Mediumship
& Communication
Jenny's Sanctuary
29th November 2006
The following is a brief(ish) description of the events of the night
of the 29th November 2006. This is my own record of what happened and
I’ve also had it cross checked and edited/corrected by Christine
who was also there. Whereas I was some 15 feet from the Medium, Chris
was less than 9 feet away. So her comments are interesting in validating
much of what I could not see clearly.
All Chris’s comments are highlighted with
are shown in brown.
Over the past few years, I’ve heard many, many people talk about
how things were different in the old days, when there were physical mediums
who could provide physical phenomena to prove the existence of life beyond
‘death’.
More than a few of the very best mediums today talk of having attended
the rare occurrence of a physical circle or séance in the past.
I’ve personally met and got to know a few of these such as Chris
Batchelor, Aileen Davies, Gerard Smith, Eric & Heather Hatton, Margaret
and Hugh Davies and I’ve heard second hand stories from several
others.
I’ve also spent a week at Stanstead Hall were there have been more
than a few physical séances recorded and an extensive library/museum
of history & photographs of past physical mediums.
However, nothing I’ve experienced first hand has ever been conclusive
and the photographic evidence of the past has been more than a little
flaky to say the least –if not downright dubious.
But despite all this, I had had enough personal experience of Spirit,
Mental Mediumship and Spiritual Healing to want to experience for myself
a physical circle.
I had heard of one medium in the UK ‘Stewart Alexander’ who
practiced this, but you had to be invited to join his closed séances.
And I didn’t know anyone well enough who could wangle me an invite
Recently though, I was reading about a physical medium who was making
a lot of headlines in Australia, who had at one time practiced in the
UK, David Thompson.
I looked into the available info in the web and found there was a sanctuary
that was still running physical circles & then, hopping links from
site to site, I came across the name of a friend I’d made briefly
8 months ago, who is setting up a separate physical circle with the aim
of going from Trance to Physical mediumship.
**Comment from Chris; Yes indeed. I am now using
1/3 of my remaining life savings to have a building for this sole / soul
purpose. Such is the strength of interest in this project.
I made contact again over email and found that she was an active attendee
of the UK circle, which in fact hold a physical séance every 3
weeks. You needed to apply for an invitation, so I completed the formalities
on line and within a few weeks found myself waiting expectantly in the
foyer of Jenny’s Sanctuary, where Warren Caylor was going to go
in to a trance and for the next 3 hours, would allow Spirit to use him
as a vehicle to manifest into the physical world.
Not knowing what I was going to see or experience, wanting to be convinced
beyond doubt but also not wanting to be duped or fooled by fakes and fraud.
I submitted to the physical searches and took my place in the séance
room.
Warren was strapped into the chair, arms secured by Velcro straps that
would be clearly audible should anyone attempt to undo them, then heavy
duty plastic cable ties were fastened around his wrists, binding his arms
to the chair & his ankles were tied together with rope. Another rope
was secured around his chest and the back of the chair.
At each stage volunteers (7 in total, all first time visitors –I
confirmed this with chris who is a regular and none of the volunteers
had been there before) were asked to come forward and check the fastening
and tighten any that seemed at all loose (one cable tie was tightened).
I was at this time, no more than 15’ from the chair and witnessed
first hand that he was well and truly fixed.
**Comment from Chris; I was at most 9ft away and
verify this. Oh…and the door was sealed, and chairs moved to close
the Circle across the doorway.
He was wearing jeans, t-shirt and a sweatshirt, a gag was tied around
his mouth and a cotton pillowcase was placed over his head.
Finally the curtain was drawn across, the last of the lights were removed
(literally from the sockets) and we were plunged into total darkness.
The red lamp was switched on.
**correction from Chris: The last of the white lightbulbs
were removed from their sockets. After prayer and at signal from Warren
(his skin tremors). The red light was switched off and there was total
darkness.
Straight away, the group leader started the CD and two songs were played
to allow Warren to go into trance.
**We were asked to remain totally silent for this
period.
Almost immediately, some noises, tapping and clicking, could be heard
and before the end of the second track, a loud voice (Rachel) announced
her presence.
At this point, any lingering fears of ‘spooks’ evaporated
and my sense of ‘discernment’ went up by a factor of ten.
If you’ve ever been to a cheap Punch and Judy show at a fair (one
where the puppeteer hadn’t even invested in one of those widgets
(swatchel?) to make his voice sound like Punch
& Judy, and was just doing his best to imitate one vocally) you will
immediately know what the voice of ‘Rachel’ sounded like.
**How true!
To say I was not convinced was something of an understatement and I immediately
relaxed completely (which probably helped a lot!).
**Exactly how I felt at the first séance
I attended!
Rachel was nothing if not entertaining, so despite sounding like a poor
imitation of P&J, she was fun to listen to.
Mind you, for a bloke tied up I a chair, gagged and bound, she was very
loud. …and she did seem to be coming from different sides of the
room at times.
**Yes…she did.
Although being sat right in the back corner, I didn’t have the best
view and it was easy to be disorientated in the total blackness.
To raise the energy in the room various music tracks were played of well
know tunes and medleys of pop songs which we all sang along to with varying
amounts of gusto.
**I think it
was Yellow Feather first, it usually is as he is the brains behind the
spirit team. Tom was
next to appear. Tom is supposedly a spirit child, very mischievous. Again
his ‘voice’ was still less than convincing and sounded more
like Punch with a very sore throat than a small boy.
However, he picked up one of the “clanger” whistles (the ones
with the slider to vary the pitch) and started to accompany his favourite
tune (flight of the bumble bee I think it was). This actually started
to get interesting then, because as he got faster and faster, it started
to sound as if there were more than one whistle being played, notes seemed
to be overlapping and the speed and accuracy of the pitch was amazing.
You’d have to spend a lot of time practising one of these to be
able to get every note spot on and at such a rate as well.
**Also…the sound moved around….
And one of the recurring themes
of my doubts came to the surface. Why? I mean, why would anyone bother
to go to such ends to fake it. OK, there were 40 people there at £30
a head, that’s £1200 for the night. Not bad true, but for
once a month, and then shared out between the medium, the sanctuary owner
Ron, plus all the participants who’d need to be ‘in on it’.
**AND Warren sits for development in the same situ
three times each week…without pay....and has been going through
all this for two years!
They’re obviously not faking for financial reward.
& repeating it once every 3 weeks? That’s a fair commitment
in time and energy just for the satisfaction of pulling a fast one and
convincing an audience who let’s face it, for the most part didn’t
need convincing anyway, and if they did, they’re hardly the movers
and shakers of the scientific world!
**AND….Jenny’s Sanctuary was started
by Ron, who’s daughter Jenny committed suicide. I realise that Hitler
and Saddam H may have appeared to be great husbands and fathers…but
c’mon….is Ron Gilkes a heartless charlatan who plays on his
daughters suicide in order to dupe people? Jenny’s sister Jackie
also often sits in the circle.
A routine was by then established;
some form of physical phenomena and then followed by some music to rebuild
the energy.
Various spirits came and went, luminous objects were seen to fly around
the room, lots of jokes (your sense of humour definitely survives the
grave!!) continued for about –I guess- an hour. I was still at this
time thinking that there were some clever shenanigans going on somehow,
although I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what it was.
Then things started to get
really interesting.
Rachel explained to the circle that with each sitting that went by, Spirit
were developing the medium and pushing the boundaries that limited their
ability to manifest. “Would we like to see the ectoplasm under the
red light for ourselves?”
Well, I for one wasn’t about to say no.
After some more rousing singing,
Ron was given the instruction to turn on the small red light on the floor
in front of the medium for 5 seconds.
As the light went on, I stretched the rules about sitting perfectly still
and ensured I could get a decent view.
There in the light, was Warren, still securely fastened to his chair,
hands feet and chest bound and gagged –but MINUS his sweatshirt
and t-shirt, bare-chested with what looked like a cross between cheesecloth
and Jello coming from his nostrils and from around his (still in place)
gag.
**Yes….this is exactly what the stuff looked
like.
Then after the light went out
again, Rachel asked if everyone had seen it clearly. A few of us from
the back called out ‘No’.
We were asked if we would like to see it again, but this time with the
medium lifted out of the ‘cabinet’ (actually more of a cotton
tent than a cabinet). “So you’d like him levitated in to the
room, turned to face you, and see the ectoplasm in the light? You don’t
want much then do you!!” Was Rachel’s response.
Then again after the songs
and countdown, the light was switched back on and the chair had been lifted
up, moved 10” or so and swung into the room so that those at the
back could see. We were given 8 seconds of red light.
Warren by the way is no Colin Fry in the physical department – he’s
got to be at least 15 stone (**he’s 16 stone
+ ‘cos I asked him!) and to move him, two strong men would
have been needed to lift the chair.
And I kid you not, there was
no mistaking what was visible. This ‘stuff’ was very clearly
there and it didn’t look solid.
**I was seated
about 8ft…say 9ft away from the cabinet. Work it out. Lay an A4
on your desk. A chair space is 3ft square (allowing a seated person leg
space). The cabinet is across a corner and I know the cabinet to measure
3ft 6ins square. The music and tape set up takes, what 2ft 6ins? So we
are 6ft from the corner so far.
Beside the tape set up sits Ron (aged 70 ish). Beside him sits Sylve.
Both these ‘belong’ to the sanctuary. A chair is then beside
me, across the corner. Here sits a ‘regular attendee’ (who
sits in a circle elsewhere). I am next. Beside me is another regular (who
attends the same circle as the girl on my other side). There’s a
woman further along again, I don’t know her at all (newbie?). Right.
In front of me was Jean (who is a friend of Ron’s). Beside her was
John (a regular attendee) who is …ummm…bloody huge! His bulk
overlapped his chair and he was touching Jane as a result. Also his chair
groaned whenever he shifted his weight. His chair slid back when he stood
up at the end of the séance, it slid on the carpet, the chair frame
was of the curved slidey type. Jean and John were approx 4ft from the
cabinet. NO way could ANY of us in that corner have moved without disturbing
the others. Therefore…if one was fraudulent…..we were all
fraudulent. I assure you that if I spotted fraud they would be in big
trouble. I am a good friend and love openly and loyally and can be trusted
to life-saving lengths….but I’m a very nasty enemy.
As the evening progressed more
Spirits came into the room and although the physical phenomena were plentiful
–banging drums, whistles, voices, levitating luminous objects and
flying paper & charcoal –they could easily be set against the
fact that it was pitch black & I had absolutely no evidence that there
wasn’t some form of collusion taking place -other than the fact
that I could think of no possible reason why anyone would want to go the
effort, and how many people would be required to be involved (plus the
fact they would need to be equipped with the ability to see well enough
in complete darkeness to avoid all the miscellaneous stuff on the floor
& there was lots of it) **Yep.
Another point was that it was
charcoal that “Tom” used to write on the paper. So anyone
cheating would have got charcoal on their hands –I suppose it could
have been cleaned off in the dark, but if that was the case, why make
life difficult and not just use a biro?
What really made it for me
though was the voice/projection of Luther, Albert and Magnus. These were
no fairground imitations. There was a clarity, depth and quality to these
voices that was not of this world. The sheer volume was more than anyone
other than a really top stage performer could give (more like Brian Blessed
might sound). **Yes.
The spirits –especially Luther and Magnus- clearly had a greater
wisdom & that was transparent in their voice. A clarity of understanding
and some philosophical questions posed from the audience were answered
with an amazing eloquence.
In this second half of the
evening, these spirits (Yellow Feather, Magnus and Albert –Luther
didn’t come back), proceeded for the first time ever, to walk amongst
the sitters and allow them to proactively touch the manifested spirits.
**Yellow Feather allowed 4 sitters to feel pure
ectoplasm in the manifested hand and to feel fingers being formed from
the source ectoplasm.
** This hand was holding a luminous plaque. Ron has given me one of these.
It is a 4” square of plyboard with fablon stuff stuck to it. This
plaque was shown around the room from a height of 4ft up to ceiling height.
**Magnus walked
across the room (this is the first time he has done this). He also allowed
three people to feel his materialised fingers and ectoplasmic palm.
Much more of the same continued
for the remainder of the 3 hours. –I even got used to Rachel’s
‘odd’ voice and even quirkier laugh. …If it was voice
projection it was bloody good and someone is missing their vocation (and
a small fortune) on the stage!
Magnus finally brought the
evening to a close and Warren was brought back. And when the lights were
eventually restored he looked absolutely awful. Like he’d really
been through the wringer. Yes.
He was still secured –hands and feet- and the tie wraps had to be
cut off. He was allowed to retrieve his clothes (they’d been flung
to the back of the room) and re-dress. He then left and went off to regain
his composure.
He came back into the ante room later and his fatigue and energy (or lack
of) was palpable. He looked and felt like I used to feel after finishing
a 10 hour night shift in the care home. Looking at him more deeply -as
I would if he had come to me for healing-, I could easily see how much
of his physical and spiritual energy had been depleted.
**When the
lights went on there was a chair on top of the cabinet.
We all dispersed back in to
the ante room for tea and bread rolls (much appreciated after a 3.5 hour
séance)
The room was left open and I was free to go back in and give the room
a good look over. There was definitely no signs (visible to me) of trickery.
The chair (what was left of it!) was 100% solid and real. No fake arms,
hidden catches or anything. It was old, tatty and well worn solid wood.
The upholstery was in tatters.
I inspected inside and outside of the flimsy curtain cabinet. Nothing
there but a homemade (& not expertly at that) wooden frame and thin
black curtains.
It was stood against the corner of the room and nothing appeared to be
behind it.
There was some basic CD/ tape player there, that was presumably the source
of the music and a tape recorder that was used to record the whole séance.
No loud speakers any where, they’d have to be buried in the wall
and even then, that couldn’t explain the movement around the room
by voices.
**The walls are painted, not woodchip or anaglyptic…to
hide indents.
So, could it have been faked?
I couldn’t rule it out completely because I was at the back of the
room and didn’t have a great line of sight plus I didn’t experience
any personal physical phenomena.
However, there were plenty there (one of whom who had introduced me and
I certainly trust) who were sitting inches away from the action and who
would have certainly detected any suspicious behaviour.
**You bet!
I for sure, personally witnessed
what appeared to be ectoplasm first hand. I for sure, saw the medium physically
levitated 2 or 3 inches off the chair –but my position in the room
could have been better, I didn’t get a really clear view of that
part. His chair seat was handed around at one point,
whilst he was being levitated. (I didn’t see this part at
all from where I was at the back of the room -Jon)
The projected voices of Luther, Albert and Magnus were convincing to me
and the philosophy and discussion that Albert entered into with the audience
seemed both genuine and fascinating. **Yes.
I came away disappointed I
didn’t get more first hand experience (those at the front both saw,
heard and physically experienced materialised spirits) which left plenty
of room for doubts for me.
The levitated objects looked genuine, but again the distance and the darkness
could have allowed anything to be going on. Although I’m sure those
closer to the action were far more convinced.
I’d say that last night I was 90% convinced and today in the light
of day, I’d say I was 75% sure.
I absolutely want to go back
now to experience it a second time, hopefully from a slightly better vantage
point if possible.
There was certainly a group
energy that carried you along and it was easy to ‘suspend’
any doubts in the heat of the moment.
However, no matter what my logical mind keeps telling me, I go back to
the power and depth of the speakers. And the ultimate question: What would
be the point of faking it?
So I’m going to ask to
be invited again and am thoroughly looking forward to removing the last
lingering doubts. **Yep!
…and one other thing. I don’t expect Anyone else to believe
me. If you weren’t there, it would be hard to accept any of this
…and as a medium, I should have an open mind and be ready to accept
many things that I would have dismissed in the past out of hand - &
I still found myself questioning it …and I was there!
I deliberately told absolutely
no-one before I went, not even my wife and I trust her completely, because
I didn’t want anyone else’s past experiences, stories or personal
preconceptions to colour the experience. I wanted to go as open minded
as I was possibly able to be.
So I’m going back –if they’ll have me- and I will document
the second impressions afterwards. Good!
BUT:
Ignore my experiences completely and come to your own conclusions for
your self. This is just a record of 3 hours of my life. My own record,
to keep for myself to capture everything from memory whilst it’s
still fresh.
Roll on December, I can’t
wait!
Jon
**Jenny’s
Sanctuary:
Ron Gilkes (old gent with specs)….Father of Jenny who commited suicide.
Jackie (Jenny’s sister)…she wasn’t there on Wednesday.
Jean (Ron’s friend)….bright pink outfit.
Ozzy…thin guy.
Silve (slim lady at the door).
Terry (Silve’s wife).
Julie…Warren’s fiancée.
Six of these
sit in séance with Warren three times each week for his development.
|