The Medium

CHAPTER ONE

SPIRIT STORIES HAVE NO BEGINNING OR END

A book needs an author. Somebody’s got to sit down and type the words that form the sentences telling the stories that are a book. I’m not the one who sat down and typed the words you’re about to read.

I can’t. I’m in spirit and lack some basic equipment, like fingers, to sit down and type. Therefore, I’m using someone on your earth plane. He’s got the fingers I don’t.

What do I do over here besides write?

First of all, my name is Maryanne and, in reality, this book is a side job.

My main one is a guide. There’s a lot of different types of guides but my mission is helping spirits who have left the earth plane (in other words died) adjust to the spirit, or astral, dimension. Sometimes the job is easy; other times hard. But, it’s always interesting. So is this story; it’s about the first guide mission I had.

There are some very famous authors here. When they found out I was inspiring an earth spirit to write a book, they were full of advice. However, since the aim of this book is not to win a Nobel Prize for literature, I’ve decided to ignore most of it. Both I and the earth spirit being used want to present a simple, easy to understand story where some eternal truths can be explained.

So, forget the Nobel Prize!

However, there is a piece of their advice I will use.

Maryanne, a story has to have a beginning, middle and end, they all told me.

Well, that might seem obvious but it’s not as easy as it sounds. This book has many beginnings because there are many stories: there’s my story and how I got to where I am, there’s the story of the medium, the story of the murderer and the story of his victims.

When these authors lived on earth, they wrote about day to day earth situations. This book is different; part of it takes place here on the spirit vibration. Earth stories have a beginning; spirit stories know no beginning. Earth stories have an ending; spirit stories are eternal. Characters in earth stories live in neat paragraphs; spirit characters live in intertwined relationships of karma, which sometimes last for centuries. Earth stories are fiction based on fact; spirit stories are reality based on truth.

But, I have to begin somewhere. So, the story starts with Harry Clark.

He is a medium who never wanted to be a medium.

Then I’ll tell you about me and you’ll begin to see how all of our lives are inter-related. Nothing is by accident, my friends.

Finally, you’ll meet Tom and David. You might say these two brought us all together.

But, the main character is not a person; nor is it a spirit. It is a force called karma. However, unlike other characters in other books, karma is not good or bad; it exists from what we have created.

While karma has no speaking part in this story, it talks to us every single moment of every single day. You might say karma is the main character in everyone’s life.

CHAPTER TWO

I DON’T WANT TO SEE ANYMORE

The small hall could comfortably sit forty people. On an average Wednesday evening, only ten or twelve would use the forty metal folding chairs. But tonight, over one hundred people were sandwiched between the walls of this small church, the majority standing with their backs pressed to those walls.

Everyone was here by appointment; over five hundred had been turned away throughout the week. Those lucky enough to be fidgeting in the small room came from all over the city, somehow finding their way to the little, ramshackle house which was home to the First Spiritualist Church of Houston. Most of them had never set foot in this rundown Houston neighborhood before and, most likely, would never again.

The crowd was impatient. It was a hot and humid night, even for July in Texas. The church, which barely had money to patch its leaking roof, wasn’t air-conditioned and the temperature hit the high nineties. Everyone in the sweating audience silently prayed they wouldn’t remember this night only because of the oppressive heat. Each and every person sitting or standing in the muggy, baking room was there for one reason; they were anxiously waiting for proof.

Proof... it could come in a word, a phrase, a sign, a name, anything. Some yearned to hear from a long deceased mother or father; others desolately searched for a dead child, brother, or friend. They stewed in the hot, cramped room because of Harry Clark. He’s a medium.

Harry silently sat at the front of the hall surveying the crowd. The medium not only saw the anxious audience but also saw and heard the hundreds of unseen spirits in the room lining up to be heard.

I want to speak to my wife, tell her I am fine, my name is Billy, a spirit standing by a smartly dressed young woman pressed.

My mother and father are here, a teenager whispered. Tell them it wasn’t their fault. I was on drugs. I’m okay; I’m doing well. Please ask them to take care of Donovan, my dog. If you say Donovan, they’ll know its me.

Harry spotted the spirit of a handsome young man place his hands on a man sitting in the third row. His name is Jeff. I was his friend, we were lovers, the spirit said. Tell Jeff he’s very sick, but not to worry or be afraid. We’ll be together soon. The medium made a mental note: talk to Jeff in private.

There were countless other spirits bringing messages and they, like the audience, waited for him to begin. Harry would do his best to get to everyone. Sitting in his chair and only half listening as the pastor of the church introduced him, the medium wandered through time, stopping when he was five years old and first began seeing and hearing spirits.

He remembered his mother telling his father, after they overhead him speaking to one of his friends; It’s normal at his age. My mother told me I had imaginary playmates, too.

However the imaginary playmates were still were hanging around when he turned ten and Harry learned to keep his visions and the whispers to himself.

Harry noticed one playmate was always at his side. This spirit friend called himself Bob. Bob was his protector: whenever the ugly, dark ones came by, Bob would chase them away.

Think of me as the big brother you never had, Bob would joke. If Harry had doubts, Bob would answer them and when the boy turned thirteen, Bob slowly opened Harry’s window to the spirit world a bit wider.

We aren’t dead, you know. Some of us are more alive than you, the spirit told him.

The thirteen year-old asked Bob why some spirits were different than others, some are friendly like you. But, there are other kinds. They’re dark and angry. I don’t feel very good when they’re around. They scare me.

Bob laughed and drew of similarities between the earth and spirit planes.

Aren’t there people on earth you like and others you don’t? We’ve got all kinds of spirits here. Some are aligned with lighter vibrations and others aren’t ready or have chosen not to live in harmony with the light.

Bob instructed Harry to close his eyes for a second, asking the boy to imagine two very separate and distinctly colored bands in his mind. Put as much space between those bands as you can, the spirit said.

What colors should the bands be? Harry asked.

Bob laughed and told the boy he could make them any color he wished, it really doesn’t make any difference, the guide explained, just keep the colors different and the bands far apart from each other.

When Harry reported the image had formed in his mind, Bob explained:

"There are spirits who live in the upper band and there are spirits who live in the lower one. However, see all the space between the bands? There are an infinite number of vibrations there and spirits, depending on their own choices and evolution, occupy those spaces too.

Soon, you’ll learn how to deal with the many different levels of spirits living in both the earth and astral dimensions."

The boy waited for more and Bob obliged, You’ve have a talent which you sometimes think is a curse. However, you’ve been given a chance to help spirits on earth and over here. Its up to you.

The boy asked: Why me?

Before answering , Bob reminded himself that he was speaking to a child. While Harry’s spirit had lived countless times before, right now it was in a thirteen year-old physical body. The guide knew there were certain things he couldn’t tell a spirit whose earth personality was not yet intellectually or emotionally developed.

"Nothing’s by accident; there’s reason to everything. Harry, you’ve lived many lives. The total sum of your actions, thoughts and experiences have brought where you are today.

Look at it like this: each incarnation is a piece of cloth and each piece is different from the other. Lay those different pieces side by side and connect them; suddenly there’s a quilt: separate and unique pieces making a whole.

Bob paused again. He wanted to tell the boy about a specific cloth in Harry’s personal quilt. However, once again, the guide needed to mull over exactly what he should tell the boy.

Besides the boy’s age, Bob was concerned about something else. A spirit born into earth must be free from its own past. An incarnated spirit does not carry with it any memory of its former lives because a spirit has to be free to pick its way through the constant and daily choices it’s presented. Free will, in other words, can’t be influenced by past guilts.

Bob knew he could only reveal a thread of the cloth that was part of Harry’s quilt.

Remember those not so nice spirits you saw, the dark ones? You were once a part of their vibration, the guide gently told the teenager.

Harry gasped but said nothing. Bob continued:

" I can’t tell you more. This isn’t the time. But what I can say is don’t worry about what you once were; begin to understand what you can become. Your spirit has learned, grown and evolved away from the dark, dense vibrations. You aren’t part of them now.

But because of some past choices Harry, you owe the creation. So the creation has loaned you a talent. Your mediumship is not a gift; it is a tool. You accepted it before you were born and you can use it anyway you want. The choice is yours.

Harry rolled Bob’s words over in his mind and uttered, I was given something to help me work off something I did. The boy was pleased with the symmetry.

It’s called karma, kid, Bob joked, You’ve got a powerful and precious ability. It’s been given not to predict horse races, lottery numbers or which celebrity will get divorced next year.

In a more serious tone, the guide said Harry had a chance to help others find their way. Use it wisely, Bob said, the choice is yours. You can use your talent to help and you can even ignore it. It’s up to you and whatever your choices are, they too will become part of the quilt.

As the thirteen-year-old mulled over the words, the older brother whispered:

Read some books. Learn about mediums, reincarnation and karma. Discover for yourself why you can see and hear me while others can’t. It’s not a mystery. As a matter of fact Harry, for you, it’s as natural as breathing.

By the time he was fifteen, the boy had devoured every book he found on para-normality, metaphysics, psychic phenomena, Buddhism, and spiritualism. He was an expert on life after death not only because of what he read, but because of what he lived.

At sixteen, he decided to tell his mother. His dog, Victor, had died a few days earlier.

Harry walked into the family’s living room, where his mother, Sara, sat watching her afternoon soap operas.

Ma, I’ve got to talk to you about something. The teenager had rehearsed this conversation many times. A thousand thoughts darted through his mind as Sara half-heartedly turned her attention from the TV to him.

She’s gonna laugh, a thought said.

She’s gonna think you’re nuts, she’ll call a shrink, another one warned.

Probably say its a phase, she always says that, raced another one.

Sure, what do you want? he heard his mother answer. Harry knew she was annoyed. Sara was addicted to the afternoon soaps but it was now or never. He had to tell someone and it might as well be her.

The sixteen-year-old got right to the point.

Ma, you know mediums are? he asked.

Puzzled, she said that she hadn’t the slightest idea and hoping Harry would go away, Sara kept one ear and eye glued to the television. She was more interested in finding out if John was really Susan’s illegitimate son and if he was the father of Clarissa’s unborn baby.

Taking a deep breath, Harry answered his own question.

Mediums are people who see or hear spirits, and nodding to the TV he added, you know, like that lady on the talk shows who predicted President Kennedy’s assassination: Jeanne Dixon.

His mother, forgetting the soap, gave him her full attention.

She was on Mike Douglas yesterday. She’s an astrologer but I think that’s different. Anyway, it’s all nonsense. No one can predict the future and no one talks to ghosts. What’s got into you?, his mother snapped the question and returned her attention John, Susan and Clarissa.

The boy answered. Nothing. I have been doing a lot of reading that’s all. Believe me, ma, there are a lot of things out there we just don’t know about.

His mother asked why he was so interested in the subject.

He waited a beat, looked straight into her eyes, and flatly declared, Well, because I’m one.

One what? his mother wanted to know. He now had her full attention.

Now at nineteen and sitting in the front of the church, Harry remembered speaking with his mother until the early evening hours. He told her how he saw his dog’s spirit leave its body when it died, how he’d known his Aunt Betty was dead before the phone call came and how he knew his maternal grandmother was dying of cancer.

I see a world I can’t begin to explain. It’s the same but different from our world. I see it, I hear it, and I feel it. Ma, they talk to me: people I don’t even know. I see spirits who suffer, they ask for my help. Then, there are others who come to teach. They’re all around us.

Sara began to cry; she thought her son was hallucinating. However, when his father arrived, they abruptly cut the conversation off, but it would resume in the days ahead. His mother went from disbelief, to fear, to curiosity and through the years, she and her husband accepted their son’s talent, if not entirely understanding it.

Harry listened as the pastor finished introducing him. In a moment, he would get to his feet and start relaying messages from spirits to the people gathered in the small church.

No one: not family, friends, or anyone in the hall had any inkling this would be the last time Harry would ever work as a medium. He reached his decision a month ago: enough was enough. He was tired.

The so- called gift had ruined his marriage: people called him all hours of the night asking for help. His wife couldn’t deal with it. You live more for your ghosts than you do for me, she angrily accused.

The so- called gift made him, according to friends, neurotic: he had no time to himself. Spirits were always hovering about, asking him to do this or that. He literally had no peace of mind.

And, the so-called gift depressed him: he’d look at a stranger and in a minute have a mental snapshot. He immediately knew someone’s intentions and saw if they were sick or ill. Sometimes, and this would terrify him, he’d see a gray shroud clinging to a person’s aura. This was always a sign that the body’s physical energy was almost gone and he’d sense death was on its way.

Enough was enough. After tonight, that’s it. No more. I’ll shut them off. Harry told himself as he rose to his feet.

He wouldn’t say a word to the crowd. He’d give them their hope, their proof, and their messages from beyond. But tomorrow, he’d simply disappear.

Harry started tonight’s reading, as he always did, with a little speech.

Hi, my name is Harry Clark. Before starting, I usually say a few words. They’re always the same, I don’t much of an imagination, he joked, so those of you who’ve been to one of my sessions before, be patient.

The young medium told them he’d soon open a door to a world that was not hidden; it was simply not visible.

There’s a difference, he explained. Hidden is something you’re not supposed to know. But, you’re here because you have to know about this world. I hope and wish that once this door is opened, your life will never be the same.

Harry knew the group was primed and ready to go. But, he dramatically paused, letting the audience’s anxiety level rise a few notches before continuing.

Hopefully, as of tonight, you’ll begin living with an awareness that there’s a life after this one, there many before and there’ll be countless other lives down the road.

And, he finished, maybe you’ll start to see that our deeds, words and thoughts ripple through the universe. We’re accountable for those ripples and we’re responsible for our actions. Keep this in mind and your life will change.

Well, that’s the last time I’ll be making that little speech, Harry said to himself when he finished. I’m closing the door for good, he added under his breath.

But, out of a corner of his eye, Harry noticed a spirit he hadn’t seen in quite awhile. It was Bob. The spirit knowingly nodded, smiled and said, Like I said Harry, the choice is always yours.

"You’re