My Diary... Road Accident... Spirit Guidance and Gold Stars.... Five Special People... A Spiritual Medium in every sense of the word...Dowsing by Ted Dutton...

21^st May - I travelled the short distance to ASK Neilston.  President Sheila Caruthers was one of the first mediums I saw on the platform of a Spiritualist Church and one of these lucky people who was introduced to Spiritualism at a young age.  Sheila’s mother was a great help in her spiritual development.  Sheila has a wealth of spiritual knowledge which she shares at her open-circle each Wednesday evening. 

22^nd – Again only another short trip to the Paisley Spiritualist Church, Glenburn Community Centre, Paisley.  President Janet Lyon also entered Spiritualism at an early age and like Sheila encouraged by her mother

25^th – I was taking another development  circle at an SNU church and it is great to see that after years of steady development those attending are almost ready to take their first step on to the platform.  All have the ability, the only thing that is lacking, and that is melting away slowly with each session, is the lack of confidence they have in themselves.

25^th Another of my workshops at the Glasgow Association and it is a pleasure to work with those who’s immediate aim is not to fast-track to the platform, but slowly understand their psychic abilities.  I find nothing more pleasing to see the look on the faces of those who begin to understand that they have psychic abilities in some form or other,

26^th - Travelling a bit further this time to the Dunfermline Spiritualist Church (SNU). 3 Lady Campbells Walk, Dunfermline, Fife, KY12 0QH  A well established church which is always well supported,.

1^st / 2^nd June Aberdeen Bon Accord Spiritualist Church (SNU) a busy church with its own premises and has a dedicated committee working hard to promote Spiritualism and the Spiritual needs of the local community.

 

 

Both Isobel and I were involved in a car accident and although the car was a write-off we were lucky not to be seriously injured.

One never knows the minute when something like this will happen.  Two cars coming straight towards me on my side of the road as they over took a line of traffic approaching a bend.  In making an emergency stop the vehicle behind me ran into the back of our car.  We must thank police, ambulance staff, all those at the RAI Infirmary A&E department and the young lady who stopped to offer assistance.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I was wondering where I would try out my new camera for the first time, when the phone rang.  It was a friend telling me that she felt sad for a neighbour who would have to give up ownership of her cat because she was going in to a residential home.  My friend could not take the cat because she has an allergy to cats. All of a sudden the thought “Take photos of the cat” came into my head.  This I did taking over one hundred photos while using all the programmes on the camera.  

 Now at the rate of one a fortnight I sent a different photograph- A4 size - of Lucy to the old lady.  With the first photo I also sent a frame which the old soul changes photographs each time a new one arrives.   She may not have her friend running about these days but her eyes never need to travel far to find an image of 'Lucy'. 

 Getting used to my new camera opened a world to the old lady that she felt was gone forever.   Sending a new photo at two week intervals it will take around two years to exhaust the supply of photos I have of Lucy. 

If I had not got the phone call I would probably have gone to the botanic gardens or a local park to get used to the new camera.  Was this a good deed on my part,  or did I grab at the opportunity of a better challenge to try out the camera? A moving and unpredictable object rather than a stationary flower at the Botanic Gardens? 

Could we even look at it from a different angle, could there have been  an invisible force playing a part here?  Was there a little guidance from Spirit that I decided to act upon?  Did Spirit see an opportunity for me to get used to my new camera and in doing so would bring so much happiness to someone else at the same time?  Yes, I believe that to be so. Not just because  I took those photos of Lucy, but also hearing the countless similar experiences of others.

Jill the fourteen-year-old who did not know where the thought came from but suddenly felt as winter was approaching she should offer to get an elderly neighbour's newspaper every morning when she was out walking her dog at 7.30am.  She passed Mr Smith each morning going for his newspaper and although he still looked fit enough but she felt compelled to ask him.  When she did her elderly neighbour said that he had decided at the first bad spell of winter weather he was going to stop going for his daily newspaper.  As the newsagent did not deliver Mr Smith said he would do without a daily paper...

 Charles had made up too much plaster when doing repairs to the house. Just as he was about to discard the extra he got a feeling he should ask a widow over the back if she needed any plaster work done.  She did, as  part of the cornice in her living room had fallen down the day before.  When Charles knocked on the door she was looking up yellow pages for a plasterer.

 What do all three of our experiences have in common?

 1 – Sudden thoughts in our mind...

2 - These thoughts concerning doing something for others...

3 – Others that we did not know too well or not know at all...

4 – Delivering the newspaper, the plastering and taking the photos were all connected to helping out in situations that were troubling others at that particular time.  The timing I feel is the most important factor - the perfect time.  

 So – could all this be coming from the same source – guidance from Spirit?  Guidance we need not adhere to if we wish not too.  Jill, Charles and I could have received these little thoughts and decided not to bother.  Jill could have decided that there might be days when the weather was bad that she may want to stay longer in bed...  Charles could have decided that he could end up with a time consuming job for a neighbour and just binned the plaster.  I could have decided that I could have got used to my new camera without adding a 70-mile round trip on to the practice session.

Could this all be preparing for our 'next life' – all three of us gathering points for when we move over?   If this is the case then it could be easy to fake our way in the accumulation of ‘spirit points’.  Having realised what the ‘great plan’ is we do what the  'guidance' suggest but we don’t put caring / feeling / love into doing whatever it is will we gain as many points?  Maybe a silver star for acting when Spirit guides us into a situation and we carry the task our willingly.  A bronze star when we carry out the task but grudgingly.  And a gold star will only be presented when we are not prompted to helping in a situation - but we willingly help out without Spirit giving us the nudge.

 

 

David sent me an email which I have to think about.

“What individuals over the past few years have you admired for acting in a spiritual or selfless way, yet they were not part of the spiritualist movement?”

In no particular order; -   Dag Hammarskjöld, Anne Frank, Eric Liddle, Dalai Lama (Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lama) and  all those who work with the terminally ill

I will highlight one in each of my next five blogs... Starting with;  -

Dag Hammarskjöld Swedish diplomat, author and second Secretary General on the United Nations 1953 – 61.  He died at the age of 59 as the result of a plane crash which to this day some still consider to be suspicious...  Mr Hammarskjöld was called “the greatest statesman of our century" by President John F. Kennedy. He gained a reputation as a peacemaker, man of faith and a man of peace.  He treated all around him in the same way whether it is a junior member of his staff or a world leader...   If only today’s politicians and even we had Dag Hammarskjöld as a role model the world would be a much better place today.

 

 

 

 

 

I received the following email a few weeks ago.

 “Recently I attended Berkley Street Spiritualist Church, Glasgow and like the rest of the congregation I was humbled by the work of the medium* on the platform that particular evening.  It wasn't his work (which was to his usual standard) it was the fact that he took the service at all.  He put the needs of the congregation before his own.  He thought about those that may need the help.  You will understand what I mean when I say he was at his mother’s bedside the evening before when she went to the spirit world.  He did not want to let spirit and the congregation down so he fulfilled his booking. He travelled a round trip of one hundred miles, alone with his own thought.  But never flinching from what he felt was his duty in serving spirit.  When my own mother passed it was hard, I missed so much in the next few weeks.  He is a true Ambassador for Spirit”.

I have not mentioned the medium’s name as I have not been able to contact him.  When I do contact him and if he agrees I will definitely mention his name.

The term “Ambassador for Spirit” is often abused – it certainly in not in this case.

 

I have had many emails asking me about 'dowsing'.  It is a subject that I have little knowledge off.  So I asked a friend to explain his experiences with 'dowsing''.  Here is the first of the four chapters....

 

    EXPERIMENTS WITH METAL DOWSING RODS

 

                                    T.R. Dutton  ©                                                June 2012

         Chapt. 1                Young Scientists Lead the Way

 Sometime during the late 1960s, when TV sets were all of the black and white variety, I and my family watched a children’s programme, one of a series, with the title “Young Scientists of the Year”. Week by week during that series, school teams competed to gain that title and their efforts were judged by three scientists seated at a table. One programme, in particular, made a lasting impression on me and this is how I remember it.

 The Experiment

            A school team of junior pupils. under the direction of their science teacher, had been presented with a gridded ground plan of a local park. Their task would be to discover the layout of the land drains lying beneath the turf. The tools they were to use for this task were bent metal rods. We were told that each child had been equipped with two slender rods bent through 90º. These had been created from metal coat hangers, cut to size and with the 90º angle produced from one of the corners of each hanger. We were then shown film of the pupils at work in the park. We were told that they had been instructed to hold an image of a pottery drain pipe in their heads and to walk slowly over the grass holding the two rods before them. They would hold the shorter of the two arms of each rod very loosely in their clenched fists and point the longer arm ahead of them, holding it horizontally. Each long arm had to be able to swing about freely in a horizontal arc about the pivoting short arm, which was held vertically in the lightly clenched fist. The long arms had to be kept parallel, horizontal and balanced in unstable equilibrium.

            It was fascinating to watch the rods move in a meaningful way as each child walked along with eyes fixed on the rods to keep them balanced. When, suddenly, the rods swung across each other, the position on the ground below was marked in some way.  The results of the exercise were plotted onto the park keeper’s ground plan.

            In an attempt to resolve the nature of the forces causing the rods to cross, the exercise was repeated, but with the children walking on rubber mats. The results were as before. Correlation with the actual layout of the drains was shown to be high.

 The Scientists’ Appraisal

          Clearly, the disciplined nature of the experiment and the methodology adopted had impressed all three scientists. However, one elderly man with a cheerful countenance, sitting in the middle of the group, surprised everyone by producing a forked hazel twig from beneath the table, As he did so, he told us that he didn’t need convincing that dowsing worked, because he’d been doing it all his life. The school team got full marks for their efforts and for their understanding of the Scientific Method. If I remember correctly, at the end of the series, they were the acclaimed overall winners.

 An Inspired Response and First Experiments

      As soon as that programme finished, I hurried upstairs to our bedroom and searched the wardrobe for suitable wire coat hangers. They were few and far between, but two were eventually found, taken downstairs, cut to size and re-bent to produce the desired 90º angle. They are shown by Fig. 1. The short arm was 7.3inches (18.5 cm.) long, the long arm 15.5 inches (39.4 cm.) In practice, these produced a well-balanced set of rods, even though they were not of the same thickness, being of 10 and 12 SWG, respectively.

The first tests were carried out to locate the drains and water pipes hidden beneath the driveway. The ease and suddenness of the crossing of the balanced  rods was, at first, startling. There had been no sense of movement in my arms or hands to explain these sudden responses. In my imagination, my mind had been fixed on the pipes below ground and I had been preoccupied, with a blank stare, on keeping the rods balanced. Each time the rods crossed, I leant forward, sighting vertically downwards through the intersection,  moved one of my feet forward to mark the point on the surface below, took a piece of chalk from my pocket, bent down and drew a cross at the indicated location. This was done several times at different places on the driveway and then, by visually referencing the locations of drains and water tap access lids, it became apparent that I had successfully detected the courses of the pipes linking them.

            The first, subsequent, tests were carried out indoors, when the water pipe runs  beneath the floorboards were successfully detected.

            Moving into the garden, I began searching for imagined bits of rusty old iron buried under the lawn and borders and was, once more, amazed by the success rate achieved. After having detected something beneath the ground, I then began attempts to determine its depth below the surface. The intuitive method I used was to traverse over the same location, but with an image of a cross-sectional slice of the ground below me, including the undefined detected object, held in my imagination. On each traverse I imagined a certain depth and recited that depth to myself. The strength of response of the rods indicated how far that imagined depth was from the actual location of the object. This process was repeated until the strongest cross-over was obtained. The object (typically a rusty nail or a piece of an old garden tool), was usually found in that location and at that depth.

            During these early experiments in the rear garden, traverses across the lawn produced remarkable results.   It seemed that a large iron object occupied a rectangular slot deep below the surface. Its length was of the order of 6 ft. (1.8m) and its width was about 2 ft. (0.6m).  Depth gauging, using the technique previously described, suggested that it was situated about 6 ft. (1.8m) below the turf.  As I was not prepared to dig up the lawn to investigate it, it remains hidden to this day. Guesses about its nature ranged from a large coffin to a medieval cannon. The latter seemed most likely because the object was aligned with an old Tudor Hall about a mile away.

           During this period, a group of adult friends was invited round for an evening with us. I persuaded them to test their dowsing skills on the back lawn. After registering embarrassed amusement, they were impressed and surprised when the rods in their hands crossed without any effort on their part and without any prompting from me. The only person to fail to get a response from the rods was an elderly lady with multiple sclerosis (MS).  Visiting children seemed to have no difficulties.

            During the early 1970s, I decided to test my skills in a car park behind the wind tunnels department at HSA Ltd., Woodford, Cheshire, during a lunch break. It was a grit-covered area, featuring a large c.20ft. (6m) diameter steel sphere mounted on peripheral steel legs. This sphere was pumped up with air to 100 psi,(0.69MN/sq.m)  used to supply the adjacent Transonic and Supersonic Wind Tunnels.  From the lowest point on the underside projected a substantial steel pipe, about 18 inches (45 cm.) in diameter, which disappeared underground vertically. It then had to curve round the stanchions underground and, finally, to align with the Wind Tunnel building some distance away. The challenge I had set myself was to trace its underground path from beneath the sphere to the building it was supplying. I began by traversing back and forth under the sphere and, each time the rods crossed, I used the point of a rod to scratch a cross into the grit surface. As I progressed away from the sphere it became evident that each traverse has produced two grit crosses, which seemed to indicate the width (diameter) of the buried pipe. In other words, the rods were sensing the limits of the obstruction below: that is , where it began and where it ended, in plan view. As I progressed in that manner towards the building it was becoming clear to me that the pipe intersected the building’s outer wall at right angles. When I completed the exercise and stood beside the sphere, the grit crosses seemed to have created a very clear map of the pipe’s position beneath the car park.

            Next, I sought out the Head of  the Wind Tunnels Workshop during this lunch break period, because I knew he had been on-site when the high speed tunnels had been installed. Obligingly, he walked over to the car park with me, viewed my handiwork and confirmed that a supply pipe of the indicated diameter had been positioned as indicated by my crosses. This was another, albeit subjective, proof of the validity of my supposed dowsing skills.

            During these early years of investigation, my brother-in-law had been about to dig up a plot behind a new-build house, when I called on him.  He knew that this house and plot were located on the site of an old smithy. As I carried the rods in the boot of the car, I asked if I could do an orderly dowsing exercise, looking for rusty old iron, before he began digging. Being intrigued, he stood back and watched me progress in straight lines up and down the plot. Each time the rods crossed, I checked for the depth of the item. Brother-in-law soon became involved in the exercise and dug down to the indicated depth at each location ---- and was amazed when an old iron object (eg. a nail, an old bolt, a piece of broken ploughshare, etc.) was discovered at the depth indicated. This procedure was followed until I had checked over the entire plot, which was, from memory, approximately 50ft x 16ft. (15m x 5m), with a successful outcome at each indicated location. Some weeks later, on a return visit, the plot had been completely cultivated and brother-in-law told me that the only other item he had uncovered had been next to a boundary fence, which meant that I had been unable to check out that area. He had been impressed.