Embracing the Spirits: True Stories of My Encounters With the Other Side by Barbara Parks (best ereader for graphic novels txt) 📗

I quickly opened up the attachment and was incredu-

lous that I hadn’t noticed it before. A three dimensional face seemed to have manifested within the fabric of the cushion.

A man’s face seems to be looking directly at Deb as she plays

with her dog Daisy.

I emailed Deb back within seconds.

“Deb!” I wrote. “Does this gent resemble your uncle?”

Deb had told me that her Uncle Tom had passed away from

emphysema several months earlier. I had a strong feeling that

old Tom was seizing the opportunity to let his family know

that he was OK.

“He does!” she wrote back. She joked that she recognised

his big schnauzer of a nose and that it could very well be her Uncle Tom.

We decided then and there that we needed to give Deb’s

spirit family a better opportunity to come through. It was time to arrange a family séance.

There were to be five of us in attendance; Deb and myself,

in addition to Tom’s wife Bett and his daughters, Jill and Sue. As was the case when I first met Deb, I felt an instant connection to her Auntie and her cousins. We embraced at the front door as if we were old friends.

138Deb

The face in the red cushion looks very much like Deb’s Uncle Tom.

After explaining what we would be doing that evening, we

sat at the table and invited the spirits to join us. We had no doubt that they would be happy to interact, and indeed Tom

had been building up to his big performance all day.

Jill told us that for several hours in the lead up to the

séance, Tom had been announcing his presence with a strong

whiff of tobacco smoke!

Tom, Doris and Deb’s father, Ray took turns at impressing

us with their ability to move the table. Each had their own distinctive style, which made it easy to distinguish who was com-

municating with us at any given time. Whilst the men moved

the table quite forcefully, Doris’s interactions with the table somehow seemed more delicate. Her table tipping efforts

were almost graceful, moving the table so rhythmically that

her musical bent easily shone through. She would rotate the

table in one direction, then lift it onto one leg. Then in one Deb 139

fluid motion, it would spin in reverse and tip itself onto the opposite leg. The table appeared to be performing an elegant

dance.

Doris maintained the rhythmic movement of the table for

several minutes, after which Ray and Tom decided to join her

for the grand finale. The three spirits pooled their energies

towards what would be a extraordinary display.

“Are you ready guys?” I asked. “Go on then, impress us!”

The movement began with little more than a subtle vibra-

tion, after which the round table began to spin. In order to

keep our fingertips in contact with the tabletop, the five of us pushed our chairs back and stood up. This was obviously the

cue to rev things up a little, as the table built up momentum as it spun around with increasing speed.

We couldn’t stop laughing as we shuffled around the table,

knowing full well that our spirit friends were having a chuckle at our expense. We knew how ridiculously foolish we must’ve

looked!

By the time we closed down the table and called it a night,

we were all feeling energised and at peace. We were convinced

that we’d just spent the evening with three beautiful spirits, and we knew that they had relished the experience as much as we

had.

A month or so later, Deb messaged me with some exciting

follow-up. It seemed that Tom was still partaking in the occa-

sional family visit, and had been a particularly frequent visitor to his daughter, Jill’s house.

Jill had long been smelling Tom’s signature scent of

tobacco smoke, but now he had taken to announcing himself

all the more. His physical manifestations had escalated to a

level that was difficult to comprehend.

140Deb

Jill determined that the smoke seemed to be emanating

from the downstairs toilet, the perfect place to indulge in a for-bidden cigarette. Despite his emphysema, Tom used to sneak

an occasional clandestine ciggie; and it seemed he was con-

tinuing to do so after his death. Most astounding of all was the fact that in addition to the tobacco smell, small mounds of cigarette ash had begun manifesting on the toilet floor.

Each time Jill swept the ash away, it would reappear within

hours. In the end, Jill decided not to bother sweeping it up

at all, as Tom was sure to replace it with a fresh pile anyway!

Struggling to comprehend such a physical manifestation of a

spirit presence, Jill took a photograph of the ash. What better way to validate the presence of her recently departed father?

And if the phenomenon ceased, Jill would always have a

reminder of the lengths her dad went to in order to assure her that his spirit lived on. Tom wanted his family to know that he was still very much a part of their lives.

In addition to the mysteriously appearing piles of ash, Jill

noticed another unusual manifestation. She reports that from

time to time one of the nearby terracotta floor tiles gets inexplicably hot, despite those surrounding it remaining cool. Deb keeps me up to date with Tom’s reasonably frequent exploits,

messaging me whenever some new and exciting manifestation

comes through.

“So we have Pillow Tom, Toilet Tom and Tile Tom!” she joked.

His impressive array of physical manifestations made me won-

der what party trick Tom would come up with next. I was con-

vinced that whatever it was, I’d be impressed.

Post-death visitations such as Tom’s demonstrate the lim-

itless possibilities of the spirit world. Manipulating the physical realm is hard for our mortal minds to process. But as Tom

Deb 141

seemed to effortlessly prove, it is not only possible, but seemingly effortless under the right set of circumstances. The

energy required for a spirit to affect the physical world can be gleaned from a variety of sources; whether they be electrical, psychic or emotional. Believing that these events can and do

happen, provides additional psychic fuel to allow spirit pres-

ences to