The Eagle and the Rose (6 page)

We were all obviously so interested that he offered to give each of us, in turn, a minute or two of healing in what he called a group session. Even though I was intrigued by this, I wasn't too happy about being directly involved, and I was very wary of diving headfirst into something I might not be able to handle. But I had no choice, as Irene, suspecting I might bolt, grabbed my hand, insisting that a little bit of healing was just what I needed.

The first thing we all had to do was join hands while the speaker said a prayer, asking for healing to be given. Then he stood in front of each of us and, one by one, took hold of our hands, and, standing quite still, asked God again for us to be given healing.

He had begun with the lady who was sitting next to me, and as he went slowly around the room I was able to see, quite well, all that he was doing.

No mumbo-jumbo, no peculiar chanting or strange rituals. Just an ordinary man, giving his love to each and every one of us in turn.

Carefully I watched people's faces, trying to assess their thoughts; and without exception everyone seemed pleased, relaxed, and happy with their experience. The atmosphere in the room was so peaceful, and as my turn came and the speaker reached out his hands to me I had no qualms at all. Placing my hands in his seemed the most natural thing to do, so I was completely unprepared for what happened next.

As he held my hands I began to shake. Slowly at first, and then, as if I had grabbed hold of a jackhammer, strange and strong vibrations began to run right through my whole body.

I sat, paralyzed, unable to move, unable to do or say anything, as the vibrations in my body grew in intensity until they reached my head. My mouth was filled with pins and needles, my teeth and gums shook violently, and my face was a ball of red hot fire.

Still the speaker held on to my hands, although it must have been difficult, as I was compelled then, by this phenomenal force, out of my chair. I stood, feeling as though I had been lifted bodily off the floor, still shaking furiously.

Terrified at what was happening, I was completely unaware that everyone else in the room had stood up, dazedly watching our two figures, mine and the healer's, convulsing uncontrollably in the middle of the room.

Somewhere inside of me I was striving for control of this thing, this terrible force, which was trying to consume my very being. Eventually, and with great effort, I let rip a yell, so fearsome that it must have sounded like an Indian war cry, and it was as if a spell had been broken.

Suddenly I was myself again, the pins and needles gone and the vibrations stopped. I felt like a limp and empty shell. Then my legs buckled, and I collapsed back onto the chair, feeling utterly exhausted. I could not stop the tears that began to rain down my face.

The speaker put his arm around me, and Irene, fussing over me like a mother hen, uttered an explanation to everyone that I had been under great stress lately and that my nerves had just snapped.

Someone brought me a cup of tea, and as I sat there, grateful for the hot liquid burning down my throat, I remember thinking, Never again. Never again will I let anyone like him, anyone “psychic,” touch me.

As I looked around the room I felt once again ashamed of myself, so foolish, and I was convinced that the whole group would think of me as some sort of exhibitionist.

They'll definitely think I'm crackers now, I thought. And they are right. I really am cracking up.

Samantha, blissfully asleep in the guest room, was my excuse now for leaving the group. I climbed the stairs, grateful to be away from all those people, and went into the room where Samantha lay. Everything here was quiet except for the sound of gentle breathing as my child slept, oblivious of all around her. Sitting carefully on the bed, I thought hard about all that had happened only a few minutes before.

The speaker had felt what I had felt, of that I was sure. But why? Why had it happened, and how? I was no longer frightened, simply puzzled by the whole thing.

I stayed in the comfort of that peaceful room, with Samantha, for nearly an hour, until I heard the guests below leaving, calling good night. Only when I thought that everyone had gone did I make my way down the stairs, wondering what the Denhams’ reaction would be to my ridiculous behavior.

Quietly I closed the bedroom door and started across the landing, when for the second time that night I almost leapt out of my skin with fright. Out of the shadows loomed the figure of a man, and only just in time, before I started to scream out, I recognized the man who had come to give the group a talk—the healer man.

He explained quickly that he had been waiting for me because he realized how frightened I had been.

“Come and talk to me,” he said. “I would like to explain to you what happened, and why.”

We went back to the sitting room, where Paul and Irene had also been waiting.

I was forced to smile, because the first thing the healer man said was, “After I have explained some things to you, it's likely that you'll think I'm crazy.” (Do those words sound familiar?)

He continued, telling me that he also had experienced the vibrations, and he described exactly everything that he had felt.

I knew that he was telling the truth because only someone who had experienced those weird sensations could possibly know, and describe, the things that he knew. Then, looking hard at me, he said:

“You are not going to believe what I am going to say next, but you will remember, and when the time is right, full understanding will be yours.

“You are a medium, a natural medium, and you have a guide, a very strong and powerful spiritual guide, who, one day soon, will make himself known to you. This spirit guide will be your mentor, your teacher in all things. I can't tell you who it is, I don't know him. But I can tell you this, he is one of the strongest forces I have ever come across in all the years that I have been involved in spiritualism.”

He then went on to tell me a little more about spirit guides and told me that his guide, a Native American chief called Red Feather, was a healing guide who helped many healers in their spiritual work.

“What has happened here tonight,” he continued, “is that my guide, Red Feather, has met and acknowledged your guide. When we held hands our guides, yours and mine, joined forces, and the tremendous surge of energy which we then felt was enough, literally, to knock us both off our feet.”

This was the first time I had heard mention of spirit guides, and strangely I was willing to accept the possibility of such things. But to expect me to believe in the existence of a ghostly Indian chief…? Oh, no! That really sounded too farfetched and impossible, and I told him so.

“You're right,” I said, “I don't believe you, and I definitely think that you are crazy.”

The healer man laughed at this, and with a knowing smile, which I found very disconcerting, he took his leave. His parting shot to me, as he walked out of the door, was this: “You think that I'm crazy, and you also doubt your own sanity, but very soon now you will be shown just how sane we both are. Remember,” he said, “you are on the threshold of a new life. Don't be afraid!”

The following Wednesday evening came around quickly—too quickly, in fact, for I had not yet made up my mind whether or not to continue with Irene and Paul in what they had called my psychic development. The three of us had had many discussions over the two weeks we had been working together. Paul’s instincts had told him that my development was important, but he was unsure about the reasons. We had no goal in mind, just a need to explore. Even though I had known them only a short time, my instincts told me that they genuinely wanted to help me, and I trusted them. But the doubts about myself persisted.

Sitting at home, weighing the pros and cons of the matter, had only seemed to confuse me more, so finally I decided to give it one more try—just one!

I arrived at the Denhams’ house late and a little bit flustered, so I didn’t notice, as I pulled into their drive, that there was another car parked, unfamiliar to me.

Irene was waiting for me at the door and showed me through to the kitchen, where, hardly giving myself time to get off my coat, I began to explain my feelings.

“I’m not sure,” I began. “I just don’t know whether I am able to handle all of this psychic stuff.”

Almost as if reading my mind, Irene replied, “I’ll tell you what we’ll do. Let’s just give it one more try, shall we? And if you still feel unsure, then we’ll stop until you’re ready to try again. How’s that?”

With a sigh of relief, I nodded, and as Irene put the kettle on to make tea, I made my way into the sitting room—only to find myself confronted by another obstacle.

“Hello,” said a voice as I walked into the room, and I found myself, once again, face-to-face with the man I had met the previous Friday evening—the healer man, this stranger who had spoken so easily of Indians and spirit guides. As I sat down I wondered how soon I could possibly leave without seeming impolite to my hosts, and I was sure that the healer man could sense my discomfort.

Explaining that he had been asked by the Denhams if he would like to join our little Wednesday group, he smiled at me and said he hoped that I wouldn’t mind, knowing full well that I did. He went on to tell me how fascinated he had been that last Friday, as he, too, had felt the force of the vibrations, and how this had been a new experience for him.

None of this chitchat made me feel any easier, and as I looked at him across the room, I thought gloomily that I should never have come. He rambled on for a bit longer but I wasn’t really listening much, until suddenly he said something that made the hairs on the back of my neck bristle. If any of you have ever seen a dog’s hackles rise up, then you’ll know just what I mean. Staring hard at him, dumbfounded by what I’d just heard, I gasped and managed to croak out:

“What was that? What did you say?”

Realizing instantly that he had startled me, he said, “Oh, Rosemary, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to frighten or upset you in any way, but you see, I’m afraid I just had to tell you.” And then he repeated once more:

“There is a gentleman from the spirit world, Rosemary, standing just behind you, wearing a soldier’s uniform, with sergeant’s stripes. He is telling me that he was an army man all his life, and he has given me his name—William Edward.”

The hairs on the back of my neck were now standing bolt upright, and a prickling heat was searing its way through my whole body, and I sat there, unable to move or speak, the shock of what I had just heard was so great.

No one, not one single soul, neither my friends nor my neighbors in the north of England, could have supplied this man with the information he had just given me. How, I thought, after only one previous meeting, could this near stranger describe to me so accurately a man who had been “dead” for over four years?

And the name, William Edward, it was so close, too close to dismiss the obvious, the only plausible explanation—the man, the army sergeant, must indeed have been standing, like a ghost, behind me. And only he could have told the healer man his name, not William Edward, but William Edwards—my father!

My dazed state didn’t seem to disturb the healer man at all. He continued, giving me information about the way my father had died and about the kind of person he was. He told me that my father had had a massive heart attack, dying instantly. Further, he proceeded to describe my father’s character, particularly in relation to his army career, saying that he was a stubborn and proud man, intolerant of imperfection both in others and himself. This information was correct in every detail.

I knew then, as I have always believed, that life after death was a fact, and many times since my father’s passing I had felt him with me. So it wasn’t the shock of being told that he was there beside me that had shaken me as much as the fact that someone else could see, as I had done, a person who was supposed to be dead.

After the initial shock of all of this, I began to feel a kind of excitement bubbling deep inside of me. And then a rapturous joy spread slowly over me as realization dawned.

A stranger had given me absolute evidence, without question, of my father’s survival after death and of his ability to communicate beyond the grave.

With this knowledge that I had just acquired came hope, not just for myself, but for the whole of humanity. And I was also given, in that moment, peace, an inner peace, and I knew with certainty that everything I had ever experienced in my life had a purpose.

All the heartaches and fears, all the strange and unexplainable happenings of the last thirty-four years, the weird sights and sounds that had led me to believe that I was indeed losing my mind, suddenly made sense. I knew, once and for all, that I was sane, that my mind was perfectly balanced, and I realized that not only did the healer man have the gift of “sight,” but that I too shared that gift.

So many people had visited me since my childhood, people from the spirit world, trying to help me and to make me aware of the precious gift I had been born with. Yet it took a stranger, someone with this same gift, to make me see that what I had been doing since I was a child, seeing and hearing “ghosts,” was perfectly natural, and not frightening at all.

Now I heard the healer man saying, “Come here, come and sit next to me and hold my hand and I will try, if I can, to talk some more with the army sergeant, who, by the way, has informed me that he has waited for four years to talk to you. Four years for him to find someone with whom he could communicate, someone who could see and hear him.”

Eagerly now, I did as he asked and was given many messages from my father for all of the family. But even though everything the healer man said was accurate, my suspicious mind was telling me to be careful. So I sat with my head well down, taking care not to look at him, while I thought, Don’t look at him, don’t let him read your face. I didn’t want to give this man any indication that I knew what he was talking about or a way to gauge anything from my reactions. In other words, I didn’t want to give anything away.