spiritual understanding | Author

Yes, your eyes are not deceiving you! It’s a spoof title; and why not? My first spoof title since the heady days of Aliens Ate My Grandmother etc. at the time of the so-called “shift”. I thought it was about time I spoofed things up a bit and gave you an update in the process.

You may remember that some months ago I said I was in the process of reinventing myself. I also announced that I’d unpublished all my books and took my CDs out of circulation. I still don’t know exactly what form the new me is going to take, but it seems that the wheels have started to turn slowly, so here I am. I have felt for a long time that I urgently need to broaden my horizons; and the best way to do this is to travel to different places. Up to now the stumbling block has always been the cost involved; travel being so much more expensive than it used to be, but now the means has materialised to enable me to see a bit more of the world. I’m starting fairly close to home, with a trip up to Northern Scotland. After that, there are so many options. I have he following itinerary in my head: Iceland, Cyprus, as many countries in mainland Europe that I can cram in, India (two trips) and Nepal.

In the meantime I have republished three of my books, (two as eBooks and paperback and one as a paperback only), and I’m in the process of reissuing two of my CDs. I’m also still doing my work as a medium, but this is something that I will be doing very little of in the future. The truth is that for many years now I have seen mediumship for what it is, and it has become nothing short of a chore. I simply cannot get excited about churning out the same old mundane messages anymore. I’m finding it more and more difficult to motivate myself as each demonstration rears its head in my diary. You see friends, the process of mediumship takes place at a very low level of spiritual understanding, and it simply does not resonate with me anymore; it no longer serves my soul.

Friends say to me, “ah yes, but it gives them comfort”, or, “it gives them hope”. That is true, but people have to realise that comfort and hope are “of the world”, and subject to relativity. You can’t go through life clutching at straws and expect it to get you somewhere; and when I’m the one offering the straws it gets downright boring. I feel that my creativity is being stunted. The comfort you get today will surely turn to discomfort before you can blink, because you are looking in the wrong place for what you seek. The only thing a medium can promise you is that all the fear, grief and pain that was torturing you when you awoke this morning, will still be torturing you tomorrow morning regardless of whether a medium gives you a message or not.

Spiritualism as a religion is sill puffing and wheezing its way towards the 21st Century and is not able to bring people out of the spiritual wilderness they find themselves in. Spiritualism relies on the existence of something that does not exist for its own existence; namely the separate self. If there were no messages the Spiritualist churches would be empty, and I don’t feel that I can continue to “feed” a lie. I intend to honour the bookings I already have for the rest of this year and next, but I will also have to cancel a few to accommodate my travel plans. I imagine that I will continue to serve a small handful of venues as long as I remain in the area. However, they will be the venues that have always been very supportive of me and where I have maintained excellent relationships.

It is also true to say that these days mediums are ten-a-penny, and there are plenty of them around to give people the kind of stuff that is craved by the “false self”. Whether we like it or not, the day must surely come when we have to accept that we are God and that there is only One of us!

As for me? Who knows? The doors of my life adventure are open, it’s just a matter of me having the vision to see this so I can enjoy the ride. Watch this space!

Continued from Part One. If you have not read part one or want a refresher, please click on the link below.

https://richardfholmes.org/2014/03/31/miracles-do-happen-part-one/

“Quite remarkably, within a few days things started to change”

The first thing I noticed was that even though my actual situation had not changed, my perception of it had. As you can imagine, I was still feeling quite frustrated at not being able to get about, but I was no longer worried. I could tangibly feel myself growing out of the situation; I could feel myself moving away from it. I could also feel the expansion of my soul beyond my physical body, although this is quite commonplace after the whole business of 2012. It also turned out that while all this was going on I only had to cancel one booking relating to my work as a medium. A couple of friends ferried me around to engagements and flatly refused to take any petrol money from me. Then, what I consider to be a miracle happened.

Out of the blue, someone just gave me £1000, yes it’s true; I was given £1000 and told I did not have to pay it back. So, with the bit of money I already had, I now had enough to buy a car that would be a bit better than just a runaround. Then something else happened that was more than just a coincidence.

I was now in a position where I had the means to buy a semi-decent car, but I still had no semi-decent car, and there was the little matter of my income. At this point I should add that for the previous two years I had been working as a volunteer complimentary therapist for a few hours here and there at a day services hospice not far from where I live. I decided at the outset that I wanted a job on the permanent staff and I was prepared to do any job that was going; it’s such a wonderful place, I just wanted to be more involved. The hospice closes over Christmas and New Year, and even though I had made it known that I wanted a permanent job there, it was not expected that there would be any vacancies until we were well into 2014, after an evaluation had been carried out.

So, I had a half-hearted look on the hospice website just prior to Christmas and sure enough there was no vacancies, except for a couple of jobs in the charity shops. By now it was Wednesday, January 10, and my first volunteer day of the new year was on Friday, 12 January. The journey is only a little over six miles, so with a bit of care I could use my car to get me there. On the Wednesday night I had another half-hearted look on the website and to my amazement, not only was there was a vacancy, but the vacancy was in the department where I worked as a volunteer; however, the closing date was Friday. I suddenly became frustrated; I’m not the greatest lover of application forms and decided that I was not going bother. It was too short notice and I was not going to rush the application. The next day though, something inside me told me to print off the application form and get it filled out. So with my new-found lease of life, I printed off the form and got most of it filled in. I completed it on Friday morning and handed it in when I went to do my volunteer work. I did not even expect to be called for an interview because I have no healthcare qualifications and I knew that fully qualified healthcare professionals would be applying.

About four days later I got a letter saying “come for an interview”. So, I thought to myself that I would go for the interview, but I would have no chance of getting the job. The interview date was also my next volunteer day. I had the interview after doing a therapy and left the building believing I’d made a complete hash of it. I was told that it would probably take 3-4 days to let me know the result as there was more applicants to interview. So I went home.

Two hours later I got a phone call; “we would like to offer you the job”. I was so surprised, the lady on the line had to ask me twice if I was going to accept; I just couldn’t believe it. Within a few days I got a letter of confirmation giving me a start date of 26 February; all I needed now was a car!

Just under two weeks before I was due to start work, my friend’s son took me to Bristol to look at some cars. The cars we went to look at were not suitable, but whilst we were there we “accidentally” saw a sign on a car parked on the side of the road as we were driving by. On the way back we stopped on the off-chance and rang the number displayed in the car window. Enter Marcus. He turned out to be a decent sort and we returned the next day to look over a selection of cars that Marcus was selling. I chose one (see Gladys below) and it was a case of alls well that ends well!

It’s amazing how life can take you down one day and lift you up again the next. It must be awful for people who do not have a spiritual understanding; I find life’s shenanigans stressful enough, so what must it be like for those who have no understanding of how creation functions? A couple of months previous I had finished reading the book When Everything Changes Change Everything by Neale Donald Walsch. It speaks of how the universe is in a constant state of flux and that by our very nature we are beings of change, because all is energy and in constant motion. So, having read that book I knew I had to simply accept that situation as being part of the latest phase of change in my life, in the knowledge that it was impossible for it to stay the same and would eventually be resolved. Compared to what others have to endure my situation was nothing, but in context to the way my life is at the moment it was potentially a huge problem; indeed, the old me would probably have had a breakdown.

Remember that we are always in control of our lives and it is not the situations we encounter that determine whether we are happy or not; it’s our perception of them!