O, WHAT A WORLD OF UNSEEN VISIONS AND HEARD SILENCES

O, WHAT A WORLD OF UNSEEN VISIONS

AND

HEARD SILENCES,

THIS INSUBSTANTIAL COUNTRY OF THE MIND!

A CONSCIOUSNESS THAT IS MYSELF OF SELVES,

THAT IS EVERYTHING, AND YET NOTHING AT ALL,,,,

WHAT IS IT?

AND WHERE DID IT COME FROM?

AND WHY?

These are words taken from a book by Julian Jaynes, and  with which I introduce Chapter 6 of my book -

LISTENING TO THE SILENCES

IN A WORLD OF HEARING VOICES

The book is long – 160,000 words – and it may be too long for some, and they may give up before they realise the true value of what I write.

The purpose of almost everything that I write is to proclaim my absolute certainty that the voices that I ‘hear’ and the physical presences that invade my body or try to take over my mind, are all of spiritual origin.

To understand why I am so certain, it is necessary to read my Chapter 6.  When you have read it, I am convinced that you will want to read the whole book.  So, to make it easy for you, I have extracted Chapter 6 and placed it on my second Blog, which you will find at

www.roycvincent2.blogspot.com

The complete book is at

www.royvincent.org

The book is free, and the website is arranged in such a way that makes it easy to download the book chapter by chapter.

I wrote my story to try to set free other voice-hearers, and to help them live again, free from psychiatry and anti-psychotic drugs.

I wrote it also for carers and for professionals in the world of medicine and psychiatry, and to try to help them to realise that there are diagnostic options other than “a chemical imbalance in the brain..”, or “one side of the brain ‘talking’ to the other.”  Nor yet “the bicameral mind.”

Acceptance of the reality of spiritual intrusion into the human mind and body will result in greater understanding of other intransigent conditions, such as the Bi-polar Mind, paranoia and Disassociation – which I will always refer to as Multiple Personality Disorder – which in fact it is.  Namely, the presence within a person of more than one intruding ‘spirit’.

Anyway – please read my book and make up your own mind, free from the conventionally accepted opinions.  And please give publicity to the book website and Blogs.  Put them on Facebook, or anywhere you think they may be found, and someone, somewhere will be grateful to you.

"CAN YOU SPELL BICYCLE?" ASKED THE FLIGHT-SERGEANT

"CAN YOU SPELL BICYCLE?"

ASKED THE FLIGHT- SERGEANT.

How tenuous, slender, insubstantial are many of the strands that have gone to make up some lives; strands that appear as frail as those of a spider’s web.  But while a spider’s web has a predetermined regularity, the strands that make up a life are just as likely to stop, divert and redirect with a suddenness that appears all the more perverse and random when viewed in retrospect, than when they are examined while creating the flow of the life.

              It suddenly struck me recently that it is quite certain that Kate, Mary, Oliver, Robbie and young Jimmie would not exist, be robustly alive as they undoubtedly are, if Granny had not been able to spell ‘bicycle’.  Neither would their parents have met - Andrew would not be travelling the world in his professorial role, supervising earth science projects for the Third World; Jamie would not be inspiring students of graphic art; Elizabeth would not be trading in second-hand books - and their respective partners would have other spouses, other children.  I, myself would not have an excellent friend from whom I, for instance, learned the craft of leather carving, nor would I, through her, have met retired art professor Glynne, from whom I learned the skill of actually looking and seeing in my attempts at sculpture and carving.  And it only happened because she could spell ‘bicycle’.

              She had sat across the desk from the Flight Sergeant.  She was seventeen and a half.  She had been determined to enlist in the Armed Forces in this, 1941, the second year of World War II.  She had wanted to join the Women’s Royal Naval Service, the Wrens.  After all, she had grown up by water, indeed had been rowed across it in a ferry four times a day going to and from school - the River Colne - and the names of her villages - Wivenhoe, Fingeringhoe and Rowhedge - are alive even today for those who read about the great ocean-going yachts of yesteryear and the skippers and crews which the villages famously provided.

           And hadn’t her grandfather run away to sea as a boy and eventually joined the Royal Navy in the days of sail, and ultimately served on the Royal Yacht?  And hadn’t three of her cousins learned their seamanship and gunnery just up the coast in H.M.S.Ganges, and one been a Gunner at the Battle of the River Plate?  And hadn’t her uncles also been at sea in the Royal Navy?  And wasn’t her father a shipwright?  Yes, she wanted the Wrens, but they only had vacancies for cooks, and she didn’t want to be a cook.  She didn’t think that the khaki of the A.T.S. uniform would suit her, and maybe she thought that her bum would look too big in the fetching corduroy breeches of the Land Army.  But determined she was to enlist, and so she offered herself to the Women’s’ Auxiliary Air Force - the W.A.A.F.  (Little did she know that she would indeed wear khaki, but that was later in North Africa where she would progress from Algeria to Egypt, and when she was a seasoned service-woman, and had other things to think about than the colour of the uniform).

              But the W.A.A.F. at that time had vacancies only for cooks and barrage balloon personnel.  She knew, had made up her mind that she did not want to be a cook; so this would be her future - to fill and man-handle and control the huge blimps which floated in the skies over our vulnerable towns and cities and airfields.

 

              The Flight Sergeant looked at this eager teenager sitting across the desk and was temporarily lost in thought, as he pictured her petite form struggling in the dark in a gale, trying to control this surging beast, the balloon, and its anchors and winches, when an idea struck him and he looked up at her - “Can you spell ‘bicycle’?” he suddenly asked.  Totally bemused she said she could, and did.  “Right” he said, “I’ll put you down for ‘Signals’”.  And so she enlisted and was in the W.A.A.F., her future career in ‘Signals’ decided - and then she went home to tell her parents what she had done.

              And thus, on the basis of such a trivial thought and response a whole new career began, as clad in Air Force blue and later khaki, she made her way across North Africa from Algiers to Cairo in the wake of the armies – on one memorable occasion, and from her base in Egypt, connecting some very senior people – one in London, and the other in a tent in the Sinai Desert.  With ‘bicycle’, the whole future course of a life, of many lives, was set in train, and I am left to ponder on the chain of coincidence that brought me an excellent friend.

              So it is with some other of my friends – most excellent friends of some forty years – who would not be known to me if it had not been for…

Half a pound of minced beef wrapped in a newspaper...

                In those days, butchers and fish and chip shops could use newspaper for wrapping around the greaseproof paper containing the meat or potato chips.  (This was in 1956).  The minced beef, destined for its role in a shepherd’s pie, lay on the kitchen table at a friend’s house where the mother had stopped to have coffee on her way home from shopping.  She had a problem - where to choose for the family to take their summer holiday.  All their earlier plans had been thwarted by the Suez Crisis. 

             Father had been a tank commander in the desert in WWII and had been retained as a reservist ready to be recalled as and when needed, and it seemed that he would be needed - until the crisis was resolved, and he was told not to bother.  Which left the problem of what to do for the summer holiday, having cancelled their previous plans.  Chatting about this and that and thwarted holiday plans, Mother idly scanned the newspaper around the mince and her eye caught a small ad.  It offered seaside holidays in an isolated cottage with direct access to the shore, and riding and miles of clean unspoiled beaches.  It sounded ideal for a family - three children and very active - mountains and lakes nearby - and so they booked and came.  (It is just a few miles from where I sit now, and the very same place where my wife and I went with our two-year old daughter for a riding holiday two years later.  Run by mother and daughter Joan and Lindsay who themselves increasingly featured in our lives, as riding became our own family hobby)

              So much was this impromptu adventure enjoyed that the cottage became a regular holiday centre for the family.  Later when each child had developed wider interests, daughter Patricia, increasingly keen on riding, came on her own.  In time, the activity of the embryonic riding school increased and it moved to a farm site and adjacent to another farm wherein dwelt two handsome sons.  And in the fullness of time, Lindsay married David and Patricia married Peter.  And it was about this time that I, spending much time with the horses at the farm with my wife and daughter, actually got to know Peter and Tricci and there began a friendship that has grown and strengthened over the years to the point where we regard each other as ‘family’ - my own family having sadly broken up.  Ignoring the actuality of the Suez Crisis - if the butcher had picked up a different piece of newspaper we would never have even met, and their lives would have been so vastly different, and I wouldn’t have baby-sat for Cristen and Tessa, nor played Santa Claus over the telephone for them and their cousins.

But then again, it is wholly unlikely that I, myself, would be here, would even exist at all, if the doctor hadn’t shouted down the stairs:

“Bring me two bricks quickly!”

             No; not exist at all, for my mother was in imminent danger of dying, and I wouldn’t be conceived for another year or so.  My father, downstairs, was already mind-blown with the birth of his first child, my brother, and with the serious situation that had developed upstairs.  But, not knowing just what was happening or what to think, he blindly obeyed the command and dashed outside the house in Toronto Avenue, and from somewhere, he couldn’t say where, conjured up two bricks and ran with them upstairs where he helped the doctor to prop up the foot of my mother’s bed.

           My brother’s birth had been difficult, and my mother was experiencing a severe haemorrhage and was about to go into a coma.  This is family folklore that I didn’t learn of for many years, so the edges are a bit blurred, but my mother was saved and in due course, precisely twenty-two months later, I arrived.  But on one thing everyone agreed - it had been very, very close.  And very, very close came a premature end for me when I was just twenty years old – and, surprisingly, a major factor that contributed to my being so close to death at that place and precisely at that time was because

“My surname begins with the letter ‘V’.”

              You find that hard to believe?  Well, just consider how often many of the decisions and choices in our lives are made by others – people with lists!  Yes, people with lists – lists of names drawn up in alphabetical order!  Tasks allocated, activities at school – sometimes to your advantage; often, if you are the tail of the alphabet, to your disadvantage.  Forgetting school and moving to my war service, and my initial billet - which was with Walker, Walter and Wilson.  Moving to Radar training, and my working partner was another Walker (why couldn’t it have been Chance, or Fovargue, Roskell or ‘Lofty’ Moss – thank Heaven it wasn’t Mimnagh!).  Training finished and moving on to ships and overseas bases – if I had been further up the alphabet I might have gone to Trincomalee or Freetown (where I might have caught yellow fever and nearly died another early death!).

     

     As it was, I was sent to Malta to join a destroyer, HMS Saumarez, which, six months later – and in ‘peacetime’ – was mined by Albanian mines, with the loss of many lives.  I was burned and physically injured, but obviously survived, although as I look back and study photographs and remember, increasingly I realise just how close it had been.

       Injured, I was taken on board an aircraft carrier where my burns were tended by someone whose life, to a degree, paralleled my own.  As I lay drawing my first breaths in South Wales, there was, in Scotland, a little bundle of tenuous life – a life that had arrived just eight hours before me; a life that was so tenuous that seeing it had caused the doctor to say to the midwife –

“Put the child aside.”

         The doctor was not being callous or unkind.  He knew that the child was premature, the early arrival having been caused by the shock to the mother of the father dying some little time before.  He knew the straitened circumstances that might arise and the problems and expense of a weakly, premature child.  So – “Put the child aside”.

       But Granny would have none of it.  “He’ll no be put aside”, defiantly she said, and took the bundle on her lap beside the fire and gently, drop by drop, trickled warm whisky and water into the tiny mouth.

 

       I learned of these events some years later when the ‘bundle’, now named David, had, like me, joined the Royal Navy.  We became friends, as our passage through the various forms of training was identical.  Ultimately separated, his path took him to an aircraft carrier and mine to the aforementioned destroyer, and to the incident in which I was burned and taken on board his ship. 

         The next day, I was ferried across to a hospital ship, and as I said ‘goodbye’ to him at the foot of the gangway, we neither realised that we would not see each other for thirty-seven years, and that our meeting then would be so unexpected and unusual.  I have written about this encounter and all that followed from it in my book, and will not repeat it here.  But I will acknowledge the joy that followed as I discovered a new family in Scotland, a family of which I am still a part, although, sadly, David himself has died.

David        Marjory         Roy

       There must be many like me who can have such a roll-call of events in their lives, events that are brought to the front of the mind and ‘dusted off’; revisited within the mind and rejoiced over, or mourned.  In the main, they are reminiscences that are welcome, and even though some have sad endings, they can, nevertheless, be viewed, as are old photographs and letters and scrapbooks.

      

       But think on this – the lives of my brother and I might never have even begun, if it had not been for the fact that…

My father had a motor-bike and side-car

Just like this…

You find it hard to believe?  Well, ignoring the fact that my mother and father met purely by chance – a few seconds either way and they would have passed by, never to speak – a bank-holiday motor-bike ride, together with Aunty Annie, gave a kick-start to the lives of my brother and  our cousin Eric.

       Unlike the model above, my Dad’s bike had a pillion seat, and off they went for a run around the South Wales countryside.  Taking a short-cut, the road became a sort of switch-back, and, determined to give the girls a ‘thrill’, Dad speeded up.  But soon, very soon, there came cries of agony mixed with “Stop.  Please stop.”  Both passengers dismounted doubled up in pain – pain centred in the lower abdomen.

       Now, both Mum and Dad, and Aunty Annie and Uncle Will had been married for three or four years, and yet no babies were forthcoming.  However, within the month, both couples had conceived, and nine months later, Bruce arrived, to be followed within a fortnight by our cousin Eric.

I had to wait a further twenty-two months to be born.  Whether I would have happened at all, if it had not been for the motor-bike and side-car…

 Who knows?

And here I am now, 

moving towards my 88^th birthday.  Looking back down the years, many things delight and surprise me.  Most surprising of all, I think, is the fact that I have actually written a book.  A book of some 160,000 words entitled Listening to the Silences.  And I surprise myself even more with the fact that even now I continue to write.  I write for this Blog and I write articles for publication, and the whole of my writing has one theme and one purpose.

       For more than thirty years I have experienced inner voices in my mind, and physical intrusions into my body and senses – a total experience that I know with unshakeable certainty is the result of spiritual intervention and interaction.  And how could I cease writing when what I have written and published brings me emails such as those from ‘John’, a man of more than forty years, and a voice hearer for many of them.

            John writes frequently, and frequently he expresses gratitude for my book and other writing.  He also tells me that I have saved his life by drawing him back from thoughts of suicide, and at other times he says that I have saved his sanity.

           From the Philippines, a seafarer Al Cab.- sent  a very harrowing email, which ended ‘… Now all I want is to be a husband to my wife and a father to my daughter.  Now you inspire me a lot.’

           While from Poland, Jacek wrote -

          Hello Roy, thank you very much for your answer.

Yes I am still in trouble with evil spirits they still talking to me all the day long and still hitting me which is very painful.

Dear Roy could you please write me how did you become fully free from evil sprits, what did you do to be released from evil sprits.

What should I do to be fully free or released from these evil sprits.

Kind regards,

Jacek

        As well as being available as a free download on the Internet, the book also appears in paperback, but, unfortunately, it receives no useful publicity from my chosen publisher.  Consequently, I have to rely on my website and Blog to publicise the book and to try and ensure that it reaches a wide public and is read.

I shall, therefore, be very grateful if you will tell your friends on Facebook about my book and Blog, and please ask them also to pass on the addresses to their friends.

BOOK: www.royvincent.org

BLOG: www.roycvincent.blogspot.com


WHAT FOLLOWS HAS NO CONNECTION WITH WHAT YOU HAVE JUST READ, BUT, PLEASE WILL YOU READ IT AND PASS IT ON TO FRIENDS.

COMFREY HERB

 A LIFE-SAVER FOR

AFRICAN CHILDREN

During the nineteen-eighties, I maintained a regular correspondence with a member of the ‘White Sisters’ religious order (Missionary Sisters of Our Lady of Africa).  Sister Marie McDonald was in charge of a Bush Dispensary in Uganda, and was trying to restore its function after the overthrow of Idi Amin, the Ugandan dictator.

      The Sisters were desperately short of money, and at one time, Marie wrote to say that they could not get medicines, even if they could pay for them, “Could I help?”

         My former employer, British Nuclear Fuels, gave generously of material from the dispensary at the local Calder Hall Works, while in the meantime I pondered what I could do myself.

      At that time, I was making a personal study of herbal remedies, and had become impressed with the efficacy of comfrey herb (symphytum officinale), particularly as a treatment for a variety of skin conditions and for wound healing.

           With no further thought, I sent off my existing supply of comfrey ointment, and awaited comments.  When they came, I could not have been more delighted.  The ointment had been used to treat a large ulcer on the leg of an old man who had walked for three days to reach the dispensary.  Marie reckoned that such an ulcer would take upwards of a fortnight to heal using conventional remedies.  The ointment was applied on a Friday, and by the following Monday, new pink skin was developing around the ulcer, which then healed rapidly.

          With the help of Lawrence Hills of the Henry Doubleday Research Institute, several kilogrammes of ointment were shipped out, as were some comfrey seeds that Mr. Lawrence obtained from seedsmen, Thomson and Morgan.

          The ointment rapidly acquired a reputation as a ‘cure all’ for skin problems. 

      I also sent a copy of the book Comfrey, written by the indefatigable Lawrence Hills.  In the book there was a photograph of a lady who regularly bought at cattle markets, young calves that were ‘scouring’ – i.e. had diarrhoea – and which no one else wanted.  These calves she took home, and fed with milk in which she placed chopped comfrey leaves.  The scouring soon ceased, and the young animals thrived.

         One of the Sisters in Uganda saw this in the book, and thought that the remedy that cured the calves might also work on African infants.

       Dehydration following persistent diarrhoea is one of the killers of infants in the developing world.  To the delight of the Sisters – who surprisingly found comfrey already growing in their garden - the strategy was successful, and with this remedy, infants began to thrive where previously they might not have done, with the almost inevitable early death.

        Subsequently, I lost contact with my White Sister friends, and so I have no way of knowing whether they developed the use of comfrey any further, or whether they informed a wider world.

     At one time, comfrey root became suspect as a potential cause of liver cancer, and it has been largely removed from sale for internal use.  The ‘research’ on which this view had been based had involved a high dosage in rats, and was itself very suspect.

          Commenting purely from my own experience, I rate comfrey ointment and oil very highly for all skin ailments, and particularly burns and scalds.

I also use comfrey leaf internally in its tincture form with no harmful effects after twenty-five years intermittent use.

Used properly as a medicine and not a food, as some individuals were doing, it is very valuable, particularly in its role as internal vulnary.

JENNY - CLOSET VOICE HEARER - HER STORY

Jenny’s Story.

(As told to Roy Vincent)

          Jenny grew up in a gentle and close family in Gloucestershire.  Daughter of a carpenter and joiner, with two brothers, the family living in a small house adjoining the forge of the local farrier.

 

          She writes:  I am writing an account of mental and spiritual experiences which, hopefully, will help others, both those who are suffering the distressing condition known as schizophrenia, and those who try to understand and treat it.  I expect that some will recognise these experiences as being similar to those that they have had.  But to those who have not, I merely suggest that they keep an open mind and believe that I have written only the truth.  

        I was brought up to go to church, and took part in the choir and many church-based activities.  Following success in the Higher School Certificate in 1947, I went on to Reading University to study for an Honours degree in English.  I had known throughout my early teens that I wanted to be a Librarian, and after my degree, and following a year’s practical training in Reading Public Library, I attended the School of Librarianship at University College, London.  With a Diploma in Librarianship, I began work at the National Central Library in London.

       I grew up with the normal range of childhood ailments, but at ten, I began to have severe pains in my side and stomach, accompanied by severe headaches and vomiting.  Doctors could find nothing specific, and one told my mother that I would have to take pain-killing drugs for the rest of my life.  My mother, however, was determined that I should be spared this horrifying prospect, and took me to see an American doctor who practised as a chiropractor in Cheltenham.  Using skilled manipulation and various medications that she prescribed, this most kind lady effected a cure that has lasted until this day.

       My mother described me when young as having a very vivid imagination.  What I was seeing were what can only be described as ‘visions of glory’.  William Wordsworth wrote about such an experience perfectly in his ode “Intimations of immortality from recollections of early childhood”.  The whole poem expresses so exactly what I also have experienced.

Not in entire forgetfulness

Not in utter nakedness,

But trailing clouds of glory do we come

From God, who is out home”.

The beauties of nature, the colours of the flowers, birds, trees, the rhythms of the seasons, all were a joyous part of and at one with an inner light, often pure white light, which I could see.  Not only was I seeing the external, physical sun moon and stars, but on many occasions, visions of an inner sun moon and stars, also of beautiful sky-scapes which delighted me.  I could sometimes ‘see’ through physical walls to far distant beauties.  I now realise that my consciousness was on a spiritual level, which meant that material things were not registering as solid, as normal everyday consciousness.

       These visions, and many others that I could describe if invited to do so, lasted for many years.  I also felt swirls of wonderful, blissful energy as if I had been caught up in a whirlwind.  It would happen while walking particularly in the countryside.  A “still, small voice”, heard when I was walking in a lovely garden in Oxford, called me by name.  I later dedicated my life, even though lived in the world and not in an enclosed community, to God through Jesus Christ.  At that time, I did not know how unusual my experiences were, but all of them filled me with complete bliss and love for everyone and everything.

       Gradually my consciousness was drawn out into the everyday world and visions ceased.  Looking back, I realise that the lower vibrations of the material world gradually ‘came in’, as I call it and encircled the inner vision, causing darkness and the forgetfulness of the former glories.  At the time one does not know that this is happening.  The whole process is, in my opinion, spiral movement.  As we live on a spinning planet, with different levels of energies acting and interacting on human bodies, the mind becomes enmeshed in the human condition.  It is a downward spiral at first, which in due course becomes an upward one.

       At age nineteen, while studying at University, under great pressure trying to get accustomed to living alone in lodgings – although I had a very kind landlady – never free of persistent catarrh causing dull headaches, anxious about keeping ahead of work commitments, having very little leisure time and depressed by the failure of two developing, but platonic friendships, I said to myself one day in utter despair

“There is no meaning in anything.  It’s all just words, words, words”.

 At that moment something in my head just snapped, causing complete chaos inside.  I could hear voices uttering unspeakable blasphemies.  Whenever I lay down to sleep at night, shapes, colours, people’s faces churned round and round endlessly.  For the first three nights after my breakdown, I cannot remember sleeping at all.  This went on ceaselessly, day and night, utter torment, complete hell.  At this point I must state categorically that the ‘still small voice’ heard in that garden in Oxford, was totally different from these demonic ones.

       Outwardly, although it may seem hard to believe, I seemed normal, if somewhat withdrawn.  I could still talk to people, do my work, although with considerable difficulty in concentration.  I could shop, eat, do chores, cycle to lectures.  My mother, whom I only saw occasionally in those days, since I was living away from home, remarked during one visit that I seemed “hag ridden”.  How apt that phrase was!  I did not tell her or anyone, except by letter to the University psychiatrist describing what had happened, but never received an answer.  However, I think the psychiatrist must have asked one of my Tutors to keep an eye on me, because she started inviting me to her home and taking me to the cinema.

       I was like a zombie, my mind that had one time been so clear, now darkened.  I remember staring at myself in the mirror, my body feeling dead, but yet something in me still aware of all that was happening.  At no time did I contemplate suicide, but I desperately searched my memory for something that would alleviate the horror of my inner turmoil.  I remembered having been given a palm cross one Palm Sunday, when I was only seven or eight.  The recollection of that lovely day, the joy of that time, surrounded by loving people, the sun shining brilliantly outside the church, was calming and consoling.  For years, during every waking moment, I tried to keep the thought and picture of that cross in my inner vision.  I read the bible voraciously, copied whole chapters into a notebook, kept a crucifix under my pillow.  I also tried to visualise in the inner darkness, the colour and shape of the ‘inner’ sun, moon, and stars that were once so natural to see.

       After leaving University, doing a year’s practical library work and obtaining my Diploma in Librarianship, I started full time work.  I met and married a very considerate and loving husband.  We had no family.  The ‘voices’ did not abate even during the period of our marriage, but although he knew that I was suffering from some mental struggle, he did not know the details.  He was vegetarian, just not liking meat from boyhood.  He never tried to convert me, but gradually I became vegetarian myself, for several reasons, and have never wanted to revert to meat eating.  He died in 1981.

       I have had several good, satisfying jobs in libraries; made very many friends; have all sorts of hobbies – walking, reading, listening to music, embroidery, knitting, attending evening classes and study tours abroad.  I do voluntary committee and community work since taking early retirement, do gardening and have a pet cat.

      

       Through being a vegetarian, I was led to a guesthouse in Glastonbury, which turned out also to be a spiritual centre.  I had remained through all the years a staunch Christian, attending church, if not really regularly, at least at all the main festivals, but this was something, at Ramala as it is called, which began at long last to draw me out of the darkness.  The Christ light is worshipped there as living reality.  Their teaching and associated art work reawakened my visions.  I don’t mean by that that I experienced them as I had done in childhood, but I knew that they were being expressed through the work of Ramala.  It led me on to an even more wonderful realisation, connected with the former glory, which has restored live, life, light hope, joy.

       By dint of keeping my inner vision fixed on the symbol of the cross, and on the memory of the glorious light, through all the pain of the psychological, mental spiritual ordeal – and at times it has been physical pain too – the voices have gradually lessened. 

      

       For quite some time now, a kind of inner peace has been growing.  The noisy anger racing round inside as trapped energy seeking outlet, has been brought under control by my not permitting it to erupt, but transmuting it into a constructive, loving force.  I mean that by also holding in my mind’s eye, the picture of a perfect pink rose, symbol of pure love, and by sending out to all whom I meet, good will, as we are commanded to do, the mind settles down.  Incredible though it may seem, the body has come through all this practically unscathed, as I have been in good physical health after shaking off the childhood migraines and the catarrh of student days.

       This experience has taught me numerous things about the body and mind, especially the necessity, whatever happens, of keeping on bravely with what one knows to be the inner truth.  It is best, at least for me, to try not to ‘think’, but to empty the mind, which is fantastically difficult to do as there is always something buzzing into it.  One has to try to trust the invisible higher power than man, which does guard and guide, if one will only ask.  I had placed my life in God’s hands years ago.

       The positive and negative forces of energy are forever working on the human organism.  Everything is seeking the balance and rest of the inner core.  The ordinary conscious mind flies outward to the perceived world, getting distracted, pulled down and obsessed by material objects, be they animate or inanimate.  If one can so concentrate the mind on the central, inner peace, in whatever form that may take for the individual – and it takes iron-willed determination, perseverance and above all, hope, regardless of what is happening to the body in daily life - letting go of worries, be assured that progress begins to be made, even if it does not seem like it. 

Gradually, so very gradually, the niggling, saw-like, anxiety-filled tensions of the mind fade away, and one is left with renewed clarity of vision, revivified joy in the beauties of nature and peace which passes all understanding. 

       It helps, too, if one can observe the whole process impersonally, as if it were someone else’s mind; again, difficult to do, but not impossible, the key word being detachment.  This does not mean that one should not do all one can for others when one sees their problems and difficulties, but while sending out goodwill to all, learn, as doctors and nurses have to, not to become emotionally involved.

       As an explanation of the Gospel of St. John states:

“The physical has its work and purpose, otherwise God would not have created it, and the physical life too has its place in the development of man.  We cannot cast aside material duties, for we are here on earth to master matter, and the soul who neglects to watch where it is going has a tumble and suffers a few cuts and bruises.  There must be a harmonious balance between all planes of being.  Harmony, balance, this is the object of life”.

 

       This passage underlines many of the things which I have been trying to express. 

                          Christ of St John of the Cross - Salvador Dali

"HORSE SHIT" SAID THIS MATTER-OF- FACT VOICE IN MY HEAD

“Horse Shit”

said this matter-of-fact voice in my mind

Yes, “Horse shit”.  Not ‘bullshit’ as you might begin to think as I continue to write, and to write about ‘spiritual intrusion’ into my mind and body.  Or as I continue to assert that this is the source of the voices in my head.  Nor when I write about physical/spiritual presences within or around me.

I thought for a moment as I considered the suggestion – yes, yes, yes - suggestion - and realising that it would work, I sent voiceless thanks to this anonymous source, and set about preparing to put it into practice.

In the more than thirty years that have elapsed since I began to hear voices and experience physical presence in my body and mind, I have never ceased from saying and writing that what I experience is of spiritual origin.  This has been the core of the book that I have written, and, from the fact that I have had much feedback acknowledging this truth, it is obvious that many individuals agree.

    So, this is the scene, and this the problem.  I am standing in my garden, and these are two ponies belonging to my neighbour who rents this field of mine.  As ever, they give witness to the truth that ‘the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence’.

And there lies the trouble – they lean against the fence, and in time they weaken it.  Therefore, how to deter them, since barbed wire does not…  They do not like tainted grass, and so from time to time, I spray a strip with some noxious liquid – which puts them off, but for only a short while.  ‘So’, I pondered, “what can I use that lasts for some time and doesn’t cost money?”

       And then, as from nowhere, came the succinct answer – “Horse shit.”

Horses will not graze on grass that has been fouled by their own droppings, and so, without delay, I collected a shovelful of dung, and put it in a bucket that I next filled with water.  This, then, formed the basis for the spray that I applied copiously along a metre wide strip beside the fence – and voila – the grass remained ungrazed.  Result!  Problem solved!  “Give me a high-five!!”

So…  How do you give a high-five to a spiritual presence?  I know it sounds daft, but this is the reality of spiritual presence.  There is no ‘religion’.  There is no ‘thee” and “thou”.  Yet there is actual presence !

But how can I be so certain?

To get the full story you will have to read my book, which I wrote in an endeavour to inform and convince people.  Normally I am a very private person and do not lightly expose my inner thoughts or emotions, but so determined am I that others should read and know, I was, and still am, prepared to write and reveal every intimate detail of a very traumatic period in my life.  If you can read nothing else that I write, read my Chapter 6.

In this Chapter, you will find out how, completely ‘innocently’, and following an interest in dowsing, I allowed myself to be drawn into this strange sequence of events.  You will learn just how it transpired that on one bright morning, and sitting in meditative silence…  “a presence that I could not see moved from the space in front of me into me.  Immediately my mind was charged with another ‘voice’ or provoker of thoughts…  I began to ‘hear voices’.”

In other words – before there was a ‘voice’, there was physical presence.

As the story unfolds, you will learn of several, albeit anonymous, physical/spiritual presences.  “Then, by a sequence of happenings that are too complex to relate, the spirit of a young (twenty-ish) woman was introduced into my ‘coterie’.  Her physical presence in me was most noticeable in ways which can only be experienced and not described.  It was particularly apparent when any music was being played.  I normally respond to dance rhythms with movement, having always enjoyed dancing.  Now the ‘feeling’ of the movement became subtly different - feminine and sensuous.

Little by little, I was being accustomed to what some might find difficult to accept, namely the actuality of spiritual-physical contact.  Thus, when I adopted my usual late-evening stance, leaning against the rail of my Rayburn cooker in the normal bum-warming posture and musing before going to bed, it seemed to come as no surprise when my head was moved by external influence: gently, from side to side, back and forth, easing tension out of my neck.

 

Each evening, the interventions became more positive and, ultimately, I stood away from the cooker.  ‘Hands’ pressed on my shoulders and I was ‘eased’ into a back-bend posture, where I was held for as long as I could tolerate it.  When I stood up, I was eased into a forward bend as far as, and for as long as I was able to bend.  Subsequently every evening I went through this routine, being bent further and held longer as time went on.  My thigh and abdominal muscles became rock hard, my breathing improved, and, coupled with the dietary advice that I had been given and followed, I became as fit and healthily slim as I had been for a long time.

Again and again, I have to emphasise that I accepted all that was happening as being entirely benevolent, and I was a willing participant.

       The culmination of this ‘body tuning’ came one evening and without preliminaries.  My body began to be manipulated as if by two skilled chiropractors.  I was then fifty-five and my frame had acquired its share of the residue of past accidents and strains - playing rugby; being mined at sea while serving in the Royal Navy; riding horses - plus all of the rest that can be classed as fair wear and tear.  Over the course of that evening and the one that followed, every one of the affected areas was worked on with consummate skill.  I was stretched and manipulated as must be someone on the rack, but while it was happening, in the words of the Scottish Bard, William McGonnagle, “He felt no pain”.  Somehow, my pain centre was inhibited, although there were body reactions which seemed to indicate that a natural response was taking place - towards the end of the second session I felt as if I was going to faint, while at the same time my feet were performing a little ‘drumming’ dance.

       Yes, I felt no pain while it was happening, but as soon as it stopped my whole body screamed in agony.  I climbed the stairs literally on my hands and knees, and had to take an analgesic to be able to sleep.  On the morning of the third day, I was carrying a bale of hay to the stable adjoining my house when I had to put it down.  It was large and was bearing against a knee that for some time had troubled me intermittently by filling with fluid.  Still very much aware of the two previous evenings, I looked up and said in my mind, “You have forgotten my knee”.  That night I woke in bed to find the knee being worked on ‘ethereally’, and, happily, it has never bothered me again in all the intervening years.

       Life carried on in the same general vein for some little time, though it could not be said that it continued ‘as normal’!  There was an episode of automatic writing that recorded nothing of importance, and the presence of the young woman became almost tangible, to the extent that I found myself reaching for a hand when about to cross the street…”

Then, in a bleak, cold, wet December, as Christmas approached, my life went ‘pear shaped’; fell apart…  What had been interesting, acceptable – welcoming, even, - now became tormenting, threatening, dominating… overwhelming… malign…

I’m sorry.  I am just not going down that path again with even the most cursory description.  I have put all of the distress and misery into the account that is in my book.  It is a very full account of events that were completely life changing.  I learned much then, and have never ceased learning, for I have never been free of all of the intrusions into my mind and body.

Looking back, and even employing all of the powers of 20/20 visual hindsight, there is so much that is inexplicable.  There are so many puzzles: there is so much that is totally an enigma.  I still cannot, even with the added experiences of the intervening thirty years, I still cannot explain to myself, let alone anyone else, exactly how I, as the intelligent, rational, logical and scientifically minded person that I perceive myself to be, how I came to let myself be completely dominated.  Yes dominated.  Yes, terrorised.  True, I was living alone and had lost a point of reference, but that does not excuse the situation in which I found myself.

And yet…  yes!  Yes, there has also been the very positive life enhancing experience and learning.  For, in full measure, I encountered the absolutely, diametrically opposite extreme of the whole malign voice hearing, physical presence phenomenon.  Again, while, in the book, I have written as fully as I have been able, nevertheless, within that account you will find large gaps, for some of the encounters were so deep, emotional and intense, that even now, after thirty years, I still can only look at them ‘sideways, with half an eye’.

In my own life and in my own way, I have been re-living history.  In my own person, I have encountered the same reality as that encountered by every human society that has ever left a record.  Every one has reached the same understanding, namely, that there exists a spiritual state of being that parallels our own: that there exists essentially a ‘mirror’ of our own society with spiritual beings of every persuasion from the highly intelligent, highly motivated, to the malicious, ignorant, depraved, and, ultimately; the personification of evil.  Inevitably, in the past, the knowledge has led to religious belief and society.  By contrast, I have been at great pains to avoid any religious connotation, so determined am I to try to reach individuals of all religions or none.

As my story advances within the book, you will find how my own religious beliefs inspired some of my actions or informed my decisions, but other than mentioning them as I describe my motives, I retain them as personal to me, and they form no part of my theme in what I am  writing here.  In fact, as my life took on a new ‘stability’ and direction, much of my interaction with the ‘benign’ has been involved with the ‘every-day’, the practical, the mundane.  Look, this is part of my kitchen.  It is here that much of the dramatic ‘action’ took place. But it is now completely and totally different from what it was then; everything has changed.

Apart from the surround of the oven, I have put in place every piece of wood, every tile – even the glass in the far window and the copper hood.  Gone is the Rayburn cooker with all of the memories of the dramatic events that happened beside it.  In its place, the gas hobs, which I set low, in expectation of visitors in wheelchairs.  The house is built in the local traditional manner of large stones, cobbles, boulders of the local granite, and with walls that are two feet thick.  This part is the oldest and dates from pre-1700, and its age is reflected in the fact that there is hardly a true vertical or horizontal, or a corner that meets at right-angles.

       So this is what faced me at the outset as I began my changes and improvements.  The previous owners had done much to improve this fairly basic home, and I was following on with my own developments.  I had almost no DIY experience, and only the bare minimum of handy tools, but as my plans formed and I began to acquire good tools, I discovered something else.  Something that is so vital to what I am trying to tell you, yet is something that I find difficult to put into words.  It was the ambience of hope and encouragement that surrounded me, which put ‘wind in my sails’.  Just as I had come to recognise the mental stagnation and negativity that came from the malign intrusions, so did I find this opposite – this wonderful feeling of collaboration.  Not in words, for they were unnecessary, for as I met seemingly insurmountable problems posed by the fabric of the house, so, virtually subliminally, there came into my mind the essence of the solution.  And with it the belief that I could achieve a good result, to the extent that I began to realise that within reason, one could achieve almost any goal in life.

Just one example.  At the far end of the kitchen, just below the window there is a narrow unit.  It links the one on the left with the sink which is just out of sight on the right.  I had had difficulty in conceiving the design and equal difficulty in its fabrication, and went to bed, completely dissatisfied, but with a shrug and a ‘that will just about do’.  I awoke to one of those days that I had come to recognise – everything felt right, the clear mind was there – and the encouragement.  Yes, the encouragement.  Completely wordless, but – well, just imagine yourself as a parent and your child is about to set off, it could be to take an exam; have an interview or audition.  You wouldn’t bombard it with words or fussing, but would surround it with unspoken love and encouragement.  Just imagine that…

       Needless to say, I dismantled the efforts of last evening, and with great pleasure built the unit that you can see, and which is completely functional.  And this is one of the great secrets of helping those you love or are caring for – of helping them to achieve their own recovery.  I frequently use the analogy of the three-legged race; of how you have to be a partner, giving support, encouragement and hope.  Yes, that especially.  With the recognition that one is dealing with spiritual involvement, there will come much knowledge and understanding, all of which has relevance to other mental disorders and conditions.

       But with this knowledge and understanding, it is probable that you will come to realise, as I do, namely that strong anti-psychotic drugs have no place here.  While, in the first instance, they may help an individual to cope with the initial trauma at the onset of ‘schizophrenia’, they do so by suppressing the mental activity in such a way that the malign intrusions cannot function.  But then, neither can the positive; the benign.  Their ability to access the mind and senses will be frustrated.  And their frustration will be doubly profound as they, as we do, witness the deterioration of a sensitive mind into that of a near zombie.  Which is the fate that many seek to avoid and is the reason why some have sought and then found a work such as my book.

       Without exception, the individuals who have communicated with me, whether as carer or voice-hearer, have done so because they have searched the Internet for alternatives to the much feared ‘psychiatry’ and anti-psychotic drugs – and the stigma that goes with a diagnosis of ‘schizophrenia’.  Again, without exception, they have been generous with their thanks and expressions of relief at knowing that there are alternative routes to follow.  Throughout the book, I give many examples of the working of the benign and the malign in my life.  I list numerous ‘ploys’ that are used by the malign as they attempt to undermine, suppress and destroy.  I contrast these with the many examples of the working of the ‘benign’, which I try to translate into actual ‘working practices’ that any may follow. 

I have endeavoured to share my knowledge and experience as widely and freely as I have found possible, and I have written to try to inform, exhort and encourage – 160,000 words in my book alone, plus a variety of articles, essays and poems, many of which are currently on my Blog.  The book itself is part autobiography, part D.I.Y. Manual, and is aimed at voice hearers and their carers, and at the professionals in the care of the mentally disturbed.

Undoubtedly, there will be many who will have difficulty in coming to terms with the whole ‘spiritual’ thing.  To many, ‘spiritual’ and the reality of actual intelligent, freely acting ‘entities’, and of ‘beings’ that can have real interaction with us as individuals, are all concepts that will be coloured by their own personal history and existing beliefs.  In my writing, I describe the complete reality of my experiences, a reality that has me sitting at my computer and trying to write in a manner that will convince you also.  And I am writing about results; about the practical, not the means by which the   results are achieved.  How can I possibly know?  Always, I am the pragmatic one – if it works, and works with a desirable outcome, well, use it.  Which brings me back to my opening event – to advice that was offered very succinctly – basic advice that actually works.

Look… in all of my adult life, from age nineteen until my final retirement from employment, my work involved highly complex electronic devices whose working I understood fully.  Yet I sit at this computer and I haven’t a clue.  It does remarkable things using methods that I shall never understand, but it does them, and that is all that matters to me now.  There is so much in life that the majority can’t understand, but their lives go on.  In like manner, there are natural processes taking place of which we are so unaware, and yet are so wonderful in themselves.  Only last night I watched a documentary about an ants’ nest in the Arizona Desert.  I watched in awe at the workings of this colony that was totally underground, and marvelled at the organisation of thousands of little lives – and I was left wondering and speculating about all of the many, many unseen activities that are happening, and about which we know little or nothing – until someone shows or tells us.  

       I have put so much of myself into the ‘showing and the telling’ about hearing voices, spiritual intrusion, and the reality of the spiritual/human interface, and the computer has been my companion in the process of doing so.  I am fortunate in where I sit to write, in that I have outlook into fields and trees, and I have watched the seasons and the weather change many times as I have done my ‘telling’.

But, bear in mind, I am now eighty-seven, and some time, ere long, I’m afraid that you will have to go it alone…

In the meantime, as the horses now behave themselves, I can sit and relax and say, comfortably, – Job Done √

 

Book– www.royvincent.org