View Related
Maurice Barbanell communicates.. The World Beyond (25)
Paul Beard was also present for 28 sittings in London between 1982 and 1986 with medium Marie Cherrie when Maurice Barbanell came back to communicate with this world. He had died on July 17th, 1981 and was the former journalist, founder and editor of the Psychic News for many years, as well as being a medium himself, with Silver Birch as his guide, who gave trance talks for many years in Hannen Swffer's circle. It is sad to see the demise of his Psychic News, but perhaps some new patrons will revive it.
In several of these sessions with Paul Beard and Marie Cherrie, he talks about his experiences on first arriving on the Other Side.
June 4th, 1986. London.
SPIRIT OF MAURICE BARBANELL - At the moment of my passing there were several things taking place at once. There was a sense of sinking, a feeling of bright light and I use this word deliberately. I couldn’t see the light but I felt it. There was also the sensation of rising which sounds ridiculous when I already said I felt I was sinking. I can only look back and think this was the separating of the two parts [bodies], and so I was aware of both at the same time. I was conscious of some people clustered around the bed and the sensation was similar to the feelings one had when you received gas in the old days to get your teeth out. There is that sensation of coming to, and a cluster of faces round you, …it is the best way I can picture it for you. And similarly there was this sense of being disoriented. A feeling of not being quite awake because I could hear myself being discussed, yet I would be puzzled how to answer you if you said did I physically hear, or hear in my head.
PAUL BEARD - These were people on the other side already, were they?
BARBANELL - Yes. Two men I recognized as old friends that you and I both know. Then there was Mother and strangely enough there was an uncle that I didn’t have much to do with or know much about, but somehow I recognized him. I must admit to a feeling of disappointment because I expected to see my guide (Silver Birch) but I was told that this was not part of his duties, that he was there and aware of my passing but that those who had known me physically in this world were used at this stage to help me adjust. What I did then I am not sure of - there seem to be gaps in my memory. I suspect I floated between two states: at periods I was aware, at periods I seemed to be dreaming. Looking back, this does not seem to have lasted very long because suddenly I was awake and conscious, almost as if someone had snapped their fingers and suddenly I was there.
BEARD - Were you surprised to go over just then”
BARBANELL - There was no pain. I have asked others since that period and you would be surprised at the number of people who have spoken of having no pain. Most experienced the same symptoms as myself, which was a lassitude, a tremendous weariness, a feeling of weakness – the expression weak as a kitten comes to mind. Now I understand why sleep is called the little death, very similar. No, I was not surprised at my passing, it was as if the other me knew it was taking place and immediately took over when the process started. There was also a strange sense of déjà vu. I felt I had done it before and knew the process that was taking place. I think I remembered other passing at that point. Certainly this inner me, the essence, the soul, the spirit, knew all along what was taking place and if this conscious me, the physical, was surprised I was not aware of it, almost as if the subconscious took over the conscious.[other communicators have mentioned this, that the subconscious mind opens up completely, and becomes an open book].
There was the usual reunion then with others, and the pleasure of knowing that everything was similar to what I had expected. It was some while before I realized that therein lay the danger, and I started questioning myself. Was I seeing what I wanted to see? But this came later. At first there was the joy of reunion. And the worry over those left behind, especially my wife Sylvia and one friend who had been seriously ill also, whom I had been concerned about. Looking back, that period seemed to me an idyllic period; no one spoke of anything but the pleasure at seeing me again and of course you know how I love to talk. I cannot time this period. Physically I was aware of never feeling so good. I had never felt so good before, there was almost a state of ecstasy, a feeling of I HAVE MADE IT ! which continued to remain with me for some time. At this same period I do not know if I went looking for my guide or he came looking for me but we met. We spoke for a period: what I can remember of what he said, is his advice to take my time adjusting, not to try and experience too much too quickly, and he told me finally that for a period he would be there if I needed him.
BEARD - Did he appear as the portrait (by Coral Polge) or did he appear otherwise?
BARBANELL - He appeared otherwise and at first I did not recognize him, but once he spoke it was like meeting someone who was familiar, yet not familiar. I told him that I had expected to see him as he had shown himself to me in your world, but he said that would encourage me to remain on that level of thinking, that it was time to move on and to start experiencing reality, the reality of myself and the reality of my surroundings. I remember doing a lot of talking with those I had known before. Physically my surroundings seemed all that one would want.
BEARD - Did you create them or were they created for you?
BARBANELL - At this period I had not started to ask these questions. Later I discovered it was a combination of the two, of what I wanted to see, and of what they thought would help me adjust. I found it difficult at that period to get used to the timelessness of it. You would be surprised, my friend, how much that bothers you at first, although you think it wouldn’t Slowly my curiosity, which is never far from the surface, began to make me ask questions, and I found among my relatives those who were quite content to remain as they were, and so they could not answer my questions. At this period I found more help from our colleagues, the ones we had worked with and known in the past, but again, there was a difference; there were some who could answer my questions and some who had not even thought of them yet.
At this point, I found myself reviewing my life. This was not an easy period, this was my first uncomfortable period. I saw it as a pattern. It was a combination of a movie and a mental process. It was like those railways you have as a child where you watch the trains going in and around all the different tracks, cutting back, going forward, only it was me I was watching rather than a train.
BEARD - So it was a recapitulation rather than just a time track?
BARBANELL - Total, and every so often certain events would stand out where I had to make decisions or where there had been a crisis. Some of those I was not proud of. I had not thought myself vain or proud, yet there were quite outstanding instances of this as I reviewed. I watched myself turn a deaf ear when I should have listened. I started questioning my motives. At first I made excuses for myself. What else could I do given the conditions at the time? Sometimes I stopped because something embarrassed me or hurt me but I felt impelled back to look and see again. No one did this to me, yet it was like looking at my life in a miniature model of it. It is hard to describe. It wasn’t like a cinema reel because I wasn’t viewing this bit, then that bit, and then the next, but all of it at one point.
BEARD - So you saw the whole railway system at the same time?
Yes. This is why I had to call it a pattern, rather than a reel, because a reel implies that there is a beginning and an end,, and you go from one to the other. But this was all at the one period. And I realise now, looking back, that you have to see it in this fashion.
I noticed there were people who tended to group together, and that there were others whom I call loners . I found that with relatives and people whom I had known in this world, we were no longer talking the same language to each other. And so, still caring, still loving, we seem to go our separate ways.
The sense of déjà vu returned now and again and sometimes I think this was the most irritating of all, glimpses from a past longer than my life here in your world. The sense of elation, of ecstasy, started to be replaced by a sense of urgency, as if I needed to know more, almost a hunger for more. There as then a period where I just went about absorbing all I could learn, trying to ask the right questions. I had a period where I watched the new arrivals coming, and understood more my own experiences. Slowly I found myself becoming more and more alone, by my own choice. I had to withdraw to think things out, to lay out my treasures of knowledge, and try and fit the pieces together. During this period I was as active if not more active, mentally than I have ever been in your world. There was no stress, but this hunger and urgency.
Now I have learned that my ties with your world are slowly being broken. Sometimes there is a feeling of guilt over this, a feeling of being selfish but not just with the ties that I am moving away from in the earth world, but also those I know where I am now. My surroundings, which seemed so clear cut and very much like your world at first, now are not so clearly defined but this I am told represents my state of mind.
June 11th 1986
BARBANELL - I am mixing still with others, not so much my relatives now, but others of like mind. I have found some of my heroes. Sadly un-heroic, over here, and you know I refer to those whose academic qualifications and intelligence I admired. It is surprising how many of them have this blind spot, as if their learning has left them moribund, stuck. It is a very disillusioning thing, for one would have expected them to have gone further than this. Some seem like records playing the same tune again and again, and so I would say , whatever you do, be flexible, be prepared to consider all possibilities, close your mind to nothing. To be an expert in one field is not enough. Someone told me recently that science fiction writers do very well over here!. The closed mind is the biggest stumbling block [to progress].
You are now one of the few, the very few, I can retain my contact with. My much loved wife Sylvia I cannot reach, except on a very basic level. My friends think it is not me (communicating here!). Did they really expect me to remain the same? I thought we knew better than this. To have those who know me say this is not me, helps me understand that I am making progress. I would not want to be like those others, my former heroes. Unfortunately they have remained the same.
------------------------------------------------------------------
Maurice did meet Silver Birch a few more times on the Other Side, but they did not work together again, but had their different projects and interests.. As medium on earth and guide in spirit, they had had a mission to fulfill, but now they had to go their separate ways. The same thing happened with my father and mother. My father died 35 years before my mother, but they met again on the other side. Then my mother stayed to reside with her sister. My father went off to work on another plane. All three have communicated with me more than once, on separate occasions, to give evidence of their survival, as have my grandparents, godfather and other friends I have known. Richard R.
Reviewed and condensed from parts of two of 28 sessions published in “The Barbanell Report” transmitted to Marie Cherrie and edited by Paul Beard. Pilgrim Books, 1987. An invaluable guide to the continuity of the life of the spirit beyond death. Mediums Ena Twigg and Estelle Roberts also communicate from the other side in these sessions.
Paul Beard, president of the College of Psychic Studies in London for 16 years, wrote four useful guides to Spiritualism and Psychical Research, before his own passing on June 9th, 2002. The titles are Survival of Death, Living On, and Hidden Man, and Inner Eye, Listening Ear.
Post Article:
Submit Your Own Article