My Dairy... “Our Daughter” (An amazing story in a father’s own words of his daughter’s illness, passing and proof of survival)... A Psychic Investigation Beneath Glasgow Central Station.... The Inter Faith Network and Spiritualism... The Duration of a Spiritual Service...

 

...My Diary...

 6^th – 10^th  We were down in Warickshire and spent a day in Cambridge...

11^th – It was a pleasure to help out at the Glasgow Association’s Bring and Buy Sale... (SNU)

12^th – I took the service at popular  Coatbridge Spiritualist Church.

16^th – 18^th – We are heading south again this time to Oxfordshire...

21^st –In the opposite direction to the well attended Dalneigh Spiritualist Church in Inverness.

23th – It is always a pleasure to join forces with the Kilmarnock Church Development Circle. (SNU).

25^th – A busy day with first helping out at Glasgow Central’s (SNU) coffee afternoon and then on to Falkirk Spiritualist Church (SNU) in the evening.  The latter could be doing with a little more support, so if you stay in the Falkirk area why not pay the church a visit. 

Sunday – 6.30-8pm Divine Service....  Tuesday – 6.30 – 8pm Healing .8 – 9pm  Service with mediumship.... Saturday – 7 – 8.15pm Service with mediumship

26^th – Atrocious weather conditions meant that my journey to Largs Spiritualist Church (SNU) did not run smoothly.  Instead of my usual mode of transport to Largs I left the car at Glengarnock station and went by train. But that was only as far as Kilwinning as overhead cable problems and I had to take a taxi on the final lap to the church.  The medium must get to the church on time.

29^th – The fourth of my five well attended classes on “The Basics of Spiritualism and our Psychic Abilities”.

30^th – A short journey to ASK Dreghorn.  A very welcoming church that could do with a little more support.  So Spiritualist in the Dreghorn and Irvine areas why not pay the church a visit at Townend Community Centre, 15 Townfoot, Dreghorn,  KA11 4EQ.

 

 

 

 

                                            Our Daughter.

 Beautiful, sensitive with a lively interest in others.  This young woman was 29 years old with a husband and two small children.  Well loved by all, her cheery manner brightened up many a sad time.  The diagnosis of inoperable cervical cancer was all the more shattering because inoperable means it’s bad but she looked so well.   The next two years were a roller-coaster of emotions as treatment gave hope, tears, relief, then again worry, anger and helplessness as we watched our beautiful child bravely lose her battle.

The surgeons eventually told me and her husband that there would be no more chemotherapy but the painkillers would be increased.    I was devastated and on our return home I felt afraid to enter her bedroom.  She asked me “What did he say dad?”  I told her “Love isn’t going to be enough this time”.  She said “I have been trying to tell you but you that but you wouldn’t accept it”.  I broke my heart and we cried together as my child tried to reassure me, her father who had always fixed things before.  She seemed calm, at peace and even slept better.  I know that some of you have been in the same awful situation but this explanation is needed in order to tell about the extra ordinary happenings later.

We were advised to try healing and contacted the Glasgow Association of Spiritualists in Somerset Place.  The healers were so helpful and kind to us.  As our daughter weakened they came to us on home visits only asking for a cup of tea for their valuable time and commitment.  The temporary pain relief, more colour to her cheeks and brighter eyes testified to the benefits of these visits...  She asked so many questions like “What do you see when you die?”  “What will I feel” and “What will I do at the last moment?”  My wife and I sat by her bed and played haunting songs of Charles Lansborough.  He is a very special performer who writes good songs like “My Forever Friend”.  Our daughter commented on seeing her grandmother who had passed on and who she was very fond off.  We couldn’t see anything but as her last few days passed she began talking to her granddad too.  She hugged them and was hugged by them, describing them as we sat wishing we could see and hear them.  She was now off all medication saying to her doctor that healing was all she needed.

The Hospice sent the senior doctor to check why; when the pain should have been unbearable she was not taking anything.  He left accepting the strange circumstances.  Our daughter smiled through her ordeal and apologised to her mother for the personal care that she needed day and night, having refused the available nursing volunteers.  It was difficult watching my wife tend the baby she had given birth too.  Our daughter seemed to spend hours in a quiet dream like state, but when she spoke to us she told us that she had been in a wonderful place.  As she described it her eyes lit up.  I now believe she was lifting in and out of her body in a sort of trial run.  As she talked, we as her parents were forced to admit that the greatest loss we ever had to cope with was about to happen.  My wife asked our daughter “If there is life after this, let us know”, and the reply “Watch for the butterfly”.

She passed at 6.15 on a cold snowy morning in January.  My wife minded me to observe that our daughter was covered by what looked to be a haze of steam or mist.  We felt that we had to say goodbye and told her we loved her.  I previously believed that death was slow shutting down of the body as it died.  Now I felt, holding her hand, and my wife holding her other hand, a powerful sensation like a whoosh of energy as she left her body.  It felt similar to sitting on a plane at the end of a runway, then whoosh – you feel it go.  Powerful and strong, yet leaving a frail body that could not possibly have supplied the energy to blast out of it in that way.  “She has gone” we told each other.  Gone yes, but not died but actually gone somewhere.

The weather for the week of her funeral was the coldest for a century, minus 18 degrees according to the press.  The service was taken by the Rev Jim Biggins, Minister of Glasgow Association of Spiritualists of Somerset Place and close to 300 attended.  The coffin lay between two open curtains.  The minister told us to all be happy because the body is just a shell and the spirit flies free.  As if on cue a Red Admiral butterfly flew out from between the open curtains, dancing and fluttering over the first few rows of people.  As they pointed to it, the buzz of conversation caused the Minister to pause and look around.  The butterfly seemed to be excited and wanted to be noticed, not behaving like usual types.  Our granddaughter said “Sure that’s my mummy isn’t it.

Many people went on to the reception a few miles away.  There a friend came up to me and said “You must see this”.  Outside on the frosty glass window was another butterfly wings beating and very much alive.  This one was larger but an unlikely visitor in the extremely cold conditions outside.  We thanked our daughter for the pure love that crosses between this word and the next.  I checked the butterfly world and was informed that no Red Admiral would be alive in minus 18o of icy conditions let alone fly so energetically.  The reference library tells me that the Red Admiral is called “the messenger”.  I believe the Greek word for it is “psyche”.  The Native American sign for spirit is a “butterfly”.

On the morning she passed our telephone rang a few times despite being unplugged from the wall socket.  Our daughter promised “to set dad up with the phone – you watch” in a letter we received later.  Her children saw her in the woods just briefly on a family visit.

We are ordinary folk still trying to come to terms with all this, but we consider ourselves lucky that we were shown something that perhaps others are more aware off by study or natural awareness.  Until we see our daughter again we have been helped.

I hope that our story will have helped you a little.  A little piece of a huge jigsaw is all we see for now.  Someday we will all understand the bigger picture.

Our thanks to the Glasgow Association of Spiritualists.

Name withheld for family reasons.

 

Glasgow's Central Station has started running behind-the-scenes tours taking in everything from the huge glass roof to derelict tunnels deep underground.  I felt privileged to be asked by the Scottish Ghost Club to take part in an investigation – note ‘investigation’ not ‘ghost hunts’ as many paranormal organizations call such evenings.  So on 31^st August 2012 I descended into the depths of Glasgow Central Station.   Full official report can be found on the www.ghostclub.org.uk/gc_invest_main.htm 

 

 

 

The SNU is one of the four new organizations recently accepted to the Inter Faith network.  The others being the Pagan Federation, the Druid Network and the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints.

The Inter Faith Network for the UK works to promote understanding, cooperation and good relations between organisations and persons of different faiths in the UK.  The IFN provides opportunities for linking and sharing of good practice, providing advice and information to help the development of new inter faith initiatives and the strengthening of existing ones. It also raises awareness within wider society of the importance of inter faith issues and develops programmes to increase understanding about faith communities, including both their distinctive features and areas of common ground.

David Hopkins, SNU Minister, author and broadcaster is the Inter Faith Ambassador for the SNU.  I have great respect for the Rev Hopkins who writes some excellent articles in his regular monthly contributions to the Psychic News”.

Bryn: - ideally, how long should a Spiritual service last?

An interesting question... I would say 75-80 minutes. 10/15 minutes for the address, 40 minutes for the clairvoyance and 15 minutes for the reading, hymns/music and for absent healing.