The Sanctuary


In 2007 a small group of interested people decided to set up a
home circle dedicated to learning and understanding more about Physical
Mediumship.
This circle was named the Bristol Spirit Lodge - as Chris, whose home
hosted the circle and who created the idea, lived in Bristol at the time.
The BSL grew and evolved over time with many sitters and mediums coming
and going. I myself developed my own abilities as a Trance and Transfiguration
medium but the hoped for physical phenomena didn't appear to be on the agenda.
Much of the early development records as experienced by myself are
recorded in this blog up to the point where I really felt I was unable to add
anything new to the record.

In May 2013, some 5 yrs down the line, the BSL has relocated to Clevedon
and gone from strength to strength. Numerous new home circles have spun off and
have set up on their own and links to many others have been created
6 months ago, a young lady, wife and Mum contacted Chris to enquire
about physical mediumship. One thing led to another and she has now been sitting
in her own circle within the BSL for development with some amazing results. The
speed and level of her development has been stunning.

A few months ago, her spirit team who have been communicating through
direct voice whilst Emily has been in deep trance, told us that they wished to
form a small closed circle to sit weekly with a handful of dedicated sitters in
support to start what they called the “serious work”.

Last week was the inaugural sitting of the closed circle and what
follows below will be my own subjective account of my personal experiences
during this and subsequent sittings.
Chris will continue to update her own account of course on the BSL
on-line diary. My own diary in no way replaced these, this is just my own
personal record for my own interest and for anyone else who wants to follow.




To read the full diary and objective accounts of the other circles that meet in the Sanctuary, visit the main site at: http://www.spirit-lodge-diary.blogspot.com/




Wednesday, February 27, 2008

Tuesday 26th February.

Tonight was one of the most interesting evenings for quite a while.
FC had given some guidance as to where each sitter was to be placed and Brian was in the cabinet, myself directly opposite in the north corner with Alan and Michelle on one side, Lynne and Chris on the other.

Almost immediately as soon as the lights were out, there was activity in the cabinet as the independent voice box was formed and exercised. The chair was being moved and the bells could be heard as well as assorted creaking and rocking sounds from within.

The sounds being projected were very wide ranging from deep ‘throaty’ growls to high pitched whistling and just about everything in between. These soon developed into more recognisable vocal sounds and words.
As soon as the voice had gained some control of itself, Chris asked who it belonged to and if he had a name, “Everyone is called something, my dear” was the amused response.
A short conversation started but the control was obviously focused on the work in hand rather than a friendly chat. We clearly heard comment that the process was still difficult -but compared to the first few words we heard just a couple of weeks ago, it has progressed immensely.

Because I was sitting in the opposite corner to the cabinet, my personal experience of this was a little distorted. The sounds seemed to be coming from several different places at one as well as reverberating around the room. However, the others weren’t aware of this so this may well have been an acoustic effect of sitting in the corner. In addition, we know that the energy is much more intense in this spot than the others and that may have also distorted my own perception of what was happening.

Once the voice had gone there was a short period of calm before we heard a few more sounds from the cabinet that sounded a little like the chair being rocked quite hard. Then there was few more seconds quiet before the most enormous crash was heard in the corner of the room in front of the cabinet.
Even the seasoned sitters, well used to all sorts of sudden and strange noises in the dark, jumped a good few inches of their chairs!

The voice of the Chief soon greeted us, speaking through Brian whose trance state had been lightened enough to allow control of his voice.
After a little chit chat, he asked if we would like to participate in a new experiment and would we like to see a demonstration of how the plastic wrist straps were being freed?
Chris was asked to turn on the red light at a very, very low setting. We could all clearly see Brian seated in his chair -In front of the cabinet!-, still securely tied at the waist and with both wrists and ankles strapped firmly to the chair (I had fixed these myself this evening and can guarantee they were a ‘snug’ fit. Michelle, new to the group, also had personally checked them to make sure they were correctly fastened).

The light was then reduced a little further and we could see Brian’s wrist start to rotate, then incredibly the plastic tie wraps seemed to become elasticated and stretched until his wrist was a good 4 or 5 inches away from the chair.
All the time, the chief continued to joke with us as we watched fascinated.
Then, his wrist stopped moving and he simply lifted his arm up. The ties seemed to stretch a little more and then suddenly the fastener/ratchet gave way with the now familiar creaking pop and his hand was free.

This was astounding to watch first hand. We have all become used to this happening regularly each week under the cover of complete blackout. And it’s fair to say we’ve become almost blasé about it to a large extent.
However, to be given a demonstration in red light conditions and to actually see the assumed laws of physics being dispensed with was something else.

Shortly after the end of the demonstration the Chief withdrew and we closed down the séance. Although I had perceived a lot of other visual phenomena during the evening, these were still purely subjective and personal -although I believe Alan also saw some odd visual events.

However, the primary purpose of our home circle is to enable Spirit to demonstrate though physical, objective evidence that can be witnessed simultaneously by sitters, the truth of the existence of Spirit and the fallacy of ‘death’ as most people believe it to be.
In that respect, this séance was one of the most successful yet to date.

Thank you to Brian, the Chief and all the team, as well as the circle members who made this evening possible.

Wednesday, February 20, 2008

Tuesday19th February

This week’s sitting was a significant departure from our normal routine as Brian was away. So we set up an experimental evening with 3 sitters, plus me and Sandy in the North and South corners of the room.
Chris, Margaret & Lynne sat around a small central table waiting to see if any spirit visitors to the lodge would recreate some of the more traditional historical séance activities; such as Ouija board and table tilting. Mean while, Sandy and I were left to our own devices whilst the music began.

There was no clear plan and the only guidance we had been given prior to the evening was to approach it with an open mind and see what might happen.

For the first half of the evening I was pretty much drifting in and out of it. Subjectively I was experiencing my own stuff going on which may or may not have been ‘real’. Sandy and I compared notes afterwards and both agreed that we had been aware of similar changes in the energy within the room and the shift from ‘straight line’ energy to a rotating ‘whirlpool’ effect.

Unsurprisingly the table remained firmly on the floor and the upturned glass failed to move an inch. I was aware of Sandy’s spirit team working with her and some very odd noises coming from her corner of the room. This carried on for a while and then as it was going quiet again, my own awareness shifted and I could feel my body tensing up.

A communicator who called himself Robert came through and spoke to the sitters about what had taken place that evening and answered some questions about his personal history. He had last lived on the physical plane some 300 years earlier and come from the South Coast area of England (at least I assume it was England he was talking about –this was not confirmed).
He had been in an army and had been privileged to carry a firearm – unusual, he claimed for someone from his background that would not normally be entrusted with his own weapon. These would have usually been reserved for those born of higher class.

He was asked about what happened to ‘suicide bombers’ and how they experienced their arrival into the spirit world. A long talk followed about compassion and life decisions, the impact of culture and circumstances on an individual and how different they were to what might be experienced in comfort of western society.

I can only recall fragments from the discussion and perhaps when we have sorted out audio uploads, we can post the file here in the future (…I’d quite like to listen to it myself!).
There was much more to the talk and if I get a chance to listen to the recording I will post some updates in the future.

Following Robert’s departure, Bernard joined us through Sandy and talked for while about his experiences in the war and interestingly he also referenced some prior discussions that had been held between him and Robert before the séance took place.

A fascinating evening, all the more so since some of the personal information that was given is now being confirmed through research.

Thanks to all those in spirit who joined us last night to make such an interesting séance. Next week Brian will be back in the cabinet and the report will be posted here sometime on Wednesday.

Tuesday 12th Feb

I was away for this seance. Please see the Spirit Lodge Diaries for a record of events.

Thanks
Jon

Wednesday, February 6, 2008

Tuesday 5th February

If you've had a chance to read the main diary blog for the circle this week, you've pretty much got the gist of everything that happened on Tuesday evening.
The independent voice control is coming on in leaps and bounds and considering it's barely 3 weeks since we first heard clear(ish) language at all, we were this evening able to hold a clear conversation -albeit a brief one.

Hopefully soon we'll be able to get hold of an old second hand PC or laptop that we can use to record the seance on to (if anyone has a spare one gathering dust, we'd be happy to put it to good use!). Then we will find out how to make the audio files available each week and they'll be downloadable for all to listen to -mind you, we may have to edit out some of the singing!

I'll be away from the circle next week so no posts here then but will be back as usual the week after.



Jon