Who Am I? Part Twenty Six

Posted on October 11, 2017 by Author Richard F Holmes

A typical scene in the area above Lampeter where I lived.

My room was upstairs in the main house, which was an old farmhouse. There was a tiny attached cottage and a separate wooden cabin where the landlady lived. There had been a female tenant in the cottage, but things had gone to the dogs between the tenant and the landlady. There was a clash of personalities, but the tenant continued to live in the cottage for months amidst the awful atmosphere, until eventually moving on. I said to the landlady before I moved in, that if things didn’t work out I wouldn’t hang around like the previous tenant, I would move out immediately. Little did I know that the scenario would rear its head so quickly! However, an amusing little story for you, which demonstrates the strange ways in which spirit work.

Soon after I moved in the landlady placed an ad for another tenant to occupy one of the other rooms in the house. Enter Keith… She had advertised for a non-smoking vegetarian, however, Keith smoked like a trooper and ate meat like it was going out of fashion. He came up to the house to have a look, and for reasons known only to the Gods, he was offered the room. The first night he was there, he went out into Lampeter and came back with a kebab. You couldn’t make it up; I don’t think the retreat ever once saw a morsel of meat until Keith moved in.

Another typical scene high up in the hills above Lampeter.

I wasn’t really happy at first, having to share with another bloke, but me and Keith hit it off. He was about 17 years younger than me, and thanks to my experience with having the entities attached to me, I was able to see that he was a troubled soul. He’d had quite a chequered life, having once been a squatter in Hackney, London and having gone through his drug period. We were chatting in the kitchen one night and he told me he was getting voices in the head, and they were telling him that his ex-girlfriend was from outer space and that she had killed herself. I knew straight away what it was and I was able to explain to Keith that I could help him. Thankfully, he was open to what I was saying and at the first opportunity I contacted Sue and John in Gloucester. They told me to tell Keith to be in the house at a certain time on a certain day and they would perform the rescue work absently. Just as we did when I used to sit with them, they did the work in one of the development groups. Keith never looked back after that. Over the years he obtained a couple of university degrees, which enabled him to become a social worker and mental health worker. I was really pleased for him, but I haven’t seen him in years. However, I digress…

It wasn’t long before I realised the harshness of what I’d let myself in for. That winter seemed endless and the nights up in the hills were long and dark. Of course, I’d visited during winter before, but only for a few days at a time. To now be actually living here was a different barrel of monkeys. I thought that all I needed to do would be to put up a few posters here and there and place a few ads, and the work would come flying in. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work like that. I made contact with the few spiritualist churches in the area, and so I was reaching a wider audience, however, you cannot earn a living by serving spiritualist churches, and for practical reasons you cannot have the same medium serving every week. Ironically, the bulk of my work was still in South West England. So, I’d moved to West Wales, but I was constantly backwards and forwards to the South West of England.

Another thing that I eventually found out was that even though this area above Lampeter was an area of outstanding beauty, it was also rife with negative Ley lines. It was no wonder that most of the people I encountered living up there had deep-rooted psychological problems; and that included my landlady. Ironically, most of them also worked professionally on a one-to-one or group basis with people who had problems of one sort or another, and yes, my landlady was an NLP practitioner, amongst other things! I will be the first to admit that I was not entirely innocent in things turning sour at the Court of Circles, but there was an incident that occurred one Saturday afternoon. I had a bit of a run-in with the next door neighbour who lived about 100 yards away. I’d gone out onto the quite narrow road outside and collected some twigs for kindling. After I got back inside the neighbour came to the door and accused me of stealing her twigs. She said I’d collected them from a stretch of road that was owned by her (this wasn’t true, it was a public road). She also accused me of climbing on her wall; this was also not true. I’m afraid I was less than polite, although I refrained from using bad language.

About a month later the neighbour crossed paths with my landlady and related this ridiculous story to her. My landlady believed the neighbour and that was the end of my stay at the Court of Circles. I decided I couldn’t live under these conditions and gave one month’s notice. She wasn’t happy, and there was an incident a few days after I gave her my notice of leaving, where she was screaming at me from across the kitchen table. It was all pretty dark stuff, but things were rolling in my favour. I’d got to know Keith’s mum and stepdad, and there was a music venue in Tregaron where we would sometimes go on Friday nights. This was before the smoking ban, but it was a non-smoking venue, which was really good. I went there this particular evening; it was only a matter of two hours after I’d been confronted by my landlady over “the mysterious incident of the stolen twigs”. I was telling Carol and Bruce what had happened. Bruce said they were thinking of installing a caravan on their land, and if I wanted I could rent it from them. I didn’t need asking twice.

In the meantime I’d been booked at what was a new venue for me, near Banbury, and I’d also been asked to go to Copenhagen to run a weekend meditation workshop, and do some private readings and healing. I’d taken to teaching like a duck to water, and my development group in Trowbridge had been very successful; in a way it was a shame that I had to leave it. But the feedback I got from the people who sat with me was great and I know they missed working with me. So things were looking up. Now, I will just say, that this period is going to run into yet another post because it will be much too long otherwise. So, I think part 27 is going to tie up all the loose ends bringing us up to April 2005. The roller coaster is about to gather speed!

Who Am I? Part Twenty Four

Posted on October 4, 2017 by Author Richard F Holmes

Just prior to moving into Sad Steve’s place, another friend of mine, Rob, approached me and said he was looking for a lodger. I told him that I was looking to move, but after we agreed that I would rent a room from him, he had big problems in his personal life and it all fell through. However, it would rear its head again before long. So, I was doing well in the spiritual development group in Gloucester and I had moved into Sad Steve’s house. So far, so good.

Another friend of mine, Jacqui, that I knew from working on the call centre, had left the company, taken her kids and moved to Swansea to do a university course. Jacqui was a single mum and I’d always admired the way she took life by the scruff of the neck every time it tried to batter her down. We had got on well and kept in touch, and we had arranged for me to go and visit her; it was during the time in the UK when we have three bank holidays in quick succession, but I can’t remember which particular one it was. A day or two before I was due to set off, I had a phone call from John Geis. He asked what I was doing on the coming Saturday at around 11:00 am. I said I was going to Wales; why? He said he wanted me to come to the centre because they “wanted to bring me on spiritually”. I thought, “how convenient”, I had to drive right past the centre on my way to Swansea. I felt rather pleased with myself; I was obviously doing so well in the group that they wanted to elevate me to new heights. Well, it wasn’t quite like that…

When I got there I was ushered into the healing room, where I saw four chairs arranged in a circle. There was John, his wife Sue, and another lady who had been going to the centre for a long time. We sat around in a circle and John laid it on me. There had been a healing workshop at the centre a few weeks previously, and a lady that I’d worked with during the course of the day had told John and Sue that she’d felt something really negative around me. John and Sue have ways of investigating these things and they proceeded to tell me that I had several negative entities attached to me. They also explained the implications and went on to say that in all likelihood, they had been there for many years. It explained so much. This would have contributed greatly to the terrible depression that I experienced; it explained not being able to get to sleep during my darkest times, it explained the intensity of the pain I experienced and it also explained how my mood could change so quickly. These are all classic symptoms of entity attachment. People who don’t understand the concept of having entities, either attached to a property or a person, tend to call these things poltergeists or evil spirits.

It seems I’d been summoned in order that John, Sue and the other lady could carry out what we call “rescue work”. In other words, they would remove the spirit attachments and send them back to the light in order that they too could carry on their spiritual journey. Religion tends not to understand this kind of thing and still employs the extremely cruel and outdated method of exorcism. Exorcism simply invokes horrendous energies that chase the “stuck” soul away. Exorcism does not guide lost souls back to the light, so all that happens is that they end up somewhere else and have to start all over again. Normally, if an entity is in a house and causing ructions, it’s not because it’s evil. It’s simply trying to attract attention because it needs help. Of course there are exceptions to the rule, but that is a story for another day. It was an interesting experience, which once commenced, was over quite quickly. This was yet another step forward.

Some weeks later it emerged that there was another stage of cleansing that I had to go through that would finally allow me to leave my old sad self behind. This was something that came along unexpectedly and it wasn’t very nice. We were sitting in our development circle one Tuesday night, and during one of our meditations, I had the most horrific experience. It is not relevant to go into details but I can explain the concept. Imagine that a motorbike has revved up and driven away. The bike is soon out of sight, but you can still hear the engine in the distance, and even as the sound of the engine fades away, you can still smell the exhaust fumes. Well, that is the same principle as what I experienced. I’d had a lot of inner “stuff” dissolved via a combination of the operation in Chelmsford, the removal of the entities and the discipline of attending the development group and my own meditation regime. However, the exhaust fumes of my past were still hanging around; and it was the dissipation of these exhaust fumes that gave me the very unpleasant experience during the meditation. But the blackness from the cesspit that had formed within my soul was now gone forever. I was free from my past.

Before long I started to go out with Sue and John when they were serving Spiritualist churches. I would do the reading, if it was a Divine Service, and also one or two mediumistic messages. Come June 2002 I was out on my own. Then by the end of 2002 I was asked to run a development group of my own in Trowbridge. I was suddenly extremely busy. I was working full-time, sitting in the development group on Tuesdays (except if I had a church booking as a medium), I was running my own group every other Wednesday and I was serving churches at weekends (although it was not every weekend). It was still a very busy life, and in march 2002 another change was instigated.

I was at work one day at the utility company when the phone rang. I was surprised to hear that it was Rob on the other end. He wanted to know what my living situation was. I told him I was living at Sad Steve’s and how it was driving me up the wall. He apologised profusely for what had happened before and said that things had changed and he was looking for a lodger. His relationship had broken up (again) and he wanted someone he knew and trusted. Rob and I knew each other from the gym, we had become friends through our common interest of being fans of Chelsea FC. I accepted his offer. It was again very cheap, although not quite as cheap as Sad Steve and there would be none of this “no visitors after 9:00 pm” rubbish. Living at Steve’s had served a purpose, but it was now time to move on. Living with Rob was not without its problems and in October 2003 I was on the move again. Watch this space; we are heading for some incredible times…

Who Am I? Part Nineteen

Posted on August 16, 2017 by Author Richard F Holmes

When the fertilizer hit the fan at work I found that I still had a job, but not the one I’d been doing. It is not relevant to go into too much detail here so many years after the event, instead I will simply relate the main points. The marketing division was unrecognisable from that day in mid December 1998, when the “Swindon crew” rocked up in Reading for the first time. There had been many comings and goings, new jobs, but mainly for people with specific qualifications and young graduates. It was apparent that I was a fish out of water; at one point I was turning up for work in the knowledge that I didn’t really have a job. It was clear to me that I did not fit into the model of the division and that I was on borrowed time. Things got quite intense when I put up resistance to what was happening to me. It didn’t go down well that I was fighting my corner. I remember it being a terrible feeling, working in a place where I didn’t actually have a job. It was also obvious to all my workmates as well, but in the corporate world there is no room for sentiment and it was all about self-preservation. I could see that Gary and Huw were not comfortable with what was happening to me, but Gary had a position of great responsibility and had to get on with his own stuff. Huw as well; his job changed drastically and he was flying, but I will always respect that through that difficult time they remained friends.

Things eventually came to a head when my stubbornness won me a battle. However, it did not win me the war, because I turned up for work one day and the stress of everything had finally taken its toll. I sat down at my desk and had a pain above my eyes. I had not been myself for months; I’d not been sleeping well, drinking every night and with the realisation that I was now a “dead man walking”, having irritated management even more by winning my little battle against them, I had nothing more to give. I was spent. I was told to go home and I would spend six months off work with an acute stress related illness…. And it was the best thing that ever happened to me! Meanwhile…

The open circle became very frustrating. I was like a caged lion, hungry for knowledge of the spirit, and I wasn’t going to get it in a spiritualist church. But, while I was off sick I encountered Sue and John Geis; they ran a spiritual development centre in Gloucester. I got chatting to John at a charity clairvoyant night at Swindon Town Football Club in September 2000. I’d met him before when he’d been working at the church. John’s wife Sue was one of three mediums working that night and I, along with my friend (also called Sue) were helping out with the teas. We were chatting and out of the blue John asked me if I would be interested in developing spiritually. I didn’t need asking twice and I gave him my number. Hold that thought…

We were now into the new millennium and me and Sue, the graphic designer, were history; we had split for good around April 2000. I was off work from early September 2000 to March 2001, and that was a crazy time for me. I was full of anger and hatred towards those at work who I considered were responsible for my plight. The negative emotions festered within me and I became more bitter with each passing day. At first Huw kept in touch, and when Gary was in town we would meet up. But I became a very difficult and negative person to be around and eventually the phone stopped ringing.

It was just me, in my flat above the hairdressers, with my booze, my hatred and my anger. I hadn’t felt like this for a few years, but in that time of misery, every now and then, out of the blue, the phone would ring and it would be Sue. It was probably at this time that I realised what I’d lost. It was apparent that Sue Crewe was an exceptional human being with a heart of gold. She was genuinely concerned about me; even though she was now in a new relationship with a man she would eventually marry and have two lovely children with. She still thought about me and made the time to get in touch. I am eternally grateful for that. meanwhile….

It was around 1999 that I started having strange experiences in the early hours of the morning. Hold that thought because I’m going to elaborate in the next post.

There were some very significant events during my time in the grip of my self-made hell. I’d started trying to meditate. It was my own version but it suited where I was on my journey. I’d also got to know of a book called, “Discover Your Psychic Powers”, by an author called Tara Ward. Not the sort of book I would read today, but very significant indeed back then. It was one of those books that gives you exercises to do. I remember one day I was reading a particular chapter, and there was an exercise that was about forgiving those who you perceive to have done you wrong. The hackles went up and I put the book down in disgust. I wasn’t going to forgive anyone! It must have been a few months later (as I’m quite a slow reader) that I came to a passage that said, “please refer to the exercise on page …”. I leafed back through the book and to my disgust I saw it was the exercise about forgiving people. Once again I shut the book in a defiant mood; there was no way I was going to forgive those b*#*##*!!!!!!!

A few days later something inside me felt that if I was encountering this exercise twice, there must be something in it. I felt that someone, somewhere was trying to tell me something. I decided I was going to give it a go, but it took me a couple of days to psyche myself up, such was the depth of my anger and hatred. The time came and I sat down to do the exercise. I remember that I kind of put my own spin on it. I did a meditation, in which I divided all my “enemies” from work into two groups, men and women. I visualised that I encountered all the men one by one in the street. I greeted them, shook them by the hand and wished them well on their way. I then visualised encountering the women, greeting them with a friendly hug, producing a bunch of flowers from behind my back and giving them the flowers as I wished them well on their way. It wasn’t that difficult. When I’d finished I stood up from my seat and to my amazement I had the tangible experience of feeling something rising up inside my stomach. I realised years later that this was my kundalini rising after so many years of being stuck.

The next significant thing to happen was that in between the Christmas and New Year of 2000/01 I got a phone call out of the blue from John Geis. He said he was starting up a new closed circle in January and would I like to participate. It was manna from heaven for me and I snapped up the chance. But that wasn’t all! He said that before the circle begins there is a chance, if I want, to attend a meditation workshop at their centre. I jumped at the chance to do this as well, and what a choice it was. In all the time I’d been going to the spiritualist church I’d never had any proper guidance with regard to meditation. But in the space of a few hours on this particular Saturday I experienced an explosion within my being of epic proportions. I’d never experienced anything like it in my life and my new adventure had begun.

I’m so glad to have been able to write two blog posts in such quick succession, as my chronic fatigue has not been very kind to me since my return from Nepal. Thanks for your patience!