What Do You Do With Something You Can’t Explain?
Can you be spiritual and sceptical at the same time?
I've been to séances where I've sat there thinking, ohh someone's moving that glass.
I've also sat about three feet away from a woman in broad daylight and watched her face change.
So you could say my relationship with all things spiritual is slightly complicated. 😂
I've been fascinated by Healing, mediumship, spirit and the things we can't quite explain since I was about ten years old. I'm 59 now, so that's nearly fifty years of curiosity, and more than thirty years of actually exploring Healing and mediumship for myself.
I've experienced things I still can't explain. I've also seen things I haven't believed for a minute, which is probably why I've never understood the idea that you have to be either a believer or a sceptic. I'm quite happily both.
I don’t believe everything
Years ago, I went to a séance in a completely dark room. The medium was sitting on a chair inside a curtained-off area and had been cable-tied to the chair by his arms and legs.
Once it started, there were voices apparently moving around the room, lights appearing in different corners and what felt like spirit hands touching people's faces and arms. Towards the end there was an enormous bang and, when the lights came back on, the chair had somehow moved into the middle of the room. The medium was still tied to it, but his cardigan was now on backwards.
I know. 😂
It was one of the first demonstrations like that I'd been to and, while it was happening, it was quite believable.
But something felt off. There was almost too much going on and we came away wondering whether we'd just been completely mugged off. Since then, I've come across descriptions of remarkably similar séances, which hasn't exactly changed my mind.
I've had the same doubts about much quieter things. I've sat with Ouija boards and wondered whether somebody was moving the glass, and I've watched mediums give information so general that I've wondered whether they were simply reading the person in front of them.
Some mediums I've seen have been completely wrong. Others, particularly in spiritualist churches, have seemed absolutely genuine, even when the information they were giving didn't necessarily land.
I also think there are people who deliberately play on grief and vulnerability, which I find particularly difficult. Wanting to hear from somebody you love can make you incredibly vulnerable to somebody who tells you they can make that happen.
But if those were the only experiences I'd had, I probably wouldn't still be interested in all of this so many years later.
Because I've seen the other side too.
What if they know something you don't?
I've had some extraordinarily accurate mediumship readings, including after Mum and Dad died, where I've been given detailed, personal information that I genuinely couldn't understand how the medium could possibly have known.
One that has always stayed with me was a psychic drawing reading I had years ago. The medium drew somebody she believed she was connecting with while giving me information at the same time. I felt she was describing my grandma and, when I later compared the drawing with an old photograph of her, the resemblance was striking.
During that same reading she gave me a very specific piece of information about my family history. I told her she was wrong. I genuinely didn't know what she was talking about and, as far as I was concerned, what she was describing hadn't happened. Afterwards I checked with my family and discovered that she was right.
I hadn't known the information myself, which makes that experience rather difficult for me to explain away as the medium simply picking up clues from me. It doesn't prove where the information came from, of course, but all these years later I still can't tell you how she knew it.
That's the distinction I find interesting. I don't have to leap from I can't explain that to therefore it must have been spirit. But equally, I don't have to pretend something wasn't extraordinary simply because I can't prove what happened.
Sometimes I’m simply left wondering
One afternoon I was sitting with a friend as she was experimenting with transfiguration, a form of mediumship in which the medium's appearance can seem to change.
I was about three feet away from her in ordinary afternoon daylight when her facial features began to look different. Even her hair seemed to change while it happened. This wasn't something I caught out of the corner of my eye in a dark room; I was sitting there looking directly at her.
What made it even more interesting was discovering afterwards that other people had seen changes in her facial features too. I hadn't known that before my own experience, so I wasn't sitting there waiting to see something I'd already been told might happen.
Again, does that prove I saw something spiritual?
No.
But I saw something, and I still don't know what caused it.
After after nearly fifty years of being fascinated by this stuff, I think that's where I've ended up. I believe there's more to this. I just don't believe everything.
I've seen enough questionable stuff to be sceptical, and I've experienced enough extraordinary stuff to remain very curious.
I don't think we have to choose between the two.
Something to try
If you've ever had an experience you couldn't explain, start an ‘I can't explain that’ note on your phone or in a notebook.
You're not starting a paranormal investigation and you're not trying to prove anything! You're simply recording unusual experiences before time, memory and other people's opinions start adding things to the story.
Write down what actually happened as plainly as you can. What did you see, hear, dream, feel or notice? Who else was there? Had anybody suggested beforehand what you might experience?
Then look for the obvious explanations. Could it have been a reflection, coincidence, expectation, somebody feeding you information, a dream influenced by something you'd been thinking about, or something else perfectly ordinary?
And if there's anything you can check, check it.
That's what made the psychic drawing reading so interesting to me. I thought the medium was wrong, so I checked. She wasn't.
Sometimes you'll probably find a perfectly ordinary explanation. Sometimes you won't.
Either way, you don't have to decide what you believe before you've even looked..
Stay curious. Ask questions. See what you find.
And if you're still left with something that makes you think, How the hell did that happen? I'd love to hear about it. ❤️
with love
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