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Feb. 1, 2015 - The Unexplained - Howard Hughes
01:09:37
Edition 192 - Darren Brittain

This time - Darren Brittain - a very down-to-earth British Medium...

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Across the UK, across continental North America, and around the world, on the internet, by webcast, and by podcast, my name is Howard Hughes, and this is The Unexplained.
Hey, thank you very much for the great response which is starting to come into Eric von Daniken.
And thank you to Roger Sanders in California for helping to make that happen.
Eric von Daniken, big main guest.
Now, before we do any shout-outs, and I've got a lot of those to do this time, I just want to talk about guests for a minute, because I've taken a certain amount of flack or stick, depending on which side of the Atlantic you're on.
For some of the guests I've had on recently, some of you don't like New Age-style people.
Well, I think, and I might be wrong, that Art Bell back in the days, and he's the gold standard for everything we do, used to have a whole range of guests on.
You know, I think he had Waylon Jennings or a big country star on there one night.
He had Father Malachi Martin, the exorcist, who's sadly no longer with us from New York.
He had scientists and terrorism experts and people that you may view as being crazy, but it was all part of the mix.
And that's the kind of thing, in a very British way, and on absolutely no resources, I'm trying to do here.
But look, if you have ideas for big-name guests, you could help to oil the wheels to get them on here by contacting them and saying, look, there's this show in the UK.
We kind of like the guy who does it, if you do.
Would you like to be on this show?
Because a lot of people would like to hear you there.
If you could do that for me, that would be fantastic.
Because I get so little time as I'm trying to eke a living out here, as most of us are doing these days, that it's sometimes difficult to set up the guests.
And sometimes I find myself running behind myself because I just don't have enough minutes in every day.
You know how it is.
Adam Cornwell, top man, my webmaster at Creative Hotspot in Liverpool.
Thanks, Adam, for everything that you do here and for your constant support.
Let's do those shout-outs now.
Johan in Sweden, this just in, as they say, on the news shows.
He says, by far one of the best shows in a long time.
This was Eric von Daniken.
Keep up the good work.
Continue to put out great shows.
Thank you, Johan.
Gratefully, gratefully received that.
Matt Felwal in Cheshire, United Kingdom, says, can you give me a shout-out, Matt?
Thelwool?
Thank you very much for listening.
There's your shout-out.
He says, I'm a relatively new listener.
Been listening for the past six months and I love the show and your amazing guests.
Fascinating Eric von Daniken, says Matt.
Hussein Hamdan, I think our first emailer from the Middle East.
Hussein, very good to hear from you.
Thank you.
Simon in Tamworth, UK, nice message of support, Simon, thank you.
Rob in Ohio, loved Neil Saunders.
A lot of you did.
Ho-Cho Cho says, excellent show with Neil Saunders, full of intelligent, stimulating content.
Opposite for Karen Dolman, says Ho Cho Cho.
I didn't find that she had much to say and more or less directly agreed with everything you put to her.
Well, that's your view, Ho Cho Cho.
Some people liked Karen Dolman, some people didn't.
The audience split on that.
But like I say, we like to have a mix here of people.
Derek wants me not to be so balanced and really come off the fence on some of the questions that I ask.
Derek, thank you.
I'm just going through your email here.
You know, I agree.
It's one of these things about the training we have here.
They teach you to be completely right in the middle impartial.
And I agree with you.
It's a bit of a bore sometimes.
Kurt in Austin, Texas wants to hear Dr. Stephen Greer go through the back catalogue.
I think about 10 shows ago we had him on.
Jeff Elliott in Knoxville, Tennessee, listens to the show while he's driving between his clients.
Mary Joe from Ohio says Karen Dolman, here you go.
You see different people, different views.
She was very upbeat and gave great advice that people can apply in their everyday lives, says Mary Jo.
Jill in San Jose, good guest suggestions, Jill, and I'm glad that you're still with us if you are.
Chris in Newcastle, thank you.
Johnny Jameson, fan of the show from the radio days, thank you.
Tom Carver in Macon, Georgia, likes some of the guests, doesn't like some of them.
That is part of life, I think.
You know, that is just the way that it is.
You know, some shows are going to really work, and some shows, even Art Bell said this, don't work as well as you want them to.
It's just one of those things.
It's a pain, but it's true.
Mario Domingos, good suggestion, thank you.
Sheila Garcia thought Neil Sanders was spot on.
Wants to hear more from him.
We will have him back on.
Will Beard in Los Angeles.
David von Kleest.
Well, he was on the radio show, but I think you might find a clip of him on one of my archive editions, I think around edition 50.
I'll check on that.
Ray Michel.
Ray Michel, that's hyphenated.
Kind comments.
Thank you, Ray Michelle.
Erica had a problem with edition 187, and it was all my fault, Erica, for a very, very short time.
It was an empty sound file.
I just made a mistake with what I uploaded.
I was a bit tired after work.
I wanted to get the show out.
And somehow I managed to put up there an empty sound file.
It wasn't up there for long, but thanks for spotting it, Erica, and we fixed it for you now.
Kyle Ralston, nice to hear from you.
Mike Regal, very good to hear from you.
James Patrick in Melbourne, good things that you said, thank you.
Peter in Columbia wants me to interview Russell Brand, who is literally a fire brand.
I would love to interview him.
And I'm going to try.
Let's see.
He is a big guest, but I know some people who know him.
Maybe I can make that happen.
We'll see.
Okay, and now here's a story from Ollie.
And I'll read all of it if I can.
It says, my colleague Lyle and I were leaving work after a long day.
As is normal protocol, Lyle went to lock up the workshop.
He turned off the lights and attempted to lock the door.
I was anxiously waiting to leave and saw Lyle fumbling with the three-door like he was a lobster wearing mittens.
In a bid to speed up the process, I shone my torch in my phone onto the door, which was not visible due to him previously turning off the lights.
I can't emphasise enough how off the lights were.
The door was finally locked, and we went to leave.
Just a normal day, right?
Wrong.
We looked back at the workshop and the lights were all on, full blast, unexplained.
We went back through the laborious process of locking the doors and turning off the lights for the second time.
Obviously, we were now leaving work, not only spooked but behind schedule.
We were driving separately, but connected to each other by phone and a shared haunting experience as well.
In a bid to calm the nerves of each other, I suggested that the ghost was probably Friendly.
Not unlike Nostradamus, perhaps my paranormal encounter made me psychic.
I prophesized that we'd been delayed to save us from an impending disaster.
Fast forward 20 minutes, says Ollie.
We encounter a giant road crash and we survived.
And this is cutting to the chase now.
I'm certain that a ghost or something unexplained turned those lights back on and saved us.
While we didn't see the ghost, if pushed, I would describe him as being not unlike Casper, a friendly, mischievous kind of ghost.
If you remember Casper, the friendly ghost on the TV, Ollie, thank you for that.
If you want to get in touch with us or make a donation to the show, go to the website wwwtheunexplained.tv.
The guest on this edition of the show, if you don't like mediums, this man is a top man in his field and comes highly recommended by Tricia Robertson at the Scottish Society for Psychical Research.
Darren Britton is his name.
He is a top British medium.
If you don't like mediums, don't listen to this show and come back on a scientific one.
But I think you're going to find him interesting.
So let's cross to him now in the UK.
Darren Britton, thank you for coming on The Unexplained.
Thank you very much for inviting me.
I always say this, and I know it's becoming boring, but it won't be for you because you haven't heard me say this before.
But a lot of my listeners will have heard me say, where are you?
I'm actually based in the Midlands in a place, Loughborough, which I guess is kind of between Leicester and Nottingham.
Right.
I remember a great story about Loughborough years ago because of the way it's spelt.
And this may mean nothing to some people and may be very funny to some people.
But apparently some American tourists in a great big RU, what do they call SUV, a four-wheel drive we call them here, stopped and asked for directions to Lou Baru.
Yeah, and it's funny you say that because it's kind of affectionately known as Lugabruga.
I mean, it's a huge student town, so there's lots of people obviously kind of in and out of the place, but it's affectionately known as Lugabrugger, which probably derived from that story.
And has London seems to have spread out everywhere.
You know, people are moving out into Berkshire, they're moving down into Surrey and into Hampshire and into Cambridgeshire.
If you go north and out into Essex, are they moving to Loughborough?
I don't know about that.
I mean, it's a very accessible place.
Obviously, it's kind of right on the M Warn.
You know, it's on kind of main train lines in any direction pretty much.
And it's really bang in the centre of the UK.
So certainly from my point of view, from my work perspective, it's very easy to get anywhere very quickly.
So I guess it's the same for people to get here as well.
Now, we have a certain amount of persuading to do for some people, I think, Darren.
I've visited mediums many times in my life, and I do believe there is something in it.
Some of the ones I've visited have been complete rubbish, and they've been clearly faking it.
And some of them have been quite remarkable people.
Now, you come with a very, very high recommendation, and that's Tricia Robertson, who's been on this show in Scotland, who's done some research, I think, with you, or is going to, but she says that you are the real deal.
So for people who don't understand mediumship and mediums have taken a lot of flack recently, there have been some high-profile cases of mediums being, you know, maimed, but not necessarily shamed in the press.
You don't have to defend yourself, but if people come at you with that kind of talk, what do you say to them?
I think it's really important, I think, with anything in life, and certainly with this kind of work, that any opinion that people hold should always be based on an experience.
I think that's very important.
I think it's very foolish to believe anything without any direct personal experience because otherwise you're just peddling somebody else's opinion and, you know, you're kind of repeating what was taught to you or, you know, because of the environment you were in.
So I guess from a perspective of before you invest in any kind of belief system, whether it be a religion, whether it be a, you know, a thought process, a habit even, eventually becomes, I think that you have to have a direct personal experience.
And so certainly with mediumship, you know, from my perspective, you know, I certainly think that people should approach it in a kind of scientific way.
And obviously the work that people like Trisha Robertson have done really kind of look at the kind of the probability of things.
And obviously we offer evidence to people and that evidence should support the theory that there is a life after death, that we continue after this physical, you know, kind of our physicality deceases.
So I think from that perspective, there's always going to be the arguments for and against, because we can't put the spirit world under a microscope in a scientific way, but we can try and offer people evidence which cannot be gained through any other means, any other psychological means, any other means of trickery.
And I think that once people have had that experience of, you know, how on earth could that person have known that?
And there is no other logical, rational, scientific explanation, then we have to consider the paranormal.
We have to consider the possibility that there is a world that for the most part is unseen by us.
So I have no issue in people rejecting the idea that there is life after death, but I think that it should always be born out of an experience.
Some mediums give the profession, give the calling, whatever you want to call it, a bad name.
I heard one story on the radio only today when they were discussing mediumship, and they don't often do that, but they were discussing it on, I think it was LBC radio in London today.
It isn't often they go there.
I used to work there, so I'm really pleased they're kind of following the line that I've taken all these years.
A little bit late, but there we are.
A guy called up and he said, I went to see a medium.
I thought she was a bit iffy.
And she said, first thing she said, she wanted to deposit first, by the way, some cash in hand first, which is always interesting.
But the first thing she said was, they told me that Kenny was coming.
He said, my name's Johnny.
Right.
You know, she might have misheard them or something else might have been going on.
You know, the kind of medium who fishes for material and says, you know, I see, and I've done it sometimes with people because sometimes I get impressions of things around people and they can be right.
But I will sometimes say, who's got, I'll give you a great example.
There's a guy called Nathan Morley in Cyprus.
He's a correspondent there and a broadcaster.
And he will confirm this.
We were doing an interview and I said, Nathan, what's the green car?
It's a green VW Beetle and it's really old.
He couldn't speak for about 10 seconds and then he came back with, that car chugs up the hill in Cyprus where my office is every single day.
How did you know?
I don't know.
Where was I getting that from?
It's very possible because I think we need to make this distinction as well, first of all, between people who are psychics and people who are mediums.
A psychic is somebody who can gain information from the energy around a person.
So from the Experiences that you've had directly, we retain them somewhere in our energy field.
And a psychic who's very attuned can pull that kind of information out of your energy, in effect.
So the memory of your experiences will stay in that energy field.
And psychics read that.
That doesn't touch the spirit world.
There's nobody talking to them.
They're not perceiving anybody who's died.
That's purely, you know, in a way, tuning your mind into their mind and receiving that information on an energetic level.
A medium who's able to connect to the spirit world really does the same thing, but reads the energy of the person that's passed away and reads the mind of the person that's passed away.
So the way that the person receives the information and how they translate the information is the same, but their point of focus is different.
So in that experience, what you're doing is you're picking that energy, you're reading that information from the energy of Nathan, really.
You know, you're not being told that as a voice, you're not seeing a person in the spirit world that showed you that picture.
It comes very much from the energy that's given off by Nathan.
But a lot of mediums that I've met over the years, they've said, oh, yes, I'm a psychic medium.
So they've got a double whammy going on.
Yeah.
And it should say that not all, I mean, all mediums have to be psychic, but not all psychics are mediums.
And I think that's very clear to say as well, that there are people, and that's a tricky kind of grey area because obviously we are not all individual.
We are individual, but we're not all the same.
And obviously some people have great strengths in being able to read psychically and some have got great strengths in mediumship.
And some who are blessed can have both of those things.
But I think as well, it's important to understand that things like clairvoyance and clairvoyance can have different meanings.
One might mean that you're able to see things, but one may give the impression that there's predictions of the future.
So I think the language that people use, I think, also can say such a lot about them.
Yep, and it's a tremendous gray area.
Completely.
Darren, to me, you sound like you could be a building society manager.
You could work in a bank.
You may be a scientist.
The last thing just talking with you, that somebody who speaks in the way that you speak very coherently, the last thing I would expect you to be is a medium.
It's quite remarkable.
Tell me your story as to how you got to where you are.
I mean, I'm now 40 years old.
I did my very first demonstration when I was 18 and first walked into a spiritualist church at the age of 17, thinking that they were all crazy people.
From the age of 14, I developed really severe migraine headaches, which, you know, after a long time of kind of having disabling pains and looking for medication that would help it, I was left with the ability when I finally got them under control.
I was left with this ability to see light around people and didn't really give it any paranormal significance.
I would sit in class at school, usually maths when I was quite bored and disconnected from what they were trying to teach.
And my mind would wander and often these lights would appear and it was kind of like the ready bret glow that you used to see around, you know, the kind of little morph man on the advert.
And over a period of time, I'd noticed that these colours that I was seeing around people seemed to give me a feeling about them.
So, for example, I would look at somebody and if they had a greyness over their shoulder, my instinct would suggest that they got pain in their shoulder.
And so over a period of time, the lights seemed to take on a meaning.
So rather than them being, you know, what I thought initially was a kind of a kind of a headache-related phenomenon and it wasn't anything supernatural, it then seemed to have a purpose to it.
There was meaning in it.
And I left school and started to train to be an electrician.
And part of my apprenticeship was that I had to go to college one day a week for a kind of a day release.
And I'd go there every day.
And the main library was opposite, this is in Doncaster where I used to live.
The main library was opposite the college that I was training in.
And so every lunchtime, I would go over and sit in the paranormal section, which ironically was at section 133, which is actually my mum and dad's house number, which is where I lived at the time.
So that was kind of that this represented home in some weird way.
So I kind of would sit.
And a lot of the books talked about auras and what auras represented and what they were about.
And it kind of made sense that what I was witnessing, what I was experiencing, were, you know, kind of emanations from the auric field, you know.
And a lot of the books talked about spiritualism.
And just by some, again, strange coincidence, if we're going to use that word, that there was a small spiritualist church in the next village to kind of where I'm brought up.
And it was one of those typically dark, run-down huts that, you know, has a reputation in the village for strange phenomena and weird things happen and odd people go there.
And that alone intrigued me.
So I wanted to experience what it was about.
And so I went.
And it was the 18th of December, very, very clearly, I remember it.
And it was the foggiest night on record of that year.
And it was typically like a Hammer House of Horror film.
You know, you kind of approach this dark building and there's strange looking people going in.
And there were strange people going in.
And there was a lady who was going into the building.
And I just said, look, you know, I'm 17 years old.
Am I allowed to come in?
And she said, yes, of course, it's fine.
And I just went and sat in, not really knowing what to expect, but kind of being on my guard just in case there was weirdness, you know, and I could get out.
So as I walked in the building, I certainly checked the exits, checked the windows.
How could I get out quickly in a spiritual or physical emergency?
In case it turns out to be seriously weird.
Absolutely.
And I hadn't told a soul I was going.
My mum didn't know.
My dad didn't know.
I was very cagey about this whole thing because I really didn't know what I was getting into and I really didn't know whether it was something that people would approve of if I mentioned it.
You know, certainly I'm 17 years old.
So I went and it was an open circle where anybody pretty much can go and sit in this group.
And if they have an ability, you know, they can kind of demonstrate it, if you wish, and learn how to make sense of it.
And I sat near the door, just in case, again, always thinking there's something crazy going to happen.
So I sat and the lady that I went in with was one of the mediums and she was up giving messages to people, which I thought were quite, you know, kind of irrelevant messages.
They didn't seem to be particularly evidential.
They didn't seem to have a great meaning or a great therapy to them.
You know, it was just bizarre information.
So I had already within the first 15 minutes thought, crazy, this is not who I am.
This is not relevant in any way to me, certainly.
And it was towards the end of the evening, the lady came across to me and gave me a message and she said, you see lights around people, don't you?
Which was kind of a freaky thing for a stranger to say because I didn't Know anybody in that building?
There must have been 20 people, and I didn't know a soul.
And for somebody who doesn't know me to come up and say something that was incredibly personal was quite a kind of a shocking moment, really.
Could have been a guess, but hell of a guess if it was.
Absolutely.
And my mind exactly was, you know, in that kind of state of mind of being quite nervous, being quite apprehensive, really quite unsure.
And also thinking, you know, spiritualism at that time, in my experience, had this reputation of being full of weird people, full of, you know, almost a cultish kind of ethos to it.
So my thought first of all was she's probably just trying to recruit me.
She's probably just trying to, you know, kind of kind of information from me to then to then kind of recruit me into this way of thinking.
And then she'll have gone around telling everybody there, I think we've got a young one here.
I think we've got somebody who's going to follow the path.
Yeah, fresh meat.
And keep it all going when we're no longer around.
And fresh meat on the block.
So she seized her moment.
And that was kind of my decision.
She said, you know, I'm being told that you are very psychic and within, you know, a year, you will do this work and you will stand on that platform.
And I very blatantly blurted out, you know, well, I'm not coming again.
This is my first and last time.
So I don't see how that can be.
And dismissed it completely.
And it was only then towards the end of the evening when the lady had given her last message to somebody opposite me in the circle, I was listening to her, but my mind seemed to drift to a place that I can only describe as kind of a still place.
I wasn't really aware of anything other than my own space, my own energy.
So speaking in the distance, but in my mind's eye, whilst my eyes were open, I saw two things.
The very first thing was half of a lady's face.
And I very clearly saw that she got a blue eye.
I clearly saw that her hair was pulled back, you know, scraped back into a ponytail behind her.
And that was the very first image.
And I recognized it, I acknowledged it, and it went.
And it was replaced by another image, which was a tattoo of a ship's anchor on a man's left arm.
And I acknowledged that bizarrely.
I didn't quite understand how I got the information or why it was there.
And how were you seeing these pictures, these images?
Well, it was kind of it was hanging in midair in front of me.
So my eyes were wide open.
You know, although I say it's in my mind's eye, it was at that moment very objective.
You know, it was literally like somebody had held up a card in front of me with those images on.
So very, very bizarre.
Very, very bizarre.
And then there was an overwhelming feeling of sadness that I really couldn't explain.
And it certainly wasn't how I felt when I went in the building, but it was kind of an overwhelming sense.
And that was it.
Those three pieces of information just kind of found me really.
I never obviously had any training as to how to get that information or access that world.
And at the end of the circle, I'd spoke to the circle leader and said, look, I've never been before, but this is what I've seen and I don't make sense of it.
The feeling was that the information I'd received was related to the people that were directly opposite me who received the last message of the evening.
And the circle leader said, well, the only way you can find that out is to go and speak to them, tell them what you've seen and see if it's relevant.
So I very nervously, as a 17-year-old boy, went across and said, look, I've never been here before.
This is what I see.
And they were two ladies that sat together, which I found out afterwards were sisters.
And their grandma had had a stroke before she died and it left her with the limit of being able to only use one side of her body, which would explain the half of the lady's face.
And the description I'd offered was absolutely her.
The ship's anchor was her husband.
Her husband, their granddad, had got a tattoo of a ship's anchor on his left arm because he was in the Navy.
And it was the anniversary of their death.
And they were very emotional about the fact that, you know, that that was that time of year.
So the feeling of sadness that I experienced was also very relevant.
And so that was enough to make me think that's kind of significant information.
And so I went every Wednesday because of that and sat.
And each week I would go, I would see something or hear something or feel something.
And it usually turned out to be significant in some way.
And then within a year, as the lady predicted initially, I did my very first public demonstration.
So it happened really quickly.
And what happened after that then?
How did you feel about yourself?
It was kind of a strange thing, really, because it was one of those experiences that obviously I never really chose to.
I mean, I think many people try and sit and actively try to tune into the spirit world.
It kind of found me really.
And there was something about that that when people are, you know, kind of giving you, you know, very positive affirmations about, you know, that was really good, that was correct, that was accurate.
There's a part of me as a 17-year-old boy that felt very kind of, you know, affirmed, really.
And so on some level, there was a lot of positivity about that experience.
But obviously, as a 17-year-old boy, I'm also in the, you know, in the grip of handling other people's raw emotion and raw grief.
So there was a great sense of responsibility attached to it from a very, very, you know, early stage.
So I guess in a way, there was kind of mixed feelings.
On one level, there was something here that was developing that clearly I seem to have an aptitude for, and there was a great benefit to people in that.
But there's also a sense that there is a responsibility to that.
And obviously, how I speak, what I say is also really important.
And as a 17-year-old boy, I'm not really equipped to handle that.
At that stage, I hadn't lost anybody.
But at 17, many of us don't know our limitations, do we?
No, no, no, we don't at all.
And I think that's the other thing.
My kind of background, if you like, wasn't really in any way religious, in any way scientific.
I kind of had a blank template, really.
I had nothing to compare it to.
And I guess from that perspective, the awareness unfolded because there weren't any limits in my upbringing about, you know, what happens after we die and all those things that sometimes we kind of live in the shadow of.
I should have asked you about that.
Your upbringing, did you have parents who were accepting of these things from what you've just said?
You must have?
To a degree, but I think accepting might be a little bit too generous to them in the sense that I think my dad is much more open, you know, to many things, you know, from UFOs to, you know, all sorts of things.
My mum is very much more that if I see it, it's real.
If I don't, it isn't.
And so there was kind of that mixture of both of those attitudes.
And so dad and I would very much bond over Star Trek and talk about the possibility of that.
And mum would sit in the background tootting.
So, you know, there was also that sense of openness and closeness at the same time.
But from their perspective, rightly so, they were very parental about my newfound experience that, you know, I'd already started to my career in electrical engineering.
I'd started to train to be an electrician.
My kind of career was kind of pretty much planned out from that point.
And so here I am, starting to hear voices, starting to see things in a spiritual environment, in a religious environment that they really had got no experience of.
So they became very parental and obviously very cautious and very, are you sure this is the right thing?
And I don't think we really like it.
So I think it was a, it was a, certainly within me, there was a conflict because obviously I didn't want to displease my parents, but I also needed to pursue this experience because it was, it kind of spoke to me in a, it was a very personal feeling that this is, sounds weird, but kind of this is what I'm here for.
Even at the end of the day.
And at 17 years of age, you had that feeling.
I mean, look, at 17 years of age, I was sending out demo tapes to radio stations.
I felt that that was what I was here for.
Sometimes over the years, I felt that that was completely wrong, but that's how I felt then.
So you felt the same kind of overwhelming compulsion to do this.
Yeah, and I think that's the thing.
I think any kind of gift, whether it be music, whether it be DJing, whether it be mediumship, whether it be singing, you know, any kind of gift that's within our soul to do it will reveal itself.
You know, I think many of my friends at school knew that they wanted to be a doctor.
They knew they wanted to be a lawyer.
They knew they wanted to be a plumber.
From a very young age, I never really had that awareness of what I wanted to do until I started this spiritual pathway.
And I think that any kind of gift, when it's part of your soul to do it, it will reveal itself.
Now, you sometimes read of stories, there have been a few recently, of people who get a bang on the head or have a car accident and then they come out of it speaking French or something.
Did you not make a connection at some point that perhaps your migraine situation was affecting your brain in some way and these were strange hallucinations?
I guess from a perspective, I mean, obviously when I started seeing lights, my mum straight away take me to the opticians, take me to see people.
And quite bizarrely, I went and sat in the optician's chair, explained to him what I was seeing.
And he said, well, you know, did the examination, there's nothing actually wrong with your eyes, everything looks fine.
There's not a reason why you're seeing these things.
And I described then the energy around him and what I felt it meant.
And he was quite gobsmoked.
I described his personality very accurately based on the colours that I saw around him.
So, you know, from that perspective, there was nothing medically wrong with me.
And obviously, from a scientific perspective, we have to look at, you know, are there reasons why these things are happening?
So that was certainly, you know, looked into and everything checked out absolutely fine.
So, yeah, but I think it's very true to say that a lot of psychics or medians, when you talk to them, their awareness seems to come about because of head injury, because of, you know, fever, because of head-related things.
And I think that in some cases, it's almost like two points connecting because of those incidents.
And that connection is made and it somehow opens up our awareness.
In other words, an ability that we, many of us probably have, but somehow lies dormant until there is a catalyst that brings it out.
Absolutely.
And I think that, you know, we are all spirit.
You know, that's the heart of who we really are.
So ultimately, that's inherent with us.
We can't separate ourselves from who we really are.
But I do think that there has to be sometimes an experience that happens that puts us in touch with who we really are.
And I think for me, that was a migraine.
For others, it may be a fever, a brain tumor, an accident.
But certainly it's the connecting catalyst.
What about your electrical engineering career?
I was terrible.
Do you know?
I think in a way, if I'd have been an electrician, I would probably would have killed more people than mediumship has helped me reunite.
So I think that in many respects, it's probably a blessing in disguise that the spirit will presented themselves so early on.
Well, better to bring them back rather than kill them, I guess.
Absolutely.
17 years of age, then, there you are.
You feel yourself to be at the start of a journey.
Now, it's one thing to have a feeling that I'm at the start of a journey, and it's another thing to take the first few steps.
Now, you did that, but then you have to decide, okay, what do I do next?
Do I start appearing at this spiritualist church, perhaps?
That's what they told you you'd do, wasn't it?
Well, they did.
I mean, she kind of obviously was very adamant about that.
And I at the time, you know, because I had no experience, thought dismissed it, nonsense, rubbish, trying to recruit, crazy lady.
And so I really didn't give it any much attention until it became quite clear that I'd certainly got, you know, in other people's opinion, certainly an aptitude for this and that, you know, I was very good.
And they were kept giving all this kind of praise.
So I never really and still don't feel the weight of that.
You know, if people get something from it, then great.
But I certainly, I don't allow it to go into the ego state and making me believe that I'm more than I really am.
But I think at that point, it became quite clear that there was something that I had to do with this ability, that it was something that had a therapeutic benefit to people.
It was something that people felt helped by.
And there was that sense of responsibility that I should really do something with this and it should go somewhere where it can really start to unfold in a way that is positive.
So that was quite clearly, you know, from the beginning, really, there was that sense that it was heading somewhere.
Okay, and where was it heading?
What did you do with it?
It was the public.
It was the demonstrating it in a public arena.
So it was, you know, taking bookings from spiritualist churches and centers, traveling to these events, doing services, doing demonstrations, and allowing that connection to form in a very public arena.
Are there risks being so young, though, doing such things?
Does it not make you feel on occasions maybe you're going mad?
You told me that you had a great sense of the responsibility of it as far as a 17-year-old can have a sense like that.
You know, there are many, many potential pitfalls and downsides, aren't there?
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
And I think at one point, I was the youngest medium in the country at one point, the youngest demonstrating medium in the country at one point.
And, you know, there is a responsibility.
As I say, you can never really heal people beyond the pain you've experienced yourself.
And I think as a 17-year-old boy, you know, who had a very kind of average background, there was nothing particularly remarkable about it in a negative or in a positive way, never having lost a loved one, never understanding the pain of grief, never understanding what it would be like to even,
you know, be in that environment of grief around me, to then be thrust into an arena where people were crying at the reuniting of their loved ones, being incredibly grateful for that connection being made through me, and me not really understanding how to handle that, you know, because there's a great shift that happens when people receive absolute evidence of life after death.
Their life before death changes, you know, so even handling the fallout and the kind of The gratefulness of people having that connection felt very overwhelming and sometimes quite intrusive.
And the downside to it was that I was kind of in an environment where people were telling me how that it's a gift, that it should always be given freely, you should always offer your services, you should never say no.
And the downside to that, obviously, then was that I wasn't very clear on boundaries.
And so, if people rang at any time of the day or night, I was available.
I would say yes to every invitation and consequently became very ill, consequently developed stalkers, consequently developed people who would barge their way into my grandparents' house to wait to see me.
So there were downsides to it, which were really about my inability to manage other people's expectations, to manage the boundaries of my work and my life.
So I take responsibility for that part of it.
You were very lucky, you know, because you could have been such a young guy.
You know, not everybody is as honest as they appear to be.
There could have been all kinds of people leveling all kinds of accusations at you.
Yeah, absolutely.
And there's an innocence in, and as a 17-year-old, you know, you have an innocence about you, which you don't really have as you kind of get older.
You become much more savvy and worldly wise.
And again, through experience, we learn, hopefully.
And at that time, I had, I just thought, you know, this is a gift and that's what I'm told and that's what I believe and I therefore have to share it.
But not what I realize is now, and not to my detriment and not to my sacrifice, which at the time, when I look back, it was.
I've been to see mediums over the years and psychics and psychic mediums and people who've claimed that they've been those things and really I haven't felt they were, but some have been remarkable.
And I will do it again at some point.
But the strange thing with me, and I only have me to use as an example, that's why I'm talking about myself.
Over the last few years, I've lost both my mother and father to whom I was incredibly close.
And as you described, you have no conception of what this process of grief and losing somebody is, the finality of it, it just doesn't dawn on you.
We all think.
And certainly when I was 17, when I was 37, I thought I and everybody around me would live forever.
And I've found out, as everybody inevitably will, they don't.
If I was to come to you, and I'm not suggesting that I'm going to or I will, but I feel their loss more actually with every day.
And I have considered doing this.
Talk to me about the process.
If I was to come to you or somebody like me who'd lost both parents, delicate situation, what would you do?
I think it's very important to understand that straight away we have to as mediums say to you, we cannot guarantee that you can specifically speak to who you want to speak to.
I think a big part of my work as a medium is to help manage people's expectations because we're living in a world which in many respects, you know, we have an instant way of connecting to people on this side of life.
You know, if you want to make contact with somebody even in another country, you know, we have text, we have Skype, we have Viber, we have all these different ways and means of connecting people in a very instant way.
And I think because of that sometimes, and partly because of how mediumship is portrayed on TV, there is this perception that it's kind of like sending a text to the spirit world and saying, I'd like to speak to so-and-so, and they will therefore come.
The other aspect of that is that when people pay money, when people give their money for a service such as mediumship, there's an even greater expectation and there's an even greater demand because of that.
So I think that straight away as mediums, we have to be very honest with people that, you know, we cannot guarantee, we cannot say for sure that even if your mum or your dad are here and speak to us, that they're going to give you what you want to hear.
That's the important thing.
So with money change in hands, you feel that you have to deliver.
I say you, I say any medium feels that they have to deliver something.
Well, you know, we are now offering a service.
And certainly from the point of view of the Consumer Protection Act, we are offering a service.
And if we say that we are a medium and we can talk to the spirit world, we then have to legally offer evidence of that.
And that's a very difficult thing to meet that need with everyone.
Why on earth do you do that, Dan?
You can't.
Absolutely.
You cannot.
And that's why I think it's important to be very honest with people from the minute that if this sit-in isn't working, then it isn't working.
And we as mediums have to say that and be very truthful about that, but also give them the opportunity to say it as well.
You know, if within the first 10 minutes I feel like I'm not connecting to you or you'll feel like you're not connecting to me, then there's no charge for the sit-in.
There's no, you know, there's no prejudice in that either, because we can't read everybody.
So I think we have to be very honest.
That's the massively important aspect of our work.
But I think from the perspective of, you know, how a sitting works, for myself, I just sit in my lounge, people come in.
All I usually have is their first name and a contact number when they make the appointment.
All I ask is that they respond only with a yes or a no, you know, not to volunteer any information, not to try and help me make sense of it.
That's our job to offer you.
And do you ask them questions?
No, not at all.
Not at all.
I think as well, you know, mediumship, we need to raise the standards as far as, you know, making very clear statements to people rather than saying, is there, can you, you know, I think we need to be very clear that this is, you know, this is a man here.
This is your dad.
His name is.
And I think we need to get into that habit in our training as mediums that we offer statements rather than questions.
So do you say to people, clearly from what you've just said, you don't, but some people say, now, do you, do you know a man who lives or did you know a man who lives behind a green door?
Yeah.
And, you know, I think, you know, if I'm a grieving mum, you know, and I think look, I look at it from the perspective of the client.
If somebody comes here for a sit-in and they've lost their son, they want to know absolutely beyond question that their son is alive and well.
That's the reason for their appointment.
I think that as mediums, we need to be mindful of that.
We need to be mindful of the fact that, you know, somebody that sat in front of them has a story and that story may be the most painful story you will ever hear.
And because of that, they have an absolute right to be as certain as they can be through our work that they have that connection with their loved one.
That connection can't be, you know, it can be phenomenal and life-changing, but can only be that if we're willing to be specific as mediums.
And that's really what the evidence has to be.
It can't be so general as to say, you know, you have a lady here that lived in a house made of brick and that she had hair.
That's not really going to be very significant and certainly not going to help somebody heal their grief.
So, you know, evidence has to be specific.
It has to be pertinent.
It has to be statemented for those reasons.
And if I was appearing before you, and would I say to you, would you allow me to say to you, My name's Howard, and I'm trying to contact my mum and dad, or would you not even do that?
Not at all.
No, I mean, I find that the least I know, the better, because obviously, you know, we can make a great deal of assumptions using only our physical senses when somebody sits in front of us.
You know, we can assume that if we look at somebody that is, I don't know, 60 years old, that we can assume that they've lost their parents.
That may not be accurate.
I think that the least we know as mediums before we start the sitting, the better, really.
For me, even if I know a little bit about somebody, it's in my mind, it's in my consciousness.
And so it can sometimes distort things because my logical mind then, if I have part of a puzzle, will want to try and fill that in.
I'm not using my logical mind as a medium.
I'm using my spiritual mind, which is where the answers really lie.
So I need to have my kind of logical mind as empty as it can be.
That is such a hard thing to do, isn't it?
Sorry to interrupt.
Sorry, fine.
But that is the hug, to turn off logic and to stop yourself thinking and just allow whatever it is to come, if there's anything coming through.
That must be incredibly difficult.
I think it's an ongoing thing.
I have to be honest with you.
I mean, 23, 24 years in now, you know, there are still moments, I have to say, in my work that I think, you know what, is that my mind?
But what I've learned to recognize as time goes on is that there is an energy attached to the evidence that comes and certainly from the place that it comes from.
And there's an energy attached to my own mind and my own thoughts.
And so I'm able now to feel the difference, which is great.
But there are times during my work sometimes when, you know, our logical mind, our ego needs to be in charge.
You know, it's been in charge since we came into this world.
It isn't going to give up its rights very easily.
And it's a little bit like, I always think it's a little bit like a dog that's untrained, like a puppy.
You know, if our mind is not controlled, disciplined, you know, taught to behave, it will destroy, it will cause problems, it will, you know, annoy people, it will eat everything in sight, it will make you hump anything that comes along.
You know, so our mind really has to be as disciplined as it can be, certainly in life.
But I think in mediumistic terms, it's a benefit to have a disciplined mind.
Right.
Okay.
So there I am sitting in front of you.
I've told you nothing.
What do you do?
I sit, I focus my attention on the energy around me.
I, in a way, make the energy around me move quicker.
I kind of vibrate it and I send the intention to the spirit world.
Please help this person.
And that's it.
That's a thought that you have.
Absolutely.
And you send it out there.
It's like sometimes we'll have a thought I'd like to get or do so and so.
Certainly in my own life, I've done that and sometimes I get and do those things.
Absolutely.
So the thought's really the start of it.
That's the intention.
You know, I'm setting the intention.
And so that's it.
My thought is, please help.
Please help this person.
And I don't kind of dictate how that help should come because there are people that I see for a sit-in who only want to talk to the spirit world.
There are people that only want to know about their life, you know, the sighting.
And so my thought that I put out there, please help this person, how the reading works is always very different.
So if there is a need within that sitter for a connection in your case to your mum or your dad, then please God, that will come along.
If the need is about, you know, help to do with their job, their relationship, their financial situation, then that tends to be the tone of the reading as well.
So you ask for help, you put the intention out there.
Who does the helping?
Well, see, I'm a great believer through experience again, that the universe out there, that there's a benevolent force that's out there, whether you call that God, whether you call that spirit, whether you call that Santa Claus, there is a benevolent force out there that is wanting us to be good, wanting us to have the life that we want.
And so with the intention of please help this person, that powerful statement, that powerful prayer, in a way is sent out and picked up by that benevolent power, that benevolent force.
And because of that power, then the sitting starts because of its desire to help that person in need.
That sounds like a very powerful energy.
Yeah, absolutely.
But we all have access to that.
You know, it isn't something that just happens in the offices, the lounges of people who do sittings.
We all have that.
As you said before, your power of intention, your thought of I'm going to do this.
You then send out that thought that you want to achieve something.
And the minute you state that, the universe will stand beside you.
It will rise up to meet your request.
And so that's the same, regardless of whether you're asking for help in a sitting, regardless of whether you're asking for help in your life, the universe will rise up to meet that request.
That's a nice thought.
And I hope that turns out to be right.
Does the information come to you like slices of meat coming off a slicer in nice neat portions or does it come flooding across?
Oh, it floods through.
And the thing is, because it comes through me, I think that's the other thing that we need to understand that because mediumship functions in the mind, our conscious mind, our subconscious mind, and our unconscious mind sometimes get in the way and they act as filters of the information.
So I think that, again, part of mediumship training really, I think, should really be about us knowing ourselves as people.
Because, for example, if we have something in our mind that we have an issue of, as an example, if I'm as a person, you know, had an unresolved issue related to my upbringing or an unresolved grief that I'm dealing with that means that I find it very difficult to talk about a dad, for example, that filter may block out any kind of information that comes from the spirit world from dads because of my issue, because my mind's protecting myself from feeling my own stuff.
So it blocks out everything else that reminds me of it or relates to it.
So I think that as the information comes through, it isn't as clear as slices of meat as you've explained.
It comes through as a stream of information, but that can be affected by what's happening in my mind as well.
And that's why it's important to be as clear about who I am and who I'm not and also be clear about what's happening in my mind at the time I'm doing the sit-in.
It's interesting you talked about filtering and filtration.
What happens?
Maybe you've been in situations where stuff has come across and maybe it is stuff that the sitter wouldn't necessarily want to hear.
Perhaps something nasty or bad in their past.
The conscious mind, your conscious mind, surely works then to say, I've got to edit this.
Mine does, but I think I've got to understand as well from the sitter's perspective that sittings have a therapeutic, they have a potential for therapeutic benefit.
You know, mediums are not counselors.
I'm certainly not a counsellor.
I'm not a therapist, and I certainly don't offer that as part of my work.
But I think that, as you know, with the intention of please help this person, we are in effect really putting people in touch with very painful emotions.
And that in itself, you know, can facilitate great healing, but it can also be very overwhelming for some people.
So, you know, part of my work is really about helping people understand.
And they're in control in a sitting.
They get to choose whether I go into certain parts of their life or not.
So I certainly wouldn't want people to feel that they're going to come and sit there and be thrown all sorts of information about them that's difficult, that's painful, that they don't want to face.
But obviously, people don't come for readings unless there is an issue, unless something is in their life that's unresolved, that's unhealed.
So yeah, we certainly have to be discerning and we certainly have to be sensitive to the needs of the sitter.
And certainly it's not about, you know, it's not really just about getting things right because I think sometimes people will just give what they receive as mediums just because they want to get things right and don't really have a full understanding of the impact that might have on somebody.
So we have to be sensitive to it and understand that the universe in its benevolence don't want anything other than us to be healed of our pain.
And that's really the core of our work.
You believe that.
You believe that the end of all things is good.
And you are here to be...
I've got a couple of weeks off work.
First thing I did was I tipped boiling hot water over my upper arm.
I've never had a burn like it.
The local hospital has been great, but I'm healing now.
And you're saying that the way of not only my arm, but everything is healing.
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
The thing is, we come into this world and we are spirit.
We are spirit within a body.
And that power that's inherent within us is an aspect of God, is an aspect of this benevolence that we've talked about already.
And every experience that we have is thereby energetic invitation.
On some level, whether it be conscious or unconscious, we are setting up experiences that our soul will grow because of.
And so, although we all have pain in our lives, and I'm not suggesting for any minute that we are deserving of that pain, but I think the issue isn't really the issue.
The pain isn't the issue.
It's how we handle it that is.
And I think mediums and psychics offer people the opportunity through their awareness and sensitivity to help people heal in some way so that they can remember who they really are, which is this force of good in the world, this force of positivity in the world.
So I think that our work as mediums isn't just about reuniting loved ones in the spirit world.
I think it goes much more beyond that, really.
Because when you lose people, and I have and everybody will, what you're left with are the unfinished conversations and the things that you wished you had said.
I mean, my parents, we were very open and we had a marvelous relationship, so most things were said and we had time to say them.
But nevertheless, there is still this feeling of unfinished business.
And if I was coming to you, somebody like me was coming to you, I'd want to try and finish that business.
I'd want to know that they were okay and still aware of me as I am aware of them.
But that would be my specific requirement.
Would I necessarily get that?
Again, your loved ones are present.
They're around you, albeit in a non-physical state.
So they are aware of your needs.
They're aware of what your intentions are for having a reading.
They're aware of all those things because they're still close to you.
So as much as they can, they will try and meet that need because they understand it matters to you.
So just as it would be on a physical level that your mum would want to take care of your needs, that desire would still be present in her non-physical state.
And so because of her closeness, she would understand that.
And as much as she can, I'm sure that she would try and offer you that.
And that's another aspect that I think is interesting because sometimes skeptics will say to us, you know, why do mediums give very trivial pieces of information?
You know, they might say, you know, you've just suddenly stubbed your toe this morning as you got out of bed or you dropped 10 pounds on the floor this morning.
And it seems very insignificant.
And yet what it does demonstrate is that there is a presence that's with you at those moments that understands an experience that you've gone through, that you may be absolutely on your own in that house, but somebody's there that your mummy's with you, that she saw that experience.
And I think for that, that can be profoundly helpful to some people to understand that their loved ones are not just gone and sat on a cloud somewhere in heaven, that they are present and that they're available to us and they still see us and they still feel us and they still know what we're going through.
And I think that for some people, you know, offers tremendous comfort and reassurance.
What happens when we die?
In the situations of my two parents, and especially with my dad more recently than my mum, I had a sense, because I'm a little connected in this way and I've always been a bit that way, I had a feeling through things that happened that they were there, that all sorts of weird things happen.
But over time, and I've said this before on this show, and it's a common experience, I think, the sense that they are there goes away.
And now what you're left with is silence and a void.
At least, that's what I think.
But I'd like to believe I'm wrong.
But is that the way of things?
I think it's not a one-size-fits-all, Howard.
I think that everybody's experience of the spirit world will be completely unique because we are completely unique.
And I think that when people have gone, lost a loved one to the spirit world, there is without question so many questions that we're left with, so many desires that we have, so many hopes we have to have that connection with our loved ones again.
And I'm not a psychologist, but I certainly can understand how our mind would try and conjure certain things up to give us that sense of hope or connectedness or clarity.
And I'm very clear that there's a psychological thing that happens when we lose a loved one that's about wanting to hold them and not let go of them.
Without question, there are also very spiritual things that can happen to us that absolutely without question indicate their presence.
And I think that for any experience that we have after a loved one has passed over, whether it be that the lights flash on and off, the favourite tune comes on the radio at the moment, you're thinking about them, you know, all these different things, you know, the smell of your dad's tobacco, all those things that happen that indicate a presence, We also get the answer as to who that presence is.
We don't just get the experience without the answer to who is bringing that experience in the same bundle.
So, if you smell the smoke of your dad, you know, your thought then is, you know, what's that?
And the thought will come back, it's dad.
You know, you always get the answer.
The clarity comes with the experience.
And I think that that's a very comforting thing.
But I think as grief goes and as we learn to accept the passing of a loved one, the need to have that as regularly also dissipates.
So they're still in our thoughts.
They're still, you know, are they around?
Are they there?
But then their need to let us know that they're okay also, I think, changes as our grief changes and the process of our grief changes.
When we die, which inevitably we all will, the only thing we don't know is when it's going to happen, but it's an inevitability that cannot be cheated or forestalled or made not to happen in any way.
What is that process like?
Have you been told what that's like?
You know, at the moment you fade away.
Because I ask that for a reason because obviously I've been through this thing and you think, are they aware of things for a while after they've died?
Are they still taking in information?
And how do they disconnect themselves from this world and go to another world if there is one?
Well, I think, obviously, we are spirit inside a body.
And so when the body ceases to be, then we have to.
We have no choice.
We have to move on from it.
You know, we can't inhabit a space which is, you know, in effect dead.
You know, we can't, we have to move on.
We have no choice.
And I think that that experience for people is always very unique as well.
Because, again, based on culture, based on religion, based on location, there are lots of factors that may give you a very different version of the spirit world than another person's version of the spirit world.
So for example, if your, you know, your thought or your idea of the spirit world is that it's a, you know, a very beautiful place that's full of people in white robes and that you will sit on the right-hand side of God and you will, I don't know, just have this wonderful heavenly image of the spirit world, then the spirit world may well conform to your understanding, experience, and belief of it.
For somebody that is agnostic, for somebody that doesn't believe, somebody that's got no experience of it, the spirit world will resemble something very different.
So I can't really give you a definitive answer on that that's the same for everybody.
But what I know is that regardless of your culture, ethnicity, location, belief system, you will always have the recognition of those who've gone on before you that they are your loved ones.
Does that mean that when my time comes that I'm going to meet the people who've been close to me over the years?
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
How does that happen?
Well, I think it's all about energy.
It's all about, you know, we talked before about how everything that's in our life experience on this level is there by energetic invitation.
There are connections that we make with people that we don't understand why we feel so great about certain people or we don't understand why we feel an avoidance to certain people.
But there are connections that we make.
And I think that although we're born into a biological family, there may be other people in our soul family, in our soul group, who you might class as your friends.
You know, on this level, we talk about your best friend and there's a real connection there.
And, you know, when they go to the spirit world, they are part of that family.
And I mean that in a non, you know, kind of familial way.
You know, I'm talking this on a kind of soul level.
So we recognize those connections.
We recognize those, you know, energies of love, those bonds.
They continue to be.
When my grandfather on my dad's side, Granddad Hughes died, this is quite a long time ago, but I went to visit him.
And in those days, people who were ailing in that way, often they were allowed to die at home.
So his bed was brought downstairs.
This is an old-style Liverpool house in a terrace.
And he talked about having contact with, this was when he was in a phase that was maybe semi-delirious.
He was sort of in and out of consciousness, but he was still talking to us.
I remember him talking, my dad telling me that he talked about family members coming to him.
And there was even a child who died that my father had been too young to know about and hadn't known about until that point.
Sure.
Yeah.
And stories like that are really, really common.
And I think regardless of people's backgrounds, religious beliefs, those stories are absolutely, you know, 100% accurate and very valid.
And I think what happens is that as the physical body starts to die, as the physical body and its senses start to become very much more disconnected from the physical world, the non-physical senses start to open up.
And so the spirit world starts to become more real to us than our physical world.
And so when people, you know, come for sit-ins and they get very upset that their loved one died on their own, they're never really on their own because they already have an awareness of the spirit world before they leave this world.
And that, you know, alone can be, can be hugely comforting for people.
But it's really all about the fact that your physical senses are closing down one by one.
And so the non-physical parts of us that are inherent, that can never be destroyed, you know, start to recognize the place that they're going to.
How do you feel about death?
I think that in many respects, there's a, I mean, obviously, I, without question, know that the spirit world is real.
And I without question understand that that's the place that I will go to.
I guess like everybody else, the part of me that is, you know, blood, flesh, bones, has connections to people, doesn't want to leave people and wonder how they will cope when I'm not around.
And obviously, you know, there is that part of me, the part of me that's about survival that doesn't want to leave here, obviously.
But I think it will be a beautiful experience, as it is for everybody.
Really?
Even people who die in terrible accidents.
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
How is that?
Because we're looking at things from a human perspective.
And from a human perspective, when we see, for example, without being too graphic, a car accident where somebody has died very instantly, many times the spirit comes out of the body before any kind of impact, before there's any physical harm takes place.
Now, I've heard that many times before.
How do you know that?
Well, there's been, I mean, this has been communicated through various sit-ins, through various messages in public arenas where, you know, a loved one may have said, I didn't feel the impact.
Granddad was there and he took me out before the impact or, you know, I was looking down on the scene rather than feeling the scene.
So I think that through their experience, there is no suffering in death in the sense of, you know, a quick passing like you've Described that the benevolence, this power that's out there, doesn't want us to suffer, doesn't want us to endure anything that is not good for us, which sounds a kind of a bizarre thing to say, given that somebody's dying.
But I think that we must understand that there is a goodness out there that is on our side.
In the minutes we have left to us, Darren, and I found this conversation about a subject I've always been interested in, and that's just the truth.
Do you have maybe a couple of stories without naming people's names and breaching their confidentiality of occasions when you've told people remarkable things that have changed their lives?
If you can think of a couple of stories, perhaps events of which you are proud, if that's a word that applies here.
There was one, and I only remember it really because I read it in, funny enough, in Trisha Robertson's book.
It was one of the demonstrations I was doing up in Glasgow many, many years ago.
And there was a young lady that came, it was a public demonstration, and there was a young girl that came from the spirit world who told me that her name was Michelle.
And she presented herself on a very small bike, a very pink bike with streamers coming from the handle, and a very typically young girl.
And she gave her name and she identified a woman in the audience who was her mum.
And she talked very much about how she died and the date, I think it was that she passed.
And she said to her mum, you've been looking through the invoices from my funeral.
And the lady accepted that she had that day.
And the young girl mentioned exactly to the penny how much was written on the invoice that she'd been looking at.
Wow.
Which is phenomenal because, again, the evidence of who she was was there in the name, the description, and various other things.
But there was also the indication of that she was still present.
She was around.
She was close.
And that, obviously, I think, well, I would hope would be life-changing to the mum and that she would, without question, know that her daughter was okay.
So that's one that certainly stands out in my mind as being quite a profound sitting.
It's very difficult to recall them because I think most mediums would agree that when we are fully in that power and we're fully connecting to the spirit world and our mind's in a very different place, it's very difficult to recall the information when you come back to our kind of normal reality because our mind's functioning from a very different perspective.
And so it's difficult to recall absolute details.
Most mediums will say the best message you ever give, you won't remember.
Well, listen, this is your trade, calling, or profession.
In mine, I've spent a lot of my time reading the news on various radio stations and even bulletins that I've written.
Sometimes five minutes after I've written and read the news on the radio, I've forgotten what was in the news.
Absolutely.
And it isn't my story.
Like I said, it isn't your story.
It's not my story.
I sit, I receive, I deliver it.
And it then isn't mine anymore.
And that's, you know, without being unkind or harsh, my role is done.
You know, what people take from that, how people are healed by that, really isn't mine from that point onwards.
I just can only offer it to you.
And if people feel the benefit, then fantastic.
And if they don't, I have to trust that it's been necessary on some level, but it's not something I personally attach meaning to.
I just deliver the information.
As I told you at the top of this, I was listening to LBC Radio in London today and was quite gobsmacked, as we say here in the UK, quite surprised to hear them talking about these things in the middle of the afternoon.
And I just thought, you know, well, I was there first, but that's really interesting to hear you do this.
They had a man on who is doing research.
I think his name was Cy something.
I can't quite remember his name, but whatever.
I can find that.
Would you be willing to submit yourself to scientific style research?
Maybe you have.
Well, you have with Tricia Robertson, but somebody at a university wants to put you in a tank somewhere and make you do your stuff.
Would you be willing and able to do that?
I would, but I think, you know, it's also we're dealing with people whose, this is obviously my kind of calling.
This is my living also.
So we also have to be understanding that a scientist, a skeptic can never put the spirit world under a microscope in the same way in the way that they would want to.
And so I think that without question, I would be happy to be investigated, if that's the right word.
But I think we have to be very, very careful that we don't submit ourselves to things which then become inconsequential or become dissected to the point that they have no meaning.
So I would, but I'd be very cautious.
That's a no then?
It's not a no.
I think that with any of these things, we have to have...
And I think that the need of a scientist is very different to the need of a grieving mother.
So I think that we have to be very clear that the experiment, the testing has to have a real purpose to it that isn't really about trying to disprove it, that it's open to possibilities.
So I'm not saying no.
I'm saying that we'd have to agree on terms or criteria for the test to be done.
Okay, that's a very good maybe.
Thank you for that, Darren.
I don't know whether anybody will contact you off the back of this, but I'd be interested to know about that.
You're a very level-headed guy.
Thank you.
It's not an, by the sounds of you, you certainly are.
It's not an easy time to be a medium, is it?
They don't throw you in prison these days.
They don't burn you at the stake.
But there's a lot of opprobrium poured upon mediums by the popular press these days.
It's not a massively popular thing to be.
How do you deal with that?
You know what?
I don't.
And that sounds a silly thing to say, but I just do my work.
And I trust that the people that I see, you know, will seek out what they need to seek out.
They will seek out us if they need us.
I think every time I got a knockback or an unkind word said to me about my work, if I stopped, then I would be still an electrician, still causing chaos.
So I think that, you know, we can't let the, there's a lot of rejection in mediumship.
You know, a lot of people sometimes will say no to us for various reasons that are not about the fact they can't accept the information.
So I think that as mediums, we have to be strong of mind and strong of heart.
And also we come back to the fact again that this is kind of in my soul to do it.
And regardless of the knockbacks, regardless of the difficulties, regardless of the restrictions and limits that are placed on us, it's in my soul to do it.
And I can't deny that.
What do you think about mediums who do these television shows and they have an audience in a television studio of two or 300 people and they go around them and they tell them things about themselves?
Is it something you would like to do?
Maybe you've been approached already.
Yeah, I have been approached.
I was given an Offered an opportunity.
But I think again, it's one of those things that mediumship really, I think people need to witness it live with anything on TV without being particularly negative about it.
I think that we sometimes are fed information which may not be accurate.
So I'm very aware that TV is edited very heavily sometimes to either, you know, kind of put forward a very positive or a very negative slant on things.
So I wouldn't ever be averse to doing it.
But again, I'm very protective over how my work is presented.
And so again, I'd have to be very clear that it was for the right reasons.
If there was ever to be a national union or national association of mediums, would you like to found it and head it?
Well, you said you wanted better standards.
That would be one way to get them.
Well, I think that's important.
You know, we have got it.
We're an evidence-based movement, if you like, and we are a recognized religion as spiritualism in the UK.
So, you know, we are offering evidence to people, and I think that we have to really raise the game as far as what evidence is and what it certainly isn't.
As far as being the head of a school of mediums, I really don't know.
I don't know whether that's quite my passion or my pathway, really.
So you don't want to found the Hogwarts of mediumship.
Oh, dear God.
No, I can't think of anything worse.
I've really enjoyed talking with you, Darren.
Thank you very much indeed.
You're every bit as good as Tricia Robertson said you were.
If people want to know more about you to make their own mind up about you, how do they see information about you?
Yeah, certainly.
I mean, I have a website, which is www.darrenbritton.co.uk.
And there is a venues page on there that lists my venues, my public venues for the next three months upcoming.
Certainly people are more than welcome to look on there.
There's a contact section to send me a message directly.
And obviously, if people want to book a private appointment, they can contact me through the website as well.
So certainly, you know, the best thing I would say is to witness mediumship firsthand, experience it and make an informed choice based on how you feel in the presence of a medium.
That's always really important.
And I'll chuck this in.
Don't live your life by it.
Oh, absolutely not.
Do you know what?
I would love there to be a day when people don't seek out mediums and psychics.
I would love this to be a day when people recognize their own spirit and listen to its wisdom and not need to go look for it in somebody else's wisdom.
You know, so I think that's important.
You know, don't live your life by it.
Certainly don't go along with everything that you're told and be scientific at what you hear.
Very balanced.
Thank you for that very much indeed, Darren.
And it's been a pleasure to talk with you.
We must catch up in the future.
Likewise, thank you so much, Howard.
Take care.
Well, mediumship, always controversial.
Some of you love it and want to hear more.
Some of you hate it and want to hear less.
The man's name is Darren Britton, and I'll put a link to his site on my website, www.theunexplained.tv.
Now, I promised a couple of weeks ago that I was going to give you a bit of a breakdown on the poll that we had here.
Adam's given me some rough figures, but the ballpark indications are, and thank you very much, by the way, we had a massive entry into the poll.
A lot of people took part in it, and thank you for that.
The breakdown of the figures show that you're kind of divided 50-50.
50% of you would pay some kind of subscription to allow this show to expand, and 50% of you say no wouldn't do that.
That's an interesting statistic.
Leaves me with a bit of a dilemma, but we'll take it from there.
We'll see what we can do with that.
A couple of you suggested a kind of lottery here.
I don't think that that is allowed by British gambling laws.
Basically, to charge for the show and then give back a portion of the money to listeners.
I have a feeling, because this is the UK, we won't be allowed to do that.
So lovely idea, but I don't think it's a runner for all of those reasons.
But I'll check it out.
A lot of you listen to other shows.
A lot of you pay subscriptions for them and a lot of you don't.
So very, very evenly divided.
But we're number crunching all of this, and we'll come up with a solution to it all.
Remember, the bottom line is, I want to be able to do better shows and more of them.
That is what we are considering, perhaps doing something with the show, maybe getting a sponsor for it if we can find one or doing something else to try and do the things that we want to do.
Otherwise, the show will continue to be this labor of love done by one person forever, which is not a bad thing, but I would like to develop it.
Your thoughts, as ever, welcome.
Thank you very much to Adam Cornwell, my webmaster at Creative Hotspot in Liverpool for all of his hard work.
And above all, thank you to you for your support.
If you can make a donation to the show, please do.
Go to the website www.theunexplained.tv.
There's a link there and also a link to send me email.
Until next, we meet here on The Unexplained.
Please stay safe, stay calm, and stay in touch.
My name is Howard Hughes.
I'm in London.
This has been The Unexplained.
Till next time, take care.
Thank you.
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