My Life As a Medium by Betty Shine Page A

into her nephew I knew that he would like a dartboard.
    A month later I received the following letter:
It is with great regret that I have to tell you that my aunt died four days after Christmas.
    I thank you from the bottom of my heart for helping her with the children’s presents. She was overcome with joy when she saw how thrilled they were with her gifts. Needless to say, the children will treasure them and they will remind them of a very loving and lovely person.
    I have only one question: How did you do it? I am fascinated.
    How could I tell her when I did not know the answer myself ?
    My life was becoming stranger than fiction, and at times I had the feeling that my home had become a time capsule. Visions of the past and future were constantly being relayed to me. The visions I did not like were those that showed disasters waiting to happen.
    One night, in a dream, I saw an aircraft crash into some palm trees on the water’s edge, and I watched as it crumpled on to the beach in slow motion, the blue sea lapping over the wings of the aircraft. In the distance I could hear people crying for help, and then I woke up.
    I woke my daughter, Janet, and told her that there had been a terrible plane crash. I was quite distraught; the vision was still in my mind and I felt as though I had been a part of the tragedy. Although I knew the crash had happened on a tropical island I had not been given a name or a date, and it could have happened anywhere in the world. The frustration was immense. Eventually I went back to bed.
    The following morning I turned on the television, expecting to hear about the disaster. There was nothing. For the next week I listened to every news broadcast, and when I still heard nothing about the crash I decided that it had only been a dream after all.
    Two weeks later I was looking at the television and was shocked to see my dream being re-enacted on the screen. The plane was going across the screen from right to left, exactly as I had seen it. It crashed into the palm trees and landed on the edge of the beach, and I heard the newsreader say that many lives had been lost. I was devastated. What was the point of giving me the vision if I was unable to help? Why wasn’t I given the time and place so that the accident could have been averted?
    Whilst meditating some time later, I was told that I was to become part of a group who help accidentvictims come to terms with the fact that they are dead. When someone dies in this way they cannot understand why people in this dimension cannot see or hear them because for a time they still feel normal. I asked how I could help, as it was obvious to me that the majority of relatives and friends would not be visiting a medium. I was told that I would be helping whilst in a sleep state. Although it all sounded very interesting, I still could not see how I could fulfil this role.
    A few years later a woman came for a sitting and I told her that there was a young girl, Sara, who said she was her daughter. The woman held her head in her hands for a few moments. When she looked up, she said, ‘I have been praying that she would contact me. What does she have to say?’
    ‘She is telling me that she brought your attention to a newspaper article about me,’ I replied, laughing. ‘Why should she want to do that?
    ‘I don’t know,’ Sara’s mother said, ‘but she’s right. Someone had left their paper on the train and I was attracted to your photograph and read the article. It was then that I decided to visit you.’
    ‘Your daughter tells me that you have always wondered whether she suffered when she was killed in the car crash. Is that right?’
    ‘Yes. That thought is always with me.’
    ‘She wants you to know that she did not suffer at all.’ I paused. ‘That’s strange, she’s thanking me for easing her path and for being there when she needed me.’
    The mother frowned. ‘How could you have helped her?’
    I explained about the activities of the