As someone who jokingly claims to have a North American Indian spirit guide called Red Herring, you may think I don’t take guides very seriously.  You’d be wrong.  Of course, the first thing to be said is that they have the strangest names and don't seem to belong anywhere that we can identify, so they are not much use as evidence.   A sceptic might say they are secondary personalities - they often have said just that - and it is not an unreasonable hypothesis in some cases.  But not all!  

 

The Victorian medium – and Anglican cleric -  William Stainton Moses had an array of guides, who seem to have been part of a 'group soul'.  There were 49 of them and they gave us a connected stream of teaching, explanation and instruction, which comprised the book "Spirit Teachings", known and revered for many decades as the bible of Spiritualism.

 

The leader of this group called himself 'Imperator' – which means ‘Commander’ - and it was thirty years after Stainton Moses’ passing that he was revealed as the Jewish prophet, Malachi, whose book is the last one in the Old Testament.  Stainton Moses had kept the secret all his life.  The reason that Imperator, and all the other guides - Silver Birch, Red Cloud, Moon Trail, etc - use non-de-plumes is that, if we knew their real identity, our attention would be centred on them, rather than the message they wanted to deliver.  Even back in the nineteenth century, we lived in a 'celebrity culture'.  And one which straddled the two worlds!

 

Guides and evidence.

But back to the evidential value of guides.  The two stories I am about to tell you are very evidential, but would never have happened if a recent Spiritualists’ National Union instruction, requiring mediums to desist from giving (often dubious) Guides had been given fifty years earlier. 

 

The first began in late 1953 when my grandmother took me to the short-lived Werneth Spiritualist Church which met in a room above a used car dealers in Oldham.  I was nine and a bit disappointed that I never seemed to get a message, a point which my grandmother quietly took up with the visiting medium after one service.  He told me that a new life would be coming to our house in late January or early February, which I was able to accept.  (My mother had let me in on her pregnancy a couple of weeks before, which is why I can date my first involvement with Spiritualism, as being just before my second sister's birth.)  

Grandmother passed on not long after, so it was another ten years before I managed to re-engage with Spiritualism.  This was in Rhyl where I was stationed in the army.  This church met above a shoe shop and a trance medium told me, again, of this Egyptian doctor-priest.  My next posting in 1965 - to Salisbury Plain - brought me into contact with Andover Spiritualist church.  Again, the same guide was given to me.  All this before I had had any evidence of contact from people I knew.  Nevertheless it served as impressive evidence for me.

Japanese Guide 

My wife's experience with her guide was even more impressive.  In September 1969, I set up Southampton Psychic Youth Group in Bitterne church - the only one of Southampton’s famous huddle of seven neighbouring churches that encouraged me in my efforts.  At the inaugural meeting, the medium, Lillian Ryder, gave my then-girl friend, Karen, a message, featuring a North American Indian guide, named Blue Feather.  

She then said she also had a Japanese lady with her, and asked if she drew sketches.  Yes, replied Karen.  Art was her best subject.  "She wants you to start using colour," said Mrs Ryder.  And my wife conceded that she only used a black lead pencil, but was attracted to painting.  She later became an accomplished oil painter. 

 

We thought little more about it until, in early 1970, we paid our only visit to Winchester Christian Spiritualist Church, where one Barbara Lewis, from faraway Chertsey, was the visiting medium.  Again, the Japanese guide came through with the same message about artwork and colour.  Surely no coincidence.

 

The 20th June of the same year was general election night which would see Ted Heath elected as prime minister.  What a night for me to have arranged a large demonstration of mediumship arranged in Southampton city centre with that well-loved London medium, Jessie Nason!  To my relief, it was a packed house.  Karen arrived in the back room just before the start and, as I introduced her, Jessie jumped back, startled, crying "Ooh - Japanese guide!"  She had no time to go into a reading, but asked Karen if she did painting, because that came through strongly.  Jessie remarked about this to me in later years, as to the vividness of that vision.

 

Through the years, the Japanese lady came through several times.  Once, through Wiltshire medium, Gordon Frazer-Buckland during a demo in Melksham, who described a large bow at the back of her kimono and, again, impressing colour.  Some years later, after Karen had completed a demo in Swindon, she was approached by a member of the audience who, again, described the Japanese guide that he had seen working with her.  He was an old man, but I recognised him as that same Gordon Frazer Buckland, although he had by then retired from demonstrations.

But there was more to come.  Impressive as these incidents were via different mediums at different venues in different parts of the UK.

 

Karen was a very good clairaudient medium and very much in demand.  The service we took in Huddersfield in 1983 brought possibly the most convincing evidence.  This booking fitted in well with one of our periodic visits to Oldham and my brother, Richard, 14 years my junior, decided to come along to see what his sister in law did. 

The service went well and, in the large tea room afterwards, he was circulating with cup in hand and chanced on a conversation between two local labourers, one of whom had a star tattooed on his forehead.  It seemed to be their first visit.  This man said to his friend, "It was odd, but I saw a Japanese girl, next to the medium, when she was working  . "  Richard had heard about the Japanese guide, so it went home to him immediately.  My brother was always pretty laid-back and didn’t tell us about this until we were well on our way along the M62 to Oldham.

When a spirit communicator comes through more than one medium, it is known as a cross-correspondence and regarded by psychic researchers as very good evidence.  Karen’s Japanese guide came through at least five mediums in Southampton, twice, Winchester, Melksham and Huddersfield.

 

This article was originally published in ‘Spirit of PN’

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