Ok, this is how I got started which might be of interest to others.  I'm copying some basic stuff from my Livejournal then will keep up to date from there.

March 2004

Here goes........

I expect my story isn’t that unusual but I've felt for a long time like I’m on some sort of quest, constantly pulled toward spiritualism and similar philosophies, no matter how much I ignore or try to ignore the pull. I’m not sure why I’ve chosen to write this, but perhaps this document’s purpose is to help put my thoughts in order.

I don’t remember when exactly but at some stage during my childhood, probably around age 9 or 10, I was given some kind of kid’s astrology kit that absorbed me immediately. What a weird thing for a child to be given! I have no idea where it went. Like so many things it seemed to vanish at some stage, though to be honest I was always one of those children who were careless with their toys, so it's loss isn't out of the ordinary really. As I got older though, the interest in astrology deepened and then, around the age of 18 or so, I realised the information was available 'out there' for me to learn more. It was almost like the proverbial light bulb coming on so I started reading more and more books about astrology, soaking up any number of ‘how to’ books until, finally, I decided to attempt a birth chart. It was hard work as I’ve always been hopeless at maths but the hobby seemed to fit and for a few years I practised doing charts and interpretations for people, though it was basic character profile stuff, nothing more. When a close friend recently found the charts I did for her children when they were born, even I was shocked at the accuracy as we sat in the attic reading them with the kids, who by now were in their teens.

By the time this happened I’d been trying to ignore astrology for a few years, quite deliberately, but it kept coming back no matter what I did. Someone would hear about a chart I'd done and I’d get asked to do a another, so I did it if I had time and then let the interest die until the next person came along, which they invariably did.

As a child I’d been involved in a serious car accident that had left me with epilepsy. The medication I was given didn’t seem to stop the fits so mum began visiting what she called a faith healer. Remarkably the fits trailed off and stopped, although this may have simply been down to the ‘normal’ healing that takes place after accidents like mine. Her sister on the other hand was the psychic junkie. She was like my other mother and we had a lot of conversations about life after death, ghosts, spiritualism and so on. She encouraged me, without ever really saying so, to learn more so I began soaking up anything I could learn about parapsychology, psychic and new age subjects. Shirley Maclaine’s book, Out on a Limb, in particular spoke to me and was quite possibly the catalyst for what followed.

One night in 1984 I was lying in bed when I had a sort of flash of understanding. Over the years I’ve tried to articulate what happened but it’s impossible to describe with any degree of coherence but the effect of the experience has never left me. On this particular night I was trying without much success to get off to sleep. I’d been having problems because as I drifted off each night it was as though I could hear voices in my head clamouring for my attention. Not a few, but many of them. So many that I couldn’t make out anything other than that I could hear a rising crescendo of voices. Ok I thought to myself, I’m losing it. I'm going to end up locked away in the funny farm. I wasn’t joking with myself either. Voices in my head? Not normal. Not good. Worrying. Very worrying. Especially as I’d been trying out some deep meditation exercises inspired by Shirley's book, and it seemed like everything had started after I'd begun doing them.

This rush of voices went on night after night and then one night the flash came. It was so vivid that I absolutely know I wasn’t dreaming. Suddenly it was like I understood everything about the universe. The way life and death worked, how everything in the universe was connected up. I find it hard to put into words really, because they are so inadequate. I found myself wide-awake and struggled vainly to hold the thought, the understanding, but I couldn’t. It was too big I suppose though it seemed to boil down to this; that energy and matter are never lost, just transformed. If that’s the case and we’re connected to everything in the universe then I think in someway we can't help but be sensitive to the things around us. I like to think of it as how decaying leaves in autumn become nutrients in the soil, so that new plants and trees can grow. If the leaf has rotted away and turned into soil does that mean the leaf isn't there any more? I think this goes a long way to explaining the concept of a spirit world because of course the leaf is still there. It's just turned into something different!

I can’t say I’m a religious man. I was brought up in the Church of England and even sung in the church choir but as an adult I can’t say I believe in God in the traditional sense, only perhaps as the essence of supreme goodness or perfection, or perhaps even just the collective goodness of mankind. Maybe that’s all there needs to be for it to be god but really, it’s too big a question for me. I feel I’m a spiritual man rather than religious though my personal conviction is that all religions are valid if they teach love and compassion, but equally I am dismayed at the intolerance and oppression organised religion seems to bring out in many people.

Anyway, I'm wandering a bit. A couple of years ago I was quite ill. No one could find the reason and in the end I was off work for almost six months. It turned out to be a very unexciting drug allergy but it took a while to get to the correct diagnosis. Having got nowhere with doctors a friend at work suggested a medium she was visiting. This medium, Lyn, worked with a healer with the purpose being to provide an all-round holistic approach to healing. The medium explained her work could be termed psychic medicine. She explained she asked spirit for help and advice to get my life on a positive footing while adding her energy to that of the healer, Katherine, who has since become a wonderful friend. Lyn got some messages from my parents, which of course were very accurate, and passed on advice about lifestyle and a very specific diet I was to follow for three weeks, which included a detox so help promote my body's own healing energy.

The change was dramatic, and my doctor was very encouraging when he heard what I’d done. He also remarked that many of the foods I was being asked to take or avoid were actually very relevant to my condition. He seemed quite surprised at a layman having enough knowledge of nutrition and illness to come up with the therapy that had been presented to me, but I’m fortunate in having a very open-minded GP and he followed my progress with great interest.

An odd thing happened just prior to the first reading. I have mum’s old fridge freezer and the light inside the fridge has never worked. On the day of that first reading it came on for the first time ever just as I reached in for some milk at breakfast time. I opened and closed that door several times because I was so surprised and sure enough the light came on. I remember murmuring uncertainly ‘is that you Mum?’ but took it as a sign that she was with me. The next time I came to open the fridge the light was out of order again and stayed that way from then on, or rather it did until a year later when I was telling a friend, Valerie, about what had happened. We were in the kitchen getting food and stuff for the usual Saturday night crowd when I opened the door to get some milk out. The damn light went on again. Val looked at me open-mouthed, hardly knowing what to think as she knows my fridge light situation well. I laughed and said something like, mum’s back and we just got on with what we were doing. Next morning? The light had gone again, never to return.

This kind of appearance isn’t new. Both my parents came to me after they passed over. In Dad’s case he was stood in my bedroom one Sunday evening. I was about 12 and it was upsetting, being so raw and soon after his unexpected death. I didn’t really believe what had happened but I didn’t doubt either because I’d somehow known Dad was around. When Mum died I was much older at 28 so more experienced about the world and much further down the development road. I was lying in bed on a hot night shortly after the funeral. The window was shut as there’d been a spate of burglaries and it stood over a porch where burglars could easily climb up. I’d forgotten this though and when I felt a cool breeze on my forehead I thought to myself, now that’s nice, as it brushed my hair off my face. Soothing. Then my eyes snapped open as I realised that the window was locked. I knew immediately without any doubt at all that it was mum. She used to brush my hair away like that, even as an adult. I began crying with the emotion of it all as I knew she’d come to say goodbye because I hadn’t been there when she passed away, and I'd been tormenting myself over the fact that she died alone. Eventually my friends came in and I suppose I didn’t make a lot of sense but they were very understanding and supportive.

As it happens, my sceptical brother saw both my parents and a little boy he’d befriended as a young man when he ‘died’ momentarily after a heart attack a few years ago. The child had passed away some years earlier but had been like a son to him.

How much more evidence do I need? None I think, but I just wish this little seed of doubt, no, make that fear, would leave me. The fear was reinforced by the following:

A few months ago I was having trouble sleeping – again! I kept feeling something bad was watching me. It was always in the same corner by my window. Then one night my partner woke up in a dreadful state screaming about some woman in the room. It was in that same corner again and he said he'd seen her clearly and felt her sit on th bed. It took ages to calm him down even though he's always been sceptical about this sort of thing, but in the end he put it down to night-terrors.

A few months later I was by myself and woke up with that same feeling of being watched. I opened my eyes and looked into the corner where I saw some kind of energy, almost like the cliché of a swirling cloud, which hovered a foot over the floor. It had no shape or form, but seemed to glow and spark like a firework, but without ever sparking, if that makes sense. It was soft rather than sharp, like clouds. I jumped right out of bed this time and looked hard at the thing thinking I was dreaming, but it was still there dammit, though I was somehow conscious of not seeing it with my eyes. If I peered at it I couldn't see it, and yet there it was anyway. It was the strangest sensation and by now I was wide-awake and more than a little terrified so I switched the light on. After all, that makes the bad things go away, right? Wrong. I could still see it so, totally freaked by now, I ran into the lounge and talked myself calm again. By the time I went back into the bedroom it was gone. First thing next morning I called Lyn, the medium. Is it evil, I asked, because it seems unfriendly. She paused for a bit and kind of tuned out from me and then said no, because I’d know if it was. She laughed and said there’d probably be a smell for starters, just like in the movies. Maybe it was a fib to calm me down but she was certain I had nothing to worry about and just said some spirits aren’t above giving you the odd fright to make you take notice. She suggested a triangle of candles by the bed and next time it happened to light them and meditate, and encourage the spirit to go to the light, if they wish, while reassuring them that their loved ones will be waiting for them when they cross. I did this one night and while I sometimes sense uneasiness in that room I seem to be sleeping much more soundly.

So where do I go from here? Something is stirring deep inside me and the same something is pushing me harder down this unknown road. I realise we’re all supposed to be psychic to some degree but with me it seems to be straining to the surface constantly. Once what could be termed a clairsentient warning helped potentially save my life during the IRA bombing campaign in London during the 80s. I had a premonition of a bomb in the Oxford Street Wimpy Bar and was so scared that I told anyone who would listen. I even tried to change my day off and told my boss why as I’d planned to do some shopping at HMV with a friend. As it happens we had lunch in the very same part of the restaurant where the bomb had been planted. Needless to say my boss was completely at a loss when I returned from my day off only to find everyone crowded round a TV watching the news as a bomb disposal expert entered the Wimpy Bar in an eerily empty Oxford Street. When I saw him go in I knew he wouldn't be coming out and sure enough, the bomb exploded killing him instantly. I’ve never forgotten his name. It was Kenneth Howarth and those TV pictures are seared onto my memory.

I have an intense feeling that I’m being told to move on a stage from here, that I have a journey to make, but I feel adrift and have no idea where I’m supposed to go with all these experiences. I’m not sure what I should be doing, but I simply can’t shake off the feeling I should be doing something. Lyn feels my channels may be opening, whatever that means, and that the apparition in my room may have been spirit testing to see if I could see anything.

But what do I do next?