I had been thoroughly grounded in the church’s teachings, and many of them did not make sense to me. The spirit teachings did. The healing continued, and so did the mediumship. I did not know then that the second year was going to be even more incredible than the first.
At the end of 1973, my energy had increased one hundred per cent. I felt like a time bomb waiting to explode. Subtle, yet tenacious, the spirits were there watching, guiding, protecting and, at times, an absolute pain.
My personal belongings were beginning to move around the house of their own accord, and sometimes disappeared altogether. It was frustrating and time-consuming trying to locate them. Like naughty children, the spirits seemed to be testing my patience, and I could see no sense at all in their behaviour. If there were mischievous entities trying to lighten the atmosphere they did not succeed, and their actions always made me angry.
I confided these peculiar happenings to a friend who was helping with some odd jobs around the house. He laughed, and told me that it was just my imagination. When he next looked for his toolkit it had gone, and he accused me of having moved it. I assured him that I had done no such thing and we spent the next hour searching for it, but to no avail. He was extremely agitated by this time and went back into the room in which he had been working to fetch his coat. There, in full view, was his toolkit. Sitting on top of the bag was a St Christopher medal he had lost earlier that year. His face was an absolute picture.
When he left, he said, ‘I will never again disbelieve the stories you tell me. Today I have had proof positive that there are things that ordinary people may never see, feel or understand, but they are there. Somehow, it’s a comforting thought.’ He hugged me and laughed. ‘I’ve learned a valuable lesson today. I don’t know everything.’ ‘Nobody ever will,’ I replied.
On another occasion a female friend asked me if I could locate her wedding ring, which she had lost the previous day. I closed my eyes and asked for help in tracing it and a few moments later was given the location. It was in my own bathroom! We decided to investigate and to our amazement found the ring lying on the side of the bath. My friend was shaking. ‘Betty, what on earth is going on?’ she asked. ‘I lost this ring in my home and it turns up in yours.’
‘I have no idea,’ I replied. ‘This is the family bathroom. It’s never used by anyone else.’
In that instant a woman’s voice came through to me. ‘Tell Jim he must not use his car until he has checked the brakes.’ Jim was my friend’s husband and I gave her the message.
‘Who was she? Did she give a name?’ she asked.
‘No, she didn’t,’ I replied.
‘Don’t you think that is a bit odd?’ I laughed, and said, ‘She certainly didn’t hang around, but I do think you should ring Jim and warn him.’
She did so, and a look of complete bewilderment came over her face as she spoke to her husband. She replaced the phone.
‘I can’t believe it,’ she told me. ‘He said he’d had a strong feeling that something was wrong with the brakes so he took the car to the garage to have them checked. He is waiting for the result.’ My friend smiled. ‘He is a real sceptic, you know. Perhaps this will make him think.’ The next day she called to tell me that the brakes had been stripped on one side and could have caused a serious accident.
Two weeks later, the mysterious voice contacted me again, and told me that she was Jim’s late mother. This time she wanted to give him some advice about his business. Her prophecy was later to be proved correct and prevented him from losing a large amount of money.
Whenever I felt the need to be peaceful, I would go into my healing room. By the simple act of walking into the room I was transported to another world a world of love and beauty and forgiveness. It was so easy to close my eyes, daydream and just drift off. For as long as I can remember I have used this easy way of meditating.
One day, however, an unfamiliar voice interrupted my reverie by calling my name. As he spoke I began to feel light-headed, and felt myself drifting into a deep trance state.
‘There will be great changes in your life,’ he told me. ‘You are being taught by the finest minds. Do not argue with them.’ There was a pause, then he continued, ‘The path you are on was of your own choosing.’ I tried to ask questions telepathically but my mind was not functioning. When I was finally able to think logically the voice had gone.
On opening my eyes I could see a white haze swirling around the room, forming intricate patterns. It disappeared finally into a whirlpool of its own making, and I wondered whether I was being shown the door from one dimension to another.
Still feeling sleepy, I thought about his remark that the path was of my own choosing. If this was true, and there was no reason for me to suspect that it was not, why had I selected it? Why had I pursued a singing career? Why had the events of the last year all come as such a shock? There were so many questions I wanted to ask, but the answers were not forthcoming at this time. Nevertheless, I did agree with the first part of his message. It was quite obvious that I was being taught by the best when I was healing.
It was during a healing session that I was shown another aspect of mediumship. I was with a woman who had recently lost her brother. She told me that there were only three members of her family left, and that this had left her in a very depressed frame of mind. As she was speaking I could feel a presence in the room, and a man’s voice said, ‘Tell her it’s her brother Jack.’ I passed on the message, and asked whether he was the brother who had just died. She told me that Jack was her eldest brother and that he had passed on three years ago. It was Barry, the youngest, who had just died.
Jack spoke again. ‘I want you to concentrate, so that my sister will be convinced we have survived.’ I presumed he meant himself and Barry. Then, in my mind, I was shown a photograph. There were about ten people in the picture and I could see them all clearly.
‘Tell her that she has an identical photograph at home.’ I duly passed this message on, and Jack then told me that he was going to give me the names of the people in the photograph, starting at the top, and going from left to right. I told my client what was happening, and indicated that she should find a pen and paper. As the names came through she wrote them down. When Jack completed the list, he told her that everyone he had mentioned sent their love, and that she was being cared for. Tears flowed when the communication came to an end, and looking at the names, she recognized the family she had lost.
‘Why aren’t you in the photograph?’ I asked.
‘Because I took it,’ she told me. ‘We’d got together for my mother’s birthday and I wanted to use my new camera.’
I asked whether she still had the photograph.
‘I believe I have. I’ll look for it when I get home, and give you a ring.’ She telephoned that evening to tell me that all the names were correct, and so was the order Jack had given.
She visited me once more, for healing. As she left she said, ‘I haven’t suffered from depression since I last saw you, because death doesn’t frighten me any more.’ She held my hands and smiled. ‘You see,’ she went on, ‘I know now that I will one day be reunited with my family, and they will be cross with me if I waste my life in the meantime.’ I never saw her again, but always received a ‘thank you’ card at Christmas.
After this episode there seemed to be a spate of ‘survivors’ showing me photographs and using the same process that Jack had done. It became obvious that there must be a system of telepathy and that everyone wanted to get in on the act.
The mediumship was going very well, until a female communicator began to speak in French. When I explained to my client that I hadn’t the faintest