by Betty Shine
They were angry and tried to interrupt, but I held up my hand to silence them. ‘No, hold on,’ I said. ‘All the messages I have passed on to people from relatives and friends have given them such happiness. In fact they have all told me that it has changed their lives for the better. In many cases it has taken away the fear of dying.’
‘They are being lured away from Christ,’ they replied.
I tried to bring some logic into the conversation. ‘If the church preaches that there is a life after death, then surely it should not be too much of a surprise to anyone that the survivors try to contact us to confirm this.’
‘We have already told you, it is the devil mimicking them.’
We had come full circle and I decided to end the conversation. It was then that they attacked the healing. ‘You can only be healed by a priest,’ I was told. It did not seem to matter to them that the priest giving the healing may not be a natural healer. ‘Jesus Christ would be working through him,’ they said.
‘But surely the Church preaches that Christ is within all of us,’ I remarked.
‘He is,’ was the reply. ‘But he will only work through those who have been ordained.’
I suggested that we should stop at that point, and they left. I believe that everyone should have their own point of view as long as it makes them happy, and I do not believe that you should try to force your opinions on others. This usually brings unhappiness.
I had been thoroughly grounded in the church’s teachings, and many of them did not make sense to me. The spirit teachings did. The healing continued, and so did the mediumship. I did not know then that the second year was going to be even more incredible than the first.
CHAPTER TWO
At the end of 1973, my energy had increased one hundred per cent. I felt like a time bomb waiting to explode. Subtle, yet tenacious, the spirits were there watching, guiding, protecting and, at times, an absolute pain.
My personal belongings were beginning to move around the house of their own accord, and sometimes disappeared altogether. It was frustrating and time-consuming trying to locate them. Like naughty children, the spirits seemed to be testing my patience, and I could see no sense at all in their behaviour. If there were mischievous entities trying to lighten the atmosphere they did not succeed, and their actions always made me angry.
I confided these peculiar happenings to a friend who was helping with some odd jobs around the house. He laughed, and told me that it was just my imagination. When he next looked for his toolkit it had gone, and he accused me of having moved it. I assured him that I had done no such thing and we spent the next hour searching for it, but to no avail. He was extremely agitated by this time and went back into the room in which he had been working to fetch his coat. There, in full view, was his toolkit. Sitting on top of the bag was a St Christopher medal he had lost earlier that year. His face was an absolute picture.
When he left, he said, ‘I will never again disbelieve the stories you tell me. Today I have had proof positive that there are things that ordinary people may never see, feel or understand, but they are there. Somehow, it’s a comforting thought.’ He hugged me and laughed. ‘I’ve learned a valuable lesson today. I don’t know everything.’ ‘Nobody ever will,’ I replied.
On another occasion a female friend asked me if I could locate her wedding ring, which she had lost the previous day. I closed my eyes and asked for help in tracing it and a few moments later was given the location. It was in my own bathroom! We decided to investigate and to our amazement found the ring lying on the side of the bath. My friend was shaking. ‘Betty, what on earth is going on?’ she asked. ‘I lost this ring in my home and it turns up in yours.’
‘I have no idea,’ I replied. ‘This is the family bathroom. It’s never used by anyone else.’
In that instant a woman’s voice came through to me. ‘Tell Jim he must not use his car until he has checked the brakes.’ Jim was my friend’s husband and I gave her the message.
‘Who was she? Did she give a name?’ she asked.
‘No, she didn’t,’ I replied.
‘Don’t you think that is a bit odd?’ I laughed, and said, ‘She certainly didn’t hang around, but I do think you should ring Jim and warn him.’
She did so, and a look of complete bewilderment came over her face as she spoke to her husband. She replaced the phone.
‘I can’t believe it,’ she told me. ‘He said he’d had a strong feeling that something was wrong with the brakes so he took the car to the garage to have them checked. He is waiting for the result.’ My friend smiled. ‘He is a real sceptic, you know. Perhaps this will make him think.’ The next day she called to tell me that the brakes had been stripped on one side and could have caused a serious accident.
Two weeks later, the mysterious voice contacted me again, and told me that she was Jim’s late mother. This time she wanted to give him some advice about his business. Her prophecy was later to be proved correct and prevented him from losing a large amount of money.
Whenever I felt the need to be peaceful, I would go into my healing room. By the simple act of walking into the room I was transported to another world a world of love and beauty and forgiveness. It was so easy to close my eyes, daydream and just drift off. For as long as I can remember I have used this easy way of meditating.
One day, however, an unfamiliar voice interrupted my reverie by calling my name. As he spoke I began to feel light-headed, and felt myself drifting into a deep trance state.
‘There will be great changes in your life,’ he told me. ‘You are being taught by the finest minds. Do not argue with them.’ There was a pause, then he continued, ‘The path you are on was of your own choosing.’ I tried to ask questions telepathically but my mind was not functioning. When I was finally able to think logically the voice had gone.
On opening my eyes I could see a white haze swirling around the room, forming intricate patterns. It disappeared finally into a whirlpool of its own making, and I wondered whether I was being shown the door from one dimension to another.
Still feeling sleepy, I thought about his remark that the path was of my own choosing. If this was true, and there was no reason for me to suspect that it was not, why had I selected it? Why had I pursued a singing career? Why had the events of the last year all come as such a shock? There were so many questions I wanted to ask, but the answers were not forthcoming at this time. Nevertheless, I did agree with the first part of his message. It was quite obvious that I was being taught by the best when I was healing.
It was during a healing session that I was shown another aspect of mediumship. I was with a woman who had recently lost her brother. She told me that there were only three members of her family left, and that this had left her in a very depressed frame of mind. As she was speaking I could feel a presence in the room, and a man’s voice said, ‘Tell her it’s her brother Jack.’ I passed on the message, and asked whether he was the brother who had just died. She told me that Jack was her eldest brother and that he had passed on three years ago. It was Barry, the youngest, who had just died.
Jack spoke again. ‘I want you to concentrate, so that my sister will be convinced we have survived.’ I presumed he meant himself and Barry. Then, in my mind, I was shown a photograph. There were about ten people in the picture and I could see them all clearly.
‘Tell her that she has an identical photograph at home.’ I duly passed this message on, and Jack then told me that he was going to give me the names of the people in the photograph, starting at the top, and going from left to right. I told my client what was happening, and indicated that she should find a pen and paper. As the names came through she wrote them down. When Jack completed the list, he told her that everyone he had mentioned sent their love, and that she was being cared for. Tears flowed when the communication came to an end, and looking at the names, she recognized the family she had lost.
‘Why aren’t you in the photograph?’ I asked.
‘Because I
took it,’ she told me. ‘We’d got together for my mother’s birthday and I wanted to use my new camera.’
I asked whether she still had the photograph.
‘I believe I have. I’ll look for it when I get home, and give you a ring.’ She telephoned that evening to tell me that all the names were correct, and so was the order Jack had given.
She visited me once more, for healing. As she left she said, ‘I haven’t suffered from depression since I last saw you, because death doesn’t frighten me any more.’ She held my hands and smiled. ‘You see,’ she went on, ‘I know now that I will one day be reunited with my family, and they will be cross with me if I waste my life in the meantime.’ I never saw her again, but always received a ‘thank you’ card at Christmas.
After this episode there seemed to be a spate of ‘survivors’ showing me photographs and using the same process that Jack had done. It became obvious that there must be a system of telepathy and that everyone wanted to get in on the act.
The mediumship was going very well, until a female communicator began to speak in French. When I explained to my client that I hadn’t the faintest idea what was being said she explained that her father was French, and that the communicator was probably her paternal aunt.
‘Well I’m afraid I’m going to have to pass on this one,’ I told her. Suddenly, the aunt stopped using her voice and communicated telepathically – so the messages were conveyed and everyone was happy. I have been able to link people of all nationalities by this method. Occasionally they forget halfway through the conversation and resort to their native language, but a gentle reminder soon brings everything back to normal. There are moments when things go slightly awry, of course, but the laughter that ensues is a healing in itself.
There was one conversation that particularly moved me. It was that of a young French lady who had died in a fire. She told me that she felt no pain as the flames engulfed her because her mind had precipitated her death and had left her body before it was burned. The recipient of this message was her aunt, who was sitting beside me, weeping gently. She told me later that she had suffered terrible nightmares since the accident, supposing her niece to have died in agony.
A very similar story was that of a young man who had fallen out of a ten-storey building after a night of drinking. He contacted me whilst his mother was receiving healing and told her that his mind had left his body as he had fallen. He felt nothing as he surveyed the body lying on the ground.
‘I felt as though I was a mere bystander, looking at a stranger,’ he told us.
These stories have brought great comfort to those whose family and friends have died in similar circumstances. The mind protects and leaves when physically all is lost.
I was beginning to enjoy the survival evidence I received whilst giving healing. It was obvious that it brought enormous relief from pain and suffering and was, in fact, an alternative method of healing.
I was also perfecting the art of meditation, and through it was given an insight into another dimension. I had already seen a little of it as a child but now, years later, it was as though I could walk on air and I seemed to float effortlessly over mountains and valleys. I was taught that the thought was the deed. Simply think yourself somewhere and you were there. The temperature around me never changed, whether I was in a green valley or the desert, and it was always comfortable. I felt as though I was being bathed and massaged by the warm air around me, and the atmosphere was always charged with a vibrancy that one never experienced on earth. The colours were as I remembered them from my childhood. There was a brilliance, even in the pastel shades, that was hypnotic, and the perfume-laden air was intoxicating. When I was not in a meditative state I questioned whether these journeys were real or imaginary. In my heart I knew they were real, but how could I be sure? I did not want to fool myself. It was to be months before I was given the answer.
One day I slipped from a meditative mood into a trance, and found myself walking through seemingly endless corridors. The walls and ceiling of the building were transparent, and emanated a silvery light. As I reached the end of the corridor I saw my mother waiting for me. Other family and friends gathered round and we hugged and kissed. I remember asking if this were real and my mother told me never to doubt it. I wanted to stay but was informed that I still had a lot to do. When I finally awoke I knew that I had indeed been with my family and friends.
On subsequent visits I was shown halls of music, where each tone was matched by colours cascading down from the ceiling like a waterfall. I was shown how one can, with the necessary talent, think a building into existence, or think a bowl of cherries onto a table. The examples were endless and I was always enthralled at the visions before me.
These were to be confirmed time and again by survival evidence. I was entertaining some friends one evening when I saw a woman standing behind one of my female guests. I described the lady and gave her name, and was told that it was an aunt who had been dead for some time. My friend asked why her aunt was here.
‘I want to tell you that I shall stay with my father until it is time for him to come with me,’ was the reply.
‘How long will that be?’ my friend asked.
‘A few days,’ her aunt said. ‘He will feel no more pain.’ Then she left.
I thought it strange that my friend seemed happy to receive this message until she explained that her grandfather had suffered so much in the past year that death would be a merciful release for him.
Her grandfather indeed suffered no more pain, and died three days later. Proof that our loved ones ease our last moments and help us on our journey was given to me in so many ways.
I was once visiting an elderly lady in hospital when I saw a female spirit sitting at the bottom of the bed. She told me that she was waiting to take her mother ‘home’. I asked the patient if she had any family.
‘No!’ she said. ‘I did have a daughter, but she died in her teens. I’m sure I shall see her again.’ I described the visitor, and she confirmed that it was her daughter.
‘I expect she has come to fetch me,’ she said in a matter-of-fact way.
‘Or to give you reassurance,’ I suggested, trying to be positive. The old lady smiled knowingly. ‘I think she knows best,’ she said. She died a week later.
A small boy, who was in the last stages of cancer, came to me for healing. Ten minutes into the session a man stood in front of me, told me that he was the boy’s grandfather and that he would like to speak to his grandson. I asked the parents if they would permit me to pass on the messages. They agreed, and told me that they had spoken to their son about the afterlife, and that they believed his grandfather would be waiting for him.
‘I have come to tell you how beautiful it is where I am living now,’ the grandfather said. ‘I had never seen real colour before I came here. And the birds are magnificent, they look like a firework display as they move through the air. There are animals everywhere and they are loved by everyone.’
‘Will I be with you?’ the boy asked.
‘Of course,’ he was told. ‘I can’t wait to show you around. I must go now. Be seeing you.’
The parents tried to hide their tears for the sake of their son. They were still hoping for a miracle cure, but knew that they had just been given the answer. The little boy was ecstatic. He could not wait to see his beloved grandfather again, and spoke of nothing else during the remainder of the healing.
He died two months later. His mother told me that he had held conversations with his grandfather whilst in a coma. ‘There is no doubt that he could see and hear him,’ she said. The grandfather had arrived to ease the boy’s last days on earth, and had also given the parents immense pleasure knowing that he would be waiting for their child. But most of all it had relieved them of much pain and despair. Through the power of mediumship they had received a miracle.
It was at times like these that I realized the importance of mediumship. It is a talent that goes beyond anything that can be give
n by other professionals, and is a vital link between two worlds. With it comes a responsibility that can make or break you. ‘Is that what is happening to me?’ I asked myself. ‘Am I being tested to find out whether I can survive the onslaught?’ In the past 18 months I had certainly experienced phenomena that were absolutely incredible.
At times I found the whole process quite unbelievable. I had never had any inclination to involve myself with the paranormal in any way; my life had been too full of other interests and I knew nothing of spiritualism. The idea of visiting a spiritualist church would have been entirely alien to me.
However, I was taken to several spiritualist churches by a friend who thought that it would ease my path and provide some of the answers to my innumerable questions. But I soon closed that particular door, realizing that I had to find out the truth about this very extraordinary profession, for myself. I decided to follow a solitary path, mainly because I did not want to be brainwashed by the thoughts of others. If this was to be my future, and it was certainly beginning to look as though it was, then I had to break down all the barriers and come face to face, not only with myself, but with the power behind the phenomena.
One particular episode taxed my imagination. A small boy, who had been receiving healing from me, told his mother that he had seen me sitting on his bed during the night. ‘She was wearing a long blue gown, and smiled at me,’ he said, and though his mother questioned him for some time, intimating that he could have been dreaming, he was adamant. ‘I know I wasn’t dreaming because she woke me up when she sat on the bed.’ When his mother told me the story I was nonplussed. As far as I knew I had been safely tucked up in my own bed.
A similar story was given to me by another patient. Her husband was in a London hospital suffering from emphysema, and she had asked me to give him absent healing. When she visited him the following day he told her that a blonde woman wearing a long blue gown had visited him during the night. She asked him for a description; when he gave it, she said, ‘Oh, that’s Betty,’ and explained that she had asked me to give absent healing. She could not contain her excitement when she recounted the story to me. ‘How do you do it?’ she asked. I could only tell her that I hadn’t the faintest idea.