Betty Shine - My Life As a Medium

One such person was a lady who was bedridden and totally dependent on her family. She wrote to request absent healing and, at the same time, asked whether I could suggest Christmas presents for two nieces and a nephew. The names and birth dates were listed at the bottom of the letter, and as I studied them I had a picture of all three children. The two girls were totally different personalities; one was rather excitable and the other quiet, and as I thought about them individually I was able to recommend suitable gifts. When I linked into her nephew I knew that he would like a dartboard.

A month later I received the following letter:

It is with great regret that I have to tell you that my aunt died four days after Christmas.

I thank you from the bottom of my heart for helping her with the children’s presents. She was overcome with joy when she saw how thrilled they were with her gifts. Needless to say, the children will treasure them and they will remind them of a very loving and lovely person.

I have only one question: How did you do it? I am fascinated.

How could I tell her when I did not know the answer myself ?

My life was becoming stranger than fiction, and at times I had the feeling that my home had become a time capsule. Visions of the past and future were constantly being relayed to me. The visions I did not like were those that showed disasters waiting to happen.

One night, in a dream, I saw an aircraft crash into some palm trees on the water’s edge, and I watched as it crumpled on to the beach in slow motion, the blue sea lapping over the wings of the aircraft. In the distance I could hear people crying for help, and then I woke up.

I woke my daughter, Janet, and told her that there had been a terrible plane crash. I was quite distraught; the vision was still in my mind and I felt as though I had been a part of the tragedy. Although I knew the crash had happened on a tropical island I had not been given a name or a date, and it could have happened anywhere in the world. The frustration was immense. Eventually I went back to bed.

The following morning I turned on the television, expecting to hear about the disaster. There was nothing. For the next week I listened to every news broadcast, and when I still heard nothing about the crash I decided that it had only been a dream after all.

Two weeks later I was looking at the television and was shocked to see my dream being re-enacted on the screen. The plane was going across the screen from right to left, exactly as I had seen it. It crashed into the palm trees and landed on the edge of the beach, and I heard the newsreader say that many lives had been lost. I was devastated. What was the point of giving me the vision if I was unable to help? Why wasn’t I given the time and place so that the accident could have been averted?

Whilst meditating some time later, I was told that I was to become part of a group who help accident victims come to terms with the fact that they are dead. When someone dies in this way they cannot understand why people in this dimension cannot see or hear them because for a time they still feel normal. I asked how I could help, as it was obvious to me that the majority of relatives and friends would not be visiting a medium. I was told that I would be helping whilst in a sleep state. Although it all sounded very interesting, I still could not see how I could fulfil this role.

A few years later a woman came for a sitting and I told her that there was a young girl, Sara, who said she was her daughter. The woman held her head in her hands for a few moments. When she looked up, she said, ‘I have been praying that she would contact me. What does she have to say?’

‘She is telling me that she brought your attention to a newspaper article about me,’ I replied, laughing. ‘Why should she want to do that?

‘I don’t know,’ Sara’s mother said, ‘but she’s right. Someone had left their paper on the train and I was attracted to your photograph and read the article. It was then that I decided to visit you.’

‘Your daughter tells me that you have always wondered whether she suffered when she was killed in the car crash. Is that right?’

‘Yes. That thought is always with me.’

‘She wants you to know that she did not suffer at all.’ I paused. ‘That’s strange, she’s thanking me for easing her path and for being there when she needed me.’

The mother frowned. ‘How could you have helped her?’

I explained about the activities of the rescue service. She found it hard to understand – and so did I! But this was only the beginning. There were to be many similar messages given to me in the future. That particular sitting continued for an hour, bringing mother and daughter together for the first time in two years.

At this point in time I was beginning to feel frustrated with many aspects of my life, not least the inability to find time for myself. I was now working twelve hours a day, six days a week. I tried not to work on Sunday.

Family and friends were urging me to take it easy, but what could I do when there were so many people needing help and guidance? There was already a four-week waiting list. If I cut down on my working hours that list would grow longer, and I feared for the health of some of my patients. I made the decision to reduce the hour-long appointments to half an hour.

Now, in 1975, I was in the third year of my healing and mediumship.

My mediumship was tested continually whilst I was healing. At first there was the smell of ether, so strong at times that it affected everyone visiting my home. Most of my patients claimed that it made them feel light-headed. Although I hated it, I found that in a peculiar way – it also comforted me. I felt that someone was trying to impress upon me that I was being guided. This was also confirmed by my medium friend.

‘For our spirit friends,’ he told me, ‘it is the simplest way of letting you know that a surgeon wishes to work through you.’

‘How long do you think it will last?’ I asked.

‘However long it takes to convince you,’ he replied. On the rare occasions that we met I tried to persuade him to become my mentor, but he was adamant.

‘You do not need me,’ he said. ‘I know that you have the finest spirit teachers available to you, because I have never seen anyone surrounded by so much power. All you have to do is listen and learn.’ He leaned forward and touched my hand. ‘You see, my dear, all I am is what my spirit helpers allow me to be. I am not a healer. I couldn’t heal anyone. I am just a medium, and use that talent to help where I can.’

From the beginning I had felt a presence whilst healing, and occasionally caught a glimpse of spirit hands touching the patient. The first time it happened I thought my mind was playing tricks with me. The following day, when the hands appeared again I could also see the lower part of the arms. Eventually I was able to see the whole spirit entity but, unlike many mediums who have specific people working through them, I seemed to have been contacted by a variety of personalities. I wondered if they were trying to find someone who suited my own psyche. It was very easy to distinguish between them; as their minds linked with mine their differing personalities were immediately obvious because they affected my own behaviour. One or two of the doctors had a sense of humour not unlike my own, while another would be very sombre and so the healing would be very quiet. The spirit doctor who carried out the manipulations of limbs was very excitable, and gave me the impression that he was, perhaps, slightly eccentric. I found it all absolutely fascinating.

I have mentioned in a previous book, Mind Magic, the time when Louis Pasteur manifested three times and informed me that he was going to help me with the healing, and of how I visited the library to find a photograph that would confirm that it was indeed that great doctor. The incredible healing that took place after this visitation was further confirmation.