My Life As a Medium

by Betty Shine

  ‘You must be joking,’ he said. ‘Ydon’t believe in all that stuff.’ Beth just smiled.

  I find it quite extraordinary that thousands of people who believe their late family and friends are often around them also insist that there is no life after death. It is totally illogical. And, many of those who do believe will not visit a medium because they are afraid their loved ones will speak to them.

  I was also astonished to find that many clients who received wonderful survival evidence were unable to believe what they had heard and half suggested that I had been checking up on their family. I have never had the time to check my own family trees, let alone hundreds of others!

  Everyone I met assumed that I had sat for years in a development group and were astonished when I told them that it had all more or less happened overnight. I am far too impatient to sit around waiting for something to happen, but when it does I take advantage of what I have been given. That is why in these first years I really had a great time. I could not wait for the next instalment, and when it came I was like a child with a new toy. I played with it, challenged it and, needless to say, marvelled at it. As I did with the next experience.

  I was quietly reading a book one evening and became aware of a swirl of energy around me. Placing the book on the couch, I looked around the room and found that I was in the centre of a moving landscape of colour – pink clouds, orange hills, blue waterfalls and brilliant white fountains, a kaleidoscope of different pictures, landscapes filled with the beauty of colour, moving and changing all the time. I was entranced. Then a voice said, ‘Colour changes everything.’ It certainly did. When the energy silently slipped away and I was left once again with my ordinary room, I felt cheated. From that day on I brought more colour into my life. I also experimented with colour healing and found that it was extremely beneficial, especially with distant healing.

  Time and again I marvelled at this incredible world that was being shown to me. It made everyday surroundings appear so dull. My whole life seemed to be on a roller-coaster, and there was no way that I could control the brakes. When I was tired, I often tried to shut it all out but could not. If it was not amazing phenomena it was small things, like the sound of the telephone ringing in my ears, warning me that my own phone would ring in a few seconds. Or the sound of a dog barking in my head – though we had no animals at that time. My belongings continued to disappear and reappear in the most peculiar places. This still annoyed me! There were whirlwinds of energy that felt as though someone had opened all the doors and windows on a chill winter evening. I felt a hand stroking my face whilst I was healing. I had become quite blase about the beam of light in the hall as it appeared so often. Sometimes there was someone inside the beam but very often it was empty. I had begun to think of it as a spaceship, which was really strange as I have always been bored to tears with things like the Star Trek films on television. However, it was the appearance of spirit forms that held my attention. How wonderful they were! And how incredible it was to study this phenomenon that had first manifested when I was a child, when I hadn’t a clue what was going on. Now, thirty-five years later, I still didn’t know an awful lot but at least the added years had given me the gift of reasoning – even though that was being taxed at this time.

  I remember one incident in particular. I had finished healing for the day and was just about to leave the room when I saw a spirit form taking shape from the feet upwards. This was no ordinary spirit. It was a man with long white hair, whose beard practically reached his waist. He was wearing a white gown that swirled around his feet. My first thought was that he looked like Father Time, or at least how I would have imagined him. My legs were shaking so much I had to sit down. I waited for some kind of communication, but there was nothing. Then objects began to dance around on the table and the room seemed to shake. It was scary. I was staring at the old man and our eyes appeared to be locked together in some kind of beam. Then, just like a melting snowman, he disappeared into the floor and was gone.

  It was incredible to say the least, and I was longing to tell someone about it, but felt that my family and friends had already been pushed to the edge with my new-found talents. I was intrigued, and for days I tried to recreate the image of this man. Who was he? What did he want to tell me? Had he been trying to communicate telepathically? I certainly did not feel any benefit from him having appeared, and had received no extra knowledge. At least not yet. It was to be a week before I found out what I had been given. Whilst speaking to a friend I realized that when she mentioned someone’s name I knew everything about them. I asked her to test me by mentioning names that were unknown to me, and the results were amazing. Previously, I could give an outline of the personality, but now, I was being given minute details about their lives, and their future. Somehow, this man had given me a line straight through to the Universal Mind. It was an incredible discovery, and a talent that enabled me to help people who were unable to visit me.

  One such person was a lady who was bedridden and totally dependent on her family. She wrote to request absent healing and, at the same time, asked whether I could suggest Christmas presents for two nieces and a nephew. The names and birth dates were listed at the bottom of the letter, and as I studied them I had a picture of all three children. The two girls were totally different personalities; one was rather excitable and the other quiet, and as I thought about them individually I was able to recommend suitable gifts. When I linked into her nephew I knew that he would like a dartboard.

  A month later I received the following letter:

  It is with great regret that I have to tell you that my aunt died four days after Christmas.

  I thank you from the bottom of my heart for helping her with the children’s presents. She was overcome with joy when she saw how thrilled they were with her gifts. Needless to say, the children will treasure them and they will remind them of a very loving and lovely person.

  I have only one question: How did you do it? I am fascinated.

  How could I tell her when I did not know the answer myself ?

  My life was becoming stranger than fiction, and at times I had the feeling that my home had become a time capsule. Visions of the past and future were constantly being relayed to me. The visions I did not like were those that showed disasters waiting to happen.

  One night, in a dream, I saw an aircraft crash into some palm trees on the water’s edge, and I watched as it crumpled on to the beach in slow motion, the blue sea lapping over the wings of the aircraft. In the distance I could hear people crying for help, and then I woke up.

  I woke my daughter, Janet, and told her that there had been a terrible plane crash. I was quite distraught; the vision was still in my mind and I felt as though I had been a part of the tragedy. Although I knew the crash had happened on a tropical island I had not been given a name or a date, and it could have happened anywhere in the world. The frustration was immense. Eventually I went back to bed.

  The following morning I turned on the television, expecting to hear about the disaster. There was nothing. For the next week I listened to every news broadcast, and when I still heard nothing about the crash I decided that it had only been a dream after all.

  Two weeks later I was looking at the television and was shocked to see my dream being re-enacted on the screen. The plane was going across the screen from right to left, exactly as I had seen it. It crashed into the palm trees and landed on the edge of the beach, and I heard the newsreader say that many lives had been lost. I was devastated. What was the point of giving me the vision if I was unable to help? Why wasn’t I given the time and place so that the accident could have been averted?

  Whilst meditating some time later, I was told that I was to become part of a group who help accident victims come to terms with the fact that they are dead. When someone dies in this way they cannot understand why people in this dimension cannot see or hear them because for a time they still feel normal. I asked how I could help, as it was obvious to me that the maj
ority of relatives and friends would not be visiting a medium. I was told that I would be helping whilst in a sleep state. Although it all sounded very interesting, I still could not see how I could fulfil this role.

  A few years later a woman came for a sitting and I told her that there was a young girl, Sara, who said she was her daughter. The woman held her head in her hands for a few moments. When she looked up, she said, ‘I have been praying that she would contact me. What does she have to say?’

  ‘She is telling me that she brought your attention to a newspaper article about me,’ I replied, laughing. ‘Why should she want to do that?

  ‘I don’t know,’ Sara’s mother said, ‘but she’s right. Someone had left their paper on the train and I was attracted to your photograph and read the article. It was then that I decided to visit you.’

  ‘Your daughter tells me that you have always wondered whether she suffered when she was killed in the car crash. Is that right?’

  ‘Yes. That thought is always with me.’

  ‘She wants you to know that she did not suffer at all.’ I paused. ‘That’s strange, she’s thanking me for easing her path and for being there when she needed me.’

  The mother frowned. ‘How could you have helped her?’

  I explained about the activities of the rescue service. She found it hard to understand – and so did I! But this was only the beginning. There were to be many similar messages given to me in the future. That particular sitting continued for an hour, bringing mother and daughter together for the first time in two years.

  At this point in time I was beginning to feel frustrated with many aspects of my life, not least the inability to find time for myself. I was now working twelve hours a day, six days a week. I tried not to work on Sunday.

  Family and friends were urging me to take it easy, but what could I do when there were so many people needing help and guidance? There was already a four-week waiting list. If I cut down on my working hours that list would grow longer, and I feared for the health of some of my patients. I made the decision to reduce the hour-long appointments to half an hour.

  Now, in 1975, I was in the third year of my healing and mediumship.

  CHAPTER THREE

  My mediumship was tested continually whilst I was healing. At first there was the smell of ether, so strong at times that it affected everyone visiting my home. Most of my patients claimed that it made them feel light-headed. Although I hated it, I found that in a peculiar way – it also comforted me. I felt that someone was trying to impress upon me that I was being guided. This was also confirmed by my medium friend.

  ‘For our spirit friends,’ he told me, ‘it is the simplest way of letting you know that a surgeon wishes to work through you.’

  ‘How long do you think it will last?’ I asked.

  ‘However long it takes to convince you,’ he replied. On the rare occasions that we met I tried to persuade him to become my mentor, but he was adamant.

  ‘You do not need me,’ he said. ‘I know that you have the finest spirit teachers available to you, because I have never seen anyone surrounded by so much power. All you have to do is listen and learn.’ He leaned forward and touched my hand. ‘You see, my dear, all I am is what my spirit helpers allow me to be. I am not a healer. I couldn’t heal anyone. I am just a medium, and use that talent to help where I can.’

  From the beginning I had felt a presence whilst healing, and occasionally caught a glimpse of spirit hands touching the patient. The first time it happened I thought my mind was playing tricks with me. The following day, when the hands appeared again I could also see the lower part of the arms. Eventually I was able to see the whole spirit entity but, unlike many mediums who have specific people working through them, I seemed to have been contacted by a variety of personalities. I wondered if they were trying to find someone who suited my own psyche. It was very easy to distinguish between them; as their minds linked with mine their differing personalities were immediately obvious because they affected my own behaviour. One or two of the doctors had a sense of humour not unlike my own, while another would be very sombre and so the healing would be very quiet. The spirit doctor who carried out the manipulations of limbs was very excitable, and gave me the impression that he was, perhaps, slightly eccentric. I found it all absolutely fascinating.

  I have mentioned in a previous book, Mind Magic, the time when Louis Pasteur manifested three times and informed me that he was going to help me with the healing, and of how I visited the library to find a photograph that would confirm that it was indeed that great doctor. The incredible healing that took place after this visitation was further confirmation.

  I have always had a theory that if one keeps a picture in one’s mind of a particular person then, eventually, that image will be played back to us. I was absolutely determined that this was not going to happen to me, mainly because I was seeking the truth.

  I know the manifestation of Louis Pasteur was real, because I had not thought about him since leaving school. Although my patients often asked the name of the spirit doctor who worked through me, I was loath to mention a name as famous as that of Pasteur, so my reply was that I did not know. I was given a photograph of him by a close friend, but hid it in a drawer because I did not want his image to encroach upon my mind. I knew he would understand.

  From time to time other spirit doctors have come through and given me their names, but for some reason I have never bothered to write them down. The names themselves did not mean anything to me; it was their achievements that inspired me.

  I came to the conclusion, after several years, that there were many brilliant doctors helping me, but Pasteur was definitely at the helm, holding everything and everybody together.

  However, in my third year I was left wondering who on earth all these people were. It was made clear to me when I began to take note of the patients and their specific ailments that the spirit doctors were specialists in their own field. Since then I always ask for ‘the best you’ve got’ at the beginning of a healing session – and I know that my wish will be granted. I was also determined, at this stage, not to study medical textbooks. Apart from the fact that they can be extremely depressing, I do believe that ‘a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing’. Imagine my surprise, then, when a medical diagnosis was given to me. Many of my patients were delighted, because they had been visiting their doctors for years without any lasting cure. Most of the diagnoses were eventually confirmed by medical specialists, but a number of my patients had vowed, before visiting me, that they would never again put their lives in the hands of doctors. Although I never agreed with this decision I could sympathize. I had been there myself, having to date been given two terminal prognoses which had eventually turned out to be common problems that could be cured by vitamin and mineral therapy. But, one must not lose sight of the fact that we could be putting our lives at risk by not taking the best of both worlds.

  Jimmy’s story is typical of this.

  He was in his twenties, and was suffering from a dragging pain in the left side of his groin. The diagnosis I received was that it was a hernia and could be cured with healing.

  After the first two sessions the pain disappeared, and he was delighted. But as he was about to leave my spirit doctor told me that he also had a small benign lump in the groin and that this should be removed medically. Jimmy’s face crumpled when I passed this message on. ‘I’m not going to any bloody doctor!’ he cried. ‘The last one I saw nearly killed my mother by giving her the wrong prescription.’

  I spent some time reassuring him. ‘Look,’ I said, ‘I would not have been given this message if it would put you in any kind of danger.’

  ‘Why can’t your spirit doctors get rid of it?’ he asked.

  ‘I have no idea, but I do trust them,’ I replied.

  I persuaded him to visit his doctor eventually, who was not only surprised by the absence of the hernia but was amazed that Jimmy should be aware of the lump in the groin. It was so
small that the doctor could barely locate it himself.

  Jimmy had the lump removed, and it was benign, but the reason why it was necessary for him to have it removed medically and not spiritually became obvious when he was found to be in the first stages of diabetes.

  I received another diagnosis for Irene, a woman in her late forties.

  She had asked for healing for severe headaches. During the healing I was told that she had an aneurysm and that she needed immediate surgery and intensive healing after the event.

  I was in a dilemma. I felt that I could not give her the diagnosis, but did suggest that she should see a specialist. She took my advice and after many tests my diagnosis was confirmed.

  She came to see me two months later, and during that healing session a voice told me that Irene was going to be alright now. I passed this message on, and she laughed.

  ‘I believe them!’ she said. ‘They have saved my life.’ But she did tell me later that, although she had recovered, she had been convinced that the same thing was going to happen again. I am pleased to say that she was wrong, and my informant was right. I was to see her many times in the following years for her ‘top-up’, as she used to call it, and she never suffered from headaches again.

  There were times, however, when the spirit doctors were adamant that my patient should not receive medical treatment. One such person was Peggy.

  Peggy had been overcome by the power of the healing energies, and had gone into a deep sleep whilst having treatment. My hands were placed lightly on her stomach when I felt a presence behind me and a hand pressing on my shoulder. Then a voice said, ‘Tell her the operation will not be necessary.’ Peggy had told me that she had been advised to have a hysterectomy as she had fibroids in the womb. The voice continued, ‘Take your hands away.’ As I removed my hands they were replaced by a spinning vortex of energy which remained for approximately five minutes.