Phsyical Mediumship West London

Bloomsbury - Holborn - Covent Garden - Seven Dials - Soho - Fitzrovia - Westminster - Marylebone - Mayfair - St. James'S -

Pathway to Spirit, via Joan Hughes is committed to promoting physical mediumship. Over the coming months we intend to expand the website to include articles on physical mediums, some well known, for example , and other mediums, less well know.

These county pages will be devoted to local groups where physical mediumship is of interest, and also provide a place for publication of physical circle activity.

Please feel free to send us an update from you circle's activities and let us have any news or articles you think relevant to physical mediumship. Contact Joan Hughes for advice on sitting in physical circles. See also information on the development circle at Swadlincote Spiritualist Church..

Notice Board for this Area

Nothing to post for this area as yet. In the meantime here is an extract from one of my favorite books, "The Power of Now".

All cravings are the mind seeking salvation or fulfillment in external things and in the future as a substitute for the joy of Being. As long as I am my mind, I am those cravings, those needs, wants, attachments, and aversions, and apart from them there is no "I" except as a mere possibility, an unfulfilled potential, a seed that has not yet sprouted. In that state, even my desire to become free or enlightened is just another craving for fulfillment or completion in the future. So don't seek to become free of desire or "achieve" enlightenment. Become present. Be there as the observer of the mind. Instead of quoting the Buddha, be the Buddha, be "the awakened one," which is what the word buddha means. Humans have been in the grip of pain for eons, ever since they fell from the state of grace, entered the realm of time and mind, and lost awareness of Being. At that point, they started to perceive themselves as meaningless fragments in an alien universe, unconnected to the Source and to each other. Pain is inevitable as long as you are identified with your mind, which is to say as long as you are unconscious, spiritually speaking. I am talking here primarily of emotional pain, which is also the main cause of physical pain and physical disease. Resentment, hatred, self-pity, guilt, anger, depression, jealousy, and so on, even the slightest irritation, are all forms of pain. And every pleasure or emotional high contains within itself the seed of pain: its inseparable opposite, which will manifest in time. Anybody who has ever taken drugs to get "high" will know that the high eventually turns into a low, that the pleasure turns into some form of pain. Many people also know from their own experience how easily and quickly an intimate relationship can turn from a source of pleasure to a source of pain. Seen from a higher perspective, both the negative and the positive polarities are faces of the same coin, are both part of the underlying pain that is inseparable from the mind-identified egoic state of consciousness. There are two levels to your pain: the pain that you create now, and the pain from the past that still lives on in your mind and body. Ceasing to create pain in the present and dissolving past pain - this is what I want to talk about now.

Nobody's life is entirely free of pain and sorrow. Isn't it a question of learning to live with them rather than trying to avoid them?

The greater part of human pain is unnecessary. It is self created as long as the unobserved mind runs your life. The pain that you create now is always some form of non acceptance, some form of unconscious resistance to what is. On the level of thought, the resistance is some form of judgment. On the emotional level, it is some form of negativity. The intensity of the pain depends on the degree of resistance to the present moment, and this in turn depends on how strongly you are identified with your mind. The mind always seeks to deny the Now and to escape from it. In other words, the more you are identified with your mind, the more you suffer. Or you may put it like this: the more you are able to honor and accept the Now, the more you are free of pain, of suffering - and free of the egoic mind. Why does the mind habitually deny or resist the Now? Because it cannot function and remain in control without time, which is past and future, so it perceives the timeless Now as threatening. Time and mind are in fact inseparable. Imagine the Earth devoid of human life, inhabited only by plants and animals. Would it still have a past and a future? Could we still speak of time in any meaningful way? The question "What time is it?" or "What's the date today?" - if anybody were there to ask it - would be quite meaningless. The oak tree or the eagle would be bemused by such a question. "What time?" they would ask. "Well, of course, it's now. The time is now. What else is there?" Yes, we need the mind as well as time to function in this world, but there comes a point where they take over our lives, and this is where dysfunction, pain, and sorrow set in. The mind, to ensure that it remains in control, seeks continuously to cover up the present moment with past and future, and so, as the vitality and infinite creative potential of Being, which is inseparable from the Now, becomes covered up by time, your true nature becomes obscured by the mind. An increasingly heavy burden of time has been accumulating in the human mind. All individuals are suffering under this burden, but they also keep adding to it every moment whenever they ignore or deny that precious moment or reduce it to a means of getting to some future moment, which only exists in the mind, never in actuality. The accumulation of time in the collective and individual human mind also holds a vast amount of residual pain from the past. If you no longer want to create pain for yourself and others, if you no longer want to add to the residue of past pain that still lives on in you, then don't create any more time, or at least no more than is necessary to deal with the practical aspects of your life. How to stop creating time? Realize deeply that the present moment is all you ever have. Make the Now the primary focus of your life. Whereas before you dwelt in time and paid brief visits to the Now, have your dwelling place in the Now and pay brief visits to past and future when required to deal with the practical aspects of your life situation. Always say "yes" to the present moment. What could be more futile, more insane, than to create inner resistance to something that already is? What could be more insane than to oppose life itself, which is now and always now? Surrender to what is. Say "yes" to life - and see how life suddenly starts working for you rather than against you.

Phsyical Mediumship West London

Extracts from Robert Monroe's Journey's out of the Body

Monroe and told him only that the results had been encouraging, and that he should write down an independent account of what he had experienced for later comparison against our independent accounts. On the evening of the experiment, Mr. Monroe had the following experience, which I quote from the notes he mailed me: "Evening passed uneventfully, and I finally got into bed about 1:40 A.M., still wide awake (north-south position). The cat was lying in bed with me. After a long period of calming my mind, a sense of warmth swept over my body, with no break in consciousness, no pre-sleep. Almost immediately, I felt something (or someone) rocking my body from side to side, then tugging at my feet! (I heard the cat let out a complaining yell.) I recognized immediately that this had something to do with Charlie's experiment, and with full trust, did not feel my usual caution (about strangers). The tugging at the legs continued, and I finally managed to separate one Second Body arm, and held it up, feeling around in the dark. After a moment, the tugging stopped, and a hand took my wrist, first gently, then very, very firmly, and pulled me out of the physical easily. Still trusting, and a little excited, I expressed willingness to go to Charlie, if that was where he (it) wanted to lead me. The answer came back affirmatively (although there was no sense of personality, very businesslike). With the hand around my wrist very firmly, I could feel a part of the arm belonging to the hand (slightly hairy, muscular male). But I could not "see" who belonged to the arm. I also heard my name called once. "Then we started to move, with the familiar feeling of something like air rushing around the body. After a short trip (seemed like five seconds in duration), we stopped and the hand released my wrist. There was complete silence and darkness. Then I drifted down into what seemed to be a room. . . ." I've stopped quoting from Mr. Monroe's notes at this point, except to add that when he finished this brief trip and got out of bed to telephone me it was 2:05 A.M., his time. Thus the time match with my wife and I beginning to concentrate was extremely good: he felt the tug pulling him from his body within a minute or so of when we started to concentrate. On the other hand, his continuing description of what our home looked like and what my wife and I were doing was not good at all: he "perceived" too many people in the room, he "perceived" me doing things I didn't do, and his description of the room itself was quite vague. What do I make of this? This is one of those frustrating events that parapsychologists encounter when working with poorly controlled phenomena. It is not evidential enough to say that it was unquestionably a paranormal effect, yet it is difficult simply to say that nothing happened. It is comfortable to stick with our common-sense assumptions that the physical world is what it seems to be, and that a man (or his sense organs) is either located at a certain place and able to observe it or he is not. Some OOBEs reported in the literature seem to fit this view, while others have a disturbing mixture of correct perceptions of the physical situation with "perceptions" of things that weren't there or didn't happen (to us ordinary observers). Mr. Monroe reports a number of such mixed experiences in this book, especially his seeming to "communicate" with people while he is having an OOBE, but their never remembering it. The second puzzling "experiment" occurred in the fall of 1970 when I briefly visited Mr. Monroe in Virginia, en route to a conference in Washington. Staying overnight, I requested that if he had an OOBE that night, he should come to my bedroom and try to pull me out of my body so I could have the experience too. I realized at the time that I made this request with a certain amount of ambivalence: I wanted him to succeed, yet another part of me did not. More on that later. Sometime after dawn that morning (I had slept somewhat fitfully and the light was occasionally waking me), I was dreaming when I began vaguely remembering that Mr. Monroe was supposed to try to get me out of my body. I became partially conscious, and felt a sense of "vibration" all around me in the dream world, a "vibration" that had a certain amount of indefinable menace connected with it. In spite of the fear this aroused, I thought that I should try to have an OOBE, but at that point I lost my thread of consciousness, and only remember waking up a while later, feeling that the experiment was a failure. A week later I received a letter from a colleague in New York, the well-known parapsychologist Dr. Stanley Krippner, and I began to wonder if it really was a "failure." He was writing to me about an experience his stepdaughter, Carie, who I am quite fond of, had the same morning I was having my "dream." Carie had spontaneously reported to her father that she had seen me in a restaurant in New York City on her way to school that morning. This would have been roughly about the time I was having the dream. Neither she nor her father knew that I was on the east coast. What do I make of this? This was the first time in years that I had consciously attempted to have an OOBE (I have never, to my knowledge, succeeded), and while I had no conscious memory of having one, a friend reports seeing me in a restaurant in New York City. Even more puzzling, I would have no desire in the world to go to a restaurant in New York City, a place I dislike intensely, if I were having an OOBE, although visiting Carie and her family is always very pleasant. Coincidence? Again, something I would never present as scientific evidence of anything, but something I can't dismiss as meaningless. This last incident illustrates an attitude toward OOBEs that I nave observed in myself, although I do not like to admit it, which is that I am somewhat afraid of them. Part of me is very interested in the phenomenon scientifically, another part of me is excited at the prospect of personally experiencing it. A third part of me knows that an OOBE is something like dying, or opening up part of my mind to an unknown realm, and this third part is not at all anxious to get on with it. If OOBEs are "real," if the things Mr. Monroe describes cannot be dismissed as an interesting kind of fantasy or dream, our world view is going to change radically. And uncomfortably. One thing that psychologists are reasonably sure of about human nature is that it resists change. We like the world to be the way we think it is, even if we think it's unpleasant. At least we can anticipate what may happen. Change and uncertainty have possibilities of unsettling things happening, especially when that change doesn't take account of our desires, our wills, our egos. I have tried to talk mainly about straightforward scientific studies of OOBEs in introducing this book, but now we get to what may be the most important aspect of the subject. Mr. Monroe's experiences are frightening. He is talking about dying, and dying is not a polite topic in our society. We leave it in the hands of priests and ministers to say comforting words, we occasionally joke about it, and we have a lot of aggressive fantasies about other people dying, but we don't really think about it. This book is going to make you think about death. You are not going to like some of the things it says and some of the thoughts it inspires. It will be very tempting to dismiss Robert Monroe as a madman. I would suggest that you not do that. Neither would I suggest that you take everything he says as absolute truth. He is a good reporter, a man I have immense respect for, but he is one man, brought up in a particular culture at a particular time, and therefore his powers of observation are limited. If you bear this in mind, but pay serious attention to the experiences he describes, you may be disturbed, but you may learn some very important things. In spite of being afraid. If you have had an OOBE yourself, this book may help you to be less afraid, or to develop your potentials for this experience into a valuable talent. Read the book carefully and examine your reactions. If you really want to experience it yourself, good luck! CHARLES T. TART Davis, California January 10,1971

The following ordinarily would appear in a foreword or preface. It is placed here on the assumption that most readers skip such preliminaries to get to the meat of the matter. In this case, the following is the crux of it all. The primary purposes for the release and publication of the material contained here are (i) that through dissemination as widely as possible, some other human beingâ€” perhaps just oneâ€”may be saved from the agony and terror of trial and error in an area where there have been no concrete answers; that he may have comfort in the knowledge that others have had the same experiences; that he will recognize in himself the phenomenon and thus avoid the trauma of psychotherapy, or at the worst, mental breakdown and commitment to a mental institution; and (2) that tomorrow or in the years to come, the formal, accepted sciences of our culture will expand their horizons, concepts, postulates, and research to open wide the avenues and doorways intimated herein to the great enrichment of man's knowledge and understanding of himself and his complete environment. If one or both of these aims are served, whenever and wherever it may be, this is sufficient reward indeed. The presentation of such material is not designed for any particular scientific group. Rather, the principal attempt is to be as specific as possible in language understandable to scientists and laymen alike, with avoidance of ambiguous generalities. The physicist, chemist, life scientist, psychiatrist, and philosopher may each use more technical or specialized terminology to state the same premise. Such interpretation is expected. It will indicate that the plan of communication is workable, that the "plain" talk does convey the proper meaning to a wide base rather than to a narrow pinnacle of specialists. It is expected, too, that many interpretations will be contradictory. The most difficult mental process of all is to consider objectively any concept which, if accepted as fact, will toss into discard a lifetime of training and experience. Yet much has already been accepted as fact on far less direct evidence than that presented here, and is now "accepted." It is the hope that the same will apply to the data included here. It is indeed the most difficult mental process of all, this objective-consideration business. Once in a lifetime is enough. Let's look for a beginning to this candid report of a highly personal experience. In the spring of 1958 I was living a reasonably normal life with a reasonably normal family. Because we appreciated nature and quiet, ours was a country environment. The only unorthodox activity was my experimentation with techniques of data learning during sleepâ€”with myself as the chief subject. The first sign of deviation from the norm took place on a Sunday afternoon. While the rest of the family had gone to church, I conducted an experiment by listening to a particular tape recording in a highly isolated environment It was a simple attempt to force concentration on a single intelligent-signal source (aural) with lowered signal input from the other senses. Degree of retention and recall would indicate the success of the technique. Isolated from other sights and sounds, I listened to the tape. It contained no unusual or stray suggestion. Most significant in retrospect was the strong suggestion to remember and recall all that took place during the relaxation exercise. The tape ran its course with no unusual result. My recall was thorough and complete because it had been a product of my own efforts and thus familiar to me. Perhaps too much so, as no retention and recall of original or new material was possible in my case. The technique would have to be utilized with some other subject When my family returned, we all had brunch, which consisted of scrambled eggs, bacon, and coffee. Some unimportant controversy occurred at the table, which was not germane to the problem. A little over an hour later, I was seized with a severe, iron-hard cramp which extended across my diaphragm or solar plexus area just under my rib cage. It was a solid band of unyielding ache. At first, I thought it was some form of food poisoning from brunch. In desperation, I forced myself to regurgitate, but my stomach was empty. Other members of my family who had eaten the same food showed no signs of illness or discomfort. I tried exercising and walking, on the assumption that it was a cramped abdominal muscle. It was not appendicitis, as my appendix had been removed. I could breathe properly in spite of the pain, and my heart appeared normal in pulse rate. There was no perspiration or other symptoms whatsoeverâ€”just the hard, tense, locked-in-place rigidity of a band of muscles in the upper abdomen. It occurred to me that perhaps some factor in the recording had caused it In going over the tape and the written copy from which it had been made, I found nothing unusual. What suggestion there was, I complied with, seeking to relieve any unconscious suggestion that might have been applied. Still, no relief. Perhaps I should have phoned immediately for a doctor. However, it didn't seem that serious, nor did it become any worse. But it didn't get any better, either. Finally, we did phone for medical help. All of the local doctors were away or playing golf. From one-thirty in the afternoon until around midnight, the cramp and pain continued. No typical home medication seemed to alleviate it. Sometime after twelve I fell asleep from pure exhaustion. I woke up in the early morning, and the cramp and pain were gone. There was muscle soreness throughout the afflicted area, much as one gets from overcoughing, but no more. What caused the cramp in this area is still unknown. It is mentioned only because it was the first out-of-the-ordinary event, physical or otherwise, that took place. In retrospect, perhaps it was the touch of a magic wand, or a sledge hammer, although I didn't know it at the time. Some three weeks later, the second major event entered the picture. There had been no further recorded tape experimentation, because the suspicion was strong that the cramp was somehow related. Thus there was nothing that apparently triggered the event. Again, it was a Sunday afternoon and the family had gone to church. I lay down on the couch in the living room for a short nap while the house was quiet. I had just become prone (head to the north, if that had any meaning), when a beam or ray seemed to come out of the sky to the north at about a 30Â° angle from the horizon. It was like being struck by a warm light. Only this was daylight and no beam was visible, if there truly was one. I thought it was sunlight at first, although this was impossible on the north side of the house. The effect when the beam struck my entire body was to cause it to shake violently or "vibrate." I was utterly powerless to move. It was as if I were being held in a vise.

Shocked and frightened, I forced myself to move. It was like pushing against invisible bonds. As I slowly sat upright on the couch, the shaking and vibration slowly faded away and I was able to move freely. I stood up and walked around. There had been no loss of consciousness that I was aware of, and the clock showed that only a few seconds had elapsed since I had stretched out on the couch. I had not closed my eyes, and had seen the room and heard outdoor noises during the entire episode. I looked out the window, especially to the north, although why and what I expected to see, I don't know. Everything looked normal and serene. I went outside for a walk to puzzle over this strange thing that had happened. Within the following six weeks, the same peculiar condition manifested itself nine times. It occurred at different periods and locales, and the only common factor was that it began just after I had lain down for rest or sleep. Whenever it took place, I fought myself to a sitting position, and the "shaking" faded away. Although my body "felt" the shaking, I could see no visible evidence that it was doing so. My limited knowledge of medicine envisioned many possibilities as the cause. I thought of epilepsy, but I understood that epileptics had no memory or sensation in such seizures. Furthermore, I understood that epilepsy is hereditary and shows signs at an early age, and neither was evident in my case. Second was the possibility of a brain disorder such as a tumor or growth. Again, the symptoms were not typical, but this could be it. With trepidation, I went to our longtime family physician, Dr. Richard Gordon, and explained the symptoms. As an internist and diagnostician, he should have had what answers there may have been. He also knew my medical history, such as it was. After a thorough physical, Dr. Gordon suggested that I had been working too hard, that I get more sleep and take off a little weight. In short, he could find nothing wrong with me physically. He laughed at the possibility of a brain tumor or epilepsy. I took his word for it and returned home relieved. If there was no physical basis for the phenomenon, I thought, it must be hallucinatory, a form of dreaming. Therefore, if the condition came again, I would observe it as objectively as possible. It obliged by "coming on" that very evening. It began some two minutes after I lay down to sleep. This time, I was determined to stay with it and see what happened rather than fight my way out of it As I lay there, the "feeling" surged into my head and swept over my entire body. It was not a shaking, but more of a "vibration," steady and unvarying in frequency. It felt much like an electric shock running through the entire body without the pain involved. Also, the frequency seemed somewhat below the sixty-cycle pulsation, perhaps half that rate. Frightened, I stayed with it, trying to remain calm. I could still see the room around me, but could hear little above the roaring sound caused by the vibrations. I wondered what would happen next. Nothing happened. After some five minutes, the sensation slowly faded away and I got up feeling perfectly normal. My pulse rate was up, evidently due to the excitement, but no more. With this result, I lost much of my fear of the condition. In the next four or five occurrences of the vibration, I discovered little more. On one occasion, at least, it seemed to develop into a ring of sparks about two feet in diameter, with the axis of my body in the center of the ring. I could actually see this ring if I closed my eyes. The ring would start at the head and slowly sweep down to my toes and back to the head, keeping this up in a regular oscillation. The time of the cycle seemed to be some five seconds. As the ring passed over each section of my body, I could feel the vibrations like a band cutting through that section. When the ring passed over my head, a great roaring surged with it, and I felt the vibrations in my brain. I attempted to study this flaming electrical-seeming ring, but could discover no reason for it, or what it was. All of this remained unknown to my wife and children. I could see no reason to worry or concern them until something definite was known of it I did take a friend into my confidence, a well-known psychologist, Dr. Foster Bradshaw. If it had not been for him, I cannot predict where I would be at this time. Perhaps in an institution. I discussed the matter with him, and he was most interested. He suggested it might be some form of hallucination. Like Dr. Gordon, he knew me well. Consequently, he laughed at the concept that I was in the beginning stages of schizophrenia or the like. I asked him what he thought I should do. I shall always remember his answer. "Why, there's nothing else you can do but look into it and see what it is," Dr. Bradshaw replied. "Anyhow, it doesn't seem you have much choice. If it happened to me, I'd go off in the woods somewhere and keep trying until I found the answer." The difference was that it was happening to me and not to Dr. Bradshaw, and I couldn't afford to go off in the woods, either literally or figuratively. I had a family to support, among other things. Several months passed, and the vibration condition continued to occur. It almost became boring, until late one night when I was lying in bed just before sleep. The vibrations came and I wearily and patiently waited for them to pass away so I could go to sleep. As I lay there, my arm was draped over the right side of the bed, fingers just brushing the rug. Idly, I tried to move my fingers and found I could scratch the rug. Without thinking or realizing that I could move my fingers during the vibration, I pushed with the tips of my fingers against the rug. After a moment's resistance, my fingers seemed to penetrate the rug and touch the floor underneath. With mild curiosity, I pushed my hand down farther. My fingers went through the floor and there was the rough upper surface of the ceiling of the room below. I felt around, and there was a small triangular chip of wood, a bent nail, and some sawdust. Only mildly interested in this daydream sensation, I pushed my hand still deeper. It went through the first-floor ceiling and I felt as if my whole arm was through the floor. My hand touched water. Without excitement, I splashed the water with my fingers. Suddenly, I became fully aware of the situation. I was wide awake. I could see the moonlit landscape through the window. I could feel myself lying on the bed, the covers over my body, the pillow under my head, my chest rising and falling as I breathed. The vibrations were still present, but to a lesser degree. Yet, impossibly, my hand was playing in a pool of water, and my arm felt as if it was stuck down through the floor. I was surely wide awake and the sensation was still there. How could I be awake in all other respects and still "dream" that my arm was stuck down through the floor? The vibrations started to fade, and for some reason I thought there was a connection between my arm stuck through the floor and their presence. If they faded away before I got my arm "out," the floor might close in and I would lose an arm. Perhaps the vibrations had made a hole in the floor temporarily. I didn't stop to consider the "how" of it. I yanked my arm out of the floor, pulled it up on the bed, and the vibrations ended soon after. I got up, turned on the light, and looked at the spot beside the bed. There was no hole in the floor or rug. They were just as they always had been. I looked at my hand and arm, and even looked for the water on my hand. There was none, and my arm seemed perfectly normal. I looked about the room. My wife was sleeping quietly in the bed, nothing seemed amiss. I thought about the hallucination for a long time before I was able to calm down enough to sleep. The next day I considered actually cutting a hole in the floor to see if what I had felt was there on the subfloorâ€”the triangular chip of wood, the bent nail, and the sawdust. At the time, I couldn't see disfiguring the floor because of a wild hallucination. I told Dr. Bradshaw of this episode, and he agreed that it was a rather convincing daydream. He was in favor of cutting the hole in the floor to find out what was there. He introduced me to Dr. Lewis Wolberg, a psychiatrist of note. At a dinner party, I casually mentioned the vibration phenomenon to Dr. Wolberg. He was only politely interested, and evidently in no mood for "business," for which I couldn't blame him. I didn't have the courage to ask him about the arm in the floor. It was becoming fairly confusing. My environment and personal experience had led me to expect some kind of answers or at least promising opinions from modern technology. I had an above-normal scientific, engineering, and medical background as a layman. Now, I was faced with something where answers or even extrapolation was not quickly available. In retrospect, I still cannot envisage having dropped the matter entirely at any time. It may be that I could not have done so if I tried. If I thought I faced incongruities at this point, it was because I did not know what was yet to come. Some four weeks later, when the "vibrations" came again, I was duly cautious about attempting to move an arm or leg. It was late at night, and I was lying in bed before sleep. My wife had fallen asleep beside me. There was a surge that seemed to be in my head, and quickly the condition spread through my body. It all seemed the same. As I lay there trying to decide how to analyze the thing in another way, I just happened to think how nice it would be to take a glider up and fly the next afternoon (my hobby at that time). Without considering any consequencesâ€”not knowing there would be anyâ€”I thought of the pleasure it would bring, After a moment, I became aware of something pressing against my shoulder. Half-curious, I reached back and up to feel what it was. My hand encountered a smooth wall. I moved my hand along the wall the length of my arm and it ; continued smooth and unbroken. My senses fully alert, I tried to see in the dim light. It was _ a wall, and I was lying against it with my shoulder. I immediately reasoned that I had gone to sleep and fallen out of bed. (I had never done so before, but all sorts of strange things were happening, and falling out of bed was quite possible.) Then I looked again. Something was wrong. This wall had no windows, no furniture against it, no doors. It was not a wall in my bedroom. Yet somehow it was familiar. Identification came instantly. It wasn't a wall, it was the ceiling. I was floating against the ceiling, bouncing gently with any movement I made. I rolled in the air, startled, and looked down. There, in the dim light below me, was the bed. There were two figures lying in the bed. To the right was my wife. Beside her was someone else. Both seemed asleep.

This was a strange dream, I thought. I was curious. Whom would I dream to be in bed with my wife? I looked more closely, and the shock was intense. I was the someone on the bed! My reaction was almost instantaneous. Here I was, there was my body. I was dying, this was death, and I wasn't ready to die. Somehow, the vibrations were killing me. Desperately, like a diver, I swooped down to my body and dove in. I then felt the bed and the covers, and when I opened my eyes, I was looking at the room from the perspective of my bed. What had happened? Had I truly almost died? My heart was beating rapidly, but not unusually so. I moved my arms and legs. Everything seemed normal The vibrations had faded away. I got up and walked around the room, looked out the window, smoked a cigarette. It was a long time before I had the courage to return to bed, lie down, and try to sleep. The following week I returned to Dr. Gordon for another physical examination. I didn't tell him the reason for the visit, but he could see I was worried. He carefully examined me, ran blood tests, fluoroscopes, electrocardiograms, palpated all cavities, ran urinalysis, and about everything else he could think of. He checked very carefully for indications of brain lesions, and asked me many questions relating to motor action of various parts of the body. He arranged for an EEG (brain-wave analysis), which evidently showed no unusual problem. At least he never reported any to me, and I am sure he would have. Dr. Gordon gave me some tranquilizers, and sent me home with orders to take off weight, smoke less, get more restâ€” and said that if I had a problem, it was not a physical one. I met with Dr. Bradshaw, my psychologist friend. He was even less helpful and far from sympathetic when I told him the story. He thought I should try to repeat the experience if I could. I told him I wasn't ready to die. "Oh, I don't think you'll do that," Dr. Bradshaw stated calmly. "Some of the fellows who practice yoga and those Eastern religions claim they can do it whenever they want to." I asked him "do" what. "Why, get out of the physical body for a while," he replied. "They claim they can go all over the place. You ought to try it." I told him that was ridiculous. Nobody can travel around without their physical body. "Well, I wouldn't be too sure," Dr. Bradshaw replied calmly. "You ought to read something about the Hindus. Did you study any philosophy in college?" I said I had, but there was nothing I could recall about this traveling-without-the-body business. "Maybe you didn't have the right philosophy professor, that's what it seems to me." Dr. Bradshaw lit a cigar, then looked at me. "Well, don't be so closed-minded. Try it and find out As my old philosophy professor said, 'If you're blind in one eye, turn your head, and if you're blind in both eyes, then open your ears and listen.'" I asked what to do if you were deaf, too, but I didn't get a reply. Of course, Dr. Bradshaw had every reason to be casual about it. It was happening to me, not him. I don't know what I would have done without his pragmatic approach and his wonderful sense of humor. It is a debt I shall never be able to repay. The vibrations came and went six more times before I got up the courage to try to repeat the experience. When I did, it was an anticlimax. With the vibrations in full force, I thought of floating upwardâ€”and I did. I smoothly floated up over the bed, and when I willed myself to stop, I did, floating in mid-air. It was not a bad feeling at all, but I was nervous about falling suddenly. After a few seconds I thought myself downward, and a moment later I felt myself in bed again with all normal physical senses fully operating. There had been no discontinuity in consciousness from the moment I lay down in bed until I got up after the vibrations faded. If it wasn't realâ€”just a hallucination or dreamâ€”I was in trouble. I couldn't tell where wake-fulness stopped and dreaming began. There are thousands of people in mental institutions who have just that problem. The second time I attempted to disassociate deliberately, I was successful. Again I went up to ceiling height. However, this time I experienced an overwhelmingly strong sexual drive and could think of nothing else. Embarrassed and irritated at myself because of my inability to control this tide of emotion, I returned back into my physical body. It wasn't until some five episodes later that I discovered the secret of such control. The evident importance of sexuality in the whole subject is so great that it is covered in detail later. At the time, it was an exasperating mental block which held me within the confines of the room where my physical body lay. With no other applicable terminology, I began to call the condition the Second State, and the other, non-physical body we seem to possess the Second Body. So far this terminology fits as well as anything else. It wasn't until the first evidential experience which could be checked that I seriously considered these to be anything but daydreams, hallucinations, a neurotic aberration, the beginnings of schizophrenia, fantasies caused by self-hypnosis, or worse. That first evidential experience was indeed a sledgehammer blow. If I accepted the data as fact, it struck hard at nearly all of my life experience to that date, my training, my concepts, and my sense of values. Most of all, it shattered my faith in the totality and certainty of our culture's scientific knowledge. I was sure our scientists had all the answers. Or most of them. Conversely, if I rejected what was evident to me, if to no one else, then I would also be rejecting what I respected so greatly: that mankind's emancipation and upward struggle depends chiefly upon his translation of the unknown into the known, through the use of his intellect and the scientific principle. That was the dilemma. It may have been truly the touch of a magic wand and a gift bestowed I still don't know.

What does one do when faced with an unknown? Turn away and forget about it? In this case, two factors negated that possibility. One was nothing more than curiosity. The second: how can one forget or ignore an elephant in the living room? Or more to the point, a ghost in the bedroom? On the other side of the scale were the conflicts and anxieties, very real, very disturbing. There was no question that I was deeply afraid of what might happen to me if the "condition" continued. I was much more concerned about the possibility of a growing mental illness than a physical deterioration. I had studied enough psychology and had enough psychologist and psychiatrist friends to compound such fears. Moreover, I was afraid to discuss the matter with these friends. I was afraid that I would then be classified as their "patients," and lose the closeness that equality (normalcy) brings. Non-professional friends in business and community would be worse. I would be labeled a freak or psychotic, which could seriously affect my life and the lives of those close to me. Finally, it seemed to be something to keep from my family. It seemed unnecessary that they worry along with me. It was only the definite need to explain odd actions that forced the disclosure to my wife. She accepted it reluctantly because there was no other real choice, and thus she became a worried witness to incidents and events much in contradiction to her religious training. The children were then much too young to understand. (Later, the matter became commonplace to them. Away at college, my older daughter reported that after she and her roommate had looked around the empty dorm room one night, she said, "Daddy, if you're here, I think you better go now. We want to get undressed for bed." Actually, I was two hundred miles away at the time, both physically and otherwise.) Gradually I became more accustomed to this strange addition in my life. More and more, I was slowly able to control its movements. In a few ways it had actually become helpful. I had become reluctant to part with it. The mystery of its very presence had aroused my curiosity. Even after I had determined that there was no physiological cause, and that I was no more insane than most of my fellow men, the fears persisted. It was a defect, illness, or deformity that had to be hidden from "normal" people. There was no one to talk to about the problem, other than an occasional meeting with Dr. Bradshaw. The only other solution seemed to be some form of psychotherapy. But a year (or five or ten) of daily interviews costing thousands of dollars with no promised results didn't seem very efficient. It was very lonely in those early days. Finally, I began to experiment with this strange aberration, keeping notes of each event. I also began to read in areas of study long neglected in my life pattern. Religion had not greatly influenced my thinking, yet it seemed that this was the only remaining body of the writings and knowledge of man in which I could look for answers. Beyond childhood churchgoing and rare attendance with a friend, God and church and religion had meant little to me. In fact, I hadn't given the matter much thought one way or another, as it simply didn't evoke my interest In my superficial reading of past and present Western philosophies and religions, I found vague references and generalities. Some seemed to fit as somebody's attempt to describe or explain similar incidents. Biblical and Christian writings offered many of these, all without specific causes or cures. The best advice seemed to be to pray, meditate, fast, go to church, absolve my sins, accept the Trinity, believe in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, resist Evil, or resist not Evil, and give myself to God. All of this did nothing but add to the conflict. If this new thing in my life was "good," i.e., a "gift," then it evidently belonged to saints, or at least saintly types, according to religious history. I felt that qualification for sainthood was certainly above and beyond me. If this new thing was "evil," then it was the Work of the Devil, or, at the least, of a demon trying to possess or dispossess me, and should be exorcised. The orthodox ministers of organized religion whom I met politely accepted the latter view to varying degrees. I got the feeling I was dangerous and heretical in their eyes. They were wary. In the Eastern religions I found more acceptance of the idea, as Dr. Bradshaw had indicated. There was much talk of the existence of a non-physical body. Again, such a condition of being was the product of great spiritual development Only Masters, Gurus, and other long-trained Holy Men had the ability to leave their physical bodies temporarily to achieve indescribable mystical insights. There were no details, and no pragmatic explanation of what was meant by spiritual development. Implied was that in the practices of secret cults, sects, lamaseries, etc., such details were common knowledge. If this were true, what or who was I? Certainly too old to start life anew in a Tibetan monastery. The loneliness became acute. Evidently, there were no answers. Not in our culture. It was at this point that I discovered the existence of an underground in the United States. The only factor missing is that no laws exist against its function nor is there official persecution and prosecution involved. This underground only occasionally intermingles in part with the worlds of business, science, politics, academia, and the so-called arts. Furthermore, it definitely is not limited to the United States, but infiltrates all of Western civilization. Many people may have heard of it vaguely or casually have come in contact with it, and passed it off as just people with queer ideas. For one thing is usually certain: members of this underground who are respected in their communities don't talk about the interest or beliefs that qualify them for membership unless they know you too are in the club. They have learned from experience that to be outspoken brings censure â€”from their ministers, customers, employers, or even friends. I suspect the membership may run into millionsâ€”if all would admit to their qualification. They are found in all walks of life: scientists, psychiatrists, physicians, housewives, college students, businessmen, teen-agers, and at least a few ministers in formal religions. This group meets all the qualifications of an underground movement. They gather in small groups, quietly and often semi-secretly. (The events are often publicly announced, but you have to be "with it" before you can understand the notice.) The participants usually discuss affairs of the underground only with other members. Other than family or close friends (who are probably also members), the community doesn't know of this secret interest and life of the underground member. If you asked him, he would deny such membership because often he doesn't realize he really is so associated. All are to some degree emotionally and intellectually dedicated to a cause. Finally, the underground has its own literature, language, technology, and to some extent demigods.

Acton - Bavons Court - Bayswater - Bedford Sq - Belgravia - Berkeley Square - Bond Street - Brook Green - Charing Cross Road - Chelsea - Chiswick - Covent Garden Dombey St - Ealing - Grosvenor Square - Hammersmith - Hanwell - Holland Park - Hyde Park Corner - Kingsway - Knightsbridge - Leicester Square - Little Venice - Marble Arch - Notting Hill - Oxford Circus - Oxford Street - Paddington - Park Lane - Piccadilly - Piccadilly Circus - Pimlico - Regent Street - Shaftesbury Avenue - Shepheards Bush - Shepherds Bush - Soho Square - South Kensington - The Strand - Tottenham Court Road - Trafalgar Square - Wardour Street -

Pathway to Spirit 7 Princicpal of Spiritualism

Phsyical Mediumship West London

Phsyical Mediumship West London

Pathway to Spirit
7 Princicpal of Spiritualism