Part Ten: Taking Joseph ‘on the road’.
(Some of the following text is taken, abridged, from the introduction to Joseph’s book Trance Mission.)
The Band of Light, having connected, harmonised and agreed upon a ‘plan of action’, needed to do one more thing in order to launch Joseph and his soul group’s message out into the world – and that was to introduce him to ‘his public’.
We therefore decided, with Joseph’s approval, to 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 challenging undertaking for me 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 generated as a result of us meeting regularly in private, controlled conditions.
…And so we took Joseph ‘on the road’.
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 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 be waiting for me, courtesy of Tony. These I would devour like a man who hadn’t seen food for a week, bolting everything down without really tasting it in a frantic, almost instinctive quest to reacquire some physical and mental energy. On one occasion I remember peering into the mirror in my post-trace state, unable to recognise what I was seeing. On another I simply wanted to crouch in a foetal position behind the examination table in the room, shut my eyes and hide until I felt better… I might have been back in my body but I was definitely not myself. Following each demonstration it would take me at least a week to fully recover my wits and my energies – but the ultimate outcome would be the same – Joseph would have filled in some further blanks in our spiritual knowledge and his presence whilst doing so would be on record.
We held a demonstration in Ireland, where a very dark conference room in a hotel, completely devoid of spiritual energy, was quickly transformed into a chamber of light and power for the duration of the communication by our guides; and also in various other UK locations, at one of which the overhead lights were extinguished in a burst of high-pitched noise by the Field, and the transformer on our camcorder was fried, cutting short our visual recording. Our final public demonstration, back at the Sanctuary, and whilst not affecting the communication, was the subject of attack by negative forces, the consequences of which had a debilitating effect on us all for some weeks – Joseph was, after all, making available liberating spiritual knowledge that the world as it is did not want to ‘go public’. Such were the effects of that final demonstration that we decided the public communications were becoming too dangerous for us all and for me in particular, and that we would, from that point onwards, continue to bring through Joseph’s observations in private only, lest my health suffer too much.
By that stage we did, however, have a comprehensive visual and aural record of Joseph’s twelve public appearances. Inevitably, certain queries were raised more than once across the demonstrations, with members of the congregation at different locations and gatherings wanting in particular to understand more about ‘the Field‘ and ‘the Fall’. In addressing these questions Joseph, however, always wove further enlightening information into his answers. He disclosed something new and deeply thought-provoking in each session, even on those occasions where variations of questions that have been addressed in earlier communications had been asked again.
…Concluded in Part Eleven.
