My Life As a Medium. Betty Shine
without expectancy of reward.’
There was a pause, and Nathan murmured, as though he were speaking to another presence. Still staring at the corner of the room, Valerie asked, ‘What is happening?’ 1 had to tell her that I didn’t know. It must have been two minutes before Nathan spoke again.
‘I have your mother here but she can’t show herself yet, she doesn’t know how. She hasn’t been here very long.’ Nathan continued, ‘She wants me to tell you that we both love you very much and you are to stop crying every night because you live alone. You must believe that you are not alone – there are so many people here who give you love and comfort. You only have to believe that and the loneliness will disappear. Your aunt, Greta, wants to send her love also. I have to go now, my darling. You must believe that life is everlasting. If you do not believe that, then life will not be worth living.’
Valerie looked at me, still crying. ‘Everything you have told me is true. I’m terribly lonely, I have no friends.’
‘Have you ever thought about having a pet for company?’ I suggested. ‘There are so many unwanted animals around. And it would be a way of giving. When you are a giver rather than a taker you will find that your generosity will return to you tenfold.’ Then, changing the subject, I asked her if she had recognized my description of the watch. ‘Yes,’ she said bitterly. ‘I suppose some Nazi has passed it on to his son.’
‘Valerie,’ I said, ‘it is only a watch. What you have received today is worth a thousand watches. I’m sorry I have to ask, but did your father die in a concentration camp?’ It was quite apparent, having seen her father, that they were Jewish.
Tears were still running down her cheeks as she answered. ‘Yes. My mother and I escaped with my cousin, but my father was picked up at work before he had a chance to hide.’ She gave me an odd look and said, ‘If I’d known you were a medium, I wouldn’t have come for healing. I’ve always been afraid of this sort of thing.’
‘Are you still afraid?’ I asked.
‘No! But I am shocked. However, this experience has been so beautiful I shall never be afraid again. I could actually smell my father’s tobacco when he was speaking to you. Could you smell it?’ she asked.
‘Yes, but then I’m used to the aromas manifested by spirit people.’
We talked for some time, and when she was ready to leave she kissed me and said, ‘I’m going home to think very carefully about my father’s words.’
It was at this point that Nathan materialized. The wonder and joy on Valerie’s face was a sight to behold. She walked toward him, arms outstretched, but as she did so, he faded. She looked at me, ‘Where has he gone?’ she asked.
I assured her that he was still there even though we were unable to see him, and that he must love her very much to make such a supreme effort to show himself. Valerie hugged me. ‘I will never forget this as long as I live,’ she said.
When Valerie had left I walked back into the healing room. It was so charged with energy that I felt as though I was walking on air. I sat down and thought about the first message I had ever received – a simple message from a mother to her daughter. Then, as I recalled the emotionally charged sitting I had just experienced, I realized just how far I had come in being able to handle the sheer power that had exuded from Valerie’s father as he gave his message to his daughter.
At this point I would like to go back to the beginning of my mediumship and share the magic of my journey with you. It was not an easy journey by any means.
I had never been particularly interested in other people’s lives, so one of my first questions was, ‘Why me?’ It was a question I was to ask myself many times over the following years. As the messages I received always made sense to somebody, I was never afraid that I was going mad. I simply was not interested, and so tried to block out the voices. Because of my lifelong interest in health, it was the healing aspect that fascinated me most – so the spirits used every opportunity to pass on messages whilst I was healing. It was almost as though they were saying, ‘If you listen to us and pass on our messages we’ll help you with the healing.’ Oh yes, make no mistake! They were prepared to bribe me.
If I had been in a giving frame of mind it would have been easier for both sides. But I wasn’t. My children had left home and, for the first time since marrying at the age of twenty, I had time to enjoy myself. Life begins at forty-five, I thought. And it did, but not in the way I had envisaged.
My main reason for trying to block out the voices was the emotional strain it put upon me. Healing was stimulating, exciting, and I had studied alternative healing for most of my adult life. I felt that I could use that knowledge in conjunction with the energies to produce good results.
Mediumship, however, was a mystery. Although my grandmother had been a medium and we all looked upon her as someone very special, it had never dawned on me that I would inherit her gifts, so I had paid very little attention to her interests. I was only ten when I was evacuated, during the Second World War, and saw very little of her from that time. The war separated many families in this way. The simple fact was that I loved being a healer but hated being a medium. Fortunately for me and for many others this changed, and this book is about my training as a medium by spirit entities.
They spent an enormous amount of time and energy dealing with my eccentricities – and I had many. Ignoring my pleas to be left alone and my threat to give up healing they continued to try to pacify me and to encourage ‘survival evidence’. For this I am now truly grateful. But it was quite a different story at the beginning.
Although I had been guided by a spirit voice from the age of two, I was still shocked when, during my forty-fifth year, my friend’s late mother spoke to me and asked me to pass on a message to her daughter, who happened to be with me at the time. When I had finished relaying the message my friend looked at me and said, ‘I didn’t know you were a medium.’ My response was, ‘Neither did I!’
In my first book, Mind to Mind, I described my visit to a famous medium and how, during the session, he had told me that I would be a great healer and that my name would become known around the world. He also explained that I was mediumistic and that I would be using this gift for clairvoyant diagnosis, amongst other things. That was twenty-two years ago, and everything he forecast has come true.
Much has been written, by myself and others, of my healing abilities, but I have never mentioned the inner conflict that I suffered as I tried to come to terms with the fact that people who were supposed to be dead were actually trying to communicate with me. And that overnight the energy floodgates had opened.
And if that was not enough, spirit forms began to build up around me. One day, whilst my daughter Janet and I were having tea in the kitchen, I happened to glance through the open door leading into a large hall. A huge funnel of blue energy had formed in the centre of the hall, and as I stared a man appeared inside the structure. He had long white hair and wore a white robe. A quick glance at Janet told me that she was wondering why I was ignoring her and staring through the door. I explained, in a whisper, what was going on and asked her to turn around. Her reaction was to tell me to close the door as she would rather not see it. I didn’t, of course, as I was completely fascinated by the phenomenon. Then the entity looked straight at me with a kindly but concerned expression. My first thought was, ‘If he is worried, how does he think I feel!’ The vision slowly disappeared and as it did so I experienced a feeling of emptiness and desperately wanted it to return. It was a sensation that was to become part of my everyday life. At the time I was upset by Janet’s refusal to share my experience. I was to find out much later that she had her own unique path to follow.
While I was relaxing that same evening, the faces of different nationalities manifested on the blank walls of my living room. The images vibrated as they continually changed. I remember looking at them in fascinated disbelief, wondering what on earth was going on. This continued for about one hour.
Retiring to bed did not help either. When I looked up at the ceiling I could see an eye, about the size of a dinner plate. This phenomenon was something I had experienced from