From an early age Jane had been fascinated by ghost stories and at junior school even formed a ‘spirit society’ (her whimsical society ‘rulebook’ from the time is included at the end of this title – I defy you to read it without smiling). By her mid-teens, whilst retaining her steadfast belief in the Divine, she had rejected the dictates of her religious upbringing with their promise of eternal punishment for some souls handed out by a loving God. Jane’s life changed forever in her mid-twenties when she visited a medium and was amazed and overjoyed at the irrefutable evidence of an afterlife given; her confirmation of there being much more to this life than the surface illusion. From that day onwards she determined to share that knowledge with as many people as she possibly could.
Our fourth train is transporting Tony, a highly successful textile industry specialist and businessman who, some years ago, and at the point of having just sold one of his companies for a considerable sum of money, couldn’t understand why, now having access to virtually anything he could desire materially, he felt so empty inside. The sale – long in planning and preparation – just hadn’t brought him the satisfaction he’d expected it to, and from that time onwards his inner thoughts were increasingly at odds with his exterior approach to life. It was, he felt, as if he was only paying lip service to the outer state of contentment he tried so hard to project. So pressing was this out-of-step feeling with the rest of the world that he decided to embark on a journey of personal spiritual growth, one that would take him to ‘stations’ that were radically different than those he had visited in younger life, and which would help his spiritual yearnings bear fruit and ultimately evolve to the point where he would found, fund and create the Sanctuary Of Healing in Lancashire, UK, a centre whose doors are open to clients seeking to benefit from alternative, non-invasive methods of healing and also to souls hoping to address and advance their own spiritual awareness.
Four trains… Four people… Four very specific sets of acquired skills… Couple this with a pressing timetable from ‘above’, put together by an elevated group of discarnate spirits working in accordance with Divine Will in order to help souls on Earth remember, realise and change whilst there’s still time, and you have the unfolding of a series of converging connections that would eventually lead to the Joseph Communications. The fine details of how we four inevitably met and harmonised (and how, prior to those events, I had made a vital connection at an earlier ‘station’ with Joan, my spiritual teacher and mentor), with those points along the tracks constantly being switched and fine-tuned by Higher Authority in order that we do so, are chronicled in the introductions to other books in this series – it is the sheer magnitude of the intricate spiritual planning and shepherding at work behind the scenes I wish to draw attention to here:
...The spiritual evidence that our ‘mission’ had been pre-destined long before David, Jane, Tony and myself had drawn our first breaths in our present physical bodies.
...The fact that negative situations and distractions in our lives – and in mine in particular – prior to our connecting – many of them major, and many so complex and entangling that they would seem, to the impartial observer, destined to completely engulf one or all of us and extinguish any hope of a successful spiritual mission were negotiated, avoided, transformed and rapidly moved away from.
...The realisation that we had each been outfitted by life with exactly the right skills necessary to get Joseph out into the world: myself with the mediumistic gift that would eventually develop further into an ability to enter a trance state and allow Joseph to make his voice heard, plus the acquired proficiency to write about and express those concepts and deliver them when needed to an audience face to face; Jane with her tenacity, her flair for organisation, her knack for negotiating advertising space that would stretch our tiny budget so that it worked harder than anyone would suspect it could ever do to get the message out; David, ready and able to format our books, visualise our advertising, construct and maintain our websites, design and send out our mailshots, and Tony with his unique vision, drive and energy, who would provide the physical platform from which Joseph could springboard into public consciousness via the Sanctuary’s meeting rooms, and constantly give essential encouragement, support and advice that would enable the books to be published and our global advertising campaigns to be undertaken.
Because we were able, in microcosm, to do what huge publishing concerns could accomplish drawing, by comparison, on only a tiny fraction of their considerable funding and facilities, we could keep the message pure. An editor from a large publishing house looking for the next best seller would inevitably want to change words and alter concepts to make them appeal to the maximum audience. Joseph had cautioned us that his words should not be changed and, as ‘keepers of the flame’, and because of our in-house skill sets and single-mindedness, we could ensure that they weren’t. A large-scale operation would also seek to launch a book just once, giving it a limited lifespan, whereas we wanted to ensure that the Joseph Communications would be made universally and constantly available for the rest of our lifetimes ...and beyond.
We did, however, having all disembarked at that ‘central station’ and having met, harmonised and agreed upon a plan of action, need to do one more thing in order to launch Joseph’s message out into the world – and that was to introduce him to ‘his public’.
It was therefore decided, with Joseph’s approval, that we should organise a number of public trance demonstrations, many of which would take place at the Sanctuary of Healing, so that the source and authenticity of his message could be viewed and examined up close. This was not a decision that was taken lightly, as trance mediumship is a dangerous undertaking even in ideal conditions, and to submit myself to unknown audiences, a small percentage of whom might be aggressive or hostile or wish to see us fail, or who might break the link through forgetting to turn off their mobile phones or by unwrapping sweets whilst I was in trance (both these things happened – the latter regularly – but, fortunately, Joseph was always able to maintain the connection) was not a prospect I relished. Joseph, however, needed to be witnessed publicly so that the word could spread, and so that we would have the authenticity of his sessions on record to add weight to the book material which had been gathered by us as a result of us meeting regularly in private, controlled conditions.
...And so we took Joseph ‘on the road’, as it were.
Those evenings were daunting for me. If held at the Sanctuary I would wait alone and nervous in one of Tony’s consulting rooms or in his office as everyone arrived. Invariably, and despite detailed instructions as to what was expected on the night being given to all attendees by Jane, some individuals would arrive late, prolonging my agony. Then, at last, the voices from the meeting room would become silent, Jane would come down the corridor to collect me and I would walk back with her into a now-hushed room, filled with people, sit down as Michael, and then...
...Joseph would stand up.
My legs would be locked into position and I would stay rooted to the spot, motionless from the waist down, for anything up to an hour and three quarters as I vacated my body and mind and Joseph moved in, opening with a little address, then inviting questions from the audience and answering them with his usual fact and information-packed eloquence and gentle humour.
At the end of each session Joseph, having invariably overrun my physical frame and mind to the point of complete exhaustion, would reluctantly vacate my body and I would be drawn back into it, my first returning sensation being that of extreme pain in both legs. I would subsequently, following a few seated moments to allow me to literally gather my senses and take a few sips of water, hobble off through the silent audience back to the consulting room, where a tray of sandwiches and a piece of chocolate cake would