The Sanctuary

Tuesday 30th Sep

2008-10-01T04:06:00.000-07:00

Last night I was sitting as per usual in our home séance in Bristol. Although I’ve not been recording my own experiences over the past few months, each and every week I found something new happening every time I go into the trance state.

This week though I went through something much more unusual and I thought it worthwhile recording – if only for my own sanity and reference in the future perhaps.

The evening started normally enough. And come 8pm the 4 of us trooped out to the Lodge, settled in and the music was soon started.
Drifting off with the music I made myself comfy and then I remember that I ‘knew’ that it was important that I sit up properly, which I did and oddly felt much more comfortable as well.

I was drifting in and out so to speak when I heard the sitters start to whisper to each other about what they were seeing. I was listening quite clearly and then I recall ‘asking’ that I could stop hearing them (I didn’t want them to stop, I just wanted to stop listening)
Anyway, time ticked on and I was still hearing them chatting –which was quite nice and comforting in an odd sort of way, when I noticed that I wasn’t in the room anymore but was looking down on a really thin and emaciated girl. She was standing in a dark place, like a stairwell or a corridor. Concrete perhaps, anyway I asked her name and ‘heard’ …that’s odd, but I have no idea know what it was…. Anyway, she looked up (I felt like I was above her by about 10 feet) and she seemed scared and confused. I called to her, telling her not to be scared, but she didn’t seem to want to know. So I tried a different tack and started to ask her look at the warm glow of light behind her (and to one side), then the light grew stronger (or possibly just came closer) and I told her to take the hand that “he” was holding out. Which after a moment’s hesitation she did and then they weren’t there any more.

I heard the sitters chatting again but then decided that I had to go back again.
Then I realised her boyfriend was still there as well, I ‘knew’ his name but he was less interested and seemed much less willing to look around –and to be honest I couldn’t see any warm glow to direct him to. So I started asking him if he would like to feel warm again – he seemed really cold (now the odd thing now that I recall it, is that I never actually ‘saw’ him at all, not physically if you know what I mean. I tried to ‘imagine what he looked like but couldn’t create a picture that seemed to fit him, but, again oddly, that didn’t seem so important at the time).
So, anyway, that fact he was so cold seemed to be the key and I kept going on about being warm again. But he still didn’t want to leave.

I realised then they were both addicts and he was scared to leave, but also that fact that his girlfriend had gone scared him as well, but, not as much as leaving the security of their squat –which I could now see was a filthy room/corridor, damp walls and some scruffy red and grey material (old curtains or blankets perhaps).

Anyway, I digress,,, ;-)
Being warm seemed to be the key so I told him if he came with me I could show him a place he could go to where he could sit in the sun again and get warm, proper warm where the sun would get right down to his bones.
-I have this place I go in meditation or when I do clairvoyance which is a small part of a rose garden. There’s a gravel pathway and a bench there and I can sit there in the sun and chill out. It’s where I meet people who want me to give someone a message. Usually they can then come with me or I can link with them again later etc.

Anyway, I said he could come with me there and warm up a bit. So he came (reluctantly) but I told him it was all ok ‘cos he could go back whenever he wanted to & that he was more than welcome to come back again any time that he just wanted to warm up again. So I left him there and said goodbye. Then just as I looked back I saw someone else sit down next to him and start chatting and I knew it was one of the ‘good guys’ and he was going to be fine.

I then said bye to the girl and saw that it was her Dad that had come to fetch her. She and her boyfriend perhaps had OD’d and got stuck there? Maybe they thought that’s where they deserved to be, who knows.
Anyway, not long after that I heard the music changing and had to come back so that the others could talk to the sitters (by this I mean that the usual spirit team wanted to communicate with the rest of the circle through trance).

Was it all real? I dunno at all. I suspect it may just have been a mental distraction, a bit like a dream, used to break my focus on listening to the sitters in the circle but I’ve had this experience before once in a meditation and it was very, very similar (not in circumstance but in feeling). Maybe I really did help a couple that had got themselves ‘stuck’ in some way, maybe I imagined it, perhaps it was just a daydream. Either way, it felt very real and it felt satisfying in an abstract way –worthwhile if you know what I mean, Like it’s something I’d want to do again.

So that was it, while everyone else was sitting there in the dark, I was having a nice little daydream :-) Now what is really odd is that while all this was going on I could still hear them all but it no longer seemed important to hear what they were saying. I could hear their voices and even the words, but I wasn’t ‘listening’ and had no sense of ‘time’ passing.
Most peculiar and most interesting as well. I wonder if it’ll happen again? - they’ll have to keep up the chat so I’ve got a reason to bugger off again ;-) Hahaha

A home seance with Warren Caylor

2008-10-01T04:05:00.000-07:00

Saturday 25th September ‘08

A group of five of us had driven up from Bristol as guests to a home séance at Castle Vale in Birmingham, where Warren Caylor had agreed to sit for us and to provide a demonstration of Physical Mediumship.

All of the 15 sitters (plus of course Frank and Myra) had sat before with Warren with the exception for 2 who had never sat in a physical circle before. And I think it’s safe to say that this was an experience that neither will ever forget for the rest of their lives.
We got their a little early and despite getting lost no more than 100 yards from the front door, we were met by Warren and made to feel completely at ease as we were warmly welcomed into the venue.

Soon the room was filling up as people started to arrive and about ten minutes before things got underway, Oz came in to give everyone a brief reminder of the ‘rules’ and to make sure that the newcomers were at ease and feeling comfortable. Then we were called in as usual, checked for concealed weapons of mass destruction and shown to our seats.

It was only a small room, no more than 10’ by 8’ and it was a bit of a squeeze to get us all in. The centre of the room had the usual array of drumsticks with luminous ends, tom-tom drums, mouth organ, cardboard trumpet, whistle and a white envelope addressed to “Young Tom”. –apparently a little while ago at the last séance held down in the south-east Tom’s slide whistle had been left behind and had been posted back to for him care of Warren.
This was opened and the contents displayed to everyone and the envelope was shown and checked to make sure nothing was concealed anywhere.

Then, with the formalities over, Warren sat in the chair & was secured with chains & tie-wraps at the wrists, tied at the ankles, waist and chest with a red climbing rope. Everyone was just about to settle down when it was realised that somewhere along the line the gag for Warren’s mouth had been left behind. The doors had to be unsealed again and Frank had to make an unseemly dash for the Kitchen, grab a clean tea-towel and return.
Now I don’t know about you, but a tea-towel twisted lengthways makes a very thick and uncomfortable looking gag. Oz fitted it into Warrens mouth and tied it firmly behind his head.
Being such a small room we could all see this clearly and I have to say, it looked mighty uncomfortable to boot.

With the lights then out, the music started & in within seconds the ceiling shook as Spirit announced their presence by banging loudly on it and letting us know they were here and we all knew we were in for an exciting evening.

A few minutes later and we all heard the sound of Tom calling out his greeting in his familiar childlike voice and everyone was soon at ease as Tom teased and greeted people by name one by one.
He even asked to be introduced to my wife who was seated next to me. This was the first time she had been to a physical séance, so this was quite an honour to be singled out so quickly. I’ve been to quite a few séances now and this was the first time that I’d been greeted personally by name either, so for her to be picked out was quite a surprise for everyone.

Rachel followed and soon everyone was grinning like idiots in the dark as she had as all laughing with her ribald sense of humour. Yellow Feather joined the circle then and explained that due to some recent developments they were going to suspend the materialisations in white light for the time being.
My immediate thought was that we would be using the dim red light instead but I was gobsmacked when Y.F then said “I suppose we had better make out own Spirit Light instead”
I’ve seen the odd vague misty glow or occasional flash in our own home circle but the prospect of Warren’s team creating their own light for materialisation had me really excited.

Then, leaving this prospect hanging in the air, he left and Tom came back.. He explored the toys and the floor and was clearly delighted to find the envelope and read out the address (it was still total blackout at this time) opened it and guided Frank to the appropriate track on the CD before giving as a fantastic demo of his musical ‘skills’ of his favourite songs.

One thing that I didn’t mention earlier was that a large lump clay, fashioned into a ball about 3 or 4 inches in diameter had been placed on a small plate on the floor with a glass jar upturned over it to protect it.
Tom soon found this and asked what it was for. It was explained to him that if possible, maybe he could try putting his fingers in and on it and leave marks for us to see afterwards? He seemed to think this was fine and played with it before asking to put it under Myra’s chair for safekeeping.

We were witness to yet more amazing demonstrations of their ability to manipulate ectoplasm with levitation of the trumpet and the toys and the playing of drums.
Oz’s sock was removed and landed on my lap (Fortunately as Warrens’ circle leader he was familiar with this kind of play and was well prepared with clean fresh socks ;-)

Another sitters shoe was removed and balanced carefully on the top of the ceiling fan, water was flicked playfully around –just in case anyone was getting too hot, but no-one was soaked this time!

After another visit from Rachael, Yellow Feather returned and shared some sage advice. And spoke to one of the sitters with words of much needed & great comfort as he prepared to face some personal challenges lying ahead.

He then came to one of the other sitters, who had never before been to a physical circle. Standing only feet in front of her, told her that he could see within her an ability for Physical Mediumship. That if she wished to, she should start to sit and begin her development. It would take some time, he told her but the ability was very real. Both she and her husband were given advice on sitting together and supporting this development.
Everyone in the room was very surprised as this is virtually unheard of. To be approached directly by spirit through direct voice, to be picked out and informed of an ability as a Physical Medium in the middle of séance has only happened in a very rare handful of cases.
Watch this space and perhaps in future we’ll be reading of yet more physical Mediumship in private and public circles.

Yet still the best was yet to come.

Tom returned and asked us if we’d like to see a little Spirit Light –assuming we weren’t too bored! Then behind the curtain started what I can only describe as the most incredible display I’ve ever seen.
A small point of brilliant white light flashed briefly illuminating the whole cabinet, behind the thick black drapes that were hung across in front of the chair where warren sat, still secured by ropes chains and gagged.
The light than came back, flashing on and off more and more quickly and it was moved around and around. The intensity was astounding! The light flashed and waved up and down, up and around the cabinet for several minutes before finally going off.

Yellow Feather came back briefly to talk about the demonstration, then we were treated to another display, but this time the light was the most incredible blue colour. Faster and faster it flicked on and off, moving all the time fro the top to the bottom of the cabinet.

Tom took another break and Luther came into the room. His presence completely overwhelming and filling the small space.
Anyone who has ever had the privilege of witnessing Luther will know what I am saying. His voice carries a sheer volume and power that no physical human could create, let alone appearing to emanate from a point approximately 6 inches below the ceiling!

The first time I ever sat with Warren for a PM demonstration, I questioned much of what I witnessed. I doubted what my eyes were seeing and simply couldn’t accept the reality of what appeared to be happening. However, even on that first occasion, when Luther came forward and addressed the circle, I can still recall the feeling of power that projected in to the room. No amount of description can ever really get across the feeling of ‘awe’ that he generates. As one of the sitters said to me later “Luther makes Men quake in their boots whilst Women go weak at the knees!”

After this, Tom cam back again for a 3rd demonstration of his control of Spirit light. This time everyone’s jaw was well and truly dropped!
The flying lights became more and more complex in their patterns until they stopped and the trumpet was lifted from the floor and levitated into the cabinet.
Suddenly we realised that the light was being created inside the 2’ long cardboard tube an a point approx 2” in diameter.
Now, even if somehow Warren had escaped from his chains, cable ties ropes and gag and had somehow been able to create this colour changing light. Even if he’d been able to do this whilst also jumping in and out of the cabinet (complete with the ability to create the sounds of the ectoplasm, voice box etc, plus being able to see in the dark, balance shoes on the top of the light fittings, talk in multiple voices, project this voice from the floor and from the ceiling etc)
How on earth could he make a point of brilliant blue white light appear in the centre of a cardboard tube at a point where it could be no more than 2 inches in diameter! A light so intense that it could be seen clearly right through the thick cardboard of the trumpet.

Then, just in case we weren’t already completely flabbergasted, the trumpet was pushed out of the cabinet, through the curtains and the light projected on to the ceiling and then proceeded to dance around the room in time to the music.

But even now they weren’t finished!
After another brief break, the show started again with the trumpet before it was ejected out onto the floor of the room. Then the lights came back again within the cabinet and the light, rather than being a single point, opened up into a wide oval shape about 6 or 8 inches across.
We could all see this held for a second or two. Tom repeated this a few times before asking if we could see anything. This happened a few times and then he asked again if we could see his face. This time he pushed forward out of the cabinet, his small upturned face between the curtains, illuminated by the diffuse blue light as if from within.
Three or four times more he did this until everyone had clearly seen this amazing demonstration.

Yellow Feather came back again to describe the ‘mechanics’ of how they were creating this light. Saying that the ‘static’ energy created by us in the room (boosted at two points by having all the sitters sub their hands together for a few moments) was being used with the ectoplasm to ‘crack’ the ectoplasm, the release of this energy then created the light.
We later learned that this was only the second time they had tried this experiment and already they had moved forward and progressed vastly in their control and the length of time they could hold the light on.

However, this we were told, used an enormous amount of Warren’s energy reserves and he was just about used up and the séance was now ready to draw to a close.
Yet despite this, we were treated to a final display and once again were able top see little Tom’s face lit up by spirit light looking out through the curtains of the cabinet.

All too soon though it was all over and the light was brought back up.
Initially Warren seemed to be in some discomfort and Oz and Frank quickly jumped to his aid to remove the tea towel, still firmly tied round his head, his arms still in the cable ties and chains, his ropes tied tightly across his chest.

However, once he was released and led from the room, it was apparent to everyone that his jeans and tee shirt had been at some point removed and replaced completely inside out!

Then we saw the ball of clay which had been carefully placed underneath Myra’s chair.
There in the clay were a number of finger marks, of small fingernail marks and one long narrow indent where Tom had pushed his finger right into the clay.
This is going to be saved and a plaster cast made of Tom’s Sprit finger.

Soon we were all crowded into the small kitchen ravenously decimating the sandwiches and buffet that Myra and Frank had generously provided, going over and over everything we’d seen and experienced.
One individual in particular was trying to get her head round the fact the Yellow Feather had given her some more than interesting news about her own development and potential as a Physical medium. But even then, the positive support and advice she received was amazing and speaks volumes for the people that had gathered there that night and the true love for spirit and humanity they and Warren have.

I’ve not included everything that happened that night as the whole séance lasted for nearly 3 hours (it felt like less than one) and we were joined by several other spirits who spoke to us through Direct Voice. Trumpets were levitated, stuck to the ceiling, drums were played. Conversations took place, evidence of survival was shared and comfort given.

This was, we discovered to be Warren’s last demo here in the UK for sometime as the next day was planned to be the first of a long trip to America and possibly even further afield. I wish Warren all the very best of luck and send him off with my thoughts and prayers as he sets off to share his gift with new circles and new friends across the globe.

I look forward to catching up with him and hearing the stories next year when he finally makes it back home again.
Good luck mate and thank you. What a send off!

New beginings

2008-07-18T09:17:00.001-07:00

This blog has been active now for just about 18 months and a lot has happened and changed since it first began.

Initially, I wanted to simply make a record of the development of our small home circle, recording my own subjective experiences as a sitter within the physical seances. The progress made has been astounding in such a short period of time and we've been privileged to witness spirit's ability to interact with our physical world week in and week out. Each week bringing something new, something even more amazing than the week before.

Looking back now, many friends have joined the circles and a few have left to explore different areas as well.
I think as well, almost without exception, everyone that has joined the circle has found that they have made new discoveries about themselves and their potential abilities.

Often sitting in the Lodge for an hour or so once a week seems simply fun and natural and it's only when you look back that you begin to appreciate just how incredible some of those evenings have been.

In fact, now that the Lodge has become so well established and with several mediums working regularly and with the main web site (www.spirit-lodge-diary.blogspot.com) this record is really only duplicating what is largely already there.
In addition, with my own role within the lodge having changed over the last few months, I've begun to appreciate that making a useful record of goings on when sitting in the cabinet as well, is fairly mundane.
...There's only so many ways to write that I "felt a bit funny and light headed before sitting, drifted off into a kind of meditative state/trance & then half woke up to hear myself talking to the rest of the room for half an hour before it was all over" - which is about all I can add to the proceedings when it's my week in the cabinet :-)

So this blog will go now into a period of suspended animation for a while. I'll make the odd addition from time to time when I've got something interesting to add, but for the most part I think the main site will be able to keep a more consistent record of everything that's going on.

Also, as the spirit teams seem to want to do a lot more communication through trance for a while, we'll be making much more use of the recordings rather than trying to keep written summaries up to date.
And with 3 circles running plus a growing number of development/1:1 sittings, we don't really have the time to make a decent entry of each event. The audio recordings should be much better suited to tracking the information shared by Spirit as well.

...mind you, if history is anything to go by, merely taking the decision to suspend the blog will most likely coincide with an immediate need to get it started again, so do drop by from time to time to see if there has been any changes.

Until then, thanks for being a part of our grand experiment and why not do what we did.
Just go ahead and start your own circle and see what happens. You don't need anything other than a room with some good heavy curtains to get started.
I can guarantee you won't get bored!

Tuesday 1st July

2008-07-02T02:39:00.001-07:00

This evening started in high spirits as we all arrived well before 8pm and had plenty of time to relax and joke around before heading out to the lodge for the circle.

Unusually, with Brian in the cabinet, I was asked to sit in the North Corner –a spot that often produces a focus of energy almost as strong as the cabinet. For some reason that wasn’t explained to us, FC had indicated to Chris that I didn’t need to have the usual glow-tab pinned on. In retrospect of the evening’s events, this was probably more symbolic than practically required. It’s usual for only the medium in the cabinet not to wear a tab (Brian's team were/may/are considering using ectoplasm. This substance is highly light sensitive and a glo tab produces light. It is therefore safer to leave Brian in total blackout).
The practice of wearing glow-tabs came in to being so that those sitting in the circle could be confident that no-one was moving around the room and any visitors to the lodge would be able to monitor everyone’s position.

Anyway, I was feeling fine and wide awake and as this was to be a physical séance with Brian in the cabinet, I had no thoughts of doing anything other than sitting in the circle as normal. After the first couple of tracks, Chris checked to see everyone was OK and seemed surprised to find that I was still awake!

In order to assist Brian’s development into a deeper trance state, the music had been selected to support this, so rather than the usual sing along tracks, we had a selection of soft ‘trance’ type music and we sat in relative silence. It seemed not unreasonable under the circumstances to go along with the general mood so I let my eyes shut and drifted off myself.

After a while I heard Blaze speaking through Brian and brought myself awake, sat up and started paying attention. Shortly after, Cheung-Ly came through and at this point I found that my usual ‘slouch’ in the chair didn’t feel right and felt a strong desire to sit upright with a straight back. I was surprised when I heard Chung-Ly suggest that someone else was joining us in the room. I listened expectantly for something new to occur -perhaps a second voice- when suddenly the temperature in the room rocketed (I’d previously been a bit cold) and everything in the room started to sort of get a bit hazy.
I felt my right hand begin to tremble and vibrate and then someone came very close to me, wanting to speak. Both Chris and Cheung-Ly invited the energy to come forward and I felt myself going off into a light trance type state.

I vaguely recall some of the conversation that followed (something to do with the power of prayer) but interestingly for me this time, the stronger ‘memory’ is not of the ‘words’ so much as the imagery that came into my mind as the words were spoken. It wasn’t just the pictures either, as the complete set of feelings and concepts that came at the same time which carried everything, as if the spoken words were almost surplus to requirements.
If I could had been able to give everyone the image/ideas that were coming into my mind, then they’d have been able to grasp the answers much more clearly than the words that seemed to be stumbling out.
I can still recall those images and ideas even now, yet I can’t remember more than a couple of the actual words that were used.

The next thing I clearly remember is the feeling as if someone had flicked a switch and turned the power off. Rather than ‘coming back’ slowly like I’ve done I the past, one minute I wasn’t really there at all, and then next I was back in full awareness and felt completely wide awake.

As we listened to the Chief as he rounded off the evening, I was very much aware that ‘Charlie’ had only stepped back and had not gone completely and when the final coming out tracks were played, I realised I was still feeling a bit ‘out of it’ and wasn’t half as awake as I’d thought I was.
On the drive home (about and hour away) I could feel still him there but as a very positive energy, full of fizz and excitement as opposed to the often drowsy feeling I often get on the way to a circle.

All in all another great evening. The one thing you can always say for sure is that we rarely get two séances the same. They always seem to have something new up their sleeves.

Tuesday 24th June

2008-06-25T06:09:00.000-07:00

Well, this is going to be a slightly different update on the evenings events as for the most part, I wasn’t really all there (no change there then some might say) to see what happened.
This report will be a description of how the evening progressed from the viewpoint of the “medium” rather than the usual description from the sitters point of view.

Although I’ve sat for trance communication a few times in the past, over the past few weeks I’ve been sitting separately with the intention of developing more evidential communication. This has taken a different to expected turn with the Spirit team experimenting with different techniques and having some success in ‘creating’ the images of different faces overlaid on my own. So as Brian was away this week, it was decided that I would sit in the main circle to get allow the team to work with the different energies found in a full circle as well as to demonstrate progress to different people.

Although I’ve sat with Chris and 3 other independent sitters to witness what has been happening, this was the first time I’d sat with a full house. Plus with the recent sitting reports having been posted on the main site, I knew that the others would be keen to see for themselves what has been developing.

And while I’ve used mental medium-ship to give readings and messages to individuals and groups in the past (with various levels of success), working in a light(ish) trance is quite different. For the most part I have a reasonable awareness of what is being said at the time but very little memory of it all afterwards. Also with the reported transfiguration, you don’t really know what is going on or if anything is happening at all until the evening is over.

I arrived feeling a little as if I was to ‘perform’ for the audience and after last weeks reports of disappearing body parts during the séance, I was hoping that the evening wouldn’t be a flop and that expectations weren’t too high.

From about 4pm onwards, I’d felt a steady increase of energy around me and by 7.30 this had become a feeling of intense pressure around my head and upper body. I was feeling kind of spaced out and although I’d felt no distraction whilst driving, when I arrived I felt incredibly drowsy. Yet despite this I was still worried that nothing was going to happen once the evening got under way.

However, once we were in the lodge, I could feel the energies growing more firm and in the cabinet the feelings intensified even further as I felt the start of familiar tremors in my arms and neck.

As the first few tracks played through, the tremors extended down through my neck to my upper body and I could feel my face starting to go a little numb –a bit like you might feel after a few glasses of wine on an empty stomach.

All the time though I was quite aware of the deathly silence in the room and that the music had gone so quiet as to hardly be there at all. So whilst I was ‘waiting’ to drift off, my conscious mind was going ten to the dozen thinking about when I was going to drift off!

Gradually though I must have started to relax as I became aware of the stirring feelings in my stomach as different energies started to come and go. Around this time I was starting to experience different visuals as images started to come and go before settling into a theme that I was able to follow.
All too soon though, I started to be aware of a change again in my physical body and the need to allow one of the communicators to come through.

Initially I can’t tell who it’s going to be and it’s only the compulsion to allow my body to move into certain positions that gives anything away at all –and even then I seem to get it wrong half the time!
I was aware that Billy was talking and that he seemed taking the mick out the sitters and answering questions. When this is actually happening I feel completely aware of everything but more as a passive observer, whilst simultaneously taking part in the conversation, but very little remains as a memory afterwards. An odd dual sensation but the more you relax into it the easier it becomes.
…of course this could be the (not so) early signs of schizophrenia! Or even different aspects of myself being personalised by my own sub-consciousness?
All these thoughts run through your head before and afterwards, but at the time the conscious mind remains pretty much a blank.

After Billy and Sanja had finished I could feel Charlie approaching and although I was conscious of a build up of heat & tiredness, it was nice to feel his calmness when he came through.

When the music came back on and the séance came to a close, the feeling of complete and utter relaxation was wonderful. This is pretty short lived though as all too soon the lights come back on and the world floods back in, leaving a feeling of disorientation and confusion which fortunately soon subsides again.
A good strong cup of coffee and a biscuit or two and the drive home again feels great. The only side effect at all seems to be that although tired, sleep that night is often broken and disturbed. Dreams are more vivid than usual but everything is back to normal again the next day.

Overall though, I can only say the whole thing feels great and each time the feeling of calmness and peace grows and I find myself looking forward to the next sitting even more. The only bit I miss is not being able to see the appearance of the spirit faces and bodies which does sound interesting.

Next week we are back to a blackout circle and you can follow all the developments and the objective reports on the main site as usual.

Tuesday 18th June

2008-06-23T08:44:00.000-07:00

Unfortunately I had to miss last weeks sitting due to a few minor problems with hot water pipes and a badly aimed hammer & nail! All leaks have now been repaired and new carpets refitted, so back on track to sit again this week.
Current plan is for me to nod off inthe chair this week, so a more lucid account of the proceedings will probably be found on the main site (Spirit Lodge Diary) - Link on the side bar.

Thanks for taking the time to keep track of our progress
Jon

Tuesday June 10th

2008-06-13T03:06:00.000-07:00

Tonight was Brain’s first night back but as the weather had been so hot and as we also had a new sitter with us tonight, we decided that we would hold a trance evening rather than the usual blackout. This allowed us to keep the fans on and the air vents open so we were at least less likely to suffer from heat exhaustion.
And whilst we are more than happy for any spirit person to come forward to chat, the last this we want is for any one to ‘cross-over’ during the séance. …not that we have anything against anyone crossing when ever their time is right, but can you imagine the paper work, let alone explaining it to the local constabulary!

The new sitter Kaz settled in well and with a full house, the opening prayers given and the lights turned down, Brian was soon taken back into a deep trance state. (Michelle, sitting next to me wasn’t’ too far behind either. I don’t think she really heard anything at all through out the whole evening!)

Brian was then brought back up to a level of trance where he could enable communication with the spirit team. Blaze came forward first, much quiet and ‘humble’ than previous visits. He proved to have a good sensed of humour, slight London accent and was able to explain to us the process he used to ‘layer’ the energies in order to maintain an even temperature within and around the medium.
We’d been told by the Chief many times that his role was to work with heat energies, but it was only when he explained things himself that I understood that what he was actually doing was managing the existing energies and those created within the Lodge during a séance to keep everything at a low enough temperature to keep it all stable.

Following Blaze, Cheung Ly stepped forward and spoke about how Spirits who come forward will communicate with the common language (in our case everyday English) despite the fact that in his physical life he would have had absolutely no knowledge of modern English at all. He talked about a number of different things, al of which gave us each different things to think about and to take away.

Finally the chief, as ever came forward to joke and talk about the evenings progressions. All the others in the team often joke about his gruff demeanour, but although you can hear his authority and leadership in his words and tome, you can’t help but like him. ..mind you, I know I wouldn’t want to get on his bad side!

It was a fascinating evening and getting a chance to spend the whole séance talking one to one with the team made for an interesting change in routine. And although it’ll be good to get back to the ‘physical’ development next week, I’m looking forward to the next trance evening we have as well.

Tuesday 3rd June

2008-06-10T09:52:00.000-07:00

This week was a slight departure from the normal routine as Brian (our resident Physical Medium) has been away from the chair for a few weeks. So it was decided that I would sit in the cabinet this week for trance.
Over the past month or so, I’ve been sitting privately each week for development and we have a couple of regular communicators now coming through and, as the trance level has deepened a little each week, 3 independent witness’ have each claimed to have seen a spirit persons face ‘overlay’ my own during the séance.

You can read up on this if you choose on the main site (link top left) as I don’t intend to duplicate what was captured there. However, what I can do is relate my version of the experience and how it feels to be in this situation.

On arriving at Chris’s home I could start to feel the build up of energy. The feeling is a little like a static electricity charge building up. For anyone that’s ever been caught on open ground as an electrical storm is building up, this is a pretty close description of what I was feeling. A kind of heavy presence of energy, a potential difference between normal day to day energies and what is about to come.
I feel this right through my whole body but most intensely around the top of my skull, as if there is an invisible skull cap (like the Australian lifeguards wear!) being charged up with electricity.

As the social preamble carried on, I could feel myself becoming slightly more ‘distant’ from it all. I could hear everything and join in as normal, but at the same time my mind wasn’t really focussed on what was going on around me.

Once it was time to go into the Lodge, I quickly sat down and realise that my ears seemed to be less sensitive – as if someone had turned down the volume in the room. And within a few minutes, the prayer had been given and the lights were down low.
As the music started I closed my eyes and relaxed. Within what felt like only a few seconds the first track ended and the second one started. Of course this then set me thinking about the apparent time lapse and I came quickly back to normal consciousness!

I deliberately started relaxing myself and soon was drifting peacefully gain. Images started to flash I and out and as they did, I would find myself ‘thinking’ about them and immediately called myself back into thinking mode.
Each time this happened (4 or 5 times) this would be accompanied by a vertigo feeling and a wave of nausea. At the same time I felt as if someone was ‘stirring’ my stomach with a big wooden spoon.

What I’ve also not mentioned is that as the energy grows stronger, my physical upper body –particularly my neck and arms- seem to vibrate or tremor. Obviously I’ve not seen this myself so can only go on what the others have told me but I can feel it.
It’s an odd sensation as I feel like I have complete control and I know (because I’ve consciously tried it) that I can take control and stop the tremors at will, but it’s as if this takes a concentrated effort and it just seems so much easier to let it go and let my self shake. …must look very peculiar.

As the different visiting spirit controls came and went (there seem to be 2 or 3 that appear to be in charge of matters) they shared thoughts and answered questions from the sitters.
And then towards the end and much stronger energy feeling overtook me and I could feel the vibrations getting stronger and stronger. Apparently during this stage both Chris and Margaret could both see a clearly defined oriental face. Again, I can’t see this at all and can only describe the feelings but after this part finished I felt completely drained and was pleased to hear the séance being ended.
Afterwards I felt exhausted for about 5 minutes and my eyes were streaming and sore. As if I’d just finished a 24 hour shift in a desert.
This passed quite quickly though and I was soon back to normal, feeling overall quite energised.

As these experiments continue in what ever direction the spirit team choose to go, I’ll try and keep my own record of my experience up to date.

Tonight is another trance night (not me this week) so I’ll post an update on this evenings events over the next few days.

Update

2008-05-27T11:23:00.000-07:00

My apologies to any regular readers for the inconsistent posting over the last few months, but what with one thing and another it's been hard to find the time to keep things up to date.
However, it looks as though things should be settling down a bit in the near future.

I've not posted much over the past few weeks although I've been sitting again on a weekly basis for most of May. The main site (http://www.spirit-lodge.blogspot.com/) has been keeping detailed records of each seance so nothing major has been missed.
There have been some other interesting changes over the recent weeks as well which will be posted publicly once we know more about where they are going, but in the meantime...
earlier in April I was lucky enough to be included in a home seance with Warren Caylor.
I wrote up my account and it's been sitting here now for weeks waiting to be posted.

A private Home Seance with Warren Caylor. 26th April 2008

Our own home circle had been invited en-masse to Warren’s home and to sit with Warren, Julie and Lisa in their front room to experience a physical séance away from all the usual clutter and people that go along with a public demonstration.

I’ve sat with Warren on half a dozen different occasions now, many of them in different locations and rooms ranging from the slick set up at Jenny’s Sanctuary through to village halls and empty rooms above a shop. And I’ll be the first to admit that the first few times I experienced a physical séance, I was less than convinced. Not that the evidence was too flaky, it was more a case of my rational mind having been trained for years as an engineer simply couldn’t accept the reality of what I was seeing. The only ‘rational’ alternative then had to be some kind of fraud.

I’d read of trumpets levitating and voices speaking out of the darkness, but to sit for 3 hours and see all this and much, much more first hand was more than my sceptical mind could manage. I couldn’t deny these things had happened but nor could I find a ‘rational’ justification for them. If I’m honest, what drove me more than anything else to go back and experience a séance a second time, was the desire to work out how it was being done.

I did go back a 2nd time and more. And what I soon came to realise was that what I was witnessing was really happening. Very shortly, I was sitting in a home circle myself and any last doubts of any deception evaporated as we began to experience similar sorts of phenomena within our own garden shed.

……………

We all arrived –having relied on GPS Sat Nav’s to find our way across the Birmingham suburbs with varying degree’s of success, and sat in the lounge chatting and unwinding from the long drive. When it was nearly 7pm and Warren called the evening to order. After making sure that all our pockets were empty, rings, mobiles and jewellery were all tucked away, we made our way into the ex-dining room that is now the spirit teams dedicated séance room and went through all the usual safety procedures.

This evening though was to prove a really fun and down to earth séance. Within seconds of the first track being played, knocks could be heard coming from different sides of the room and before the second track had finished, Rachel welcomed everyone with her usual laughter and jokes, taking particular delight in teasing the one newcomer who had not sat with Warren before.
Tom joined us and gave yet another very impressive display of control over the ectoplasm as he displayed levitation, played with the drumsticks, whistles and trumpets.

Soon Yellow Feather announced his presence and both he and Albert spent some time not only exchanging jokes with the sitters but also giving some serious advice and philosophy. Much of which centred around the message that those on a ‘spiritual path’ must also keep a view on what is right in front of them. Help, support and opportunities are here in the physical world and often found with close friends and family. You do not always need to look to the spirit world for such support.
This was a theme that was repeated several times by various different communicators.

Yellow Feather then returned and gave a demonstration of full physical materialisation in white light. Initially he stepped out of the cabinet but was only visible from his feet to his waist. His legs appeared to be self luminescent and then when he reappeared moments later he could be seen from head to toe quite clearly in the shaded white light. He joked around with all of us and with the room being no more than 10 by 12 feet, we could all see and hear clearly everything that was happening. He allowed one lady to touch his materialised hand then, placed his hand over hers on the plaque. “So if my hand is on the plaque, and my other hand is on top of yours, …then who the bloody hell is holding the plaque up??!!” -Anyone who has met Yellow Feather will recognise his sense of humour. Even after all this time, he still manages to make you laugh with his often less than ‘politically correct’ wife/mother in law jokes.
It’s nice to know that not everyone turns into saints and philosophers as soon as they cross into Spirit!

More familiar people joined us and shared jokes, phenomena and guidance as well as a few I’d not met before. Proving without a shadow of doubt that regardless of what many might think of their personalities or messages, they are still very much alive and are more than prepared to commit themselves to demonstrate the basic reality of continuing life.

Then towards the end of the séance several new voices were heard as they were helped by the Team to come through with personal messages. You can have all the physical evidence in the world, but somehow there is nothing quite like hearing again from a friend or family member in their own voice, letting you know that they are ok and sharing personal memories together.

For over 2 hours we sat together in a small front room, guests in Warren’s own home and were privileged to be witness to a personal experience that is unlike any public demo. I’ve only touched briefly on some of the main highlights, there were many others that were personal to the sitters & which they can choose to share or not.

And when all is said and done, that is all that Spirit are offering. A personal experience of absolute physical proof that life continues beyond the threshold of what we too often call death.
Once you have that proof within your own experience, it’s then your responsibility as to how owning this knowledge will affect the way you choose to live the rest of your own life.

Tuesday 13th May

2008-05-14T03:10:00.000-07:00

This evening was a departure from the usual blackout séance as last week, the Chief had specifically requested the Tracey be invited to the Lodge and that she would enable her guide ‘Red Hawk’ to come through. We were given the impression that the Chief and Red Hawk had something to discuss and that bringing the two mediums physically together would in some way help this.

I suspect in reality however, that neither spirit guides really required the support of a séance to communicate with each other but it did provide a change in routine for us, in addition to giving both guides an opportunity to raise new topics for discussion and learning.
...This though is purely my own opinion.

Also the presence of a newcomer and potential new sitter was quite possibly not coincidental either. As is often the case –if not always in fact- whenever the Chief or FC makes changes to the usual routine, there are many different aspects that always seem to slot into place and work out to the best outcome for everyone concerned. So much so now, that such changes are never even questioned any more as our trust in their management has grown and grown.

On one of the warmest nights of the year so far, all 8 of us gathered in the Lodge with Brian and Tracey in the South and North corners respectively. Chris swapped placed with me allowing her to keep a close eye on both Mediums and to keep her attention on any changes that might be required, whilst I took over the mechanics of opening, closing and the CD player.

After the ‘going off’ tracks were played, we could see Brian being moved or swayed from side to side. This was interesting in itself as we always hear the movement but this was the first time we had been able to witness it under pink light conditions. More so, because Brian’s feet only just reach the floor (at the Chiefs request we have switched back to the more comfortable garden lounger to enable a deeper level of relaxation to be reached more quickly) and to see his upper body swaying whilst his toes remained static and his arms resting at his sides looked quite peculiar.

It was quite apparent that Tracey was going into a deep trance state and within 5 minutes or so her guide Red Hawk began to speak to us. We were able to ask several questions about Healing, individual guides and their relationships to ourselves.
Both Red Hawk, Cheung-Li and the Chief made comments about how to ‘listen’ to input from our guides -trusting the “first thought” and gut feelings as these were most likely to be our ‘guidance’, which comes before our own minds can take over and start to rationalise things out for ourselves.
I think this is also the first time that we have had a themed message from more than one communicator and I suspect that there was at least one -if not more than one- within the circle that needed to hear that message specifically. I know it certainly resonated with me and chimed with my own personal experiences –particularly over recent months.

After about 20 minutes or so, Red Hawk bid us goodnight and withdrew and Cheung-Li stepped forward through Brian. He spoke of how working in trance under the pink light conditions allowed him to demonstrate the basics of transfiguration. We could all see at this point that Brian’s face had changed into a much more rounded shape, his cheeks seemed to be ‘pulled’ out to the sides giving an overall impression of an oriental shape face which was quite distinctly different to his own but at the same time was still very much Brian.

Cheung-Li answered more questions from the sitters about Guides and guidance until he too also withdrew and the Chief came forward to talk with us further. All too soon though it was time to play the coming out tunes and as both Tracey and Brian came back to the room we could feel the full force of the evenings heat.

Thanks once again to the spirit team for enabling such an interesting evening and to Brian and Tracey for helping to make it possible.

When time allows I’ll post some audio clips up which can then be downloaded or listened to online.

Tuesday 23 April 2008

2008-04-24T15:02:00.000-07:00

This tuesday was my first time back in the circle for over 6 weeks now and it amazing to see how things have progressed in that time.
There are now 2 regular communicators each week – Cheung-Li as well as the Chief. Chung-Li is now clearly audible as he’s been able to greatly increase the volume of his speech over the past few months. I have a full recording of the discussions that took place and will post some clips up in the next few days.

The séance started quietly with some sounds that were indicative of further development of the independent voice channel. But these soon stopped and we were left in silence as the first few tracks were played through.
For me, I had one of the most significant personal experiences of the past 12 months. Towards the end of the last ‘quiet’ track I both heard and felt a solid ‘tap’ on the bottom of my chair. I was sitting against the side wall with vacant chairs to either side of me. On my right was the cabinet and to the left, Paul was sitting some 4 feet away. So it was physically impossible for anyone else in the room to reach or even touch my chair.
I’d placed my trainers underneath the chair as normal at the beginning of the evening and the sound and tap ‘felt’ as if someone had hit the underneath of the chair with the edge of one of the shoes.

I was just getting my head around the fact that Spirit has managed to manipulate a fairly solid trainer outside of the cabinet when the energy that had tapped the chair, then got a hold of the cross bar on the bottom of the chair and –just in case I was in any doubt as to what they were capable of- gave it a good shake for good measure.
There were a few more slight judders and then it stopped as quickly as it had begun.

OK, I realise that it may not sound like a big deal to anyone else, but I’ve found that although I have witnessed a lot of events that not only defy the accepted laws of physics, but have proved to me that such ‘laws’ are at best flexible -if not downright broken- everything else has been either ‘after the event’ (i.e. When the lights have come back on, there has been visible evidence such as the twisted metal rings, the snapped cable ties or Brian sitting in the middle of the room and the waist tie still fixed the chair etc), have happened to other people or have been so subtle (such as a light brush of something against an arm or leg) as to easily be questioned later in the cold light of day.
This was none of the above and I found that on the recording, I was even able to identify the tap on the chair.
And having someone shake your chair from beneath is a very real personal experience of spirit’s ability to create physical phenomena.

All in all, a super evening again and some very interesting advice and views were given during the Q&A sessions with both Cheung-Li and the Chief. Many thanks to the spirit team for their work and of course to Brian for continually volunteering to be tied up in a corner of a blacked out shed and sent to sleep for a n hour or two every week.
The audio clips will go up when I get time to sort them out later in the week.

Tuesday 8th April

2008-04-09T15:25:00.001-07:00

An update on the seance this week can be found as usual at the Spirit Lodge Diaries.
I've posted 3 new audio clips from this weeks circle (see side bar).

I expect to be returning to the circle again in the next few weeks and will be updating the blog regularly from then.

2008-03-29T11:57:00.000-07:00

As I'll be missing the next few seances you can continue to keep up to date a the main site - Spirit Lodge Diary.

I anticipate everything getting back to normal in a few more weeks time

Cheers
Jon

Tuesday 18th March

2008-03-19T03:41:00.000-07:00

I wasn't able to make it to the circle this week but you can find as usual, full details of the most recent activities at the Spirit Lodge Diary

Cheers
Jon

Tuesday 4th March

2008-03-06T02:04:00.000-08:00

This evenings circle was as usual held in complete blackout conditions and with a full house of sitters. As the first track was played there were sounds of movement within the cabinet but unusually within the first minute, these had subsided and there was silence from then onwards right up until the end of the fourth track.
(You may recall that the first 4 songs are now are held in silence by the sitters to allow Spirit to take the medium deeper into the trance condition).

Once the ‘going off’ tracks were complete and everyone had confirmed they were fully present and with it, I turned up the volume a bit and we all joined in with the singing and you could feel the energy rise exponentially.

Very soon we heard the sounds of direct voice being attempted and the voice of our communicator began to project out of the cabinet.
All previous attempts had only lasted for literally a couple of minutes, but this time we were able to hold conversation for at least 10 minutes or more.

You can hear or download clips from this “here” or via the link on the side bar.
There was little deep philosophical truth discussed as this is still at a very early stage of development. Our understanding of the process being used to create this phenomena is that a number of spirit beings are working together to create the voice channel.
Whilst the voice box is being created externally to the medium, it is being controlled by a blend of different beings or personalities who are controlling the medium (as the Chief does during the lighter trance communications) as well as the intelligence that is controlling the external voice channel.
The end result is that at this early stage, we can still hear the ‘influence’ of Brian on the construction of the words and sentences being used.
You can visualise this as if the medium is being used for normal trance communication, but the physical sounds are actually being created remotely. This is my current understanding of the process as explained by the chief and FC but I dare say this will change as development continues and the team find new ways of describing what is actually happening.

Following the extended period of independent voice development, there was a brief period of quiet before we heard each of the 4 cable ties being broken free. Then just as we were anticipating the Chiefs familiar entrance we all jumped as a resounding crash was heard outside the cabinet. My assumption was that the chair had been literally thrown into the room but this was not the case!

The Chief then came through and answered questions from Alan about last weeks experience of witnessing the cable tie being manipulated, stretched and then snapped under red light conditions. I also got to ask some questions which were again answered fluently.

After a good 15 or 20 minutes of open discussion, the chief made his departure and I brought the séance to a close.
As the lights were brought back up we discovered that the crash had not been caused by the chair being brought out of the cabinet -that was still where we’d left it behind the curtains, complete with the double knotted waist tie just as Margaret had tied it.

However, Brian was found lying stretched out on the Lodge floor, head to the cabinet, and feet towards the North corner. We can only guess that the loud noise heard earlier was in fact Brian being literally carried out of the cabinet, and ‘dropped’ flat on the floor.

He was still pretty groggy which was indicative of the depth of trance that he’d been taken into. This also ties in with the extended period of quiet during the first half an hour of the séance that the team had said was going to be used to create a deeper level of relaxation and trust in the medium.

The full house and high ‘spirit’s of the sitters and the dedication of the Spirit team, together with Brian’s own commitment, once again created the perfect conditions for more physical evidence. Thanks to all involved both within and outside the circle.

I’ll be away from the circle for the next couple of weeks due to personal commitments but normal service will be resumed shortly.
...audio clips to be updated shortly

Tuesday 26th February.

2008-02-27T03:20:00.000-08:00

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.

Tuesday19th February

2008-02-20T10:04:00.000-08:00

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

2008-02-20T10:02:00.000-08:00

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

Thanks
Jon

Tuesday 5th February

2008-02-06T01:49:00.000-08:00

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

Tuesday 29th January

2008-01-31T07:16:00.000-08:00

This week was the 52nd week of sitting, exactly one year since we first got together in Chris’ newly built Spirit Lodge.
We’d recently received some guidance from FC that suggested that we needed to have a second person familiar with the detailed ‘running’ of the séance so that we could continue uninterrupted, should for any reason Chris be unable to run the evening.

FC -whom regular readers will know is the representative personality of a group of spirit people and is the driving force behind the setting up of the circle on their sde, has offered this position of 'back up' facilitator to me. So this week was to be the first one in which I was responsible for making sure the Tape Recorder and CD player functioned correctly and ensuring everything.

Of course, having been a major contributor to generally taking the mick out of Chris and her uncanny ability to press the wrong buttons on anything electrical, she was in very high spirits and waiting eagerly for me to make my first mistake. ..I guess I had it coming!

The evening started off well after a few minor hiccups with the lights etc, Brian was strapped down into the chair, the curtains closed and the cabinet. The cable ties around his one good ankle (a fall from his m/bike that day had injured his right leg so we left that one unsecured) and wrists were if anything a little too tight and I asked him if he’s like them replaced. His reply was along the lines of ‘there’s no need. I’ll be asleep in a few minutes anyway.’ :-)

As the music started we heard the sounds of the chair rocking backwards and forwards and then a period of peace took over for about 10 minutes or so.
Soon though we could hear the sounds of Direct Voice being attempted. Chris joked that there was progress being made and after last weeks Donald Duck impression, the voice box now sounded more like Punch and Judy.
The voice immediately responded with “That’s the way to do it” and a squeaky chuckle. We asked how they were getting on and the voice replied that it was getting easier each week.

Many more strange and peculiar sounds could be heard for a while as the spirit team continued to exercise and experiment with the voice channel before things quietened down for a while.
Around this time we heard 2 of the cable ties being snapped but didn’t register this of particular significance at the time. .....We’ve become accustomed to this now and accept it as part of the routine of the séance – yet only a few months or so ago, we were being shocked and amazed when this was happening. How quickly we’ve become blasé!!

After another short period of quiet we heard a quiet voice welcoming us with a soft “Good Evening”
The voice then introduced himself as Joseph (Link here to see the Spirit Team as we know them to date).
Joseph has been described by the Chief (with great respect) as a “senior” member of the team whose role it is to ‘manage information’ and bring wisdom as required.

His voice was –Like Cheung-Li’s last week- very quiet and even being so close to the cabinet it was tricky to hear everything. However he gave us a clear concept of his role within the team and in the spirit ‘world’. He described his role as something akin to a librarian, managing and responsible for records. He said that he was able to assist in communication between the ‘higher realms’ and the Spirit Team and that he could ensure that the Chief and the team would have the right information and knowledge to enable the Circle to progress.

I asked if, as a ‘keeper of records’ he would be able to access information for future visitors and guests to the circle, to provide them with personal evidence of the reality of spirit. He replied that this would be something possible in the future but that at this time, not all of Brian’s potential abilities were being developed. That the energies brought by a spirit might still carry the condition which caused his ‘death’ and that these might be overwhelming for the medium when in the cabinet.

I asked if this were not the same as a clairvoyant might experience. It was similar he replied but much more intense and Brian would need to develop the ability to manage this energy first.
For the time being at least, the focus of the team is to develop the independent voice channel that will allow a full range of physical voice to be created and used by spirit people to communicate.

Joseph stayed with us for a while, answering questions from all of us before taking his leave.
Almost straight away, the Chief’s voice could be heard. He was asked many questions from the circle and was very light-hearted and jovial in his responses.
He gave me further guidance in using healing energies to help those who feel in need of support, as well as re-enforcing and encouraging some ideas to promote an individuals sensitivity to matters of the spirit when not within a circle.

All too soon the séance came to a close and we turned the lights back on.

The Chief had mentioned that although the séance may have seemed quiet and they no longer needed to snap the cable ties within the first few minutes of the evening, they were still working on creating new things for us and had done ‘something special’ tonight.
When the curtains were pulled back, Brian was still seated in the chair which was tilted back on two legs against the corner of the cabinet. His waist tie was still secure and one wrist and one ankle tie had been snapped clean in half.

BUT…. His right hand was completely free of the cable tie. However, the cable tie was still completely intact!
In order to prevent the cable ties’ being slid along the arm rests, a small plastic guide has been screwed to the underside of the armrest. This cable guide has two apertures through which the cable tie has to be threaded before being fastened around the wrist.

The cable tie, still intact was now hanging from the cable guide, through only ONE of the apertures.
Not only had Brian’s arm been released (and there might always be the suspicion from a visitor or Diary reader that he had somehow managed to slip his hand through the loop) but the cable tie had been freed from one half of the cable guide.

See the photo to the right :
The camera angle is from below the arm rest looking up at the cable tie hanging from one half of the cable guide.

Jon

Tuesday 22nd January

2008-01-24T01:44:00.000-08:00

Last week during the Q&A session with the Chief, I had asked if the ‘routine’ could be varied a little with regard to the cable ties being removed at the start of each séance.
When this phenomenon had first started we were all blown away by such incontrovertible evidence and physical proof of Spirits’ presence, and it’s become regular practice now for them to be snapped off the chair within the first few minutes of the music starting.
But when I was discussing this with a friend, their comment had been “Why? With his arms free, how do you know it’s spirit moving the bells and rings around the room and not Brian under trance control?” & I could see how any new visitor or anyone reading or hearing about the séance might also come to the same conclusion.

This week, once the music started it wasn’t accompanied by the familiar sound of the straps breaking. Instead we heard the chair moving around and the bells being shaken. Soon followed by the coughing and choking sounds as the Spirit team manipulated Brian breathing.

After probably no more than 10 minutes or so we heard the coughing change into a wheezing whistle and then into the sound of a croaky, harsh voice –not entirely dissimilar to Donald Duck!
Within a few minutes this had become a recognisable voice projecting in to the room. Totally unique and different from the sound of Brian when in trance –and complete with a sense of humour.
The short conversation went along the lines of:

Spirit: “Hello”
Us: “Hello”
Spirit: “It’s hard”
Us: “You’re doing brilliantly, it sounds like very hard work”
Spirit: “you should try it from here!”

We teased him/her/them about having brought Donald Duck to communicate and they responded with more ‘quacking’ sounds and an array of other very strange noises.
Later we had a chance to ask about the independent (or direct) voice and the Chief gave us a detailed description of how they were working and the progress that was being made (see the section on the chiefs conversation at the end of this report).

Not long after the Direct Voice had been exercised we heard to soft and quiet sound of Cheung-Li greeting us. This was only the second time that Cheung-Li has spoken to us in any great length –although he has made a couple of brief appearances’ on trance nights.
We had set out this evening with the intent of asking the team to tell us a bit more about themselves so that we could give them their own space on the blog.
Cheung-Li last week had told us that he had lived in the south of China and described himself as a Philosopher rather than a Prophet (at the time this had seemed a little odd and a strange comparison to make) but this week he expanded on this significantly.

We have some research to do to verify much of what was given to us, but the essential details were that whilst he had lived within the physical world some 4 or 500 years ago, this was in a Dynasty of ‘Mings’. However we would find it spelt now as “Qing” – I’ve not looked into it properly yet but a quick search on the internet does indeed show that after the Ming Dynasty came the Manchu or sometimes called the Qing Dynasty (1644-1912).

More interestingly he described himself again as a Visionary but was known as a Prophet within his times. However, he himself believed these visions to be more akin to what we might now call Clairvoyance, which brought wisdom and philosophy.
We asked him to explain in more detail and he described himself as belonging to an “underground society”. This society (one of a number of such groups) was forced to act in secret as ‘unauthorised’ prophets were not accepted by the authorities of the time. If they managed to identify and catch a ‘prophet’ the punishment meted out would be to have their eyes blinded –on the basis that if they had no eyes, they could no longer ‘see’ visions!

Hence these groups would become ‘secret’ but such were the rewards for turning in one of these Prophets that he could trust no-one and could easily be betrayed at any time.

When I asked if his ‘underground society’ had a name, he told us that the closest translation would be “society of lost souls”.

At this time, I’ve not researched into Chinese history to corroborate any of this information, but the level of detail is fascinating. If there is anyone who does know anything about these secret societies, please do leave a comment and let us know.

After Cheung-Li had left, the Chief came forward and it was a relief to be able to hear is voice coming through loud and clear. Cheung-Li’s voice is so quiet as to be almost barely above a whisper.

He commented on the progress being made and explained that the way the ‘independent voice’ was being created was not as a replica of Brian’s voice box –which would obviously only create a duplicate of Brian’s vocal range, but was a ‘blended energy’ voice channel. We’ve been told before that this is something of an experiment and requires a “blending” of different forms of energy together with ectoplasm from Brian.
He told us that progress was being made carefully to ensure that everything was safe for the medium and sitters. That much preparation and work was being done between sessions and that each week was a demonstration of the progress.
The Voice Channel was being created so that in due course, each communicator would be able to create their ‘own’ voice, with their own distinct vocal range. He also explained that the ‘Donald Duck’ voice had not belonged to any one spirit, but was more a part of the experimental development.

We were then able to ask him about the Spirit Team that were working together with Brian as the medium.
Here’s a brief rundown:
Saskia – A native American woman whose role was “water bearer” but who had natural healing abilities. She has a deep capability for compassion. She passed at a relatively young age – approximately 25 yrs old.

Blaze – a young spirit. Who brings a lot of energy but can be a little uncontrolled at times. However, he is becoming a lot more dependable now and will in time be present to speak for himself.

Joseph – A source of wisdom within the ‘hierarchy’ of the team. The Chief seemed to speak of him with a deep respect.

Granddad Phil – Brian’s grandfather who will become an active member of the team.

Cheung-Li – A philosopher/visionary from China. He lived approximately 500 years ago at the end of the Ming / early Qing Dynasty, persecuted by the Authorities of the time for his ‘second sight’.

Running Bull (also known to us as the Chief).
A brave of the Sioux tribe from an area of North America now known as Dakota. He left the physical world at approximately the age of 25 around 900 years ago. Chief appears to be Brian’s primary ‘guide’ and has been with him for many years.

He also mentioned that there were ‘others’ waiting in the wings who would come forward in due course when the time was appropriate.

As the séance drew to a close, I was able to ask a final question of the Chief.
A friend of mine has recently been diagnosed with an aggressive cancer that has statistically only a 10% survival rate. Although she is about to start Chemotherapy, she is unlikely to be with us for much longer.
I wanted to know how best to support her with distant healing or hands on. Whether or not doing this would even be appropriate or whether such action would be ‘interfering’ with her own life’s programme.
The Chief took the time to go into some detail and spoke with compassion and understanding. I’ve paraphrased a good 5 or 10 minutes conversation which in summary said:

Distant Healing energy and thoughts would be the most effective. Compassion and the willingness to be present and supportive as she approaches and goes through the challenge ahead of her would be more beneficial than I might realise.
Understanding and a few words of encouragement and support, perhaps sharing my understanding of the true reality of life beyond the purely physical would help her as she went through the transition to Spirit.

As a “Healer” myself, I have come to believe that healing someone, or facilitating ‘healing’ does not necessarily mean repairing mechanical faults in the human body. Our Medical science has done a remarkable job in being able to do that. And whilst I fully believe that such “miracles” are completely real and available, if I fell down a hole and broke my leg, I’d be the first person to ring for a Doctor.
But once the mechanical work had been done, I would rely then on Spirit and Healing energy to do the rest.

Sometimes, a disease or illness can provide huge opportunities for learning and change for the individual. Not only for themselves but also for those close to them and distant.
I believe that ‘healing’ in the spiritual terminology, provides support for that greater purpose. Many times that might be for the changes in individual’s thoughts about Spirituality after experiencing a physical healing.
Often it will relieve symptoms of pain and discomfort, other times it may work on the root cause of the symptoms, be they emotional, physical or spiritual.

But these are just my thoughts and not a report of the physical séance. As ever, to read the objective and factual review of events, visit the Spirit Lodge Diary

Jon

Tuesday Jan 22

2008-01-23T01:01:00.000-08:00

An excellent evening witha huge amount of information. It'll take a while to sort out and type up but I'll try and get most of it done today.
Please come back later for the complete record.

Tuesday 15th January -update

2008-01-17T01:00:00.000-08:00

Following the indication from the Chief at last weeks seance; that it's not significant for the development of the physical circle if the sitters have recently eaten or not, we have been given some clarification on this advice.

It's been pointed out by the Spirit Team that although the Medium and the physical phenomena are not reliant on the sitters having an empty stomach, Everyone in the circle is continually developing themselves (both spirit and human).

Comment from FC: "that whilst he does not disagree with The Chief's accuracy of fact regarding eating before a séance, he would like to remind sitters that development is taking place within the Circle, on both sides of life. Sitters may experience development in many and various ways and a stomach that is filled may as readily become emptied. Unfortunately it is not always possible to predict the developmental stage on any sitter. He therefore advises caution."

Probably good advice for anyone considering placing themselves in any situation such as a circle or seance

Jon

Tuesday 15th January

2008-01-16T02:18:00.000-08:00

Come 8pm, Brian settled himself into the cabinet and I fastened the plastic self locking cable ties around his wrists and ankles, securing him firmly to the chair. The waist belt was secured and with him tucked up safely we drew the curtains.

Christine gave the opening prayer and got the tape recorder and music fired up (both working ‘almost’ straight away!).

The mood was high with a lot of laughter and banter up to that point but once Brian’s ‘going off’ music started we all settled down quietly to give him the maximum opportunity to relax into the trance state as deeply as possible.

Within the first minute we heard the familiar sounds of the cable ties being snapped –a kind of short creaking noise followed by a dull pop. A recent change we noticed has been that where before the ties were always ‘pulled through’ effectively turning the fastening assembly inside out, they are now being simply snapped in the middle.
Also the ankle ties tend to go first, followed by the wrist ties a few moments later.

A few minutes later the chair was banging and shaking within the cabinet, the bells (secured to the back legs and the cross-strut) were being loudly shaken.
Chris asked for the bells to be removed and passed to one of the circle members. The bells were taken off and gently ejected from the cabinet. Although they didn’t get to the requested individual, I did notice later that they had come out of the cabinet at an acute angle and not thrown out in a straight line as they have been in the past.

As usual there was much coughing and spluttering and the projection of these sounds is definitely becoming much stronger.

Half way through the evening, Paul (sitting next to the cabinet) felt something brushing against his legs and body, which turned out to be the cabinet curtains being pulled aside. We heard the sound of a cushion being dropped on the floor and later when Brian’s spirit team started to come through to talk to us, we realised that their voices seemed to be coming from the floor in front of us.

The first of two visitors for the evening was a very clear and distinct voice of an individual who gave his name as Cheung-Ly (obviously he didn’t spell this out for us so this is only my best guess at how it might be spelt)
He claimed to have been in spirit form for approx 500 years, and when he was in a physical form, he lived in the south of what is now China and said that in his time he was a philosopher rather than a prophet.

He didn’t seem to have any great awareness of the Chinese Naval fleets and the great explorations of the 1400’s, -which would be consistent with the Ming Dynasties historical closure of their borders (or alternatively consistent with the academic communities rejection of the claims of Zheng-He Naval accomplishments) –but not totally conclusive.
Perhaps this is something he will be able to shed some light on in the future?

Once he had left, the Chief came forward to chat and gave us all some encouragement and support as well as clarifying a few points for us as well.
One for instance that had been niggling me for as while, was why is it that the sitters within the circle should not eat for at least 4 hours before the séance?
I could appreciate the need for the medium to not go into deep trance on a full stomach, especially if there is any likely hood of physical phenomena being produced.

So I asked the Chief for a clarification and was pleased to hear that it did not actually make a great deal of difference whether the witness’s were hungry or not. But it was their attitude and mood that contributes or subtracts from a successful evening.
-An interesting insight to one of the ‘myths’ about sitting in Circle’s for the development of physical phenomena.

Both the Chief and Cheung-Ly were remarkably clear and communicative. Both their personalities showing through distinctly and we got many clear and insightful answers to the barrage of questions thrown at them.

When the lights finally came back on again, we found Brian lying on the floor with his head on a cushion and his feet raised and resting on the chair. Unfortunately though when rearranging him, the spooks had forgotten to move his hands and after lying on them for over half and hour, it took several minutes for circulation to be restored again.

Thanks to Everyone on Brian’s Team (Granddad, The Chief, Cheung-Ly, Joseph and the ‘Medicine Woman’) and of course especially to Brian for consistently turning up each week to go through it all again.

Jon

Tuesday 8th January 2008

2008-01-09T03:30:00.000-08:00

A happy new year to all and welcome back to the Sanctuary blog.

It’s been almost a whole 12 months now since we first sat together in a newly built and freezing cold garden shed (sorry, Spirit Lodge) with no windows and plastic garden chairs. Six or seven of us then, sitting in the dark, taking turns each week to sit in the cabinet, determined that somewhere between us we would find the ability to enable Spirit to reach into the physical world and prove their existence beyond doubt through physical phenomena.
We had no idea or preconceptions as to how or what these phenomena might be or even who within the circle was most likely to facilitate them through some form of mediumship.

Since then a few people have moved on to other things and left the circle, a few have joined. We’ve been privileged to allow a few visitors to the circle and so far, every single one has gone away convinced that Spirit truly are working with us and that the phenomena we are witnessing is 100% valid.
Overall it’s been an amazing year and the progress has been phenomenal. Both Sandy and Brian’s personal development as Trance and Physical mediums has been amazing.
Other sitters have also shown that not only does the medium develop within the circle but also the sitters as well –both Paul and Chris have developed previously unsuspected abilities that 12 months ago they would have scoffed at.

Anyway, back to last night.
At 8pm on the dot, we braved the weather and crossed the garden into the Lodge. Which is now comfortable, warm and cosy. The green plastic chairs have been replaced with natural wood and the walls are lined with drawings, photo’s and samples of spirits work over the last 12 months.

The small thin cable ties we have used in the past have now been replaced with thick heavy duty versions and I was looking forward to see if this would slow down Spirit’s ability to release Brian from the restraints.

With the curtains closed and the music started, the red light was turned off. Immediately Chris notice the red LED on the tape recorder was not covered and reached forward to place the carefully designed light shield over it (this involves getting a piece of Blu-Tack to stay stuck down and cover the LED).

While Chris was still trying to get the Blu-Tack to stay stuck in the right place we could hear the first two cable ties being snapped. A minute later we heard the other two go, followed by the familiar sound of the chair rocking and tapping in time to the music.

At the Chief’s request at the last séance, the first 4 tracks played were soft & trancy and I could feel the difference in the room as the energy levels increased.
This change is in order for the spirit team to try and get Brian to relax more deeply so that they can take him more deeply into a trance.
This is interesting as it shows that there is much more to the management of the process from their side than you might assume. Also they have made comment on how the level of trust the medium has in spirit makes a huge impact on how far back they are able to take him/her.

Despite the conscious willingness to develop and desire to work as a physical medium, the sub consciousness seems to be a lot more wary of the process and needs to be led slowly and carefully before the necessary trust is built up though personal experience.
This explains also why some mediums are ‘naturals’ and why some take a long time to let go & to start to develop more fully.

As the evening progressed we could hear more development of the Direct Voice with assorted gurgles, humming and wheezing sounds.
Within half an hour, the Chief turned up, and at the time I assumed he had brought Brian back up to the ‘normal’ trance level to allow him to use Brian’s voice box and vocal system to talk through. However, on reflection I recall that the initial ‘chuckles’ that always indicate his presence came whilst we were still hearing the direct voice sounds and had a very different sound quality.

There was then a short break of a few more minutes before the chuckles returned and the familiar personality of the chief could be heard. – Unfortunately due to a small technical problem with the operation of the tape recorder, the tape ran out just before we got to the Q&A session and it went unrecorded. So we’ll be unable to double check this for certain.

The Chief told us that although not much had happened physically within the lodge to our eyes, he was very pleased with the work that had progressed behind the scenes.
Many people had been witnessing the proceedings from ‘spirit side’ and the was a certain level of admonishment when I asked questions as to whether or not there had been other spirit visitors in the room.

My reason for asking was that I had felt a very strong awareness of various people standing next to me in the dark. Plus the ‘cold’ I had experienced from my thighs down to my feet had become almost too uncomfortable and this seems to be connected to how close I am sitting to the North Corner.
However, I hadn’t mentioned anything to the others as I could see nothing specific or objective. I think the Chief did well to not get too irritated and explained patiently that we all needed to trust our intuition whilst not getting too carried away and start imagining things that are not there.

One of the phenomena I’ve always wanted to witness but as yet have never seen within in a séance setting, is ‘spirit lights’- either as orbs or as a general illuminating glow. I’ve always felt this was a particularly strong evidence of spirit activity, maybe because I’m a particularly ‘visual’ person and with my scientific background and training in physics, I have a strong tendency to believe my eyes.
(Maybe this is why I’ve never felt completely at ease with my own mediumistic abilities? I always wanted to ‘see’ the spirits objectively rather than mentally before I would trust myself to share my visions with others).

I asked the Chief if these spirit lights were perhaps more difficult to manifest than other phenomena. The answer was actually that they are not more difficult but that it is more a case of the correct ‘alignment’ between the spirit world and our own. That the work being done here was based on ‘incremental’ development and that the energy was being focused on developing one step at a time. Other phenomena would come in due course.

Overall a fascinating evening again. Quiet in comparison to other evenings if you measure only the physical phenomena. However, there were other non tangible things going on that were just as interesting -if not more so in some ways.

Next Sunday, I’ll be sitting in a circle with Warren Caylor and I’ll post a report on that experience after the event and then it’s back to Tuesday night again next week.

Please do drop by again next week for another update and you can read the Spirit Lodge Diary for more objective and factual séance reports as well as links to the Friday Healing Circle blog.

Jon

Tuesday 18th December

2008-01-03T07:21:00.000-08:00

...apologies for the very late posting of this account. Christmas and New Year now past, service should be resumed as normal :-)

This evening was an interesting one.
We have two circles at the Lodge that both sit once a week for purpose of providing/facilitating evidence of the truth of life’s continuation beyond what we commonly refer to as death.
The Tuesday team are working towards ‘direct voice’ and physical phenomena that defy or ‘bend’ the current belief in the “Laws of Physics”
The Friday team are focused on reaching the same objective but through evidential physical healings.

This Tuesday however, as the last circle before Christmas, we decided to combine the two groups and share the evening together.
Due to Illness and vacations, the numbers were low and the 6 of us settled ourselves into the Lodge and Sandy, a trance medium whose development has been meteoric over recent months, settled into the open cabinet.

The most significant difference between the two groups is that Sandy’s work – being primarily through trance is in full white light conditions, whilst Brian on a Tuesday works in blackout due to the blend of different energies being used.

As the first music track was played, Sandy moved almost instantly into trance and her limbs began to move erratically at first and then soon, in time to the music.
This was interesting for me to see, as my only experience of trance has been my own -or a few others within the circle and one or two public demonstrations. In all of these (and in my own experience) going into trance has been a quiet affair, more akin to going into a light ‘sleep’ state than anything else.
Sandy however was quite different and literally animated. As the first two tracks were played, we could see that someone seemed to be controlling her limbs and her head, which were moving rhythmically and her facial expressions which were changing as if there were some kind of struggle for control going on.

Chris, who is much more familiar with Sandy’s trance work recognised her main guide “Joseph” as being present and confirmed that he was trying to maintain his position as being in control. However, a second person was also trying to take the leadership position in order to start working within the séance.
The second visitor – the doctor – finally won over and proceeded to ‘overshadow’ Sandy and demonstrated his ability to move around the room. This level of control seems to be very difficult for him to achieve and he appears extremely susceptible to minor changes in the energy within the room.
However, having circumnavigated the room and with Chris on the couch, he proceeded to manipulate her finger at which time we could all see and hear definite ‘clicking’ sounds.
(see Chris’ on-line Journal at http://www.spirit-lodge-diary.blogspot.com/ and http://evidentialhealing.blogspot.com/ for more detailed information)

-We checked this again afterwards and whatever it was that he was doing, we could not duplicate it ourselves.

Sandy’s other team members all came through over the next 45 minutes and I had the opportunity to ask some specific questions regarding the nature of Spirit’s entry into the earth plane, and what such spirits could learn from only even a brief visit –for instance from a miscarriage.
The answers were clear and precise and given with a level of compassion and dignity that was surprising.

At the end of the séance, Sandy’s guide Joseph asked for his wrist to be tied tightly to the chair’s arm rest. I was then asked to sit directly in front of him/Sandy and my wrist was also tied tightly in the same way (uncomfortably tight I might add!)
I had no prior awareness of this experiment, although it seemed to have been discussed in advance between Sandy & Chris.
Then Sandy/Joseph started to move and rotate his wrist and the cord – a thick woven cotton cord about 10mm in diameter- seemed to stretch.
I imitated the movements as best I could and found that by pulling and pushing against the cord I could also create some ‘slack’ in the cord, but not enough to free my hand.
Within a few moments though, Joseph had freed her hand and mine was still secure. All this time, her eyes had been tightly shut. I was literally only 2 feet away and so can be quite sure of this.
I then used my free hand to pull at the knot and finally got my wrist free from the chair. I then held up my ‘freed’ hand to show ‘Joseph’ that I too was no longer secured.

This is then when I truly had the first real ‘evidence’ that spirit were working independently through Sandy.
With her face turned away when I waved my free arm, Her head pulled round to face me and with an ‘impish’ smile shook her head. She didn’t speak but her expression was clear. I had been ‘beaten’ and she/he had proved themselves capable of somehow changing the cotton cord to allow her wrist to escape.

All in all it was a very interesting experience.

I have to say though, that had I not known Sandy already and trusted both her and Chris absolutely, I would be hard put to accept what I saw as evidence.
Anyone witnessing this would be unlikely to be convinced and would very likely assume it to be false.
However, knowing Chris and Sandy myself, I am personally convinced now that Sandy’s spirit team are most certainly benign (a concern I had harboured for a while) and that they are genuinely working with Sandy to develop into a quite unique Team.

I’ve certainly never come across anything like it myself and I’ve never heard of anything remotely similar anywhere else.
I’m looking forward to seeing how Sandy, Joseph and the rest continue to develop and work together in 2008. It promises to be quite an exciting year.

Tuesday 11th December

2007-12-12T02:12:00.000-08:00

An interesting evening by all accounts.
see Spirit Lodge Diary for the official report.

Friday 7th December

2007-12-09T12:58:00.000-08:00

Free Spirit Awareness Centre
A public Séance with Warren Caylor

Once everyone had arrived, we all individually searched and scanned as per usual and the rules were read out. Each person was seated and the evening got underway.

Once the second song had nearly finished Rachel’s familiar voice came through to greet everyone and the atmosphere lifted considerably. There were quite a few first time visitors who’d not sat in a true physical circle before and Rachel soon had everyone at ease and laughing.

Yellow Feather made his introduction, speaking to several people and then stepping back to allow Tom to come through.
Tom took great pleasure in playing with the presents under tree and showering everyone with the sweets, unwrapping the toys and slowly taking the Christmas tree apart.
It had been over 10 months since I’d last had a chance to sit in a physical séance with Warren and I could hear the difference in the spirit teams voices. They were much stronger and more ‘natural’ sounding.

A little while later a new voice I’d not heard before came through. It was slightly gravely and with a very ‘correct’ English pronunciation. It talked of philosophy and the state of the planet, the direction in which things were headed. Unfortunately just at that moment, I felt an overwhelming urge to launch into a coughing fit and the concentration on controlling it meant that I missed much of what was being given.
After about 5 or 10 minutes the communicator withdrew and gave us his name as being Winston. Was it “the” Winston Churchill? Who knows? I didn’t hear any hard evidence myself and surely there must be a million Winston’s in spirit but the voice certainly had an air of familiarity about it.

Albert came through and spoke to the man who had checked Warren’s cable ties asking him why he had volunteered to check the ties. He replied that it was simply to be sure in his own mind that everything was secure. Albert commented that this was an excellent justification and as proof of his presence as spirit, dematerialised one of the cable ties from the chair, passed it through Warrens arm, shrank the plastic tie to the size of a finger ring and placed it in the mans open hand. Pretty impressive for a ghost!

Rachel came back and asked if we would like to see Warren completely dematerialised and with a count of 3 (a significant difference to the ‘10 Green Bottles’ that we were asked to sing the last time I sat in the circle) she asked Julie to turn on the red light.
Even from the back of the room -where I had disappointingly ended up sitting- I could plainly see that the cabinet was completely empty and contained nothing but the empty chair. I could even see that the one remaining cable tie was hanging from the chair and the other one was missing entirely.
The lights then went out again as Warren was returned and then on the count of 3 the red light was turned on again and Warren was not only back in the chair again but the gag and remaining cable tie was secured around his wrist –at the end of the evening, this had to be cut off with pliers to release him from the chair.

Around this time Yellow Feather came back asked Julie where the green light was? Julie had to admit that Warren had not yet got around to sorting out a green light for the séance.
Yellow Feather explained to the group that a few weeks ago at a public séance in near Birmingham the room had not been made fully light proof and some green lights had been left on within an Exit sign.
The team had taken the opportunity to experiment and found that the green light was far more effective for full materialisation in the light and as a result had requested green lights for the next séance.
Yellow Feather then instructed Bernie to collect everyone’s contact details after the séance closed in order to invite everyone present back to a ‘special’ séance in the near future, where, under green light conditions, not only would we see yellow feather but also the children and the whole ‘team’ fully materialised in the light!

A few more songs and the energy in the room was really buzzing.
One of the experiments that the team had instigated was the capture on film for the first time, the fully materialised form of a spirit person.
One of Warren’s regular home circle (Malcolm) had brought along his high end digital camera, complete with tripod for Yellow Feather to inspect. Earlier in the evening he had come across to look at it during the blackout and gave it an overall OK.

Now however, Julie was asked to turn on the white light source and Yellow Feather brought his fully materialised physical form into the room. He walked around the room giving everyone a clear sight of his legs and torso.
There was nothing ‘ghost’ like about his presence –other than the fact he appeared to be well over 6 feet tall. And his stomping on the floor made the whole room shake!
He demonstrated his solidity by repeatedly slapping his stomach area with great force –he either had a six pack worthy of a karate black belt or he was all ghost and no body at all.
Sometimes it’s the most unlikely details that make the whole experience the most convincing!

He carried on walking round the room before going back to Malcolm and clearly picked up the camera and tripod in one hand, carrying to back to the cabinet -joking that maybe he’d look after it until the 21st December when the next home circle is due to sit, and the planned photographic experiment is scheduled.
**watch this space for links to these photographs as soon as they are published!!

Rachel and Tom came back and forth into the séance and kept the levels up until eventually it was time to wind up the evening. Tom finally left the CD player alone long enough for Julie to find the ‘coming out’ song on the tape player and Warren was brought back to regular consciousness.

Afterwards, everyone was completely free to examine everything at will. The door seals were removed and Warren was allowed to leave to recover in peace and quiet for a few minutes.
The room was chaos and the Christmas tree was in pieces. The Trumpets and Drums and Whistles – with which Tom had given some truly amazing displays of control and performance earlier- were spread over the room.
We all left our contact details with Bernie and I’m sure that there won’t be a single sitter who will not be looking forward to coming back for a replay under green light conditions.

It was a superb evening, although being directly in line with the white light source, most of the materialisation phenomena that everyone else could see was invisible to me –other than in the form of the odd silhouette passing in front the light.

However, on the couple of occasions when Yellow Feather did come all the way up to the far end of the room, I could see his legs and torso quite clearly. The effect was quite weird, maybe because he was being it from behind, but it looked as if he was semi-translucent and as if he was his own light source as well. Almost like a 3 D X-ray.

Having not been in the séance since last January where I witnessed for myself his first ever full public materialisation in the light, I was happy to see such a fantastic degree of progress since then and can’t wait for my invite back to the green light special in the new year.

Many thanks again to Warren for putting himself in a position to enable the séance and to the spirit team for creating the evidence once again.

Tuesday 4th December

2007-12-06T02:47:00.001-08:00

no posts this week or next as I am travelling on business and will have to miss the circle on Tuesday 4th and 11th December.

cheers
Jon

Tuesday 27th November

2007-11-28T01:52:00.000-08:00

7.30am Wednesday morning and I’ve just noticed that Chris has linked this site in her post on the Spirit Lodge Diary, so I’d better post my notes quickly today rather than the usual 2 or 3 days I normally take!

I arrived last night with a strong feeling that the evening was going to be different to what we’ve come to accept as ‘normal’ for our physical circle. I’d been feeling a ‘presence’ or energy around me from about 4pm. And once I was driving towards Bristol this sensation seemed to be getting stronger and stronger.
However, once I’d arrived it seemed to disappear altogether which left me wondering if perhaps I’d just imagined it all – a product of an over active imagination?

Once we were in the Lodge and the door and vent seals were closed (to ensure total blackout) I strapped Brian into the chair and closed the cabinet curtains. Everyone settled into their seats and after last weeks suspected physical touch by spirit, we made sure that everyone was evenly spaced out and could not be touched accidentally, thereby making sure that any future sensations of touch could be definitely attributed to Spirit, rather than unintentional human actions.

I was seated in the North Corner opposite the cabinet but as the lights were dimmed and the opening prayer read out, I didn’t feel a particularly strong energy there and I was looking forward to an interesting night.
Within seconds of the first song starting (allowing for the slight delay as our technology challenged leader struggled to get the right CD going ;-) ) we heard all four cable ties being released.
The usual creaking and groaning, banging and thumping noises came from the cabinet for a few minutes and then the toys started to get ejected into the room.

One unusual aspect was that one of the objects landed just by my foot with a light thump. I took this to be one of the rubber rings which being 4 or 5 inches in diameter are quite heavy, so I was quite surprised to see at the end of the evening that what had landed by my foot was actually one of the plastic maracas. This is a fairly light weight toy that has a very distinctive rattle but it had travelled 8 feet from the cabinet and hit the floor without rattling at all.

We soon heard the sounds of more attempts/preparation for Direct Voice as an assortment of gurgles, wheezes and spluttering came from the cabinet. This died down for a little while and there was suddenly the most enormous crash to my left where Lynn was seated. It was so loud and so heavy that I assumed that the chair from the cabinet, complete with entranced medium had been brought into the room and literally dropped on to the floor.
…Unfortunately the chair had connected with Lynn’s left knee in the process, for which we did get an apology later on.

There was then a few minutes calm while we practised our singing before another attempt was made to make contact with us again. This time the ‘voice’ was projected clearly into the room quite loudly and a very clear “hello” sounded out.
This was followed by the comments “Busy” in response to Chris’ greeting, “Very Busy” came across again before going back to more vocal exercises.

Around this time I felt a huge wash of energy surge into the room and around me, the temperature (especially around my legs) dropped rapidly and I started to feel really cold.
About this time there was some loud knocking on the floor in the centre of the room and (believing that Brian was going to be stretched out on the floor having been deposited there complete with chair earlier on) I imagined that perhaps they were using his hands to beat in time with the music.
For a few seconds this seemed entirely logical until I heard the counter beat coming from within the cabinet.
This went on for a minute or two, clearly demonstrating that none of us and certainly not Brian were making the thumping noises which proved that it was spirit that were causing the sounds in time with the music.

This was followed by another attempt at experimenting with different sounds and vocal ranges with direct voice and we then heard a clear voice greeting us from within the cabinet.
Initially I thought it was the Chief and that the different voice quality was a side effect of being ‘worn out’ by all the extra activity, but our visitor quickly identified himself as Brian’s Granddad and we had an interesting chat about his previous life, his character and an explanation as to why he’d not come through so clearly before.

Once he’d gone, the Chief came through loud and strong with his own unique blend of wit and sense of humour. …He must’ve been a bugger to live with in his last life here.
He asked Chris about the different activities we made nearly a year ago when we first started the circle, about why we were interested or drawn towards the Scole Experiment.
I felt that he was rather obliquely asking us to question ourselves as to where we were going and what the expectations were for the Healing circle on a Friday. Why, I have no idea but I suspect in due course it’ll fall into place. He seemed to be quite intent on making a point of it but without being drawn into anything specific.

He also talked about Brian’s trance state and his need to relax more deeply, requesting a specific change to the ‘going off’ music to enable a deeper trance state to be more easily reached. –taking the opportunity to take the Mick out of Brian’s ability to sleep standing up, sitting down or even working.

We were then allowed to put our own questions to him which he answered clearly and concisely. Clarifying the way he sometimes answered our questions and sought his own advice and guidance to make sure we heard the clearest response.

I asked about how best to react or respond when different ‘energies’ were present in the room and was given some good and very supportive advice on when to ‘go with the flow’ and when to resist.

When the time came to finally close the séance, Chris struggled manly (womanly?) with the CD controls before finally admitting defeat and we resorted to singing 10 Green Bottles to give Brian time to return to consciousness.

When the lights were back on, we saw that he chair was on the floor next to Lynn and Brian was cross legged on the floor in the cabinet. Everything else was strewn around the room and the cable ties were open, the belt still securely around the chair.
Unfortunately due to a technical glitch we didn't get a tape recording of the evenings events, so this is my best effort at total recall. Apologies to all if I've missed anything vital or if my version differs from yours.

The teams’ progress took another huge step forward with clear and loud direct voice as well as Granddad Phil speaking clearly and with great control through Brian.

Thanks again to everyone on both sides for making everything possible.
..and for making ‘nothing’ impossible.

Tuesday 20th November

2007-11-23T05:34:00.000-08:00

This evening was set to be interesting not the least because this was to be the first time that we were inviting an outside guest to join the circle.
Although we’ve had a number of sitters come for an evening or two, they have either been members of the Friday group or experienced members of other physical circles.

This was the first time we had invited someone to join us who was coming in cold with a certain level of scepticism. He confirmed afterwards that he had expected to come and reveal fraud at worst, self deception at best.

David (our guest) & I arrived about 20 minutes before the séance start and he had plenty of time to get acquainted with the others before going into the Lodge.
As the guest, David was invited to fasten the cable ties around Brian’s wrists and ankles, securing him to the chair.
Then he tied the waist tie with a fast knot. Brian invited him to make the cable ties as secure as he liked and when he was happy with everything and confident that Brian wasn’t going anywhere, the curtains were drawn over the cabinet and we all sat down.

David was seated directly opposite the cabinet. This placed him in the North Corner which was a far from the Brian as possible (just in case of any unexpected movements) but also the place where the most energy is concentrated.

The lights were turned off and the music started. Within the first minute the cable ties could be heard being popped off. Then the usual thumps and bangs as the chair was moved around in time to the music.
The bells were thrown into the room, then Dave (a regular sitter, seated next to the cabinet) said that he had felt something touch first one foot and then the other.

The other articles in the cabinet were ejected and then Brian’s sweater was thrown onto David (our Guest) lap.

The spirit team then worked some more on the extension of the direct voice that they are working towards. Usually this only lasts for about 5 minutes or so, but tonight there were 3 separate and distinct ‘goes’ at getting voice like sounds. Each one lasting 5 minutes or more. It’s difficult to guess how long it will be until they are able to communicate with us directly, but at this rate, it’s not going to be long now.

Eventually the Chief’s now familiar chuckle was heard, signifying that Brian’s trance had been lightened to a state where he could be used to relay a conversation with us.
Both David and myself asked several questions about the nature of the spiritual dimension and details about the transition from physical to spiritual being.

Interestingly the Chief seemed to hesitate in his answers a couple of times, seeming to go away to confer before coming back and explaining in more detail the answers to our questions.
It seemed unlikely that he wouldn’t have know the answers, but our most likely supposition is that the answers as delivered would have to be suitably phrased for all of all the members present. Everyone being on their own pathway, may or may not have been ready to hear the answers in any given level of detail perhaps?
I’ll be looking for further clarification on this next week if I can.

About 2/3rds of the way through the evening, I felt what I thought to be David’s knee briefly touch mine. As we were sitting at about 45 deg to each other, it occurred to be that he may have shifted position to get more comfortable. Just to be sure I let me knee relax slightly to the left and felt the pressure of what I assumed to be his knee again. I immediately moved my legs to the right as a precaution.
Playing ‘footsie’ with my neighbour in blackout conditions might send completely the wrong message altogether ;-)
A little while later I felt something press against my right foot. Now feeling that my companions both to my left and right were being rather generous with their personal space, I remained very static and restricted for the rest of the evening!

The following day David called me up to ask me to pass on his appreciation to the rest of the circle and to say that the evening had given him a lot to think about. And while his expectation had been to find fraud, what he had found had impressed him and seemed to be genuine.
He asked me if ‘hand on heart’ I had touched him during the séance. I told him about having felt his knee push against mine after which I moved out of the way.

But he was more interested in the fact that someone had seemed to ‘tug’ at the crease of his shirt sleeve. I had had my hands in my lap the whole time and so could guarantee I’d not touched him.
I asked if he’d noticed our knee’s clashing. However, he said had been deliberately keeping his legs away from mine to avoid any chance of self deception.

So now, I had felt my left knee being pressed on the side, my right foot ‘tapped’ and David had felt someone ‘tug’ at his shirt sleeve.
The other Dave on the opposite side of the room had had the rubber ring placed between his feet –after having felt it touch his toes on both feet consecutively.

OK, so not objective physical proof in that we have defined this as being something that 2 or more witnesses experience simultaneously. But definitely worth capturing for the record as (if this was indeed genuine -as I believe it to be) this could be the start of a new level of activity and physical evidence.

The circle was drawn to a close and Brian’s chair was found sitting in the room outside the cabinet minus Brian who was cross legged on the floor inside. The ring was between Dave’s feet, the sweater at David’s feet and the rattles beneath Sandy’s chair.
Our guest was given the cable ties for examination at his leisure after being given the opportunity to examine everything in the cabinet just to confirm that there was no room for anything untoward to have been going on. He also confirmed that the belt was knotted just the way he had left it an hour and half before.

Thanks again to Brian for enabling spirit to come through and to the Chief and his team on the other side for all their work.

Next update following next Tuesday’s circle.

Tuesday 13th November.

2007-11-16T03:33:00.001-08:00

It’s now just over 10 months since the physical circle first came together. In that time we have all tried out in the cabinet more than once (with the exception of Chris, who prefers to stay well clear of that area herself –providing a source of endless amusement for the rest of us!) and have discovered that we have one member who is particularly well suited to physical mediumship. We have 2 new trance mediums, a mental medium and an established Healing Circle.

The physical circle is starting to make real progress now and this week was particularly interesting.

We started off with nearly a full house of sitters –only Paul was missing due to work commitments. Chris’ mum-in-law had knitted an oversize ‘tank-top’ as a contribution to keeping Brian (the physical medium) warm during the séance as winter is setting in.
We thought it would be interesting to ask if Spirit could remove the sweater during the evening. I’m not sure what we really expected to happen but it seemed like a good idea to at least ask.
Brian, now attractively sporting a black sleeveless jumper, sat down and to relieve Chris of the task of having to get too close to the cabinet, I threaded the cable ties through the loops on the chair and secured his wrists and ankles firmly. More firmly than usual as Brian was keen to eliminate any possibility that he could ‘escape’, as our newest member was joining the circle for the first time in blackout.

The waist belt I also tied up closely around his waist and pulled the knot tight.
With the curtains closed and jokes still emanating from behind the curtains, we took our seats and Chris opened the circle with the prayer.

I was sitting with my back to the door next to the ‘north corner’ and as soon as the lights were out I felt the now familiar swirling sensations as energy built up rapidly in the room. Within 30 seconds, the cable ties were heard to ‘pop’ in quick succession. Rocking and banging sounds followed and the two large rings landed in the room.

The webbing strap with bells attached (velcroed to the base of the chair) then appeared to be gently thrown or dropped into Chris’ lap. Chris sits immediately to the right of the cabinet at about 45 degrees to the front of it. This is the first time that anything being ‘ejected’ has come out at anything other than a straight line.
Thinking that this had been done quite deliberately but wanting more confirmation, she asked if something else could be similarly done for someone else in the room.

About 10 minutes later, there was a clear and distinct sound of something landing right next to me and falling to the floor.
Later, at the end of the session when the lights came on, the new black sweater was found to be lying by my side.
Was this a near miss at repeating the soft drop of the bells in Chris’ lap? I don’t know for sure, but I can be certain that I was not aware of anything being ‘thrown’ towards me. But then again, there were no bells on the jumper so would I have noticed the difference between a thrown object or a dropped one?

Does it really matter though? I mean, I had personally tied Brian into the chair with plastic cable ties and a 2 inch wide judo belt.
What I found most interesting about the whole evening though, was the awareness that I had that there was actually someone ‘else’ in the room with us.
This was the first time that I had felt the ‘physical’ presence of the spirit team in the room.
Probably sounds a bit odd to say this, considering everything that’s happened over the past 10 months and the 24 times we’ve sat with Brian for a physical séance, but this actually felt as though there was another person in the room.

All this aside, the rest of the evening was fascinating as the direct voice became tantalisingly close. For the first time we actually had 2 way communication and could make out clear attempts at speech (go to the Spirit Lodge Journal and follow the link in the official report to hear for yourself)

Then later on, when the Chief came through to update us, we had an opportunity to ask our own questions about what was going on, the energies being used, different forms of physical evidence and the practical aspects of ‘thought’ as an energy in the physical world –both for positive and negative use. The answers we had were detailed and concise. Everything was recorded on tape for reference and if anyone has any questions, feel free to either post them here or send me or Chris an email and we’ll be happy to answer as best we can.

Jon

Tuesday 6th November

2007-11-07T01:16:00.000-08:00

Tonights circle consisted of myself, Chris, Sandy & Alan (Chris' husband)

Brian was back this evening in the ‘cabinet’ and as we settled down and he was secured into the chair, humour was running high –as were the spirits.

A slight change this week was the addition of soft cords tied firmly around his wrists, as well as the standard plastic cable ties that we’ve been using for some 6 months or so now.
The waist tie has also been replaced with a stout red cotton belt –the same kind as is used for a Judo or Karate Gi.

Chris tied him in and I went up to check on everything, tightening the tie wraps and also re-tying the waist belt. I have been practicing Judo myself now for over 25 years and as many who have worn a Gi will now, there is a particular shape to the knot used to secure the belt.
Without mentioning to anyone else, I re-tied the knot as would with my own Judo belt.

Each week now for several months, Brian has been removed from the chair and the belt has appeared to remain tied to the chair, suggesting that either Brian has been “transported” through the belt or that belt had been “de-materialised” to allow Brian to be moved out of the chair –or the belt has been untied and re-tied during the blackout.

I’ll come back to the details of the séance shortly, but when the lights came back up at the end of the evening, Brian was out of the chair, lying on his back stretched out under the chair -looking quite comfortable for a change!
The cable ties had been popped off (within the first few minutes of the blackout) with the fastening mechanism turned inside out.
The ropes that were around his wrists were still in place on the chair and the toys were in the main room where they had been thrown earlier in the evening.

But when I looked carefully at the waist tie, I excited to see that my knot not been touched and was still in place exactly as I had left it. The ‘tails’ of the belt were hanging down vertically just as a perfectly tied Judo belt should be. Either Brian has a black belt in one of the Martial Arts or Spirit truly did “de-materialise” either him or the belt.
I know this is seemingly a minor point, but it’s the smallest things sometimes that give the greatest proof.

Within the first 30 seconds of the blackout we heard the first cable tie being stretched. Precisely what happens is not completely clear, but the sound is a short “creaking” noise for a few seconds, followed by a dull ‘pop’. When you look at the cable ties afterwards, the plastic ‘ratchet’ that provides the one-way self locking mechanism has been turned inside out. –I took one home once, put it in a bench vice and with a pair of heavy duty pliers did my very best to physically duplicate the broken locking ratchet.
I eventually gave up. I’m not overly small (13 stone / 180 pounds) but there was no way I could duplicate the effects on the cable ties at room temperature!
& given that Brian is secured by one of these at wrists and ankles, once again the only feasible explanation is that Spirit Energy is manifesting into the room and proving their existence through undeniable physical evidence.
….Way to go Spooks!

Once our spirit friends had released Brian from his captivity, there were a few very loud bangs and sounds of the bells (secured with Velcro to the base of the chair) being removed. They were then ejected from the cabinet and landed in the north corner of the room next to me.
A pair of rubber rings (about 4 inches/10cm in diameter) joined together by another strip of bells on Velcro then came flying out into the room, knocking the upright trumpet (a 2 foot long aluminium cone) for six. Four pairs of cheeks left their respective chairs by a couple of inches when that bang happened!

Immediately after, knocks and bangs could be heard from the cabinet, most of which were clearly in time with the music and the singing. The sounds of a strange, resonant humming was then heard which sounded very much like an attempt at a voice. This then became a odd echoe’y ‘whistling’. All we needed was the clanking of chains and the picture would have been complete!!

After about 15 minutes or so, things quietened down and we soon heard the familiar chuckle of the chief as Brian’s trance level was brought back to a point where he could be used as a channel for communication.

I had a chance to ask some questions about ‘connecting’ with the circle when we were absent from a sitting for whatever reason (I often miss a night or two once every few months due to work/travel) and was interested to hear that depending on our mood and intent, focusing thought and energy into the circle, even when physically absent, could still help build the energy within the séance and assist spirit in their work.

I also asked how the Lodge was perceived from the spirit world, whether the sprit team saw it as a ‘physical’ place with dimensions as we do. The answer was clear, that it is seen as a physical location and that when we sit, a light emanates in the spirit dimension from the mediums and sitters that attracts/notifies the spirit team to our intention and presence.
He also explained that he himself is already ‘with’ Brian before hand and enters the lodge ‘with’ him, just as we do.

There was more detail and the Chief took time to make sure that we clearly understood the finer points and nuances of what was being explained. If you’d like more detailed review, or indeed if there are any particular questions burning in your mind, drop me an email or leave a comment and I’ll answer as best I can.
..and if I can’t, well, I know a man who can!

Tuesday 30th October

2007-11-01T05:00:00.000-07:00

This weeks circle was dedicated to development of the sitters. As I ended up taking an active part in the evening I won’t describe what took place myself, but I want instead record my thoughts and some opinions on mediumship and also.
We should be back to business as usual next week

It was my first time back having missed the last three weeks due to work and holidays and it was great to be back in the familiar surroundings of the Lodge and to see friends again.
Over the past few weeks I had decided that I was no longer really interested in ‘being’ a medium and that to a large extent I felt happy to leave Spirit to the spirit world – We’ll all be there soon enough anyway and the general quality of communication through most of today’s ‘mediums’ is of such a variable standard that I felt that if I was going to do this work I would either do it with clarity and accuracy or not at all.

There are far too many people out there today who claim to be having guidance from spirit and to have the authority to offer that guidance to others. Yet when you look carefully, the vast majority of what is offered as advice and messages from loved ones and from guides, is one the whole predictable and banal. At worst it is self serving and self aggrandising ego flattery.
How many times have I heard mediums telling the attentive listener that Grandma or Mum wants to wrap you in love, or in ‘the colour pink’ or that she’s ‘giving you flowers’ etc etc.
It’s hardly surprising that the sceptics have such a strong platform on which to stand.

It’s easy to be sucked into this kind of comforting advice and believe that you have to act on the advice from Granny. Or that the search for enlightenment is more important than the living of your physical life.
Always remember that you are here in the physical form to live a physical life. Not to be lost purely in the search for the non physical.

Having said all that, I was somewhat surprised as I left work on Tuesday evening to find that I was aware of the presence of a spirit energy with me as I was driving down towards Bristol.
Still, regardless of my intentions not to be a medium for the benefit of others, I was happy enough to feel their presence even if I had no desire to pass on any ‘messages’.

When I finally arrived at the circle I was not totally shocked to hear that Brian (the physical medium) wasn’t able to make it and so with our reduced numbers we were going to have a Trance night. Just Paul, Chris and myself.

As we sat chatting in the house before going on into the lodge, time was passing and we’d not noticed that 8pm had arrived. Oddly enough, at 8pm on the dot, Chris’ phone rang just once. Probably just a wrong number but it caused us to notice that we were about to miss our ‘agreed’ start time with Spirit and we made it into the shed right on time.

Once in, we looked to Chris to see what FC had given to her as instructions for the night. Nothing! Zip!
OK, so it was up to us. I suggested to Paul that he take the cabinet (I was still of the mind that I had no desire to do anymore mediumship work) and I decided to take the north corner to see if I could experience the increased levels of energy that the others had reported feeling there as I’d never sat there myself.

As the first track started on the CD player, I felt myself drifting off almost immediately and I was very aware of the different feeling of energy again as the same presence that had been with me earlier came close again.
I had no problem with this and welcomed ‘him’ to come as close as he wanted -at this point I still thought that Paul in the cabinet was going to be the medium for the evening.

However, it turned out the spirit who was close to me had other plans :-)
After maybe 10 minutes I felt my head –which had been drooping forward as I relaxed and drifted into a kind of meditative state- raise up and sit straight on my shoulders. I was completely ‘aware’ as usual. I felt much as I do when meditating, kind of ‘there’ but ‘not there’, so when Chris started asking if there was a spirit person who wanted to communicate, I was still expecting Paul to finally break his silence and get going.
But as Chris asked the second time, I felt and ‘urge’ to start talking and simply say hello.

I’m actually very new to Trance myself, having only been actually practising for about 6 months now since my very first attempt. However, I’ve noticed the pattern for me is to start drifting off, then feel compelled to lift my head up and say something. As soon as I start to use my voice, I feel the energy increase dramatically around the top and sides of my head.

This evening –maybe because of my position in the north corner- the energy increase was tremendous. So much so that the main focus of my attention was drawn to the physical sensations in and around my body, rather than ‘thinking’ about what was being said.
I think that it was this that allowed me to become much less ‘involved’ in the process.

The details of what actually went on for the rest of the evening are recorded in the on-line journal and I’ll leave you to make of it what you will.
I’m glad to say though that my decision to leave mediumship behind has now also been left behind. I’ll still stay away from any form of ‘readings’ for others as I strongly believe that 95% of mediums today tend to be 70% medium and only 30% spirit. When in Trance, the ratio comes much closer to 50/50. A really top medium (and there are some around) will be more like 70% or 80% spirit and only 30% or 20% human filter.

So all in all, an interesting evening again. Thanks again to the support of the spirit team and in particular the one energy who came forward to work with Paul.
Without their commitment and work, we’d all just be sitting in the dark.

Tuesday 24th September.

2007-09-26T08:40:00.000-07:00

By 7.45pm the (physical) team had gathered itself together and after much mutual Mickey taking, at 8pm on the dot we headed outside to the shed (sorry Chris, I meant of course the Spirit Lodge!)

Myself, Paul & Lynne sorted out the usual housekeeping –doors, light seals chairs etc whilst Brian settled himself into the chair.
Then just as we were settling down, Brian leant forward and was trying to say something about Paul not sitting on a wooden chair (he was sitting down having been just secured into the cabinet by myself, but then seemed to become quite agitated). Paul was just settling into his chair, one of the plastic garden chairs in the room.

As I’d just completed securing the straps not a minute or two earlier, I could see the change in him quite clearly. Something that the others didn’t pick up on I think.
It was only a small thing, and I was surprised that he seemed to be so ‘out of it’ before we’d even all finished sitting down.
However, once the opening prayer had been completed, the light extinguished and the first music track started, we immediately heard the distinctive sounds of the tie-wraps being popped off, followed by more banging and thumping coming from inside the cabinet.

This showed that even though Brian was physically conscious, Spirit had already started to take him back into a trance state, had noticed the plastic rather than wooden chair (we’d been told some time ago that natural materials were preferable to plastic, but not essential) and was trying to bring it to our attention.
Is this linked to Paul’s tendency to blank out during the séance? Maybe, maybe not, time will tell.

Voice production was really coming on nicely with a very wide range of what can best be described as quite tuneful humming. Almost as if they were at first experimenting and then practising the potential vocal range. I must admit that it did occur to me that it sounded a bit like Brian’s own voice was being used.
Later, when the Chief came through to update us on progress, he explained that what had actually been happening was that they were ‘moving’ the voice creation are, up from the Larynx into the back of the nasal passages. Which explained why the ‘tonal’ qualities were so clear and yet there seemed to be no attempt to create words.

The plan (apparently) is to gradually move the voice creation region up and forward slowly to allow a much clearer and stronger end result than might be achieved if they used purely ectoplasm to build an external voice box.
But as the Chief said himself, it’s all an experiment, as much -if not more- for them as it is for us.

Each week, sets new levels of achievement and new levels of excitement and fun (I’m even starting to enjoy the singing –or I would do if our esteemed leader could drag her music taste kicking and screaming out of the 1950’s and 60’s ;-) )

I’ll be away on business the next 2 weeks, so will have be back at the circle in 3 weeks time. In the meantime, keep up to date on progress via the Spirits Aloud - Journal. The Link's on the left of the page.

Jon

Tuesday 19th September

2007-09-19T09:55:00.000-07:00

Last night was an excellent evening. Our friends inspirit are making real progress and since the circle was closed for the development of direct voice, we heard for the first time what really sounded like the beginnings of a recognisable voice.

The evening started off well with much Mickey taking and joking around, so the energy was buzzing when we went into the Lodge.
Our two guests, Sylve and Terry joined in easily and soon Brian was strapped in securely to the chair.
Last week (which I’d missed due to work) the wrist strap –electrical cable ties- were secured to the chair through small metal loops screwed into the wood.
At the end of the evening, these small metal loops were found to be long straight and twisted pieces of metal. So, this time, the tie wraps were secured through screwed in brackets to the chairs arms and legs.

The music started and before the second song had finished playing, we had heard the distinctive bangs of the straps being removed.
Once again, these large cable ties were simply undone as if they had never been secured in the first place and left hanging from the brackets on the chair.

Then as the séance progressed, we began to hear spirits attempts at communication through direct voice start to take shape.
Before, we have witnessed lots of choking, gurgling, coughing and spluttering. But this time Brian/Spirit -who has been starting to sound over the last month or so something not too dissimilar from a dog being strangled- sounded relaxed and comfortable.
We could here his breathing, calm and steady.
And then at first a high pitched attempt at voice and then later on a deep, powerful throaty voice. Attempts at speech were clearly audible and at one point, several of us felt we could hear the words “my name is” coming through.

Not long after this, the atmosphere changed an the dark shapes that had been seen and felt moving round the room (remember this was in total blackout and the only light source was the faint glow of the luminous tabs each sitter wears on their lapels) faded away.
Soon, we heard “the Chief” coming through who was in a very jovial mood. We were kept up to date with the Teams’ progress and encouraged to continue the good work.
Both Terry and Sylve were welcomed and the Chief mentioned that he had already met them both back in Feb (confirmation of this will follow) – we think it was when Brian attended one of Warren Calylor’s open séances, of which T & S were close members)

When the lights were brought backup, Brian was found tilted back on his chair with a cushion comfortably placed behind his head.
-just as I was strapping him in an hour earlier, we had been joking together that as the medium, the least he could expect was a nice comfy wing backed chair to relax in (we use wooden dining room style chairs –a vast improvement on the green plastic garden chairs we started off with)
Obviously, spirit had decided to play on the joke as well J

The bells that are attached to the bottom of the chair with a Velcro strip, were found in the middle of the room where we had heard them being thrown about 15 minutes into the séance.
Brian was in good spirits (no pun intended ;-) and was pleased to find himself in a comfortable position for a change.

All in all, a very good evening and we were all delighted with the amazing progress that the Team are making. At this rate, we will be having casual chats over a cup of tea with 200 year old Native Americans by Christmas!

Many, many thanks again to Brian, who gets little personal gain out of the whole experience and whose only reward is to find out afterwards what new levels have been achieved while he’s been away with the fairies.

Next update in 7 days and don’t miss the new addition to the progress reports at Spirit Lights

The clarity of understanding

2007-09-17T05:32:00.000-07:00

The following is extracted from an email I received this morning. I’ve edited a few details in order to maintain anonymity but there are some key thoughts within this that deserve to be shared.

The person relating this true story is a medium –albeit a reluctant one. Who tends to receive guidance and messages from Spirit at the most unfriendly hours (probably because these are the only times the poor spirits can get a word in edgeways!)

That said, as you read through this you will see that she was deeply moved by the visions that she witnessed. I’d also add here that this particular lady is not easily given to hysterical behaviours or seeing ‘visions’ in the dark. This was a very clear message from Spirit which they have asked us to share publicly, and as she had no really suitable forum to do this I’ve posted it here.

This morning I was woken by a friend in Spirit. I was definitely awake as I looked at the clock and saw it was 5.15. I was 'given' a visualisation (with thought-sound) of a little girl aged approx 3...by size. She had pale skin and dirty blonde hair and a faded grubby blue dress, no shoes. She was stirring some grit in a bowl, with a spoon/stick. This was pretend food, because there wasn't enough food to eat. She said all the children did this because it helped. She looked smiling and was chatty and jumpy. I asked what she was doing there. She said "I'm a foundling child." and gave me her name. She said it is ok there, but some of the other children cry a lot for their mothers and fathers, but she hasn't ever had a father and her mother got sick (and died) so she's ok....but others cry.

An older boy, aged about 10 maybe, was dressed in a light brown shirt and dark brown shorts, with brown leather old-style sandals. He sat at a table and was holding a baby, which was unblinkingly wide-eyed and silent and looked almost dead. The boy had tanned skin, maybe multi-racial, or maybe Indian. He spoke with a well educated voice, saying that this was a Foundling Centre. He'd been lucky in life so far as his benefactor had paid for his education, but had now died. He could leave this place, but was staying to help. He worked by begging, taking a sick child with him on the streets so sit near tourists....but this was becoming harder now as the men moved him on. He showed me a non-healed almost-scar across his shoulder and arm, caused by beating. He was calm and matter-of-fact about it. He indicated another child, who had a badly healing deformed leg (it looked as if it was broken and mangled in some way). He said "I will take that one out tomorrow, so he will be fed tonight." I asked how the boys leg was damaged and was told calmly that he had been begging and had been beaten and will probably die when infection catches hold. Apparently none of them were fed unless they were working. He said that the blonde girl was unfed for three days as she was not working, was too healthy to use for begging and was ill-formed for other work (sex). She relied on what food was left by the others and there was none left.

I was then shown another place. There was a 'flat' with three children. This looked to be in a big town, but poor, like typical of what we see on the TV news. The actual flat looked like a very run-down council block. Twin girls (4 or 5)) went to school. Baby, 6 months (actually later Spirit told me it was almost two years old) laid on the floor. Boy aged about 7 was unable to attend school as he was at home with the baby and looked after the twins. He had NO income and lived in fear of the family being taken to the Foundling centre. He was old beyond his years but had the 'knowledge' of a child. These were white kids. The door was open and a woman in a filthy apron came forward and said that she is doing her best to feed the family but hadn't enough food for them all. She was apologetic and seemed to feel that I was blaming her. She was a neighbour. She was doing her best. I asked about the children's parents and she said "No matter. It is done".

The pictures cleared. Spirit said that it was important that I had already forgotten the little girls name. This name has been offered to me with pride, as it was all that this child has to hold as her own and she had offered me this. She wished him to pass her name to me again, it is Ellie. Spirit said she is still of the earth plane. At this point I was feeling 'zapped' and in tears.

Spirit was firmly telling me to stop crying, that crying was unimportant.

Mankind is not meant to be divided, there are no divisions upon the earth plane nor in any other place, other than divisions created by the selfishness of mankind. A child is born to those who feel joy, and should twins be born their joy is doubled. Yet few persons with one birth consider taking into their heart a child born to another who cannot feed it. Homes are plenty, with room to spare, but few consider offering a room to a person who is without a roof. Spirit wish this to change. For it matters not that a person cannot speak a certain language, it matters that a person is suffering and can be helped, but for the selfish thoughts of mankind.

I told Spirit that I understand what he is saying and will not forget. Obviously, this is true.

Tuesday 4th September

2007-09-07T09:12:00.000-07:00

It’s been a while since I’ve posted regularly here. I’ve still been actively involved with the circle but work and other personal stuff has limited the time available to do the write ups –let alone the audio transcriptions that I’ve been promising for weeks!

Mind you, Chris has kept everything running with the introduction of the ‘official’ diary blog which has kept everything up to date.

This week’s events were actually quite quiet by our normal standards. As was predicted by our spirit team a month ago, activity appears to have been much reduced over recent weeks; although we are assured that there is a great deal going on that we don’t have visibility of.

This week, we were much reduced in numbers as David and Brian, were unable to make it to the circle. So there was only myself, Paul and Christine in the Lodge.
It was indicated by FC (via Chris) that we would have a development evening which involved Paul be placed in the North corner with myself next to him on one side and Chris on the other.
The intent was for Paul to go into ‘trance’ and with my support and encouragement allow him to bring through someone to speak to us. Chris was to act as the witness.

The music was started up and almost immediately I felt myself falling away backwards toward the now familiar half asleep/half awake sensation.
I could feel ‘energy’ building up around me but couldn’t really create enough intent to wake up and see where Paul had got to.
-one aspect of this ‘altered’ level of consciousness is that once there, the inclination to come back is decreased. A bit like soaking in a warm bath. You know you can come back at an instant if necessary, but you’d really rather not!

After a while, I was aware again of the increase in energy around and in me and I could feel my body starting to tense up (this happens now much less with each time I practice trance, but it is strong enough still to make me aware that someone is trying to get through. If left to my own devices I’d probably just drift along quite happily until it was time to go back indoors for tea and biscuits!)

Someone came through and after some initial messages, started to speak directly to Paul who was drifting in and out (he later told me) of a kind of trance/meditation state.
With coaching from the spirit who was with us, Paul was able to identify and see for the first time a spirit guide that was with him.
From my own level of awareness at the time, I thought that they were trying to get him to go deep enough into trance for him to allow a communicator to come through but it now seems that the intention all along was to bring him another step forward in his own personal development –which they did with flying colours.

There was some other stuff said I believe, but as the ‘medium’ there’s not much I recall of that part. You’ll have to email Chris and ask for more details if you want them.

Brian’s back next week. I’m off to Eindhoven for a few days for work but will be back again the week after.
See the Spirits Aloud Journal, for further updates next week.

Tuesday 31st July.

2007-08-01T03:37:00.001-07:00

This was to be a Trance evening this evening but with some experimental aspects although none of us had any ideas what these were to be.

Chris had been ‘advised’ to have us seated in specific chairs. David, who’s been away for a month or so was back and was sat in the infamous North Corner chair –where Brian had been seated at the beginning of the séance last week, and I was in the ‘cabinet’ opposite.
Paul was in his usual place and Chris & Sandy were opposite Paul as witnesses. There was a bell jar on the floor in the centre of the room although our ‘invisible friends’ had not told us why this was to be placed there, just that it should be there.

I think we all assumed that Paul was going to be taken into Trance and would bring though a ‘communication’.

As the music started both myself, Paul and David seemed to drift off. The red light was at some stage switched off, though I don’t know exactly when.
David went in to a deep trance pretty quickly by all accounts and I became very aware of an intense energy coming towards me (cabinet curtains being wide open). To me it felt like sitting in front of one of those Halogen vertical heaters. The heat was hitting me in waves every second or so and felt as though it was top to bottom.
This was quite intense for a while.

Chris had made a new music compilation CD for the evening and it was very relaxing, I pretty much forgot about everything and was just drifting along with the music when I heard her voice (which seemed abnormally loud and harsh) asking if there were any communicators wishing to come through as she and Sandy were getting bored!!
It was then that I realised my head had slumped forward and was on my chest, and at the same time I felt my self being sat / pulled dead upright. And even when I was sitting up straight, it felt as though I was continuing to be lifted even further upright –like being stretched. (I should have measured myself afterwards, I’ve always wished I was a few inches taller!!)

And this is pretty much where my account of the evening ends. As it seems as though my spirit friend (or at least the ‘energy’ that seems to make himself known through me when I’m off with the fairies) then took the floor and held court.
Davie and Paul were quiet and afterwards it was apparent that both were ‘absent’ on and off for most of the evening.

I can recall bits and pieces, although I do remember being completely aware and conscious of what was being said at the time. It’s a bit like a dream state. You’re fully cognisant in the moment, but when you ‘wake up’ it becomes hard to recall the exact sequence or more than a few snatches or highlights.
I do remember though right at the end being very aware of a huge tension in my body and an almost uncontrollable shaking/vibration coursing though me and then ‘Charlie’ making Chris jump by saying ‘Boo’ just as the lights came on. Immediately after this, I felt as though my ‘batteries’ had been removed and every muscle in my body relaxed completely and unlike previous attempts (this is only my 4th or 5th time working with trance) I felt absolutely shattered.

Chris has posted a summary write up on the Spirits Aloud Journal
But whatever ‘Charlie’ had been talking about was obviously amusing and personal as the pair of them (Sandy and Chris) were in fits of giggles and innuendo’s afterwards, leaving the other 3 of us totally bemused. And as they didn’t see fit to share the jokes, we ended up none the wiser and left them to it.

Next week, we’re back to Physical with Brian in Blackout conditions. And although it’s interesting to experiment with trance, being the witness is much more fun that being the medium. At least you get to remember what happened!

Jon

ps..I now have the recording of last weeks session and as and when I have time I will post transcripts here. let's hope it's more generally enlightening than whatever went on last night!

Tuesday 24th July

2007-07-26T06:33:00.000-07:00

Well, true to their word, our friends in Spirit pulled out all the stops on Tuesday evening.

As planned, there were four of us in the Lodge plus Brian (medium). The cabinet was as instructed, left empty and Brian was secured in the stout wooded chair in the opposite (north) corner of the room.
Chris, our audibly challenged circle leader fought her usual battle with technology and eventually managed to get the CD player working in the pitch blackout conditions. (why she doesn’t switch the blessed thing on before turning out the light still baffles me!! ;-) And after much double an triple checking of the tape recorder (Technology is not one of Chris’s closet companions in life) we were underway.

Brian went out like a light almost immediately and within minutes we could here assorted gurgling, crashing and banging in the corner of the room where Brian was secured.
He had been tied in to the chair with heavy duty plastic tie-wraps on both wrists and ankles as well as a soft belt knotted around his stomach.

The chair was heard to be rocking backwards and forwards, side to side for the first 10 minutes or so, and then I suddenly felt something soft land on the back of my hand. I let everyone know and then identified it as being one of the cloth pads we put on Brian’s wrist to offset the tightness with which we’d fastened the straps (not that we don’t trust everybody, but just to make absolutely 100% sure of all eventualities :-)

It was around this time that I saw faint spots of light making rapid up and down movements in front of the chair. The light whizzed vertically up & down 4 or 5 times before making one horizontal sweep and disappeared. “did you see that!” I said to Paul next to me.
“I had me eyes shut” came the reply.

Now, I’m not one to jump to criticism, but… we’re sitting in a séance room, in blackout, for the sole purpose of witnessing physical phenomena. And he had his eyes shut!?

A few minutes later everything seemed to go quiet and I felt very strongly that someone was sitting in the cabinet next to me. I had been playing close attention to the luminous tabs we were each wearing and felt confident that nothing has visibly passed between me and the pair on the other side room.
Then someone moved in the cabinet (I naturally assumed Brian had been moved there by some means) Just at the same time, the chair was moved in the other corner, …in which case, “who the F@#* was that in the cabinet!!!

Within a few more minutes the Chief came through Brian and began what was to become a lengthy Q&A session.
I will transcribe the whole event and post the results here once I have a copy of the audio tape.

Much instruction and guidance for the future development of both individuals and the team players was given, as well as plans for the circle, healing and general information More details to follow once I get the transcript sorted out. ;-]

What was more astounding though was the fact when the lights came up, that Brian's wrist straps were still firmly secured to the wooden chair, the Ankle straps had been physically torn open.
Pulling the small plastic ratchet effect inside out on both straps (you try pulling a cable tie-wrap apart with your bare hands!) And if that wasn’t enough, the belt that was around his waist was still lying exactly where it had been tied, and the knot still secure!

Brian was found sitting cross legged on the floor in the cabinet! See the journal (side bar) for plain facts without the verbal garbage wrapped around.

Next week, will be trance development and then the following week will be Blackout again. Full report next week and transcripts will be posted once they're done.

Tuesday 17th July

2007-07-18T15:42:00.001-07:00

Not much to report this week as I was in trance along with Brian and Paul. This was Paul’s first go at trance and did really well. He (apparently) –at least according to our visitors- is well suited to this form of mediumship and has great things in store.

He certainly reported similar (if a little more extreme) feelings and sensations to those I found on my first few ‘trips’. Nausea, vertigo, spinning sensations.
He also had some weird sensations in his arms and hands and it will be interesting to see how these develop or if indeed they have any significance.

We’re still having problems with the sound levels in the tape recorder, so no MP3 files are available as yet, but once we have this sorted, we’ll be posting the sound files for download.

Both Brian and I brought few some visitors to the Lodge. Brian’s experience and talent for Trance shone through and of the bits that I do remember, his communicators were clear and precise. Showing great precision with their presence and ability to talk clearly and concisely about the work that is going on within the lodge.

If you go to the Lodge journal, you’ll get a better picture of what happened (from someone who was at least was awake for the whole evening.

Next week is the experiment that Spirit are setting up for us. We’ve still no real idea what they are planning to attempt. All we know so far is that Brian will be strapped into his chair as usual but rather than in the Cabinet (placed in the south corner of the room) he will be sat in the North corner.
We’ve been told to keep the cabinet empty and the curtains closed and to keep the floor space between Brian and the cabinet clear.
We will wait and see and I promise to post a full report next Wednesday.

Till then
Cheers for now

Tuesday 10th July

2007-07-12T15:00:00.000-07:00

Another amazing evening.
A number of different spirits came through, Brian’s hands were released from the cable ties and both Brian and the chair were carried out into the room and dropped (with a particularly) loud crash.
This was all very interesting and makes for an exciting time, however, is this really what it’s all about?

For me, the whole essence and purpose of the circle is not to merely entertain the circle members but to demonstrate to the world at large that Spirit is a very real form of existence.
That life as we know it is not limited to the merely physical. And when we finally shuffle off this mortal coil, it’s not simply a case of game over, lights out, the big goodnight but a change of focus, a shift in the place of attention.

If you knew, with absolute certainty, with knowledge gained from personal experience, that you lived beyond the physical cycle of birth and death. That your friends and relations who have died are not dead. That there is no death!
Would you change anything? Would you still live your life as you live it today? Would change any of your thoughts about what are your priorities in life? Would you change the way you acted, the way look at others, the way you even thought?

Through our circle, Spirit are experimenting, developing and learning how to manipulate the blend of energies from the physical and spiritual dimensions.
Creating physical phenomena that irrefutably prove through physical evidence and experience that life continues without end, and that our life here is only one aspect of our real life.
When we are given the go ahead, we will be able to start inviting guests to also witness and experience spirits' commitment to us all.

In the meantime, this weeks circle also made a significant step forward as the being known to us as ‘The Chief’ not only gave us detailed instructions for a special experiment for next weeks circle, but also for the first time opened up the floor for questions.

Each of us were given the opportunity to ask questions and the answers received were both clear and concise. Interestingly, the Chief didn’t have “all” the answers and on two occasions seemed to be stumped, then “went to ask”, returning moments later with a clear and lucid response.

We were given an explanation for how the bindings on Brian’s wrists were being manipulated and his arms were being freed, also how the chair (complete with Brian in it) was being lifted from the floor and propelled through the curtains into the centre of the room.
We were given advice on meditation and on the nature of twin souls or soul mates.
Also covered were aspects of how individual events were never simply accidents or coincidences. How some meetings and relationships were intended to be made in order to reach a certain situation or set of circumstances.

Later next week I should have the CD of the evening’s communications and I’ll either transcribe the salient points or simply post an MP3 version here on the blog.

& if you’re still interested with keeping up with developments, be sure to drop by next week when I’ll also post the outcome of the new experiment that Spirit are preparing for.

Tuesday 3rd July

2007-07-05T15:00:00.000-07:00

Firstly my apologies for the intermittent reports over the past few weeks.
I’ve been away from home quite a bit recently and had to miss a few sittings, but I’m sure you’ve kept up to date through the new on-line journal/blog.

But I will still keep this blog going now as it will give a subjective as opposed to the more objective and purely factual reports on the journal.

Over recent months I have also been fairly sparse with the updates as I’ve been somewhat involved in the proceedings myself. I’ve been working with Trance over the past few months and so I’ve not really been in a position to report anything myself as I’ve not really been a witness to anything.
Reports of these sittings can be seen on the circle journal mentioned above.

So, this Tuesday was an exceptionally interesting night.
The evening started quietly as there were a few regular sitters missing. A new guest joined myself and Chris for the evening along with Brian, the physical medium.

Last week, the journal reported that Brian’s wrists had been freed from the restraining tie-wraps that had been used to tie him into the chair. This week, I wanted to make absolutely certain that Brian was secured properly.
I put the straps on myself and made completely sure that the straps were snug. Not so tight they were cutting into his wrists but I can 100% guarantee that there was NO Way that he could have got his arms free.

With Brian safely strapped in –ankles, wrists, chest all secured- and the curtains were closed. The lights were put out and the first songs were started.

Before the end of the second song, we were hearing significant noises, thuds and bangs from behind the cabinet (goodness knows what our first time guest was thinking!)
Then, as the 3rd or 4th song was playing, we heard an enormous crash in the middle of the room. ….it’d fair to say we all jumped through the roof!
There were some more loud noises and the trumpet was heard to be sent flying.

A few minutes later and the noises subsided and ‘the chief (Running Bull) came forward and spoke to us all.
One of the first things he mentioned was that his voice was much loader and clearer than normal, and that the reason why would become apparent once the lights came back on.

Much more was said, mostly encouragement to the sitters and personal welcomes to our guest and myself.
Chris asked if something of a personal nature could be given to our guest to provide further evidence of the truth of what was happening. The Chief said that he would see what could be done.

Later in the evening, a second communicator came forward, giving his name as Lucas. Lucas gave us the name of Sid or Sidney. No further information was forthcoming other than that the name would be relevant to one of us in the room –if not immediately, then in the very near future. – Sidney means nothing to me, so I am assuming it will register with one of the two girls.

Blaze came forward for a brief chat and was (by his standards) very well behaved. Bu he only stayed a short while and then the séance was brought to a close.

When the lights came up we immediately could see why he Chief’s voice was so clear.

Brian, still strapped securely at ankles and chest in his chair, was planted in the middle of the room, a foot in front of the cabinet.
The trumpet was lying on the floor and several of the ‘toys’ had been moved.

In all the previous séances, even though I have been present and trusted in the veracity of what we were experiencing, there was always a small element on uncertainty as to what was happening.
There was always just the tiniest thought that just perhaps Brian ‘could’ have been manipulating the circumstances.
I have to say here and now, that I fully and completely apologise to Brian for ever having held those thoughts. I am completely and utterly convinced that everything we have experienced is and was genuine.

There were only 3 of us in the room, myself and the 2 girls. Each of us were wearing luminous tabs on our lapels, so even if they had wanted to get up and manhandle Brian out of the cabinet, it would not have been possible.
The only way that he could have been moved was via Spirit.

Also, his hand were freed, the cable ties still secured to the chair –which then had to be cut off.

All in all, this was an tremendous evening that confirmed beyond any shadow of a doubt that Spirit is working with us to prove objectively the continuation of life beyond the merely physical.

Next week I will report on what ever follows.
Tuesdays will now be going back to being dedicated to Physical mediumship under blackout, Fridays being given over to Trance in order to allow our members to spend more weekend time with families over the school summer holidays.

All the best to all
Jon

Spirit Lodge Diary

2007-06-17T20:36:00.000-07:00

Good News, the Spirits Aloud Circle has now launched it's own blog based running journal of events.
This will be a purely objective account of the seances (well, mostly objective anyway). You can now find this at Spirits Lodge Diary .
Chris will keep this up to date each week after each seance.

If you're interested in following our work and development, I'd encourage you to take a look.
I will still keep this blog running however, as this site will reflect my own experiences and will be open to 'subjective' as well as objective accounts from my own personal perspective.

Since I have started to work with Trance Mediumship over the past month or so, I have refrained from placing too much information here as I'd be writing only about myself. And believe me, the personal perspective of Trance work is very different from that witnessed by the sitters.

However, I have been keeping my own records (long hand) which now that Chris has published the 'official' journal accounts, I supposed I ought to balance the books a little by posting my own now. :-)

So please read on, and in the next few days I'll transcribe my own thoughts and views on what has been taking place during the trance sittings I've taken part in.

Cheers for now
Jon

Tuesday 12th June

2007-06-13T06:10:00.001-07:00

I'm away working this week in th US and will be missing this weeks' and next weeks sittings.
But the overall report was that there were many odd sounds from the cabinet and when the lights came back on Brian had again been moved (rotated) through 60 degrees, plus this time the chair was tilted back against the wall.
The Chief came through towards the end of the seance and passed along messages to the others in the room. Once I get the transcript I'll post some more details soon.

More updates to come

Cheers
Jon

Tuesday 5th June

2007-06-07T08:45:00.000-07:00

No report last week as the circle didn’t meet (for the first time since its inception!). So my apologies for the gap.

This week Brian (our physical medium) was away and so we sat for Trance rather than physical mediumship.
A number of different spirits spoke to us through the trance mediums and this time we recorded the whole hour and a half on a combination of video and audio tape.
This was also a new thing for me as we sat with the electric lights on in order for the video camera to be able to see us more clearly.
Hopefully we’ll get a chance to review the whole evenings’ recordings in the next few days and I’ll have a better view of what was said and what was given by Spirit.

I have to say I am still not completely convinced with ‘Trance Mediumship’ as yet. The whole thing seems to me to be closer to ‘inspirational speaking’ than handing over control of the physical body to a visiting spirit.
But I have been assured that as one of the mediums become more experienced and practised, then this may well change.

Initially I was also expecting a lot more in the way of ‘proof’ that the speaker really was from spirit rather than a figment of an over active imagination.
But then it does seem that Trance Mediums tend to only hand over control to their trusted guides. Which probably makes sense as I know that I for one wouldn’t particularly want “great aunt Edna” to take over my body just so that she could convince someone that she was still alive and kicking –if in spirit rather than body!
She might decide that she quite fancies another bash at life and can’t be bothered with going through the whole birth/death cycle thingy again!
-makes you wonder at the whole “possession” concept.

But then, why is it that the guides can’t relay some kind of evidence? Or maybe it’s just that trance mediums are generally in a home circle where the need for ‘evidence’ has long been passed?
Also, a higher level guide type spirit is likely to be more interested in spiritual teachings and personal guidance, rather than enabling the recently deceased to pop back in again to say Hi.
Lots of questions, not too many answers yet.

I’m not sure what we’ll do with the audio/dvd stuff yet. Our friends kept it up for nearly 1.75 hours. I’m not going to be volunteering to transcribe all that lot into text myself!
I suspect Chris will post the objective review up on the Spirits Aloud Journal (see sidebar link) within a few more days.

I’ll be missing the next 2 weeks séances as I’ll be travelling again with work but I’ll post second hand reports when I get them.

J.

Tuesday 22nd May

2007-05-24T09:28:00.000-07:00

Hi, just a short post this week.
For the first time since the group has been sitting now, we had the first night with no physical phenomena at all.
There were the usual grey foggy effects and several people reported perceiving flashes of light, but no two people saw the same things at the same time (our minimum requirement to record and objective event). Temperatures went up and down but no bangs, flashes or moved objects.

However it wasn’t all quiet. We did get some conversation and guidance from ‘the chief’ who spoke through Brian once his trance state was brought back to a light enough state. The Chief apologised for the lack of apparent activity but explained that there was still a lot going on ‘behind the scenes’.

Both Brian and David are going into deep trance states now for most of the whole evening. And several of the other members of the group are also feeling the pull at various times during circle.
Several ‘communicators’ have now explained to us that there is new work being done and that they are experimenting with new ‘forms’ of energy that can be ‘blended’ with the more traditional forms to create new ways of demonstrating the continuance of life beyond the concept of ‘death’.

Our aim has always been and still remains to be, the proof of continuing consciousness beyond the end of physical life through the demonstration of objective physical evidence.
I believe that we are starting to move to a phase in the circle now where we will soon be able to record some serious evidence. We’re starting to depart from the traditional ‘physical séance’ and beginning to explore previously uncharted areas.

Where it will take us I have no idea. But I will certainly update the blog as and when anything happens every week.
It really is turning out to be fun and exciting. There are new developments almost weekly and everyone within the circle is starting to notice changes in themselves as our work with Spirit has started to move from a notional concept stage into a very real practical reality.

Lots of people can talk a good story about their experiences and perceptions but these are always someone else’s story. When a small group of people start to share the same experiences’ together, then your mind is forced to move into a different state of awareness.

For myself, as a healer first and foremost and a medium on occasion, I was always able to kind of ‘suspend my disbelief’ when and where spirit were concerned. However, my own journey of discovery, my understanding and awareness have been brought into phase with my perception of the physical world.
Now, solid facts are no longer solid. Fundamentals such as the physical reality of green plastic garden chairs are no longer quite so firmly fixed as they once were.

In Christine’s back garden, in a converted 10’x12’ shed in a suburban corner of Bristol, philosophical concepts and practical reality are now colliding on a weekly basis.

Friday 18th May

2007-05-19T15:21:00.000-07:00

To enable Brian to sit for his own develoment at a minumum of once a week, he now alterantes between a Friday and Tuesday evening every other week.
I wasn't present myself for Fridays circle, so I've included posted highlights of the report below.

It was another good night with Brian being physically moved in his chair again.

May 18th 2007
90 minute séance. Blackout conditions.

Brian in the cabinet. Sitters and witnesses: Christine, Paul, Dave and David.

NOTE: Christine had placed three cat-toy balls with bells inside then, in a triangular position beneath the chair within the cabinet.
Brian was secured to the chair within the cabinet by cable ties to arms and legs and with a cord at his waist.

During the first part of the evening various creaking sounds were heard within the cabinet. For the most part the only sounds heard were our own ‘singing’.

During the latter part of the evening however activity was clearly apparent and this included some interesting communication from The Chief, through Brian, who was in deep trance state.

At the close of the séance David was brought out of trance state, as was Brian.

When the light was switched on it was witnessed that the Medium’s chair had been moved 45deg within the cabinet and, what surprised everyone, was that the balls which she had placed carefully beneath the chair were exactly as they had been put there. They had NOT moved!
The balls, you will understand are cat toys, they move easily, which is why they were being used for experimental purpose.

.....and so ended another great evening. Yet more progress.
Next Tuesday is another blackout night with Brian in the cabinet. I'll post my own account probably on Wednesday.

Jon.

Tuesday 15th May

2007-05-16T07:10:00.000-07:00

Well, it’s been a few weeks since I made a significant post here I know. My main blog has also been quiet as well as I’ve been working my way through some experiences and answers to some questions that I’ve been holding onto for quite some time.

Last week there was no circle anyway as the ‘team’ were up at Stansted at an open day at the Arthur Findlay College .

The week before had been my first attempt to go into Trance and allow someone in spirit to communicate through me in this way. It was an odd experience to say the least.
Surprising you might say since I am quite happy to ‘receive’ messages mentally and pass them on, but when doing this there is a level of disassociation that sort of allows me to ‘suspend my disbelief’ during the event and then go back to being highly sceptical afterwards.
So merely sitting in a semi trance state should -in theory- be a doddle.

The reality is somewhat harder to get your head round when it actually happens to you.
First off, you have to understand that I am very doubtful of 99.9% of supposed trance mediums that I’ve ever come across. I suspect in most cases there is an awful lot of medium and not much spirit involved.
There is virtually never, ever, any evidence given to prove that it’s for real.

Secondly, when I was in the trance state, I was very much aware of everything going on and (at that moment in time) felt very much ‘there’ and fully conscious of everything going on in the room and within me. I felt I was making it up as I went along for the most part. –except they were not my words coming out.

On the other hand, I was very aware of this other mentality putting/blending thoughts and words into my mind almost in parallel to my own thoughts.

The biggest issue came when one of the circle members asked a direct question –even a simple ones, such as ‘what is your name’.
As soon as I heard the question, the ‘me’ part of ‘my’ mind came to the fore and desperately tried to create and answer. The result was that my voice was in conflict between me and my temporary friend. But then nothing came out and a log jam was seemingly created until I managed to relax enough to allow the visitor to continue.

This was more noticeable when an ‘absolute’ response was required. My visiting friend seemed to then try and find a way around the road block by answering questions indirectly, -which I then felt to be even more evasive. Making my distrust rise to new heights and bringing my own sceptical mind even closer to the surface.

This became even more complicated when I/he/we were asked if there was a message to be passed on to one of the sitters.
‘I’ knew that there was. ‘He’ wanted to pass it on. I, how ever was looking to step back in as the ‘medium’ and see the message as I might do normally. So the harder I looked for the ‘mental’ communication, the less it was apparent.
As the ‘tension’ increased, so did the vibrations in my physical body, I started shaking like a leaf, every muscle in my body was tensed and I could physically feel the energy.

So there was this kind of 3 way battle going on the whole time.
The sceptic doubting that any of it was real and feeling worried that I was duping myself, deluding my friends and betraying the trust I had built up with Spirit.
The me experiencing the energy and vibrations, hearing the words being spoken for the first time, experiencing the ‘knowing’ that it was for real.
And then part of me an almost dispassionate observer, watching objectively the clash of wills between the spirit person and the physical me.

All of these different thoughts, feelings and emotions going on in real time.
…It’s amazing that they managed to get anything intelligible through at all!!!

Anyway, here’s a rough transcript of the evenings events but from the little bits that I do recall, they seem close enough.
They’re not absolute, as there was a technical hitch with the tape recorder. ….someone -who shall for now remain nameless- managed to leave the Pause button down!!

Tuesday 15th May
Red light conditions. 85 minute séance.

Sitters and witnesses: Christine, David, Jon, Paul, Justin, Ollie.
Notes recorded By Chris

David was seated beside the cabinet, with Jon beside him. The intention for the evening was for Jon to experience trance for the second time, either with or without support from David (established trance medium).

Both David and Jon displayed indications of pending trance very soon into the séance.
Therefore Christine decided to simply invite spirit to draw closer for communication through either of the two mediums. The blending of energies between the two mediums was not requested nor was it necessary. Jon worked independently of support from David.

Therefore we now have two established trance mediums within our Circle : )

The first communicator through David was White Eagle. He spoke about the recent vandalism to the sanctuary and gave reassurance about this.

The second communicator came through Jon. This entity was reluctant to give his name, as he feels names to be unnecessary. He spoke of having some difficulty in making communication through the medium, who was not able to relax. Jon’s physical body shaking was mentioned by Christine and assurance given that all was well and that this would pass.

The third communicator came through David. This was Brother John. He gave a loving and supportive message to the group.

The fourth communication came through Jon. This entity was felt by Paul to be an entity known to him as Hussein. Hussein spoke directly to Paul, discussing a previous message with him and giving further confirmation about a young girl who is beside Paul, to his right side. She was described by Hussein as being a friend, rather than a guide. An older man was also mentioned as being close to Paul, said to be a relative of his who had recently passed, on his father’s side of the family.

The fifth communicator was Black Eagle who said that he felt it necessary to come forward as someone within the group felt a need for healing. It was suggested that this person should remove their garments and open themselves to the sun and the beauty and natural energies around them. Chris joked that such behaviour would not be socially acceptable within the Cribbs Causeway area. Black Eagle agreed with this but encouraged us to consider taking time to enjoy the healing benefits of fresh air, the woodland and the countryside.

The final communication was through Jon. An entity who gave his name as Charlie. *This turned out to be a joke between himself and Jon, which included us also. He spoke gently of many things. Particularly, in response to a question by Justin regarding connecting with deceased loved ones, he was very profound with his words.
QUOTE: "It is not the shape of the clouds that give meaning, but the meaning we give the shape that matters." Lovely!

E-mail from Jon:

>> Charlie…...it was a joke. That's not his name.
'We' had a chat on the way home and I was made aware that the name came from me, or more precisely a book I've read. In which God, in conversation with the author, discusses how He doesn't want people to get hung up over his name through various religions across the world. And how some religions get very angry if you mis pronounce his "true" name.

I think the quote goes something along the lines of "Do you really imagine that I care if you call me God, Yahweh, Jehovah, Krishna or even Charlie, I'm still me, and I love everyone of you just the same".
I think that our visitor must have pulled that quote from me, having a joke with you and also with me at the same time. Jon

NOTES:

Christine feels that the ‘Charlie entity’ was also the entity who came through first, and was reluctant to give his name. She also ‘saw’ several entities around Jon as his trance state was initially forming….before ‘order’ was established. None of this is provable of course. Noted purely as a guide for future reference.

The energy within the séance room was excellent. This was Ollie’s first séance experience, and clearly his energy blends with the established group energy very well.

Tuesday 1st May

2007-05-02T09:25:00.000-07:00

Brian -the one of us who is best suited to physical mediumship- was in the cabinet tonight and within 10 minutes there were some very weird sounds coming from within.
We had (because of the previous phenomena with the shoes etc) moved on from buckle straps to using plastic tie-wraps to secure him in the seat (this was his idea, to ensure no one would accuse him of cheating -he said he felt better if there was no possibility that he could do anything physically, even when in trance)

So arms tied to the chair (a common green plastic garden chair from B&Q for £5) and ankles tied to the legs. A belt was tied round his chest to stop any upper body movements and a pillowcase over his head (I’m still not quite clear about this as to why, but it seems to be common practice in physical circles).

To cut a long story short, the séance lasted nearly 2 hours with a seriously large amount of creaking, groaning and banging going on and when the lights eventually came up and the curtains were opened, The pillowcase had been taken off, the balls (cats toys with little bells inside) which had been heard jingling several times, were at opposite ends of the cabinet and…..
This is the biggy…

Brian had been lifted, chair and all, and swung round just short of 180 degrees.
I'm not sure who was more gob smacked, him or us…!

I got in the chair myself and tried to move it without releasing my arms and legs and there is no way that he could have done it whilst restrained the way he was.
And given the way he was strapped in, it'd be even more impossible to shake the pillowcase off his head.

We have decided that for the next few weeks at least, we are going to take before and after photo's to keep as evidence and post on the websites.

Tuesday 24th April

2007-05-02T09:13:00.000-07:00

I haven't posted this one up yet as it's taken me a while to assimilate what happened that night.
The objective record is fairly straightforward and can be found as usual on the Journal (actually it's not been posted yet, but should be there soon)

The subjective view of what took place has taken a bit of time to get used to. But I will post a detailed review of the evening from my own perspective in the next few days.

I was taken into a light trance state and communication came through me to the rest of the group and a back complaint I have been experiencing for several weeks was spontaneously healed - and has remained healed for over a week now.

But more of this later. Read instead the report of what happened last night (Tuesday 1st May).

:-) J.

Tuesday 17th April

2007-04-18T08:55:00.000-07:00

It’s Wednesday 18th April today and last night was the first time I’ve been back in circle for 3 weeks. I wasn’t disappointed.

Brian, who has previously been sitting with the Friday group but who as shown that he is made of the right stuff for physical mediumship, joined the Tuesday group for the first time last night.

Once we were in the sanctuary, he was secured in the cabinet and I checked his straps personally so I can guarantee there was no room for any shenanigans. In particular (having heard that he had lost a shoe on the last two occasions in the chair) I made doubly sure his legs were locked together as tight as was reasonable -without causing too much discomfort.

We each wore a little badge with a small fluorescent tab on our sleeves so that any untoward movements could be easily noticed by the others. Not because we don’t trust each other, but at some point in the future we hope to invite guests into the sanctuary to witness what’s going on for themselves. (…we already have a small waiting list!) and having these precautions in place from the start should remove any unnecessary doubts or thoughts of fraud.

I was sitting right next to the cabinet in my usual spot and was surprised to hear a lot of creaking sounds and bumps and knocks coming from behind the curtain within the first 10 minutes or so.
At one stage these seemed to becoming quite ‘energetic’. Being so close to the sounds was both exciting and unnerving. Having sat in that chair myself on a few occasions, I knew that the sounds I was hearing were not 'natural' sounds. You couldn't make the chair sound like that if you wanted to ...and we have tried!

Then without warning there was a very loud double thud and a bang as the trumpet (a 24 inch long cone made of aluminium) was violently knocked to the floor under the table.
I jumped more than most, because I had been looking at the two luminous tabs just at that moment, trying to decide if it was just my imagination or if the thing really did seem to be moving.
Plus the thing was only 10” away from my right foot!

Things were calmer for a while after that and later we decided that perhaps a round of “10 Green Bottles” might boost the energy in the room. Just as we finished the last green bottle, a voice very quietly greeted us from behind the curtain.
This was the spirit that communicates through Brian in trance who we know as 'the chief'. He went on to ask us to ask Brian (who he rather un-endearingly referred to as “this one”) to please remove is shoes before the sitting in future, as they were having to work hard to remove them themselves in order to ‘ground’ the energy in the cabinet.
I asked if it would help if we all removed our shoes as well, and at first he seemed to be saying that it was not necessary, but then decided that it ‘might’ help and it would be a good idea for the future.

So next week, Brian and the circle will all be sitting without the aid of footwear –must remember to buy some fresh socks in time for our next meeting!!

There was much more creaking and groaning in the room and both Paul and myself saw a sudden flash of light appear at one point. However, Justin, Christine and David didn’t see it so it wasn’t recorded as an objectively witnessed event in the journal. The journal is the formal public record of any objective phenomena that is witnessed in the sanctuary during a sitting.
My notes here are merely my own subjective account

When the lights eventually came back up, both Brian’s shoes were lying on the floor next to the upturned trumpet. They must have both been thrown out simultaneously to create the double thuds we heard and must’ve hit the trumpet, causing it to be knocked for six and for me to very nearly embarrass myself I my underwear!

On Friday week, Brian will be sitting again for physical development. This Friday and next Tuesday will be given over to Trance development. This will allow Brian to sit once a week for his own development and also allow a circle to meet once a week for Energy/Trance mediumship work.

The fun continues …and it sure as hell beats watching Coronation Street on the telly!

Friday 13th April

2007-04-14T14:55:00.000-07:00

I've yet to sit with Brian in circle myself -although I look forward to next week when he'll be joining the Tuesday group.
So the following report is again second hand but as it was quite eventful, I thought I'd include it anyway.

I've cut and pasted this from the Friday circle's report.

Sitters and witnesses: Christine, Helen, Dave and David. Sitters all wearing small glo-tabs so that any movement can be detected. This is not from mistrust of our sitters, but to help us confirm to sceptics that all phenomena is genuine.

The first sounds from the cabinet were of Brian coughing (heavily). Then about a third of the way through the seance, to the background music of 'Chitty Chitty Bang Bang' we all heard sounds indicative of attempted contact from a spirit communicator.
Further communication was made a little later on.

Note that this is Brian's second sitting within the cabinet and independent voice has not yet been achieved. Spirit has told us that his diaphragm is being worked with to aid his breathing during deeper trance. Also his voice box is being manipulated.

During the seance sounds similar to footsteps were heard, this included a series of small running steps. Other sounds were also heard....like coin spinning or a zipper sound.

When the light was switched on at the end of the seance Brian's trainer was outside the cabinet and his ankle restraining strap was removed. He was sitting on his left leg. This wouldn't be an easy movement to make, with his waist and arms firmly strapped to the chair. Brian isn't the athletic type!

Tuesday 10th April

2007-04-12T13:48:00.000-07:00

Again, nothing much to report this week.

Justin tried out sitting in the cabinet but after 10 minutes, asked to be ‘let out’. I don’t know, some people just don’t seem to enjoy being trussed up like a chicken and shut in a cupboard in the pitch black for an hour or so…
So once Justin was back to his normal self again, David sat in the cabinet for an hour. There was some cold draughts, Justin felt he could sense perfume moving from one side of him to the next, though no one else was aware of this.
There were the usual foggy hazy patches from time to time but this was all for the evening.

Through trance communication we have been told that this is to be expected for some time yet as the energies are balanced and built up.

Next week we are going to do some experiments with trance and see if perhaps some one other than David is suited for this form of mediumship. We’ve been told through the Friday circle communicators that we are to start to mix the two groups together and work with both trance and physical and ‘universal’ energies over the coming months.
Watch this space…

For readers not familiar with the concept of the ‘universal’ energy, it’s sometimes referred to as Scole Energy. See http://www.thescoleexperiment.com/ for more details.

Friday 6th April

2007-04-06T14:32:00.000-07:00

My apologies for being late with the updates recently.
I’ve actually had to miss the last 2 weeks due to work commitments (and will miss next weeks as well –Easter Holidays with the family).

However, the last few weeks have been a bit up and down. The amazing progress made by Brian that came quite out of the blue was quite a surprise and we are looking forward to what may come through him.

The Tuesday circle (which I sit in) seems to be moving more towards using the natural ‘universal’ energy rather than ectoplasm via a physical medium. But time will tell.
The biggest recent change is that we’ve decided to blend the two groups (the Friday circle and the Tuesday circle) together.

So now each week, we will be alternating the groups between Trance and Physical and following which ever path we are guided to.

A short update on Friday’s Trance sitting: 2 main communicators came through and voiced their thoughts as to the sorry state of the natural world. Apparently it wasn’t a very inspiring talk. When I get he full transcript I’ll post it here.

It’s all good fun though, keep watching this space.

Friday 30 March

2007-03-31T14:31:00.000-07:00

I'm posting this as we've had a bit of a breakthrough in the Friday circle.
The two groups are begining to come together and Spirit are starting to work more directly with us.
It seems that we may have found our physical medium...

Spirit Friends Friday March 30th

Total blackout conditions. Brian in the cabinet. Sitters and witnesses: Christine. David and Dave.

Sounds within the cabinet of coughing, choking and gurgling. Spirit speaking through Brian explained that they were trying to make adjustments to Brian's breathing. They were attempting to manipulate his voice box also. Their intention is to work towards using ectoplasm for direct voice communication.
Communication Approx 6 minutes playback

When Christine asked if Spirit could move something within the room a few thuds were then heard. When the light was put on after the séance Brian's laced-up trainer shoe was seen to be on the floor approximately 3ft from the cabinet. Brian's legs were still firmly strapped together at the ankle and when he was asked to kick or push his other shoe off he was unable to do this.

Tuesday 27th March

2007-03-30T07:16:00.000-07:00

Nothing to post here this week as I was away on business and missed the circle.
Apparently, as there were only 3 people left sitting that night, David went into deep trance and Paul had a chance to ask lots of questions directly from the Spirits present.

I've been promised a cd of the recordings and will post anything intresting or relevent as a transcript.

..that's all for now. more next week.

Regards
Jon

March 23rd 2007

2007-03-26T03:16:00.000-07:00

This is an extra post recording a communication from a Spirit person identifying himsekf as 'Brother John' that happened during the Friday night circle. Friday night's are orientated around the development of two trance mediums (David & Brian).

I thought I'd post his here becasue the content relates directly to the work we are doing within the Tuesday Physical circle.

I wasn't present myself. The text below is a transcript of the audio recording made of the sitting.
Chris' comments are in italic.

Sitters: Christine. David. Dave. Helen.

Good evening
Nice to see you again

Thank you
As I come close the brother is um….
We welcome you

We welcome you too…
Thank you
There is a healing energy here tonight, it is an energy which you all need. As we have said many times there is a blending process and it is important that you remember that many energies will be incorporated into this Sanctuary. It is not that it is of a random nature you must understand it is necessary for the different bodies and functions that this Sanctuary will be used for.

Thank you for your help
You must understand that within the universal field there are many many energies. There are energies that are not used on the earthly plane. And these energies can be incorporated into this earthly system
There are times when you are very very impatient, but we understand your human frailty
There are things happening all of the time. Many things you have already noticed. There are many things which you have Not noticed and it will come to pas that much more will happen.There is an understanding. There is a great debate upon this Sanctuary

What is this debate?
The debate is taking place within your experience and the debate is taking place from your vision and from your hearing. The debate is taking place among ourselves. It is necessary that the correct energy is incorporated, and this can take awhile.
And as I say awhile, you must understand the times we have spoken about your perception, and your perception of Time.

The trouble is I am living in physical form and I’m afraid I might leave physical form before I finish this job!
You must not have those sort of thoughts, those are negative thoughts. I know that you jest but you must not think that way.

Will we have more sounds in this building, because those are the things we….
You are going to ask me for a time scale and I am not able and I Will Not give you those sort of thoughts. It is for you to understand that the energy IS here and it IS being blended and as I have said before there will be unexpected experiences which you may not understand. But that is not to say that it has not happened.

Will we have physical phenomena here, will beings be able to move around here with us
They Have…and you Know they have don’t you! You have heard, You are trying to move forward too much. You seem to forget the things which Have happened here.

Yes. Yes!

Will we be touched by physical beings….?
I will not be drawn on that! We know what you expect, for you talk about this often.

I am a pain in the butt …
You are enthusiastic. But we know.

Is the dome on the table of any use, is spirit going to use it at all? Is it useful to them?
There are two different energies. Once again, you must remember that in places where this has happened those energies did take awhile and once again you are trying to move too fast. When these energies are ready you will See! Yes! You hesitate? You doubt?

Yes…well..no…now and again!
More than now and again! I speak on behalf of others who you talk to, so you must have patience. You must have understanding. You must have acceptance. These are qualities that you find difficult.
You must know that your thoughts are received. Yes? Yes?

Yes…ummm…
You have doubts! It does not help your cause to have those negative thoughts….they are negative. You must endeavour to have positive thoughts.

Right.
Right!

Tuesday 19th March

2007-03-21T03:14:00.000-07:00

Myself, Christine, David and Justin. Paul in the cabinet –trussed up like a chicken!

Overall a very quiet night. From different positions in the room, we all ‘thought’ we saw some indistinct changes in the depth of the darkness (we were in total blackout conditions) but none of these were objective, and none of us could agree on what we’d seen so we have put these down to subjective perceptions and will leave these to one side for the time being.

Both Chris and myself agreed that we had felt a very cold ‘draught’ coming from the cabinet at one point (we sit either side of the cabinet space) but the most significant event was when Justin heard a loud click or tap on the wall right next to his right ear.
I was a few feet away to his right and also heard exactly the same noise at the same time.

It wasn’t much to go on, but on an otherwise quiet evening it was the highlight of the night!

…here’s 5 grown adults, sitting round for an hour in the pitch black, getting excited because there was an unexplained tap on the wall. !! At times I wonder what on earth we are doing??? :-)

But watch this space…. So far we have only been sitting for 6 weeks and we have experienced something (even if only a tap such as last nights) on every single occasion.

Paul, who was in the cabinet, reported feeling a lot of energy in the first 30 minutes or so and then only being vaguely aware of the second half of the evening. (my guess is he was falling asleep …only kidding!)

So, that’s it for this week. Not much to go on, but highhopes for the future.
I’ll miss next weeks sitting as I’ll be away on business, but will post up a report on what does or doesn’t happen.

Jon

Tuesday 13th March.

2007-03-14T08:23:00.000-07:00

Me in the Cabinet -8.00pm to 9.10pm

This evening's sitting proved to be uneventful from the sitters side of the cabinet. There we're no noises or lights during the sitting and no apparent attempts at communication from spirit.

From my perspective it wasn't quite so quiet, although my experiences were all subjective and therefore not what we are looking for through the physical 'objective' phenomena that we are hoping to encourage.

I've recorded them here anyway, just as a log of what I personally experienced.

Part A records the physical experiences I had, Part B the mental awareness.

Part A
I’d felt a bit ‘spacey’ on the way down in the car and expected to have to ask them to back away, as it always makes me feel drowsy.
However, this time when I felt the energy coming quite close, it was much ‘lighter’ –more of a “high” than a “stoned” feeling. So although I was physically tired, I arrived feeling mentally alert.

Once I was strapped in to the chair and the curtains were closed I felt a sense of needing to keep to the time and knew that Chris was being reminded to start. I think I even joined in and told her to get going myself.

As soon as the first track started I felt very light headed and the room started to spin a bit. This subsided as soon as I started my own ‘cool down’ routine. I felt the energy come back very strongly and purposefully tried to open up even more to match it.
Within a short while (5 minutes?) I started to feel prickling sensations down my back (at first putting this down to the new cushions –very much more comfy than the other chair, lovely!) So I asked for confirmation if it was spirit, could they then repeat the sensation but on the opposite side. This duly happened within a minute.

Shortly after this (2, 3 or 5 minutes) I felt a ‘tickle’ on my right neck. I asked this to be repeated on the left as validation but nothing happened. I can then only assume this was a physical effect not spirit.

Again, a few minutes later I felt the sensation of what felt like a feather or something soft but firm, stroking my right cheek. This was a clear physical sensation and felt like a very light, but physical touch.
I asked for validation again on the opposite cheek and again, this happened within 30 seconds. Lighter this time than before.

No further ‘touches’ were felt after this. Although there were the usual twitches and tickles that you’d expect being strapped into a chair for 60 minutes.

For the first half of the session I did feel as though I was drifting in and out a bit, although I do feel I was present and fully aware of all the conversations and music playing at all times.
A couple of times I had to take a sudden breath as if my breathing had become so shallow, it needed a recovery breath just to keep us going J … I may have begun to doze off into sleep rather than trance!!

Part B
During the sitting, in the second half of the evening, I felt I was being made aware of someone being present. This was not someone I recognised (i.e. not a guide that I know myself –but that doesn’t rule them out of being with me, I only know a few people there personally).
The person was female, youngish by our standards but mature by hers. Dressed in dark clothing -could have been Native American but I couldn’t say for sure. I was feeling her presence more than seeing it. Very warm and ‘protective’ feeling, but not just for me, for everyone there.

If she was an N.A. (and I’m not saying she was) she seemed to be indicating support and (this sounds weird!) water. The room/enclosure she was appearing to be in was dimly lit as I couldn’t make out her features clearly. Long dark hair tied back. I felt I was being offered/shown a bowl of water and then a stream with flowing water, in which she was dipping her cupped hands and showing me water again.
Possibly I need to be drinking more water? (I do stop drinking coffee at work on a Tuesday and drink just water in the afternoon), perhaps we should have more water in the Lodge? Honestly, I have no idea.
I know I was dehydrated a bit since last weekend (big late night party on Saturday) so maybe it was that.

Shortly after that the last few songs came on (so this must’ve happened close to the end of the sitting) and we closed down –eventually!
I was left feeling quite energised and full of bounce. Mind you, by the time I got home was feeling knackered again ;-)

Jon.

The Sanctuary - An Introduction

2007-03-13T06:21:00.000-07:00

Welcome to The Sanctuary.

This is not going to be your average blog. …I've got one of those and you can find it at www.jonmees.blogspot.com

I am a member of a home development circle that meets each week to encourage and facilitate the physical evidence of the continuation of life beyond 'death'.

As one of the mediums in the group, I sometimes sit in a cabinet in blackout conditions, secured into a chair (so I can't move under the cover of the darkness) and allow Spirit to use my energy and that of the others in the circle to create physical phenomena that proves beyond all doubt the existence of spirit.
Other times I sit within the circle as a witness to the phenomena that occurs.

In time, we hope to either see a pattern emerging, or receive guidance as to who should sit consistenly for physcial mediumship. But until then we plan to rotate the 2 or 3 potential mediums and let Spirit decide who is best suited to this work.

This blog is a weekly record of each séance. Of what did or did not happen as the case maybe.

Our circle has been sitting for one month now, so it is very early days and we have a lot to learn - and Spirit have a lot of work to do to create the right conditions necessary to be able to manifest into the physical world.

So far we have experienced some early signs of activity on each occasion that we have sat.
One the first evening we heard a loud thump on the floor and an aluminium 'trumpet' (a 2 foot long metal cone) was knocked to the floor.

On the next evening a light was seen to flash in one corner of the room and on the 3rd, a clear and distinct "footfall" was heard in the same corner of the room.

Not much to go on to the casual observer, but when you are in a small (8' by 12') room with only 4 good friends sitting in blackout conditions for a little over an hour, these represent very significant progress after such a short while.

We don't expect too much any time soon, but hope to hear Direct Voice and other physical phenomena in the future, which we then intend to share as proof to anyone who cares to investigate that we are all much, much more than we may think we are.
That life continues on beyond this short physical existence,
That we are all supported and guided by Spirit
That we are all part of the one all encompassing Spirit.

We aspire to helping others to understand these things, to give comfort to these who have lost loved ones and to prove beyond doubt that consciousness exists beyond the physical body.

Welcome to our Sanctuary.