Of all the questions I’ve been asked, the one that crops up most frequently is ‘How did you become a medium?’ Was I born like it or was it something that happened later in life?
I have always been aware of another kind of existence,another kind of reality and early on realised that that awareness was not generally shared by my companion human beings in this world!
As a little child I used to hear my own family and their friends say that I was ‘born old’. I can’t say that I didn’t like playing with toys and the affection of my family that I was born into, but I so enjoyed the company of the talented and learned people who frequented our home and those who came to see me at times when I was supposedly on my own.
By the time I was 7 years into this life I liked nothing better than to discuss the existence or non existence of God with Professor Herman Brinkman – who lucky for me didn’t find me ‘strange’. (An epithet my mother always used when speaking about me to her friends). I also liked the children who visited me in my bedroom. I thought they were time travellers, and we talked about their lives, and of course they were, but not in the physical scientific sense that I assumed!
They would sometimes take me back with them to their homes. Some were Victorian and some from even earlier times. On one occasion that I have never ever forgotten they took me to a beautiful place where a man dressed in Elizabethan style clothing played his own composition.I recognised it as Greensleeves,and have always smiled sadly when I see that its composer is listed as anonymous, but now know that its other more recently given title is ‘What Child Is This’- a Christmas/Nativity song written to the tune by Victorian hymn lyricist William Chatterton Dix.
My world was full of misty clouds around people and objects and lovely coloured lights. I wrote poems and painted pictures and then I went to the Ice Rink. The ice shining white and the mist rising off it and the daylight streaming down from the glass roof, the cold echoing sounds… and I still recall putting on my skates and the excitement of getting onto the icepad. Over 40 years of heartache, trials and tribulations later, it was this moment that was to bring me into mediumship and Spiritualism as we know it! My beloved father died and I was devastated.
By this time I was a skating coach and one of my athletes had become a dear friend. She was a Spiritualist. She asked me to come to Croydon Spiritualist Church with her. She said it could help me. I wasn’t sure – Deuteronomy 18 verse 12 had ruled me since I was a teenager even tho’ my friends from that other reality had always been there in my darkest hours, of which there’d been a few. The lady who took the stage – the rostrum, was 90 year old Ivy Scott. Her philosophy resonated and I watched as she communicated with people from the other side and relayed messages to the audience, aka the congregation – and I felt so comfortable because I could see them too. I couldn’t think about much else in the weeks following! Then Kay told me Ivy was on again.
This time I jumped at the chance. After more philosophy which I heard as if she was speaking for me, the mediumship began. I saw my father and other family members up there with Ivy. She relayed information that she had no way of knowing… Although I couldn’t hear him,Ivy could,and my dad said to her, “Remember Flanagan & Allen and ‘Me and my Shadow?” Well I’ll be your shadow now”. The first dance my dad taught me was the soft shoe shuffle and we sang that song. (He had me on stage with him when I was 8 – that’s another story.) I decided to find out more for myself. I went to Lewisham Spiritualist Church the next Sunday on my own and got another musical message from my dad. How do they DO this I wanted to know.
I looked for someone who looked normal after the Service to ask where I could find out more. I saw an oldish chap, smoking a fag, army or nick fashion, and thought he looked likely, so I approached and asked him. “I want to know how it’s done” I said. “You can come to circle tomorrow” he said. “What’s circle?” I asked – “sounds weird”. “It’s a group where you can find out what you want to know” he said. “Be here at 7 o’clock”.
I couldn’t wait and got to the Church early. I was shown into a room wherein a lady with a voluminous purple satin frock, lots of makeup and welcoming manner sat behind a desk. I thought I might be in the wrong place. Still, the others in the group looked more ordinary. “Some of you may want to be mediums” she opined. “Some healers”. I’m in the wrong place I thought. “Or counsellors”, she said. Oh that sounds reasonable I thought, I’ll stay for a bit. We were to do a meditation. Well I wasn’t sure at all but I kept my glasses on – sort of like a comfort blanket…
Well I met my dad! I was so surprised and pleased. We exchanged a few words, and although he offered to be my Guide, I declined that particular association as I wanted to have a female Guide given my feminist principles and he did understand. He told me before he rode off on a wonderful white horse that he would always throw me a rope! The lady who was going to be with me through thick and thin thereafter, my Co-operator in Spirit as she said she’d rather be called than Guide, came to meet me as I walked towards the steps of a huge building that looked like a library or museum.
It had appeared as I’d turned the corner at the end of the cobbled road I’d found myself on. We walked up the steps together and she showed me into a classroom. I saw a class in progress. There were fascinating equations on a board and the tutor was pointing to them and explaining to the students. They looked like bubbles of light and were obviously conversing but I couldn’t hear them. Very aggravating.
She then took me out to meet “some people who’d like to see you” she said. They were my family gone before. It was amazing. I wasn’t sure who the first lady was, but when she smiled I recognised my grandma as a young woman! Reluctant to leave, I was told I’d be able to see everyone again from time to time after my visit. When I left the Church that night I was determined to continue my enquiry into mediumship and Spiritualism.
It was to be an intense and often difficult pathway but it has made sense of my life so far. And so it continues. Oh yes – the ice connection. There are many references in the scriptures, written as we know by mediums and healers of old, to ice specifically relating to the Spirit. In Revelations (Chapter 15 Verse 2) it’s written that God’s angels sing and play music on “A SEA OF GLASS”. We also know that coldness/freezing temperatures accompany Spirit work and visitations.
The gentleman with the cigarette turned out to be Mr Bert French, President of the Church and who later trained me as a healer. He is now in the realm of spirit that he served so well. But a great loss to the movement he loved.
The shining lady who first greeted me in that room in the Church was teaching medium and inspirational poet Rita Foy, whose circle I sat in mentioned in my video – and was given extra lessons and hospitality at her home – for years.
Lyn Gibb de Swarte 