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HEARING IS
BELIEVING

Church of the Two Worlds Washington DC

been moving from place to place all these years.  She says that it’s time for it to go.”  Guilty as charged, I’ve been dragging around the old size four cocktail dress that I'd worn for my wedding for eons, never mentioning it to anyone and forgetting about it myself until my dearly-departed mother reminded me that I still had it.

​​

For years, I'd heard my father talk about his dead mother, the medium, “I know, I know Daddy,” half-listening until that fateful Sunday, when I got my proof that mediumship is real. One afternoon in the early ’80s my ex and I were strolling through Georgetown, in Washington, D.C., and happened upon a little stone church with a sign that read, “Church of Two Worlds, Healing, Messages, Sunday, 2:00.”  I was intrigued. ​​

The next Sunday my husband was spending the day with his parents, over from England to celebrate his thirtieth birthday, so I moseyed over to the Church of the Two Worlds.

As I walked in a deathly pale woman with jet black hair was playing the organ, elaborately lifting her hands and swaying to and fro as a tiny congregation of loners sat in silence amongst the oaken pews.  A simple altar, bereft of brassware, cloths, or flowers sat starkly against ivory walls with a lectern, a few chairs, and a hymn board rounding out the decor. 

 

After awhile, a rail-thin woman with gray-orange hair glided in wearing a seventies-era chiffon evening gown, and introduced the organist as “Maude.” Maude came to a florid stop, swiveled round and announced that she ‘never before heard’ the music that she was playing, and that she was ‘bringing forth melodies from dead musicians from the other side.'   I liked

this place.  Without further ado, the lady in the evening gown stepped behind the lectern and instructed everyone to open their prayer books.  The parishioners listlessly began reciting the National Spiritualist Association of Churches (NSAC) beliefs: “we affirm that the existence and personal identity of the individual continues after the change called death …”

 

Then, after a hymn, the lady announced, “Now, it’s time for messages.” With that the pews began to squeak as the somnambulant parishioners stirred to life. ​Pointing a skeletal finger at a middle-aged man, she solemnly inquired, "May I come to yoooo?"  The man perked up.  "Why yes, of course."​"I have a woman here in spirit.  Her first initial is B.  She sends her greetings and tells you not to worry about money -- it'll come soon.​​​​"

​​

After dispatching similar tidings, it was my turn.  The lady pointed to me and asked, “May I come to yoooo?”

“Yes,” I blurted awkwardly.

She continued, “Olive sends her greetings.  She says that an important anniversary has just passed.  She wishes to acknowledge it.”

 

“Oh, thank you,” I mumbled disingenuously.  Olive?  I don’t know an Olive.

 

That evening, I joined my husband and in-laws for supper in the rickety Georgetown Federalist-era firetrap where they were staying and began to recount my adventures, “… and then she asked if she could come to me and said the strangest thing: Olive sends her greetings. She says that an important anniversary just passed.  I don’t know an Olive or an anniversary.”

​My mother-in-law’s face went ashen as my father-in-law put down his fork and stared down at his plate. 

“Olive?” my husband piped up. “What an odd name.  Do you know an Olive?” he asked. 

 

“No.  I have no idea what this woman was talking about,” I replied.

 

His parents remained silent.  Finally, his mother drew in a breath, turned toward my husband and in her lovely BBC English said, “Darling, you know that you’re adopted.”

 

“Of course,” my husband replied.

“Well,” his mother continued, clearing her throat, “we never told you this but your real mother, your birth mother, her name was Olive.  Thirty years ago, even if a baby was meant for adoption, everyone thought it best that the birth mother stay with the baby for a bit after giving birth.  So for the first two weeks of your life Olive cared for you.  She nursed you, fed you, and gave you baths.  Then, one Sunday, she left in the morning and we came that afternoon to pick you up.  When we got there you were lying in your crib.  Olive had laundered all the little clothes that she’d bought for you and neatly folded them on the bed.  This week -- and today is Sunday -- is exactly thirty years since she left the hospital, and we picked you up.” 

 

“Darling,” she turned to me, “there is a scientific explanation for all of this.  This woman was simply reading your mind.”  I wanted to ask how that was possible considering that I didn’t know about Olive until that day, but I said nothing.  “She was tapping into the collective unconscious,” implying that Dr. Carl Jung’s controversial blend of metaphysics and psychology was accepted fact.  My mother-in-law was a scientifically minded surgeon with no time for talking spirits.  My father-in-law was part of the forward-thinking clergy of the Anglican Church, but that didn’t extend to sorcerers and soothsayers.  Nonetheless, Olive opened a door for me that Sunday which has never closed.    

© Medium Gail, MediumGail.com

THEN CAME
THE LIGHT

light being

by incessant, searing blows to her legs like she was being beaten with clubs.  Dana scanned her bedroom frantically, but saw nothing, no one was there but her.  The invisible beating went on, the pain getting more and more unbearable until she mustered the courage to scream,  “What’s happening?” at which point a column of white light rushed from the ceiling and she heard an audible voice call out, "You cannot do this! She has a purpose here.”  With that, the beating stopped.                                                  

After her divorce Dana relocated to her parents’ Dutch Colonial in Warren, New Jersey.  One bitterly cold night she turned in at 11:00 p.m., blankets piled high.  The moment that she flicked off the light and rolled over to sleep, she heard footsteps begin to clomp, clomp, clomp across the floor below.  As they reached the stairs they began a slow climb, one step at a time. Dana lay frozen in fear.  No one was home but her. 

When they reached the second-floor landing the footsteps paused then 

slowly began to clomp, clomp, clomp toward her door where they stopped, then began moving inside the bedroom, toward her, until they paused at the foot of her bed and waited.

Finally, Dana snapped on the light and looked around.  She began to feel calm as she saw that no one was there.  The room was empty.  But in the next instant Dana’s veins flooded in terror again as she watched her blankets suddenly whisked away by invisible hands and felt the icy-cold air slam her body.  She wanted to scream, but she was too paralyzed to manage a whisper.  She wanted to pull the blankets up but she couldn't move her arms.  For two agonizing minutes Dana lay paralyzed in fear and cold until she finally mustered the strength to scream, “LEAVE!”   With that, her invisible visitor turned and began to clomp-clomp-clomp out of the room, never to be heard again.

 

Jeffrey is a demonstrably elaborate charmer dealing in French antiques and fine silver whose been a friend for over 30 years.  At the end of his mother’s life, Jeffrey found himself tasked with managing a business in Philadel-phia and running back and forth to New 

York State to attend to her care and battle a brother seemingly intent on hastening their mother's death.

 

One afternoon, after a four-hour drive to bring his mother home after a hospital stay, Jeffrey felt unsettled and unsure about leaving her with his brother and sister-in-law.  As he put away groceries, he couldn’t shake the feeling that his mother just wasn’t safe.  Dusk was ending and early evening darkness was filling the windows.  As he reached toward a cabinet, Jeffrey caught something out of the corner of his eye and turned.  Before him stood two columns of ultra-white light the width of fluorescent tubes, beaming floor-to-ceiling beside the back door.  Suddenly two thoughts flashed into his mind, do not leave your mother here, and get away immediately.  Then the lights vanished. 

 

At that Jeffrey dropped the groceries, raced toward his mother’s room, and hastily began packing.  Then he hustled her into the car and started back toward Philadelphia where his mother remained until her naturally appointed hour of death.

© Medium Gail, MediumGail.com

Then Came the Light

DO NOT SPEAK
ILL OF HYDE
HALL'S DEAD

hyde hall, lake ostego, ny

Hyde Hall seems clipped from the English countryside.  That day the rest of the world was opting for baseball and boating, so I had Hyde Hall and its docent all to myself. As I walked into the mansion's high-ceilinged vestibule I had my antennae up, roaming for spirits, but I was disappointed.  Not a spook to be had.  Then BAM, as I sauntered into the front parlor I homed-in on a patch of familiar weightlessness at the far end of the room that gently told me, "Here I am."  I immediately became aware that 

the spirit was a male, and he was resting luxuriously in the midday sun.  Even with its raw, old plaster walls, Hyde Hall’s parlor was uncommonly elegant.  If I were the house spirit, I’d be languishing there too.

 

As the docent greeted me I felt our invisible companion rise amiably at the same time and walk toward us, as though he were welcoming a long-awaited guest.   The guide began his talk, detailing an account of the house's architecture and con-struction.  My new, unseen friend swelled with a pride that remained steady as the guide went on about the Clarke family's wealth and prominence, but as the docent 

began recounting Mr. Clarke's long-term illness toward the end of his life, I felt the ghost's emotions drop.  But, when the docent started detailing Clarke's young wife's affair with a neighbor, during her husband's illness, the Mr. Clarke's spirit flashed hot with anger, turned toward the door to the back hall, and stormed out. 

 

La-la-la, the docent remained blithely ignorant of the disturbance that he’d caused.  ​​​That is why the ancient Spartans warned, “speak no ill of the dead. “

© Medium Gail, MediumGail.com

Hyde Hall Ghost

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