Tuesday 8th January 2008

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