Part Four – Connection!

(Taken – abridged – from the introduction to Joseph’s first book: Revelation).

Joan looked sad and troubled.

For seven years I had been lucky enough to learn from this remarkable woman who had become my spiritual teacher. We met each week throughout that time and she helped me to develop my mediumistic gifts and prepare for the demonstrations, workshops and lectures that were destined to become part of my life.

Those seven years were, by this particular evening, a distant memory. As I chatted with her around her cosy fireside I had already worked professionally as a medium, nationally and internationally (via postal readings requested from all over the world), for a number of years. I regarded Joan as one of my closest friends, closer even than family, a member of my soul group, and a dedicated guide and teacher who had always been there for me in challenging times. On this evening, however, it was she who seemed troubled as she recalled a series of events that obviously still caused her pain and which, despite having discussed all aspects of her past with me, she had never once mentioned until now.

Joan had had a close friend, now departed, with whom she had sat for spirit trance communication privately over a considerable period of time. Betty had conscientiously written down the communications that Joan brought through during these sessions long hand, with Joan remembering little or nothing of what she had said once they were over, relying totally on Betty to record communications she hoped would one day be made available to a much wider audience. Whilst Joan was in trance a spirit guide, a soul who appeared to her dressed in a red robe, would speak through her and give the ladies information of vital importance to humankind – concerning who and what we really are and why we are here; information that answered the spiritual questions each of us asks at some stage during our lives.

It therefore came as a severe blow when Betty died suddenly. She had lost one of her closest friends and there could not, of course, be any further trance sessions. Thank God Betty had written down the words of the ‘Man In Red’ with such diligence! She might have moved on, but her legacy was still here – a precious record that needed to be preserved and made available at all costs.

Following the service on the day of Betty’s funeral Joan asked her friend’s daughter if she might have the volume she had produced in conjunction with her mother as it was of considerable importance to her. Betty’s daughter, a zealous member of a religious group, replied that she had read her mother’s book, that it was the work of the devil, and that she had flung it into the back of the fire where it belonged, happy to have delivered an appropriate fate to such an evil object.

Joan had grieved over the loss of the book and the information it contained ever since that day. As she told me her story for the first time, an idea slowly formed in my mind and I began to wonder whether the information the book contained was truly lost. I was an experienced medium, after all, and it had always been my wish to provide mankind with something other than clairvoyant messages from family members; something lasting that could be accessed by future generations, which is why I had insisted on incorporating workshops and lectures into a work quota that had for many years heavily featured the intimate clairvoyant readings and public ‘message’ demonstrations people inevitably wished me to provide.

What if I could sit to re-contact and record communications from ‘The Man In Red’? …Why not? I wasn’t a trance medium at that time (that ability would develop later, and would play a major part in the transmission of further books in the series) but I saw no reason why the communications could not be accessed clairvoyantly, with me listening to what the spirit had to say and passing on his message to someone else whilst in conscious control. It was as though someone was prompting me to consider this at that moment, and there and then I suggested to Joan that I was willing to put in the time to see if I could make it happen. Joan was most enthusiastic and said we should begin sitting together soon. I, however, had a definite feeling that instead of working with her on this project, as I would usually have done without question, I should this time sit with close friend and fellow spiritual seeker David, who had expressed a desire to join me in a meaningful spiritual endeavour for some time.

David was as enthusiastic about the possibility of bringing through something of real worth to people as I was and, despite our hectic individual work schedules at that time, schedules which would become ever more demanding as the months and years went by, we set aside an initial afternoon to see what would happen.

At the time David worked from an attic room. We climbed the little ladder into the roof space, set up a cassette tape recorder (how times have changed!), switched off the lights and withdrew from this world into the peace of a meditation. I instantly became aware of someone drawing very close to me from the spiritual dimensions, a gentleman surrounded by a glowing aura of red energy who wished to speak, and so, having first prayed that all communication that might come to us that afternoon would arrive via Divine will and approval, I surrendered my senses to this spirit as much as I was able to and began to bring through a stream of information.

Twenty minutes later, exhausted, disorientated, but also exhilarated, I slowly returned my senses to this physical world and David and I found we had successfully taped a first short ‘bulletin from beyond’, which David immediately copied to his computer, also burning it onto a couple of CDs so that we each had a copy. No way would the information be lost or destroyed this time around!

…Continued in Part Five.

Part Three: ‘When the pupil is ready, the teacher appears’.

What to do next following the revelations regarding my future path given to me via a medium during my first visit to a Spiritualist church (see part two of this series)?

As a result of her insights into my future I determined to investigate mediumship and to actively seek a means of developing the latent mediumistic ‘gifts’ I’d been told I was in possession of …but where to start? It seemed logical to begin by visiting local spiritualist churches at the weekends to closely observe mediums as they worked. Some impressed me greatly – others not so much. After a few months of what seemed like a fruitless search for ‘the next step’, and at the conclusion of one particular service held at a local church, a rather gruff-looking gentleman who’d been sitting several seats down from me on the row I was in stood up, walked over, towered over me and boomed, ‘…How would you like to be part of a circle?’

Caught off guard, all I could think of blurting out was, ’…Um… I don’t know what to expect…’

‘Well… me!’ barked the gentleman. ‘…I’m not so scary, am I?”

Actually, Bruce – for it was he – did come across as quite a scary man until you got to know him, but despite his abrupt manner I sensed this was the ‘next step’ I’d been looking for, and began to attend his ‘open circle’ meetings on Wednesday evenings (an open circle is a gathering of like-minded people who sit together in a circle formation to build spiritual power, supervised by a medium, with the intent of connecting to higher spheres of reality and/or developing their spiritual gifts). This weekly event was meticulously overseen by Bruce (a truly excellent medium, who passed to the higher side of life some years ago) who subsequently became a close friend.

Following one such meeting I enjoyed the traditional post-circle cup of tea sitting beside a new-to-me face – a middle-aged lady who had beckoned me over to chat with her and who I somehow instantly recognised, despite never having met her before in this life. ‘She’s a nurse,’ I told myself, though I had no idea how I knew this (I later discovered she had indeed been a nurse during WWII). We talked for quite some time and instantly seemed to gel, with Joan, at the conclusion of our conversation, inviting me home to meet her husband. Joan and Jack became ‘second parents’ to me and I regularly dropped in on them, in the process hugely advancing my understanding of many things spiritual and discarnate due to Joan’s extensive, no-nonsense knowledge of such matters, gained through decades of personal investigation and experience.

During one such visit Joan took me into her front room and explained that she had been sitting here (as in sitting with the intent of developing her spiritual gifts) regularly, by herself, for over thirty years, during which time she had taught herself to meditate efficiently and to communicate accurately with the discarnate spirits that often visited her and she had been able to see around her since she was a child.

’if you wish to develop for the right reasons,’ she said. ‘Not for yourself but to help others, then I will sit with you once a week and teach you everything I have discovered over the years. It will take discipline and dedication and commitment and sacrifice. …And once you set your feet on this path you will never be able to take them off again. So…what do you say?’

…I said an enthusiastic yes, leading to the two of us sitting together in that room  – a room that was alive with the spiritual power that had built up over the decades of disciplined seeking and connection it had been host to – every Sunday, come rain or shine, for a full seven years from the time of Joan’s initial invitation.

During those years I was taught how to meditate, how to correctly access and interpret the information that came to me clairvoyantly (through higher consciousness sight); clairaudiently (through higher consciousness hearing) and clairsentiently (using higher consciousness senses). I also gained a greater understanding of myself and of my physical mind, and was taught how to control that mind and the energies, impressions and insights that, prior to that point in my life, had, for the most part, controlled me. Amazingly, it was arranged by the group of spirits that regularly visited us from higher vibrations (a key member of which, ‘the Persian Gentleman’, would later act as overseer of the subtle, high vibrational energy ‘bubble’ that needed to be constructed around Joseph and myself each time communication took place then deconstructed following each communication) that Joan could ‘tune in’ and begin a ‘message’, I could then take over and continue that message, and she could step in and conclude the communication….and vice versa. We were able to see, hear and sense the same communicators – a unique arrangement that gave me increasing confidence when learning how to communicate with our discarnate friends. 

At the end of that seven-year period I was invited – with Joan – to take my first service at a local spiritualist church. Standing there after the event in front of a congregation comprised of strangers, friends and family – something I would never have considered possible or dared do when first meeting Joan – I knew that I had found my ‘mission’ in life and that all that had gone before had been a preparation for this moment and the countless others like it that were to follow. I realised that the path I was now on would never let me go – nor did I wish it to.

What I didn’t know, and what would be revealed in coming years, was that Joan and I had incarnated together before… at least three times… and that we had done so that we would be vibrationally drawn together in this particular life to allow the Joseph Communications to manifest at this time as a result of Joan bringing out and honing my mediumship and, much later, revealing a crucial fact about herself that would directly lead to my connection with Joseph…

Continued in Part Four.

Part Two: Expect the Unexpected.

Following my first ‘red pill’ moment, recalled in Part One of this series, and experienced when, as a young man, my psychic aunt suddenly began discussing communication with spirits, life after death, and insights from discarnate guides with me – with everything she revealed somehow being something I already knew and making perfect sense to me despite me hearing all this for the first time – my second red pill event happened almost immediately afterwards. It came about as a result of my aunt and uncle (with whom, you’ll remember, I was staying intermittently due to an extremely stressful personal challenge at that time) suggesting one morning that I might like to accompany them to a service at the local spiritualist church that same evening.

My immediate inner response was one of panic. …A Spiritualist church?  Wouldn’t that be…well… rather…spooky? Would things literally go bump in the night around me? I had been brought up as a catholic (indeed, it had been suggested a few years earlier by the local clergy that I might wish to consider the priesthood as a vocation), and said religion frowned deeply on spiritualism and/or anything associated with the ‘paranormal’, denouncing such establishments and occurrences as ‘the work of the devil’. I couldn’t imagine what might happen if I was to attend such an event and I really didn’t want to go… however, because of the highly nervous state I happened to be in in at that time, I didn’t wish to be left ‘home alone’ either… and so, reluctantly, I agreed to accompany my relatives and venture into the (for me, at that moment in my life) ‘unknown’.

To my relief the ‘church’ was not at all what I’d expected…I’d conjured up an image of a bleak, gothic, stone building, wreathed in shadows and appearing suddenly and ominously through a sinister mist… In actuality it comprised of a couple of modern, light and airy rooms located above a fish and chip shop. My aunt and uncle flanked me as I climbed the metal staircase outside the building that led to the second floor entrance, so there was no escape… what on earth (or beyond) lay behind the door that came into view at the top of those steps? Contrary to my expectations it opened onto a bright and sunny room and a warm and friendly congregation, and I was rewarded for my bravery in entering with a nice cup of tea and a biscuit following the service….

My red pill moment? That came about when the lady medium who was taking the service that night stepped up to the lectern and began to interact with the congregation. ‘Either she’s been rifling through the wallets, handbags and coat pockets of those present before the service or something is going on here that I haven’t encountered before and just can’t explain,’ I mused, watching her relay information to members of the congregation regarding their lives and their departed loved ones that they obviously understood. I noticed her pause every so often as though listening to an invisible someone or someones standing next to her.

At the conclusion of a message for one of the recipients she gazed around the room searching for her next connection… and her eyes came to rest on… me. She began to talk to me about the difficult situation I found myself immersed in at that time and offered a few observations about my future before moving on to deliver the real jaw-dropper: ’Within five years you’ll be standing here… you’ll be doing this,’ she stated matter-of-factly. ‘You’ll be a medium that many other mediums will look up to.‘ She then proceeded to describe exactly how I would work as a medium in the future and listed the spiritual ‘gifts’ I’d been given and would be using.

‘Say what??’ I thought. ‘Me? A medium?’ And yet, as with my first red pill moment, I knew somewhere within myself that she was right and that I would indeed be doing this work at some stage. Little did I realise on that extraordinary evening the extent to which ‘the work’ would take up and dominate my life. Nor did I have an inkling that, as that work evolved, it would steer me inexorably towards a link with a vast group of advanced souls whose wisdom, advice and deep spiritual insights, if taken on board and acted upon, could positively transform this world and lift society out of the increasingly dark hole it has dug itself into.

Later that night, as I lay in bed thinking over everything that had been said to me, I suddenly saw the spirit of my grandfather appear, rush in through the open door of my bedroom, move over towards me, and then just as suddenly disappear; this ‘visitation’ by a discarnate spirit manifesting then being over so quickly I hadn’t time to feel nervous. It also served as confirmation that what I’d been told earlier that evening at the service was indeed accurate.

My red pill journey – leading to a way of observing, reacting to and living life that would never again fit in with what I had being assured by society was ‘the way things were’ – was up and running…

…Continued in Part Three.

Part One: The Die is Cast

I suppose you could call them ‘Red Pill moments’ (a reference to that famous scene from the Matrix, terminology from which has entered the English language in recent years)…  those world-changing points in time when you are given the choice of either taking ‘the blue pill’ (allowing your life to continue on as it always has done) or ‘the red pill’ (allowing you to see through the illusion of Earthly ‘reality’ and change your perception forever).

My initial ‘red pill moment’, marking the beginning of a decades-long journey that would eventually and inevitably lead to a connection with the discarnate spirit communicator Joseph and the vast group of concerned souls he is the spokesperson for, happened when, as a young man in my mid-twenties, I found myself at the centre of an escalating and traumatic sequence of events that was stretching my nerves and my resilience to their limits, causing me to question the meaning of my life and to wonder whether my lot could or would ever improve.

Around ten years prior to this point my globe-trotting aunt and uncle had ‘unexpectedly’ turned up one day at my parents’ sweet shop (I knew in advance that they were coming – in one of my frequent psychic dreams I’d seen their impending visit the night before they appeared, unannounced, on our doorstep). Standing in the doorway as she was leaving, my aunt suddenly turned on her heels to face me, fixed me with a deep and intense stare and said, ‘If you ever need us, just turn up at our house. You don’t have to phone or give us prior warning. Just set off. Just turn up…’ She leaned closer: ‘Now… Do you understand, Michael?’

Somewhat bemused, I mumbled ‘Yes.’ I didn’t know my aunt and uncle very well at all at this stage, their world-travelling making my connections with them infrequent and brief, so this strange little exchange with a relative I didn’t feel particularly close to seemed very confusing to me. I’d never been invited to stay with them before. ’Michael… do you understand?’ she repeated forcefully. ‘Yes,’ I replied, not really grasping the purpose of this conversation but sensing I needed to very carefully commit this incident to memory. ’…Good.’ She smiled thinly and seemed relieved that she’d got her message across, though that powerful gaze, those eyes that seemed capable of peering into my very soul, still held my attention.

Fast forward ten years, to a point at which, not having seen my aunt and uncle more than a couple of times in the interim, I found myself in urgent need of somewhere to retreat to. Remembering that decade-old, weird little conversation with my aunt, I realised with relief that I actually had a ‘bolt-hole’ I could go to, and set off for their house, without prior announcement and during a thick snowstorm, my old, unreliable car somehow wheezing its way through forty-plus miles of blizzard towards the spot on the coast where they lived. It finally spluttered to a halt and half-buried itself in a deep snow drift as I turned into their street…. But by some miracle I’d arrived safely at my destination.

My relatives warmly welcomed me in and generously took special care of me for a week, and I subsequently returned every weekend for the next couple of months or so until I felt better equipped to move forwards and take up the challenges of my life with renewed vigour. During one particular visit, and over a cup of tea, my extremely psychic aunt suddenly and unexpectedly began to chat to me in a very matter-of-fact way regarding discarnate spirits; life after death; help from and communication with guiding influences; the power of white Light energy, God, her encounters with ‘the beyond’ and a great deal more.

I’d never understood or examined these things in any great depth before, although I’d always been fascinated by and felt strongly drawn to such subjects, and realised I was ‘different’ somehow and that I had access to a range of (as yet undisciplined) senses that seemed not to be the norm, having repeatedly experienced paranormal ‘happenings’, ‘seen things’, experienced pre-cognisance, had psychic dreams, sensed unusual ‘atmospheres’, etc, from a very early age. As my aunt spoke, however, I was – spiritually speaking – offered the ‘red pill’ for the very first time, in that each topic she brought up during that conversation was something I somehow knew I already knew, and therefore instantly accepted as truth. I felt as though I was reconnecting with long-buried memories; it was as if the mists were suddenly clearing and the true meaning of life was beginning to reveal itself.

… From that moment onwards I would experience a rapid succession of red pill moments … life as I had known it and taken for granted as ‘the way things are’ would rapidly be deconstructed, my perspective and approach to life would change forever, and that crucial future connection with Joseph would be assured.

…Continued in Part Two.