migraine. I had to laugh,
because I had come about my head and in ten minutes Betty had taken me back twenty
I asked him if it was the tablets that had cleared my problem at long last. 'Well,
yes - but it is very unusual for this complaint to disappear altogether. You must be a
lucky lady.'
I told him that I had taken hardly any tablets since I last came out of hospital. I
told him exactly what had happened since I met Betty. I was shocked to learn that this
was nothing new to him. He made no real comment except to say that the most important
thing was that I was well and that I was clear of the problem which had plagued me for
twenty years. He never finished writing the prescription.
Five years have passed now and still no sign of the migraine. I have had no tummy
pains and I feel extremely well and happy.
Jenny was worried about her business when she first came to see me. While I
healed her I gave her some clairvoyance about her affairs, which gave her peace of mind.
A month later my forecast came true and her business recovered from the doldrums. I
also knew that she herself was psychic; it's surprising how many of the people who come
to see me do have psychic and healing gifts. They don't always follow up on these, but
Jenny did: she is now a medium in her own right.
Soon after Jenny got a clean bill of health, I came home one day to find three
packages on my doorstep. Inside was a wonderful present from Jenny. She had taken a
batch of my poems away, all typed on odd pieces of paper, and had liked them so much
that she had printed them in book form. A beautiful way of saying 'Thank you' and my
very first book!
As Jenny's case shows, healing can be very effective with gynaecological
problems, which can often be solved without resorting to hormone tablets or other drugs,
since the chakra system is very closely related to the endocrine system which controls the
glands and the natural hormones. I have found that the stimulating effect of healing can
help women who have found it difficult to get pregnant. (I have also accurately predicted
both the birth-date and sex of a large number of unborn babies!)
I am sure that one reason why Jenny responded so well to healing is that she is
always thinking of other people. She has a genuine desire to help others, and this takes
the strain off herself; when a person is outgoing and helpful, the mind energy radiates
outwards, taking the pressure off the brain and body.
Jenny's attitude is quite different, incidentally, from that of those people who help
others because they feel they ought to, and have a guilt complex if they 'selfishly' think
about their own needs. It's a difficult line to draw, as their motivation may be excellent;
they may be very religious, or anxious to be perfect wives and mothers. But, at the same
time, they can be subconsciously objecting to perpetually giving out, and this, too, will
affect the energy system and cause illness. (Maggie, whose story I tell on page 204, was
this type of woman.)
By contrast, I have come across more than one person who, unlike Jenny, has
simply refused to share his or her natural gifts. I remember one woman a few years ago
who had been running from therapist to psychiatrist to healer, looking for someone to
cure her of her aches and pains and depression. I could see at once that she had the
potential to be a healer. But when I told her that the cause of her problems was a build-up
of energy that could be used to help others she insisted that she had come for help; she
felt quite unable to help anyone else because her married life was so miserable.
After talking to her for twenty minutes I discovered that her problems went back
to very early in her life, long before her marriage. She came for healing five or six times,
which helped to calm her down, but I had to explain to her that if she didn't want to
become a healer the excess energies would always cause her problems unless she used
them in some way. She took note: when I last heard of her, she was becoming an expert
in table tennis, and her 'nervous problems' were receding!
One addiction I haven't so far mentioned, by the way, is an addiction to healing!
Receiving healing is so pleasant that many people want to continue when they no longer
need it; some would rather go on receiving help than take responsibility for their own
lives. But after a number of sessions they really don't need any more. They have received
a vast amount of healing energy; their chakras are functioning beautifully, so that they are
now drawing in their own life force, and they can continue to heal themselves. I usually
suggest, in the nicest possible way, that they should not become over-energized, as this,
too, can create its problems; sometimes they only agree with reluctance, but many of
them have rung me months later to say they still feel wonderful!
Stress has become such a popular subject in the media lately that I hardly need tell
you that it is widely understood to be a cause or a triggering factor in a large number of
diseases, including cancer. Even so, I will repeat it here, because I have found this to be
so myself. While there may be genetic, nutritional and environmental factors contributing
to ill health, stress is often the last straw; conversely, people can help themselves
enormously by learning to be positive.
Worry and fear cause an increase in the production of the hormone adrenalin
which, in turn, leads to congested negative energy in the body and the organs are unable
to function as they should. Once I have taught people how to relax and use mental
exercises, they can usually keep stress-induced diseases at bay.
Stress produced by shock can also be very damaging to body and mind, and
healing can deal with it remarkably effectively. If only people would use it
preventatively, and go to a healer when they have an emotional shock - just as you might
go to a casualty department for a physical trauma - the mind energy would have a better
chance of staying healthy and strong. I have also found that many conditions like
allergies, asthma and migraines can actually originate with the shock of a difficult birth.
In such cases it can be too pat to say that people must help themselves. What they need is
the help of a healer who can understand and remove the effects of the birth-shock on the
energy system - something it's not exactly easy to do for oneself, even if aware of the
need for it!
Shock can have quite serious effects later on in life, too. One day two years ago
Alan and I were giving lunch at home to a young student and her parents. Tracy was
suffering from epilepsy which had manifested itself in her late teens. Not only was it
inhibiting her life, but also the drugs she had been prescribed were having a disastrous
effect on her studies.
Sitting opposite her at the table, I took a look at her mind energy. I asked her to
relax, and then explained to her what I could see. The healthy mind energy includes what
looks like a series of separate goldish-yellow links, which are not completely joined up
but are attracted to each other, probably electro-magnetically, to form a kind of chain
around the head. In migraine-sufferers and epileptics there is always a break in these
links, and it seems that when a link is broken it's a bit as if a fuse has been blown. I've
sometimes told people that they're obviously shorting! In Tracy's case there were two
breaks above her head, as if two links were missing. I told her that if she would sit quietly
I would link her up.
I looked at her for no more than two minutes using my 'laser beam' technique to
link up the chain. Then, once I saw that this had been done, I told her that she would
suffer no more fits. I think both she and her parents found this very difficult to believe!
But since that healing she has taken no further drugs and has had no recurrence of the
epilepsy.
Afterwards, Tracy felt the physical effects of the adjustment to the electrical
circuit around her, and became momentarily very hot and faint. We helped her to an
armchair, and in a few minutes she was herself again. I then told her that I had also been
given clairvoyantly the cause of her problem: that it had started about two years before as
the result of a shock. I asked her if she could remember what it might have been, but after
giving it some thought she couldn't recall anything. Neither could her parents.
Later that afternoon, she and I took my dog for a walk, and she told me that she
had never got over the death of her own dog, who had been with her for as long as she
could remember.
'How long ago was this?' I asked.
invited anyone who wished to examine her legs to do so; several of them did. I
deliberately did not give her any healing, as I wanted to demonstrate how the power of
suggestion could affect the mind of someone in a relaxed state. Of course, healers give
out healing energies all the time, so I spent as little time with her as possible. I explained
all this to her before we started, and she understood what I was aiming to do.
Despite being the object of so much attention, she quickly relaxed and entered into
a hypnotic state. I told her that bitterness was causing her problem, and suggested that she
put all thoughts of bitterness out of her mind and to be peaceful and relaxed.
The next day she came to me in great delight; the ulcers had already started to
heal, and she was feeling like a different person. Four days later, at the end of the
seminar, the doctors examined her again. They could hardly believe their eyes; the ulcers
had almost disappeared. Two months later she wrote to me, enclosing photographs
showing that her legs were now completely healed.
Whenever I am worried by problems I try to think of this young girl and the state
of her legs, and how the condition of her mind was eating away at her flesh. It just isn't
worth it!
Negativity is an easy state to get into if you have no one with whom you can share
your problems. A lot of people have come to me over the years suffering from
depression, and in the majority of cases, somewhere along the line, the root cause is a
lack of love. Very rarely do people get deeply depressed about their careers so long as
they have a loving relationship. But for those who have no one close in whom they can
confide I have included an exercise ('Write It Down') in the final section of the book; I
know it can have remarkable results. Try it!
Sometimes I may see that a bad marriage is affecting someone's health adversely;
it isn't necessarily helpful for me to say so outright as they may not be in a physical or
financial position to do anything about it - nor, of course, do I want to be visited by an
outraged husband or wife! In such cases, I usually say that I can see that they are under
stress for reasons they will best know themselves, and suggest that they seek outside
interests to help them to take their minds off their unhappiness. The companionship and
interest of evening classes, for instance, can make a great deal of difference to a person's
morale, and remove the mental pressure for at least some of the time.
Motivating people isn't always easy, unfortunately. I can only give people the key
to a positive outlook; I cannot make them use it. I know many healers and good doctors
who try to take the whole world on their shoulders; in the end you have to give up,
because over-concern about one person prevents you from healing so many others.
Every person has to be looked at individually, and sometimes there are changes
relating to emotional problems that not only can but also should be made. Maggie, for
instance, was a very nice, rather shy woman who came to me with very severe backache
and migraine, which I could see were being caused by her marriage. In her case, there
was something she could do, particularly when I pointed out to her what I could see and
she could not.
I learned clairvoyantly that her husband was a very ambitious man with an
overpowering personality, who was 'always right'; consequently, when anything went
wrong, Maggie automatically and incorrectly blamed herself. While healing helped her
migraines and backache, I knew that for a complete recovery she must stop suppressing
her own personality. I could also see clairvoyantly that she would receive promotion in
her job, which at the time she didn't think herself capable of. At first, she didn't believe
me. I had to talk to her quite a lot to show her that the pent-up tension that she was
accumulating was creating her physical problems, and was due to her suppressing her
natural emotions.
Gradually Maggie learned to be a little more assertive and to stand up for herself though always very mildly because she was a naturally gentle person. But the fact that
she no longer blamed herself for every domestic difficulty had an enormous effect on her
health and her self-esteem. She also began to see her husband and his behaviour with a
much clearer eye. Several years later, when he left her, far from being devastated she was
quite glad to be rid of him and is living more happily than ever before!
As any psychotherapist will tell you, the causes of many people's problems,
particularly people who suffer from low self-esteem, lie a long way back in their
childhood. Children feel rather than think; if they feel unloved or insecure, these feelings
later become interpreted as thoughts which colour the way they see the world. Then, as
adults, they tend to go through life expecting to fail or to be rejected, and blaming
themselves when they are.
I have often been able to help people like this by regressing them back to
childhood, when their problems first started. Looking back on often misunderstood
events with increased understanding, they find that they no longer need their negative
self-image. Some people who have suffered as children spend months or years having
psychotherapy, but I find that when understanding is combined with healing these
traumas can be got over relatively quickly.
As has been shown by experiments with brainwave patterns, the mind energy of
the healer takes over that of the client; if the healer is positive - and there's no sense in
going to one who isn't - this additional element makes it easier to discard negativity and
to start completely afresh without it. At the end of these sessions, I will say: 'Now is
when you start living positively! It really doesn't matter a damn what has happened in the
past, because you can start again from now: now you can start a new life, and when you
born intuitive; if they are encouraged to stimulate this faculty by using their imagination,
they will never lose it. And encouraging a positive self-image from an early age can make
all the difference to your child's later health and happiness. It would be wonderful if
parents could help their children to use their imagination positively before any kind of ill
health sets in, and before their minds are polluted by negative ideas.
Parents are often nervous when they first bring their children for healing. Happily,
this doesn't extend to the children, for whom it is a new, enjoyable experience which they
accept without question as the most natural thing in the world. They enjoy the sensations
it produces, delighting in the feeling of lightness and describing the transference of
energy as 'like fizzy lemonade' running up and down their legs! Above all, a healing
session with a child is a happy time for both of us, and probably the most rewarding
aspect of my job. Children's acceptance and trust are reminders of how things should and
could be all the time.
They are particularly intrigued when I tell them about themselves, how they're
feeling and their abilities and hopes, and are fascinated that I can tell them how they're
getting on at school, and describe their friends and interests. Their eyes light up as they
interrogate me as to how I 'do it'. I explain to them in a simplified way how mind energy
works, and how the light around their heads grows stronger and stronger the more they
learn, until they begin to 'know' about things, about nature, how their parents feel, or if
their animals are ill or unhappy - in fact about the growth of their intuition.
Of course, it isn't, strictly speaking, accurate to talk about 'young minds', since
mind energy is carried on from one life to another. However, when a mind arrives in a
new body it has been, so to speak, 'cleaned up'. In the early years, a child's mind energy
expands further outwards and glows more brightly than that of most adults; it doesn't
contain the greys and the dark patches caused by accumulated worries. Even in a
seriously ill child, the mind energy can glow very brightly. A child's mind is clear, open
and receptive. That means that we should be very careful about what is put into it!
Children's minds are extremely suggestible. If a child is constantly criticized or
given negative judgements about himself, those suggestions are implanted and may be
retained for life, unless the child meets someone who has the power to remove them. That
someone doesn't have to be a healer; it may be a caring teacher who will give him
self-worth or, as happens very often, a grandparent. Many old people are very good at
inspiring children with confidence. While parents want their children to achieve,
grandparents can be more relaxed, and say things like:
'Don't worry about your exams. I failed mine ten times, and I made it!'
I myself left school at fourteen, and have gone on learning ever since. Of course,
having a link with the universal mind and the ability to absorb knowledge from all
manner of minds, I have been able to learn a lot the lazy way! But I would love all young
people to be given an understanding of mind energy as early as possible, so that they
could grow up using the full potential of their minds.
You cannot give healing to a child too early: in fact most newly born babies could
benefit from a healer's touch. Any kind of birth is to some extent traumatic for the child
who has to enter a new world with its noise and lights and hundreds of new sensations. If
you think about it, at birth the noise alone must be tremendous! The mind of the baby is
still close to the dimension from which it has come. During my own visits there, what I
have noticed above all is the total peace; even communication is telepathic. Loud or harsh
noise is one of the most harmful things for babies and most young children - except, of
course, for the noise they make themselves! It is only gradually that their nervous
systems toughen up as they grow.
I am certain that an enormous number of 'childish' ailments - such as asthma,
eczema, migraines, sleeplessness and other nervous symptoms - have their origins in
difficult deliveries. The stress of a traumatic birth creates a misalignment of the energy
counterpart, which gives rise to problems which can get progressively worse. Giving a
baby contact or absent healing immediately after birth could largely eliminate a number
of these at source, saving both mother and child a great deal of stress and anxiety. A very
simple alternative would be for mothers or nurses gently to stroke newborn babies,
starting at the head and going downwards over the whole body, thus smoothing the
energy counterpart into position and settling the mind energy.
Even if they are not dealt with at birth, there are a number of particularly childish
ailments which can be alleviated rapidly and easily in a few healing sessions - problems
like asthma, bed-wetting (for which I have found hypnosis very effective), allergies and
migraines. Marcus's mother was absolutely desperate when she brought him to see me.
He was ten years old, and for two years she had nursed him through headache after
headache, watching him repeatedly banging his head against a wall or floor in a desperate
attempt to relieve his pain. She had seen numerous doctors who had finally diagnosed the
problem as migraine. Giving it a label, however, did nothing to ease his pain.
He would spend weeks off school and suffered many sleepless nights filled with
pain, frustration and fear. Although his mother didn't believe in giving him drugs, she had
'pumped him full of Paracetamol' - in her desperation she would have done anything to
ease his anguish. She felt the problem must be far more serious than migraine, and she
had just decided to see a neurologist privately when a friend told her about me.
When I met Marcus he turned out to be a very lively little boy, although obviously
in distress; he was screwing up his eyes and holding his head. I could see that the mind
energy had funnelled in to such an extent that it had almost disappeared. No wonder his
head hurt! I asked him to lie down and placed my hands on his head: instantaneously, he
fell asleep. After some twenty minutes, I began to draw out the mind energy, lifting the
pressure from his brain.
Three-quarters of an hour later Marcus opened his eyes, which were now
sparkling. His pain had completely gone, he told me, and he exclaimed happily: 'I feel
lighter!'
While I was healing him I had picked up the information that he was worried
about his maths, so I asked him whether this was so. He told me it was, and that the
subject was made the more difficult for him because he hated his maths master. 'I think I
can help with that, too,' I told him.
I asked him to lie down again, and this time gave him some hypnotherapy. I told
him he should not worry about his master or his maths, that eventually he would actually
come to like maths. He enjoyed this session thoroughly; like other young children, it
made him feel as though he were flying, and he was able to see lots of beautiful colours.
Marcus only needed two sessions with me; in fact he suffered no further migraines
after the first visit. Some six weeks later, I learned that the hypnotherapy had taken effect.
Marcus had begun to like not only maths but also the fearsome teacher! I gave healing to
his mother, too; she had been very anxious about him, and was at last able to relax. I gave
her my booklet on positive thinking, and she has never looked back!
Few people are aware that love and compassion can enable anyone to transfer
excess energy to others, particularly those they care about. In the case of mothers this
often happens automatically. Unfortunately, the reverse is also true: since babies, children
and adolescents pick up vibrations very easily, aggressive parents frequently produce
aggressive children. If you are able to put aside your own problems for the love of your
baby or your child, you should do so. It is up to parents to give children a peaceful home.
Disease within the environment will later become disease within the physical body.
Sad to say, some of the children who come to me are suffering from
stress-triggered ailments. From birth, the majority of babies nowadays 'live in the fast
lane' with their parents. It is essential that at some time each day babies and small
children should be allowed to enjoy a peaceful environment, when everything slows
down for a while. This would also, of course, be good for the parents! Television,
incidentally, should be kept to a minimum, and should never be used to keep children
quiet. I know the temptations, having been through it all myself! However, it does affect
their eyes, and the effects of radiation from the set itself, however minute, may build up
to produce harmful effects. A much better way to keep a child happy is to give him or her
a few more hugs and cuddles - and, above all, have fun together!
I often get calls from parents with children in the throes of acute asthmatic attacks.
In practically every case absent healing can arrest these attacks. Asthma is generally
regarded as stress-induced, which is not necessarily the fault of the parents; it is very
often related to the environment in which they live. This can be an accumulation of things
like air and food pollution and bad housing conditions; in addition, if the parents are
unhappy about their environment, their children pick up the stress from their mind energy
and auras. Despite all these influences, I'm glad to say that I have helped bring about
some sixty permanent cures from asthma.
Hyperactivity, which is also related to stress and the environment, I have found
rather more difficult to deal with. Food and chemical allergies are often held to blame for
this distressing condition, but the causes can be very complex, and may well include
genetic factors. I believe that very often one of the parents of a hyperactive child has been
hyperactive, or had hyperactive tendencies, so it may well be that a chemical imbalance is
being genetically reproduced.
I am afraid there is no single blanket solution to hyperactivity. Working to a busy
schedule as I do, it isn't easy for me to go into the subject of food in great detail, though I
would always recommend following the basic dietary advice given in the last chapter
(page 191). However, I don't believe that hyperactivity is simply related to food; it results
from a combination of factors including food, genes, emotions and environment. I feel
that these children need individual attention, possibly in a special school where each child
could be treated as a separate person. Healing might benefit them if they were given it
early enough; when they are smaller they are easier to handle!
I have found some of these children easy to heal, and
some very difficult indeed. One little girl, Fay, was brought to me at the age of
eight with two major problems. One was hyperactivity; in addition, she had been born
with both her feet turned backwards, and despite a number of operations she still could
not walk. Every time she came for healing we could hear loud bangs and cracks, and after
each explosion her feet straightened out a little - she used to tell her father I was breaking
her bones! However, it was a painless experience.
After six sessions Fay was able to walk up and down the stairs in my home, and
became progressively more able to walk unaided every time she came. At the end of each
session she was always impatient to try the stairs to see how much she had improved.
Sadly, although by the time of her last visit her feet were nearly completely
straight, her hyperactivity became worse, possibly because of some emotional stress
during this time. She became totally uncontrollable, and consequently impossible to heal;
she was incapable of lying or sitting still enough. Her mother, a very nice woman, did her
best to control her, but she had her work cut out as she also had a small baby. In the end
we were both forced to give up Fay's healing. This was an enormous shame. I continued
to send her absent healing, but I heard no more from her family.
I have healed so many children with so many problems that it is difficult to
remember them all. There are one or two, however, who will always stand out
particularly in my memory. More than once I have sent absent healing to a child in a
coma - absent healing can be very effective, even when the child is in a serious condition.
One of these children was Adrian.
One day some five years ago I had a frantic call from the father of a
thirteen-year-old boy who was in a coma after being hit by a lorry outside his home. The
medical team caring for him had told the father that they didn't think his son would
survive - and that if he did it would only be as a cabbage. Unwilling to accept this, he had
got in touch with Michael Bentine, who gave him my number.
I immediately made contact with Adrian through absent healing, and received the
information clairvoyantly that he would not only recover but would also have all his
faculties. I passed this straight on to his father, and also told him that his son had injured
his back; I could actually 'see' the injuries and described these to him. At this point the
father didn't know what they consisted of, but several days later he was able to see them
for himself and confirmed what I'd told him.
I then saw some rapid clairvoyant images which I also relayed over the telephone:
one was of the boy with a fishing rod, which was followed by a picture of butterflies.
Adrian's father was rather mystified; as far as he knew, his son had never gone fishing or
even talked about it, nor did he collect butterflies. In fact he hadn't the faintest idea what I
was talking about, and may have wondered how reliable I was! I knew, however, that the
source of my information was rarely wrong, so I was certain that these images would
somehow turn out to have a connection with Adrian and his family.
As it turned out, on the very day this conversation took place, Adrian's two sisters
came home from school, each wearing in her coat a butterfly brooch which their parents
had not known they possessed! The father was so astonished that he rang me up straight
away to tell me. The meaning of the fishing rod took a little longer to be clarified.
This was by no means an instant healing, and Adrian remained in a coma for some
time. About a week after his father first contacted me, his school friends made a
tape-recording in the hope that somehow they could get through to him. When the father
listened to it at his son's bedside he was shaken to hear them talking about a fishing trip
they had planned together.
Playing a tape of familiar voices or favourite music can be very helpful for
someone in a coma, and I'm glad to see that it is becoming quite a common form of
treatment aid in hospitals. It works, I believe, because sound acts directly on the mind
energy. Many people have recovered from comas able to describe what was happening
around them while they were unconscious. The mind is obviously all-hearing and
all-seeing, even if the brain is not reacting.
My talking about fishing and butterflies might seem totally irrelevant in
connection with a desperately ill small boy, but very often evidence like this only seems
unimportant until events take place which put it in its true perspective. I knew from
experience that these impressions would show that I really was in communication with a
source of higher knowledge. Once this was confirmed, it helped give the parents the
strength and confidence to carry on throughout their ordeal. In turn, their hopefulness and
confidence would have had a positive effect on Adrian's mind.
I continued to give him regular absent healing, and was able to monitor his
progress every time I did so; in fact whenever Adrian's father telephoned - which he did
daily - I would give him a progress report before he had time to give me one. Adrian's
mental recovery was slow at first, but it gathered speed, and after two months he was
walking quite well. The last I heard of him, he was going off on a two-week holiday. I
lost contact with the family when I moved, but Adrian's father wrote a beautiful letter to
Michael Bentine thanking him for the introduction to me, and reporting that with the aid
of healing Adrian had made a remarkable recovery.
Of course the medical team were superb throughout, as they always are in these
circumstances, but in cases like this other energies are also needed to help bring about a
complete recovery. Why not have the best of both worlds?
Another child who stands out in my mind was a little boy of about twelve, on
whom my doctor friend Anton worked with me. He had been born with 'trigger' fingers
and toes, a condition in which the ligaments shrink and tighten, drawing the fingers and
toes inwards. (His mother had a similar condition in her hands, to a lesser degree.) He
had had numerous operations since birth and, shortly before coming to see us, pins had
been inserted for a time in his fingers and toes in an attempt to straighten them out; none
of this surgery did very much for the poor child.
Anton and I gave him healing together every Saturday morning for about eight
weeks. During this time, his toes straightened out completely and, as far as we know,
they have stayed straight. All his fingers were also perfectly straight except for one that
had lesions in it following the operation, which made it very difficult for healing to do
anything further; even so, we managed to straighten out the top joint. And there was a
bonus: while his mother sat in the healing-room, her own fingers straightened out! We
never gave her healing directly; it is simply that healing energy knows no boundaries!
It is possible for healing and surgery to go hand in hand. The story of Nicola is a
beautiful example. Nicola Doherty was brought to see me when she was ten years old by
her parents: their friend Patrick Moore, the astronomer, came with them. Patrick is also a
healer, and very concerned for children.
When she was eight her parents had been told by doctors that Nicola had a
progressive heart-muscle disease for which nothing could be done; she could live fifteen
years - or just one more. Mr and Mrs Doherty begged for a transplant, but at that time the
operation was not suitable for children.
As I gave Nicola healing I was told clairvoyantly that she had always wanted a
bird; I asked her if this was so, and she told me it was. I was also able to reassure her
parents that she would be fine. After the first healing, Nicola's pale cheeks had acquired
some colour, and when she came the second time they were quite rosy! Meanwhile,
Patrick Moore bought her a pair of zebra finches, which delighted her.
I gave her four healing sessions in all, after which I continued by sending her
absent healing. Healing was not
able to bring about a total cure, but combined with hospital care it kept her alive
and healthy. Then, when she was twelve, medical technology caught up: a new
anti-rejection drug had been developed which revolutionized transplant surgery, so that it
could now be carried out on children.
In 1986 the staff at Harefield Hospital told her parents that they wanted to give her
a transplant at a time when she was going through one of her better periods. In fact she
was so well at the time that Mr and Mrs Doherty had forgotten how desperate they had
been for her to have an operation! But of course surgery of this kind is best done when
the child is as well as possible, in order to avoid the danger of kidney or lung failure.
The operation was carried out, and was a complete success: Nicola's father now
realizes that her good health beforehand was of major importance. Today Nicola is very
well - 'absolutely superb', according to her father -and, although she is permanently on
anti-rejection drugs, she is living a normal life for a girl of her age. A year after the
transplant she had climbed a 2,000-foot hill in the Peak District; twelve months
beforehand she couldn't even climb the stairs!
Nicola's one regret is that after the operation the surgeon said she mustn't have
birds in the house. Her zebra finches have gone to live with one of her school-friends, so
she can still see them. I think it was lovely that at least she had the birds she wanted for a
short time!
As Nicola's story shows, healing may keep a child alive and well until the final
cure is brought about by medical means. If only people would consider healing as an
option early on, many tragedies could be avoided. But, as is so often the case with adults,
parents tend to seek the help of healers for their children only when all else has failed,
and both parents and children are desperate.
I have been asked whether there is a relationship between cancer and stress in
children, as there so often is in adults. I don't think that there is, or that parents should
blame themselves for their children's illness. I believe that the causes of so many young
people falling ill with cancer are chiefly environmental. In the old days, children were
much more stressed, particularly the poor, and they used to die in large numbers of
diseases like measles and scarlet fever, but childhood cancer was rare. Although some
children had to scavenge in the streets for their food, the environment was not polluted as
it is today.
Happily, I have been able to help a number of children and teenagers with cancer
and leukaemia - probably around forty in all. Healing can not only help the body to fight
the disease; it can also counteract the side-effects of chemotherapy and radiation
treatment. For children who are unable to visit me personally, absent healing can still be
remarkably effective.
If they can come to me, however, this gives me the chance of teaching them to use
mind energy and positivity to fight the disease themselves. Many of them have been quite
ill for some time when they arrive; some are very tired and have lost their fight. They
may have suffered terribly, being put through blood transfusions, bone marrow
transplants, chemotherapy and radiation therapy - but they are extremely courageous and,
given the slightest encouragment, they still pop up laughing!
The approach I take is first of all to give them healing to boost their energy; it is
difficult to use the mind when one's physical energy is depleted. Then I stimulate their
mind energy with games and all sorts of positive thought. Once they begin to laugh, I can
really start to help them. When I am teaching them self-healing techniques, I never make
it a 'lesson'; I keep it all playful. I pull their legs a lot, and when they come back after a
few times they start pulling mine! So we get a lovely rapport.
The actual techniques vary according to the children's age and intellectual capacity
but, broadly speaking, I show them how to use their imagination through mental games.
They take to these very easily. Unlike adults they don't
have to relax deeply first; they can be sitting or lying down, but they don't
necessarily have to close their eyes. I will ask them, for example, to imagine a balloon
and tell them they can jump into it and float off, feeling themselves getting lighter and
lighter. Then I tell them that as they come down they are getting heavier; they actually
feel this heaviness. I get them to fly up again, and ask them to lift their legs up to help
them to feel lighter. They really feel as if they are getting lighter and heavier, and this
helps them to understand the power the mind has over the body.
Then I might ask them to visualize one of a number of scenes, according to their
age, illness and character. I might ask a child with a tumour to imagine the animal he or
she regards as the most aggressive, and see it attacking their tumour so that it becomes
smaller every day. To combat leukaemia I often get children to visualize the cancer cells
in the bloodstream being sucked up by a miniature vacuum cleaner. A number of
exercises are described in the final section of the book which can be used by both adults
and children; children particularly enjoy the one called 'Journey to the Centre of the
Universe'. They return with vivid descriptions of people they've passed on the way,
obviously inspired by films like Star Wars.
Not all children are able to visualize clearly; many of them feel more strongly than
they can see. So I ask them, 'Can you see this happening?' and if they can't I will say:
'Well, can you feel it?' So long as they can imagine it, the mind energy will be in action. I
also encourage them not to try too hard: the secret of success in psychic exercises is to
use as little effort as possible.
When these sick children start practising self-healing techniques they often remark
how strong and powerful they are beginning to feel! Imagination, used positively, will do
more to strengthen the mind than anything else; once anyone starts visualizing I can
always see the mind energy growing in power and strength. I usually see these children's
minds expanding so much that it is clear that the energy must be connecting up with
cosmic energies and so being revitalized. Stimulating the mind through the imagination
also opens up the chakras, which are then able to absorb more life force. Simultaneously,
on the physical level, the activity of the mind helps the brain , to release naturally
occurring painkillers and beneficial chemicals into the bloodstream.
Children enter the world of the imagination so easily that it is rarely necessary for
me to hypnotize them; suggestion is usually enough. Occasionally, though, I have used
hypnosis with teenagers, some of whom feel it is grown-up to be sceptical. I can
overcome that scepticism by giving them the hypnotic suggestion that they won't be able
to move one of their arms. When they find their arm won't budge, it makes a great
impact!
'That', I tell them, 'shows you the power of the mind! And just as that hypnotic
suggestion affected your mind energy, preventing you from moving your arm, you can
use mind energy to control what's going on in your body. Every single cancer cell has a
mind of its own, and you can control your cells.' They get the message straight away, and
we then discuss how to ensure that their cancer cells will do as they are directed, using
images that relate to their personal life experience.
With any terminal illness, it would be misleading for a healer to claim that every
case could be cured. Sadly, this is not so, and I never raise people's expectations beyond
what is reasonable. In fact, parents have often brought along a terminally ill child, telling
me: 'We're not expecting a miracle but we feel that we'd like to help him a little.' I myself
don't ask for clairvoyant information about the child's future - in fact I block it off,
because if I felt there was no hope it would obviously influence my approach. So I
always work with the inner assumption that he will recover.
Not all of them do, and it can be heart-wrenching when a child leaves this
dimension for the next. Although I know that the mind lives on and the personality of the
child cannot be destroyed, I become very close to these children. When one of them dies,
I feel I have lost a personal friend.
Children's attitudes to dying are often very different from those of adults: they are
more accepting as well as very brave. And their last months or weeks can be greatly
eased by healing which, where it cannot bring about a cure, provides other gifts such as
peace of mind. In addition, I can use my mediumistic abilities to reassure the older ones.
Many of them ask me about life after death and, with their parents' permission, I tell them
about the so-called 'dead' people who speak to me, and describe their surroundings, which
they find very reassuring. Often 'dead' relatives speak to them through me, and they are
delighted when they are reminded of things they used to say or do when those people
were alive.
I have had a number of letters from the parents of children who have 'died' telling
me how, even when the child has been in a coma, his or her face has suddenly lit up as
though he or she has recognized someone. They have been heard to greet by name the
person they have seen - a grandmother, perhaps - and have held intelligible conversations
with them.
All the children who have 'died' after working with me have come through to me
afterwards. They are always happy, and send happy loving messages to their parents. It's
lovely to know that, although they are in a different dimension, they still want to make
contact with me and through me.
I'm always delighted to work with children in other ways as well as healing. As a
medium, I have had the opportunity to guide a number of children towards their natural
path in life. Parents, albeit with the best motives, often suffer from a kind of tunnel vision
as regards their children's abilities and future career. Unless a child has an obvious
natural talent at an early age, like swimming, athletics or music, some parents tend to
impose their own ideas
whether they really suit the child or not. I don't say this to blame parents:
sometimes the child's natural bent is far from obvious. This is where clairvoyant gifts can
be a great boon.
Talents are often passed down genetically, but sometimes a gift such as painting
may come as a surprise to parents because it is a throwback to a forgotten ancestor
several generations earlier, and the genetic strain may come out very strongly in one
child. Perhaps a child from a medical family is expected to become a doctor, whereas he
or she has inherited from a great-grandfather a talent for acting. That's where, again, I can
help by. explaining the child's situation to the parents. No child should be forced into a
career that does not appeal to him. It is very important to enjoy one's work, and to go on
enjoying it throughout life.
In my early days in Sutton I began to acquire quite a reputation for advising
mothers who came to me for healing about their children's natural gifts, and a number of
them brought their children along for 'vocational guidance'. I remember one ten-year-old
boy in particular, because his future path was so clear to me, although it was not at all
what an average parent might think of. This little boy was worried about his school work,
and his mother wanted to know in what direction she should be guiding him.
I saw David on his own; the poor child was very embarrassed. He didn't really
know what he had been brought along for, so I explained: 'Well, what I am going to do is
first of all try to find out for you what you are best at doing for a career. And I'm told
you're a bit worried about your school work, so I'm going to try to help you with that,
too.'
As I was chatting with him I happened to look up, and I 'saw' on the ceiling a full
astrological chart, complete with all the stars! I said: 'Isn't it strange? I can see this great
big chart on the ceiling. Do you know anything about astrology?'
He didn't, so I gave him a basic explanation and said I would tell his mother more
about it later. I went on to talk to him about his schooling and his future and explained
how he had certain abilities inherited from grandparents which he could cultivate. He
became very interested and forgot his shyness; he started asking all manner of questions
about how I knew what I knew.
As I always do with children, I started by saying, 'I am told,' and went on to
explain about mind energy, and how when it is really powerful I link up to another
energy from which I absorb knowledge. 'That's how I know,' I said. Children always
accept this explanation totally; it makes sense to them.
Then I asked David whether he liked mathematics. 'No,' he said, 'I hate it!'
I said: 'You really must work at your maths because I feel you're going to need it
in future.' He just smiled at me; I don't think he really had any conception of what I was
talking about, and I didn't say any more to him because he was only very young. But to
his mother I said in private: 'David's going to be an astrologer. Do get him on to maths.
Don't tell him what I've told you, but get him on to maths because he's going to need it.'
Luckily she took my advice seriously and encouraged him to work at his maths.
She must have done it in the right way, because she told me that he became very
interested in the subject. The last time I heard from him he was studying astrology.
I have even been able to give careers advice at one or two schools - not on a
formal basis, but during the talks I've been invited to give to sixth-formers. I have been
asked many times to visit schools to lecture on healing and mind energy, and these visits
have been great fun for us all, including the staff! I have thoroughly enjoyed several visits
to the boys' public school I mentioned earlier, where I have given demonstrations of
clairvoyant diagnosis and healing to the boys and masters. At the end of my talks the
young people interrogate me for hours, and sometimes our sessions are hilarious.
I love lecturing to teenagers: their minds are bright and active; they are not afraid
to ask questions - nor are they slow to criticize! Through explanation and demonstration I
am able to prove to them that there is such a thing as intuition, and that how well it
functions depends on the power of their mind energy, and on their ability to relax and
allow the mind to expand and travel. Afterwards they always comment: 'Why aren't we
taught about mind expansion right from the beginning?' Perhaps the day will come when
it will be taught in schools!
I explain that mind energy is strengthened first of all by knowledge. (Of course,
positivity is also a prerequisite, but children are naturally positive, unless they have been
badly treated. It's worth noting that everyone is born positive; negativity is something we
actually learn!) So I tell them that no matter how they seek knowledge - at school, at
home or by reading - their mind energy will strengthen and expand and link up with past
masters of the subject they are studying, and plug in, as it were, to their particular cloud
of energy.
It takes time, I tell them; there are no short cuts. Whatever the subject at any time,
the studying has to be done effectively so that the energy builds up layer by layer. In this
way the knowledge they are acquiring will stay there for ever, and won't be forgotten in a
year's time. Then, when they have thoroughly learned it, they can afford to relax and
allow their minds to wander; when they do this they will also experience the intuitive
feeling that they have been given additional information which will manifest itself later,
in one way or another - probably the next time they start thinking about that subject. It is
the young of today who will have to cope with the world's tomorrows. With developed
intuition, it's possible that they will deal with our problems a damn sight better than we
have done!
To be intuitive, one has to have a completely open mind and a familiarity with a
broad spectrum of subjects. Above all, one needs time to ponder and day-dream,
which releases the mind energy so that it doesn't become a captive of the physical.
'Listening to the audible silence' is how I describe this kind of day-dreaming exercise.
One way in which I demonstrate my own clairvoyance is to describe to each one
his natural talent. If young people are helped to recognize their talents early in life, they
can at least have a go at nurturing them. Sometimes, of course, a child's gift may not be
one from which he or she can make much money. Healing is a good example! In that case
I would encourage them to cultivate their interest as a hobby which they can continue to
enjoy through life.
My friend Louise is a particularly open-minded head teacher, and it has now
become a regular event for me to talk with her sixth-form girls. At this age they are not
going to be taken in by anybody; they can be extremely challenging, and we have some
lively discussions! At the end of the talk I go round the thirty or forty girls and tell each
one about her personality, her potential and her natural talent. Nearly all of them,
interestingly, have already chosen a career which is in line with what I tell them. And
their classmates find the descriptions of their personalities very accurate.
Louise has commented that my readings of the girls' characters are always
couched in very helpful language, so that although I may be saying quite personal things
in front of the others they don't cause embarrassment; I am always careful to make factual
comments, but not to criticize. She says that the staff find this session helpful, because
although they know the girls well 'the encounter somehow draws out a very clear and
fuller picture of each girl, sometimes showing sides of them or even secret hopes of theirs
that they didn't know about; so they learn more about the girls.' It is possible that we shall
start doing this with younger classes so that the staff can get to know the girls in depth at
an earlier stage.
Louise also comments: 'I think some of the other more general things Betty says
are very helpful, for example about the Law of the Universe - that what you give out you
get back - and how you affect other people. That all makes a lot of sense to the girls.' I,
too, have noticed how this message seems to strike home particularly to the young.
Although I'm happy to guide young people in this way, I do discourage them from
seeking clairvoyant sittings, which can be negative and lead to non-action. I much prefer
to teach them to be self-reliant, to make up their minds what they want to do, and go for
it!
Teenagers can be rather sceptical, and like to test you. One young woman of
seventeen or eighteen asked me what she should do in life. I knew that she already knew
perfectly well, so I simply said: 'Well, what do you want to do?'
Some nine years ago Janet was going through a divorce and was very depressed.
One day I suddenly had a vision of her walking with a little girl of about three; I
instinctively knew this was her child, and I told her she would be having a little girl in
two years' time. At the time, there
was no other man on the horizon and this was the last thing Janet wanted to hear!
Two years later to the month Janet, now happily remarried, gave birth to a
beautiful baby girl. When I visited her and baby for the first time I said: 'My God, Janet,
that baby is psychic!' Janet responded rather crossly: 'Oh, Mum! You think everyone's
psychic!' Which isn't true!
When Raina was about six months old I was impressed that she would be very
artistic and would become an actress. When I told Janet, she said that Raina's father had
very positive ideas about her future, and wanted her to be a doctor. I laughed and said:
'She won't heal anyone.'
Janet and her husband were rather annoyed, as they had made up their minds.
However, at the age of eighteen months Raina was singing, and when she was two she
announced: 'I want a biolin.' No one in the family plays a violin, and she had never seen
one played, so we feel that this must be the result of a past-life memory. Raina now plays
the violin, sings, dances and acts all the time. She is also very psychic.
When Raina was two she astonished Janet by telling her: 'There's a lady in that
chair, smiling at me. Come and see her.' She took her mother by the hand to meet the
lady. Janet could see no one - her psychic gifts do not include seeing spirits - but she was
aware of a presence, and was positive that it was my mother, who did have a lovely
smile. Another time, Raina drew Janet's attention to a 'man' standing by the window;
again Janet could see no one but was aware of a presence. Raina stood happily smiling at
the man - her visitors always seem to be friendly.
On several occasions Raina has been able to tell us what was in a sealed envelope
or parcel. On her fifth birthday, we handed her an envelope and before she opened it she
said, 'This is a teddy-bear card,' which it was. Another time, I had bought her some
Mickey and Minnie Mouse pyjamas, with a T-shirt style top. Before giving them to her, I
asked: 'What do you think I've got for you, Raina?' Promptly, she answered: 'Mickey and
Minnie Mouse T-shirt!'
Recently, she told Janet: 'There's a man upstairs; he's smiling at me. He told me his
name was Herbert. Come and see him.' Apparently, she had seen him in her bedroom
before. Janet, feeling rather guilty, but knowing she wouldn't be able to see the man, told
Raina she was too busy. Later Alan told us his father's name was Herbert; neither Janet
nor I had known this. Wanting to check it out, I asked Janet to ask Raina what the visitor
had looked like, but Janet refused, saying: 'I don't want to make it seem important.'
Janet accepts what Raina has to say without making a big issue of it, and we don't
discuss my work or psychic matters in front of her. Raina is fortunate in having her feet
planted very firmly on the ground, but if her gift ever became a problem she has a family
who could explain things to her, keeping logic firmly in the foreground. She also comes
out with some extraordinarily wise and spiritual statements, which simply don't sound
like the comments of a seven-year-old; I feel sure she is being taught and guided, just as I
was.
I think that Janet's low-key approach is exactly the right way to handle the
situation. If your child starts telling you about people who aren't there, he may be using
his imagination, or may be genuinely seeing spirit people. In either case, it can only
damage the child's natural creativity and intuition to tell him 'not to make up stories'. It is
in the psychic child's interests not to be made to feel 'different'; indeed, many of these
children lose the gift around the age of seven. The best way to deal with invisible visitors
is to say to your child, 'That was interesting, wasn't it,' and then forget it.
Conversely, I think it is a big mistake to encourage the psychic gift and treat the
child as a prodigy. The psychic world is hard enough for adults to cope with! Allowing
children to experiment with things like ouija boards I
would absolutely discourage, as they can attract negative energies.
Psychic children should, above all, be treated as normal children, and have plenty
of fun in their lives. If they have a genuine gift, it should be allowed to develop naturally
- which it will anyway - without imposing any preconceived ideas. In my own case, I've
always been grateful that I was separated at an early age from my spiritualist
grandmother, so that I was not affected or influenced by her. It is so important to be
self-reliant and discover the truth for yourself. I really do believe that everything I have
been taught, to the point where I was shown the existence of mind energy, has come
direct from a higher source. That is how the best education takes place!
EPILOGUE
Expanding Your Mind
Let us endeavour to live so that when we come to die even the undertaker will be
sorry.
Mark Twain
While this book has been largely about my work, it is my hope that it will make an
impact on its readers' minds and lives. Everyone has the potential to expand his mind
energy and use it more creatively and positively. This chapter is dedicated to you. It
includes mental exercises which you can practise to have fun with, to experiment with,
and to expand your mind with. Remember that the mind is energy: it should be allowed to
flow like the sea, back and forth like the tide.
PRACTISING POSITIVITY
Positivity is the only way to achieve a free mind. When you are being positive,
your mind flows easily and automatically. Let me remind you that when you are negative
it is drawn inward, causing compression on the brain and body. Both positivity and
negativity are self-generating: positivity creates further happiness and optimism;
negativity can only lead to unhappiness and pessimism. When you are depressed the
negative energy compresses the brain, making it unable to function properly: thinking
becomes muddled, and the chemistry of the brain alters. The easiest way to think
positively is not to think negatively. If your problems cannot be solved at once then, after
peaceful logical consideration, shelve them until a solution can be found. Don't make
them worse by churning them over in your mind! Instead, try the exercises in the next
few pages.
After all, you are in control of your mind - no one else; the answer lies within you.
As you cultivate positivity you take greater control over your own destiny. Natural talents
that you may have neglected begin to come to the fore. Decisions become easier. Life
itself becomes easier. You can control your emotions and nobody, but nobody, can shake
your equilibrium.
It is not easy at first to reach a positive peaceful frame of mind all the time, and if
you happen to be a natural worrier it can be quite difficult! But I assure you that the
direction of your mind can be reversed. Always give yourself a long break from thinking
about anything negative, until it finally leaves of its own accord. If you fail, don't dwell
on your failure: have another go, and another, and another. Keep trying, and eventually
positivity will become part and parcel of your whole being. You will in fact become a
whole human being.
Relationships with others may come and go, but you will still always be yourself happy and carefree. You don't have to be a saint: there will always be some people who
will make you angry, sad, frustrated - momentarily. That's natural. But if you have a
negative response don't allow it to continue and spoil your life. Get rid of your pent-up
feelings by writing them down (see page 237). And let them go.
Other people will make you happy - that is a bonus. But you will still be a whole
person, sharing your joys with others, but not dependent on them for your happiness.
Once you have acquired the art of positive thinking, you will never want to go
back to negative thinking. The happiness you will have attained will be so beautiful that
you will never want it to escape you again.
Never be afraid of anyone or anything. Fear destroys the ability to think for
yourself, to act logically and make important decisions. Fear can make you a prisoner of
someone else's mind, instead of having the courage to say
what you really think. So never hide behind others for fear of the consequences of
speaking up. And don't allow anyone else to draw up a blueprint of what you should or
should not do or be. Be courageous and make up your own mind about what you want
and need from life.
Only you know what you want: it may not be what your partner or friends want
but, unless you fight for what you know is right for you, you will not progress. Even if
you consider your daily life to be dull, your uniqueness makes it interesting: there will
never be another you! So never regard yourself as unimportant. Trying to please others
and walk in their footsteps can only lead to unhappiness for both parties. Have the
courage to follow the path of your own truth and positivity. Practise every day.
Never be envious of anything or anybody: envy is another totally destructive and
negative emotion. You have tremendous potential within you, once you have acquired the
habit of positive thought. Yom can attain similar heights and similar achievements in
your own individual way. The rewards are there: the brain, released from its prison of
compressed energies, can function fully. Your mind, once freed, can go forth and join the
universal mind, returning to you with clarity of vision and an intuitive knowing of where
you are going and what you are capable of achieving. The rewards for positive thought
are immense - an adventure that will last the rest of your life.
The most terrible of all negative emotions is hatred. If someone has hurt you
badly, put it down to experience and let it go. If we do not experience all the human
emotions, we do not progress: so acknowledge your hatred, and feel it, but don't hang on
to it. Dwelling on it will draw the energies inward and down into the subconscious. When
you realize the damage this causes to your brain and body, you will want to dismiss the
feeling immediately.
Greed is another emotion to avoid. Most people don't need three-quarters of the
possessions they work like maniacs to own! Human beings do like to hoard; no harm in
that. But, if possessions or success don't come easily to "you, go without rather than build
up a stressful situation trying to achieve the impossible. When you allow your mind to be
free, you will be surprised how very much easier it becomes to attract these things. , All
life is a challenge. Once you acquire a new optimistic outlook, nothing will be able to
stop you. The mind, now free, will ebb and flow as it joins the universal mind. Your
intuition will be second to none. Intuitively, you will be doing and saying the right things.
Everything will flow easily and naturally, ebbing and flowing with nature and the
universe, at one with all the dimensions. With expanded awareness you will link up to a
cosmic driving force that will be behind your every activity, be it work or play. Follow
your intuition, don't argue with it. You'll be surprised how right you can be.
And if you do something wrong, then be positively wrong and enjoy it! While I
always discourage negative emotions, it's much healthier to acknowledge that they are
there: then you can do something about them.
SOME EXERCISES FOR GETTING RID OF NEGATIVITY
Dealing with Depression
A very simple way of dealing with depression is to allow yourself five minutes of
negative thought at a time, and then simply switch off! It's difficult at first, but it is
possible and becomes easier with practice.
How often have you dwelt on a difficult situation, and found your thoughts
snowballing? The longer you allow this to go on, the larger the snowball becomes. Why
not melt it down in a surge of energy, by replacing the negative with the positive? Feel
yourself becoming lighter as the mind energy is pushed upward and outward and
connects with universal energies.
You can do it; you must do it. Depression is unhappi-ness, and you don't need it.
There is quite enough misery in the world; you can help by refusing to create any more.
However small, your effort is important. It will affect those you live with and work with,
making their lives a lot easier and happier. They in turn will pass this on, until everyone
is creating vital positive energies around them.
If other people upset you, the same rule applies. Don't dwell on it. Think about it
for a maximum of five minutes, then switch off! You may find those five minutes
becoming four, and then three, and then two - and finally you'll find that you can recover
your equilibrium in one minute!
Write It Down
Another way of getting rid of depression and other negative feelings is to get paper
and pen and write everything down. Unhappiness, hatred, envy, despair, jealousy,
resentment, vindictiveness - let all the problems that have been building up tumble out of
For our health and happiness, we have to become aware of the energies that
surround us. We must learn to acquaint ourselves with knowledge that we have forgotten
and yet lies dormant in our souls. Have you ever thought, as many people do, that you
would like to strip yourself of material trappings and sit alone on the top of a mountain
and just be? These yearnings are common because within ourselves we know that
spiritually we are missing out. It is necessary for human beings to feel the wind and rain
and touch the earth, communing with the forces of nature, and just as necessary to
harness unseen energies for our needs. There is a vast unseen world, like an iceberg
whose tip we have only glimpsed.
We are all capable of tapping that vast sea of energy which, I believe, is created by
the minds of people in other dimensions. We can do this by expanding and strengthening
our own minds with knowledge, and by meditating in our quieter moments.
In this section I am going to teach you some of the exercises which I ask people to
do at home. I prefer people not to do formal types of meditation, which can be too
focused; if you practise them wrongly or with too much effort, or are fanatical about
doing so many minutes at the same time every day, the aura actually closes up instead of
expanding!
In my experience the finest form of meditation is daydreaming. In allowing the
mind to wander to places where it wants to go, you are not trying to be spiritual or trying
to be anything else. You are simply relaxing and enjoying yourself. However ill a person
is, they can always daydream, which projects the mind energy away from the body, and
lifts the compression on the brain that causes depression.
Always project thought outwards. As well as using your imagination, take
opportunities to walk or sit outdoors, and look at trees and the sky.
All the following exercises are designed to exercise your imagination; imagination
stimulates mind energy, which in turn revitalizes the whole body. Remember that the less
effort you put into it the further your mind energy will travel.
At the start you may find it helpful to make your own tape from the written
description and play it so that you can go through each stage slowly and peacefully.
Going through it slowly will ensure that it will be maintained in your subconscious. As
you become more adept, you will need less and less time to go through the exercises.
Never spend more than ten minutes on any exercise - you can get turned on to
turning off!
Preparation for Mental Exercises
After a short journey you arrive in a large hall with a domed ceiling. A friend or
guide will be there to meet you; trust your imagination to give them the appearance that is
right for you. He or she takes off the transparent cover of your craft and helps you out.
Relax. Now your guide takes you to a room in which a blue haze is flowing back and
forth: this is healing energy.
You then take a seat in the centre of this room, where you will feel yourself
absorbing this energy. If you have any particular ailment, feel the affected part of your
body absorbing the energy, and the ailment leaving you and disappearing.
After a while your guide takes you to a large room in which a group of wise
people are seated in a semicircle. You will sit in the centre opposite them. You will be
aware of a feeling of total peace and contentment, and you will know that you are
absorbing knowledge telepathically from these spiritually progressed people. Don't
expect at this point to know what you are being told; the information will manifest itself
when it is needed.
After a while your guide will lead you back to the large domed hall and help you
into your spacecraft, fastening the cover securely over you. The craft will be guided
through the tunnel and back out into the universe. You will feel the pull of earth's gravity,
and you will return safely, landing upon layers of energy to be let down lightly to the
place you started out from. Get out of your craft and find somewhere to be quiet and
peaceful for ten minutes.
The Balloon
I have taught this exercise to many terminally ill adults and children; it has helped
most of them to die peacefully, as it has enabled them to let go of the physical and melt
into the universe. If you are fighting fit, you can still use it as a superb exercise for total
relaxation.
Sit or lie down, breathe deeply and relax. Now imagine that you are getting into
the basket of a hot-air balloon. Children who do this exercise often imagine getting inside
the balloon itself, which is fine.
Feel the balloon leaving the ground; feel the sun on your face and the warmth of
the atmosphere relaxing the whole of your mind and body. Let go!
As you travel higher and higher, you will find any pain and discomfort becoming
less of a burden. Let the balloon travel for about five minutes, taking you wherever it
wants to go.
When you want to return simply think yourself down, and you will feel yourself
gradually sinking lower and lower until you touch the ground.
The Auric Egg
There are times when we can't avoid living or working with people who are
antagonistic towards us, or whom we find difficult to get on with. This exercise is a safe
method of protecting yourself from unwanted outside influences. It closes the aura, and
prevents it from absorbing influences from other auras.
First of all, imagine a large egg - large enough for you to walk into. There is a
door in it: go through the door and, once inside, fill the oval floor with cushions, so that
you have a level surface. Sit or lie down, close your eyes, and relax.
Now, visualize the outside of the egg, the shell, growing harder, including the
door. Be sure not to put any effort into this; just know that, as you think it, it is
happening. Watch the shell becoming impenetrable, and when you are satisfied that
nothing can get through, stop visualizing and relax for about five minutes. Then you can
get up and carry on with whatever you have to do without any worry. This is a good
exercise to do if you have to travel on crowded tube trains, too.
Smoothing Your Aura
Ever since I saw my own lopsided mind energy in the mirror, I have regularly
treated myself by smoothing out my aura. Anybody can do it. Using both hands, simply
stroke downwards over your head and the area around it, and then stroke down over your
shoulders. You can use a soft scarf held in both hands to do your back. Then use your
hands to smooth down each arm in turn, going right over the ends of your fingers, and
then stroke down your body, legs and feet. This also removes toxins lying just under the
surface of the skin.
Mind Medicine
This is a positive way of controlling anxiety in times of illness or stress. It can be
used to complement ordinary medicine or, in the case of minor ailments, enable you to do
without it altogether.
First step: Carry out the first-step relaxation exercise.
Second step: Imagine a corridor, not too long; at the end of it you will see a door,
which can be any colour you choose. On this door you will see your name printed, and
underneath it the words 'mind medicine room'. Only you possess the key to this door.
Insert the key in the lock and go in, locking the door behind you.
On entering, you will see the room of your choice, not too big and quite cosy. All
along the walls are shelves and drawers, and tables with cupboards beneath them. There
is also a big comfortable armchair, and an incinerator for rubbish. This room is entirely
your creation: if you see anything in it that you don't like, alter it to suit your particular
needs.
Third step: On the shelves and inside the cupboards and drawers you will find a
huge selection of bottles, phials, pots and other containers for potions, lotions, creams,
tablets, a container full of cotton-wool balls, and anything else you may need for treating
yourself. You can choose the colours and shapes of these receptacles.
Remember that if you are under par you are not as clear-seeing as when you are
well. So it would be advisable over the next few months whenever you enter this room
mentally to make out your own labels for the receptacles. Write clearly so that you can
'see' exactly what the contents are. For example, you could include a box of 'Headache
Tablets', a jar of 'Antiseptic Cream', a tube of non-harmful 'Pep-Up Pills' for when you
need extra energy, some non-addictive 'Tranquillizers' (maybe herbal ones) for when you
want to be calm, and 'Sinus Fluid' in a wide-topped jar that you can inhale from.
Whatever your label indicates will automatically be inside the container. Whenever you
need something you haven't already got, you can add it immediately. Create your
medicines according to your own needs: diabetics doing this exercise have made their
own supply of insulin. Make these medicines as real as you can; feel them and sniff them
- you may find you can actually smell them. Then you can use the contents in the
following way. Fourth step: Let us imagine that you have injured your knee and the
inflammation around the injury is very painful. Go to the jar which you have already
labelled 'Antiseptic Cream' (or label a jar if there isn't one there already). Unscrew the top
and put some of the cream on your knee. Watch it as it turns red, absorbing the
inflammation; then wipe it off with cotton-wool, and burn this in the incinerator.
Keep repeating this action - putting on the cream, watching it absorb the
inflammation, and throwing the cotton-wool into the incinerator - until the cream no
longer turns red. Then leave the remaining cream on your knee.
Put the top back on the pot, the lid back on the cottonwool jar, make sure
everything is spotlessly clean, and then sit down in the armchair. You now know in your
mind that you have started the process of self-healing. You have released into your body
the chemicals necessary to ensure that the process works.
When you feel you have rested enough, go back to your real-life room and carry
on with whatever you need to do next. If you are doing this exercise in bed, you can now
go straight off to sleep.
Do not wait until you are ill or injured before training yourself in this exercise. If
you become adept at it while you are well, when you are really in need your recovery will
be automatic and speedy. Practise it every day; it works! You will find you need fewer
and fewer visits to the surgery; and even when you do have to see a doctor you will still
find this method supportive.
You can use this to control panic situations such as heart palpitations or an asthma
attack, by giving yourself immediate first aid from your supplies of medicines.
This exercise works by encouraging the body to manufacture the chemicals it
needs for self-healing. It really works - some diabetics have become so good at this that
they have been able to reduce their medical insulin intake by encouraging the pancreas to
produce its own.
Try it for yourself, and teach your children how to treat themselves for minor
injuries. They will grow up to be healthier and more self-reliant. Above all, enjoy it! It
could change your life.
Healing Yourself through Colour
Colour is a powerful aid to healing and self-healing. You may naturally find
colours coming in when you are doing any of these exercises, or you can deliberately
imagine beams of coloured light playing on you while you are relaxing or going off to
sleep. In imagining these colours you can actually bring cosmic colours in to help and
heal you.
Particular colours benefit particular conditions. Green is calming and relaxing,
very good for nervous tension; red will energize you and strengthen you; it is also good
for removing the pain of arthritic complaints - but don't use it if you suffer from
overactive adrenalin glands and excessive acidity. Yellow is good for alkalizing acid
conditions. Blue is the perfect healing colour for almost every condition; it produces a
very peaceful and fluid feeling, as if a wave of water were flowing gently over you.
Purple is a very special colour, which seems to come in naturally when people are
very spiritually progressed; it has very powerful healing energies, especially in cases of
excess adrenalin. White is also very powerful for healing, since it contains the full
spectrum of colour; I find that it is brought in when I have patients with serious
conditions like multiple sclerosis and cancer.
Don't worry too much about getting the 'right' colour; the colour itself is less
important than what you believe it means. There is no doubt that we attract what we
need; when I have asked people to think of a colour they have sometimes told me that, for
example, they wanted to visualize green but kept getting blue. This shows that as soon as
your imagination starts to expand your mind energy you are able to link up with other
dimensions and are given the colour that you need. The more you trust your intuition, the
more reliable it will become!
If you want to experiment with colour healing, even with no healing ability, you
can learn a lot from an excellent book by S. G. J. Ouseley, The Power of the Rays: The
Science of Colour Healing. It is a mine of information about both colour and the chakras.
Healing
It is often said that everybody is psychic, and that everybody can heal. This is
probably true, but becoming a full-time psychic or healer is another question. I know that
there is an increasing number of development circles and training courses available
today, but my personal belief is that if you are destined to be a healer you will not need to
chase after the gift - it is much more likely to chase after you!
Professional full-time healers need to have a great deal of healing power, or they
will find themselves unable to help the more seriously ill. If anyone intends taking up
healing as a career, they should first of all ask themselves if they want any other kind of
life, because healing does require total commitment. I don't think that young people
should consider it, as it is important for them to live their own lives. Very often, the
necessary compassion is developed only after living through a great deal of personal grief
and many problems. (I also believe that this stress enables the healer's chakras to be
abnormally wide open, so that they are drawing in and giving out life force all the time.)
There is nothing, however, to stop anyone giving healing to their friends and
family. Think about it: when a child or family member is ill, it isn't only drugs and
medicine that makes them well, it's the care and attention and love that their friends and
relations give them. Love and compassion open up your chakras, allowing extra life force
to come in, for you to give away to those you care for.
What I would like to get over to you is the simplicity of it. You can read books
and do exercises to open and close the chakras: in my view, there's only one thing that
will open the chakras and that is compassionate love. When you stop thinking about
yourself, and start wanting to help another person, your mind expands, your chakras
open, and very often you can feel the extra life force coming in. If you use your hands,
allow them to be guided intuitively; but whether you lay your hands on the person, or
simply think healing in their direction, you will be healing them.
Anyone can send absent healing to those they care about. The best way is to say
simply, 'Please help', and then know that help is being given. At the same time imagine
that you are telling your friend telepathically: i have asked for help and you are receiving
help.' That's all you need to do; that thought is the deed!
It's very important to realize that putting any effort or force behind it closes up
your mind energy so that it can't travel to its destination. When I have been teaching
groups how to do this, my chief difficulty has been getting over to them how not to put
any effort behind it.
The first time we try it, I often see their mind energy go out only so far, and then
stop. I smile and say: 'You're really trying hard, aren't you! Well, don'tV
They look at me, somewhat shocked, and I have to explain that I appreciate how
difficult it is to control their enthusiasm, but that it's actually blocking the energy. Then,
as soon as they stop trying, I can see their mind energy shooting outwards. Remember,
the less impetus you put behind the thought, the faster it travels.
Some people also teach quite complicated exercises for closing down the chakras
after healing. It is certainly important to be very well earthed if one is going to use
healing or psychic gifts, but there are some very simple ways to bring this about. Any
normal, natural and down-to-earth activity will automatically close down the chakras,
like making a cup of tea, or doing the washing-up. Gardening and writing are also
excellent; so is a thought
like 'I must pay my electricity bill!' which can bring you to earth more quickly
than anything!
These earthing activities are particularly important, of course, if you do have an
excess of life force and don't want to use it in healing. (Some of the signs of this are
feeling very hot, faintness and wobbly legs, and tingling sensations in your hands.) Here
are some further ways you can use excess energy, or test and develop your powers.
ENERGY GAMES
I have done a lot of experiments with psychic energies, some purely for fun. I
think the following energy games will amuse you and perhaps, most of all, encourage
those of you who believe you have the gift to try some experiments for yourselves. They
may not come out the way you expect!
Although I have given up these experiments, preferring to devote all my energies
to healing, they were a useful training and they proved to my satisfaction that there are
many elements in energy that we know nothing about.
Water into Wine
I tried this at a time when I had been working very long hours and decided to have
a complete day's rest. As my mind is very rarely inactive, I thought I would encourage it
to enter a meditative state by focusing it on something novel. After much thought, I
decided to devote the whole day to seeing whether I could turn water into wine!
Making sure I would not be disturbed, I sat the entire day at the kitchen table with
a wine-glass full of water. I put my hands around the glass, and wafted off into
dream-world - which wasn't difficult, as I was so tired. At the same time, I kept in my
mind the image of the glass filled with red wine.
Two hours after beginning, the water had become quite warm under my hands but,
to my disappointment, was still water. I made myself a cup of tea, then sat down again,
putting my hands back around the glass, and drifted off again, still keeping the
visualization going.
Another two hours, water still water, but very hot indeed. Decided to give it
another two hours and call it a day. Two hours later, it was six hours since I had started
my experiment. I looked at the water in the glass and yes! there was a hint, only a slight
hint, but a definite tinge of pink in it.
I tasted it. It wasn't rose; it was hot water, tasting of hot water. But the interesting
part was that it was very hot indeed, and had begun slowly bubbling.
Since I had spent so many hours putting healing energies into it, I decided to drink
it anyway. I didn't have lift-off, but I'm positive it gave me more energy!
Expanding Tight Rings
I have often used energy to expand tight-fitting gold rings so that the wearers
could remove them. The process is simple. I ask the person to place his or her hand on a
table, and after a few minutes of mentally projecting energy towards the ring it can easily
be removed.
About the fifth time I did this I was having a drink with an associate of Alan's
when he mentioned that he couldn't get his signet ring off his little finger. I suggested that
he place his hand flat on the table between us so that I could project energy towards it.
Five minutes later, he was able to remove the ring with ease. Alan eventually
drove him back to work, and during this time he remarked once or twice that the ring was
still expanding! What he hadn't told me was that he had also been unable to remove his
wedding ring - ever since his marriage, in fact. This ring also expanded, and he was able
to take it off as well.
To this day his signet ring is so loose that it almost falls off, and he can still