Trust: What it Feels Like to be a Medium

By Terry R Barca

You have probably seen a Medium on TV, or maybe you have been to a public performance and watched a Medium do readings for a crowd of people, each one hoping to connect with a loved one who is no longer living. The chances are that you wondered how they do it. What is happening inside their head while they are doing a reading? How do they get the courage to stand up in front of people and bring through the Spirit of a loved one? Well, now is your chance to find out. TRUST explains what goes on before, during and after a reading. It talks about the training involved and some of the joys and pitfalls. I discuss my experience as a Medium and I draw on the experiences of my colleagues. As a special bonus, I have included a number of fiction short stories that were inspired by Mediumship. I write fiction for a living, but this book is very much ‘real life’. I love what I do and I want you to share in the wonder and the tears. It’s been quite a ride and I know you are going to enjoy finding out what goes on inside the head of a Medium. All it takes is a little TRUST.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Terry R Barca
• Release date: Jul 29, 2015
• ISBN: 9781310858529

Terry R Barca

I’m an author who lives and works in the Dandenong Ranges, on the eastern edge of Melbourne Australia.I take one day at a time but occasionally I’m attacked by several days at once.My amazing wife and I have lived in The Hills for forty-three years.My favourite colour is green and so is my favourite car.I started my working life as a Primary School Teacher in the early 1970s.Since then I have been a stained glass craftsman, furniture restorer, restorer of Player Pianos and music rolls, author (twenty one books so far, seventeen audiobooks, another on the way), photographer, basketball trading card manufacturer, basketball coach, basketball player, basketball referee, part-time shop assistant, newspaper columnist, homeschool dad, husband, father, grandfather, and a few other bits and pieces, and not in this order.I’m fascinated by people, but I prefer the company of dogs.I’m not frightened of dying, but sometimes life scares the hell out of me.I think that birds are cool but I don’t believe that they spend any time thinking about me, even though I give them lots of stale bread, and the occasional pizza crust........ ungrateful bastards!

Book preview

Acknowledgements.

So many people to thank.

Firstly to my amazing wife Dianne [known here as Scotty], thank you for the support and encouragement.

To Trevor, my mentor and his amazing wife Jackie Evans, who had faith in me.

My fellow Circle members [too many to mention and please forgive me if I left you out], Howard, Marg, Ken, Bec [who helped to get my head straight], Heather, Mel, Erica, Paul, Norma, Jan, Ann, Bev, Dean, Ross, Gary, Sue, Von, Rita, Maria, Enid, but particularly to Ela for all her help and encouragement — you rule!

A special thank you goes to Howard Wills for being amazing and for suggesting the title for this book.

To Moreen and Shirley for giving us a chance.

With the help of my friends, this book came together very fast indeed.

Many of the photos that accompany my short stories come from my talented son Matthew.

http://jivesuckablogs.wordpress.com/

Thank you to Spirit for the idea and the skill to carry it out.

I hope it pleases you.

Foreword.

My name is Trevor Evans and I am one of many who work within Spiritualism.

One day a man came to me for a reading.

He pulled into my driveway in a two-seater sports car. As I met him at the door he saw me looking at the little sports car and the expression on my face!

Yes, I managed to borrow it from my wife, it’s her car, but I love it.

So, I met Terry for the first time, he seemed to be very pleased with the reading.

As a Medium, when you get it right, it creates a feeling in you that you cannot explain, but it is not ego. I have tried to explain it to myself many times, but I have never come up with an answer. I do know however, it is a very humbling feeling.

Some weeks later, Terry brought his wife Dianne for a reading. She is a beautiful individual, and whilst Terry is tall, Di is small in height. Terry was a basketball coach and now he is a writer. Di is a nurse working as a case manager in aged care; they are a very interesting couple.

I run two development Circles. One goes all day on Fridays and on is on a Wednesday evening. When I was asked to start the Wednesday evening group, for people who work during the day, there was Terry, with a notebook in his hand, glasses on the end of his nose, and trying to find a comfortable seat.

The Wednesday group was slow in starting.

Some days it would just be Terry and me talking about basketball, teaching, and writing books. I would bore him to death talking about mobile cranes, which is what I did before retirement.

Slowly the group grew, and we found ourselves with some amazing people. Terry would be constantly writing in his notebook.

One day I asked him to stand and give somebody a message from the other dimension. The sitters would constantly say ‘yes’, ‘yes’, ‘yes’. We were all so impressed, and I knew that Terry had a gift that he had never explored. He would stand back and say, I’m a writer of stories, I’m just making this garbage up! We would burst out laughing.

Dianne eventually joined the group and we found her to be fascinating.

They were the perfect team. All I can say is, hold my hand.

I asked Terry if he could do a talk at one of the Spiritualist Centres, and he said, This should be interesting.

So, on the following Sunday Terry gave a talk. It was a talk like no other. He spoke about a Medium facing an audience, he put everything into perspective.

Shirley, who runs the service was absolutely fascinated.

Where did you find this man?

I didn’t, he was just there.

Terry continues to work on platform with Dianne, he does the talk and Dianne does the readings.

One Sunday, I was working at the Phoenix Spiritualist Centre and I introduced them to Moreen who runs the venue. Moreen has been in Spiritualism for a long time. She studied them for quite some time and, in her normal bossy way said to them, You’re on platform here next week.

Terry did the same ‘What it feels like to be a Medium’ talk that he had done at Geelong and Moreen said to him, You are a writer. Write all this down, and keep on writing.

Can anyone take credit for Terry?

No, there is something higher, something greater, showing Terry the path which he could take for the rest of his life; something far deeper, something more meaningful.

He has written a Medium’s Manual that we can all perfectly understand. It is not complicated, it is straight, no politics, it is a truth: that is Terry. I am so proud that he is my friend, he is my colleague, and he can show me the way when I get lost. He can ‘hold my hand’ when I get weary and say to me, It is just the garbage we have to put up with, now get on with the job they’ve given you!

So Terry took Di’s hand and walked off to the coffee shop………

Trevor Evans.

June 2015

Introduction.

May I come to the lady in the third row?

The Medium* was pointing in my general direction, but I didn’t remember there being a woman seated behind me. So I looked around and sure enough, there wasn’t anyone sitting behind me.

You madam, yes you. The lady with the colourful scarf.

I counted the rows, and I was sitting in the third row.

The Medium was a well-dressed lady comfortably rugged up against the cold weather. She was on her third reading and her first reading was for my daughter in law who was sitting on my right, between Scotty and myself. It was very close to the anniversary of her brother’s death and the Medium had come directly to her for her first reading.

My daughter in law was in tears before the Medium had finished asking permission* to read for her.

Naturally we were very pleased for her. She had connected with her brother through this talented Medium.

But now, the penny had dropped that this excellent lady thought I too was a lady.

A lady in a colourful scarf.

I sat up straight in my chair, and with the deepest voice I could muster [I have a reasonably deep voice to start with] I said, Yes, you may, but I ain’t no lady.

My reply got a laugh from the audience, but what happened next impressed me greatly.

Without missing a beat, she smiled and said, I must have been tapping in to your Spirit’s feminine energy.

Wow! That was so smooth. Nice save lady. She smiled and went on with the reading as though nothing unusual had happened.

That is the thing about Mediumship, you never know what is going to happen and when it does you just have to keep moving.

I learned two lessons that day.

Lesson one: The Medium may be immensely talented, but it does not mean that she has great eyesight.

Lesson two: I needed a hair cut.

The talented lady doing the readings that day had a hundred things going through her mind, and just as many variables to contend with.

This book attempts to show you what is happening in the mind of a Medium.

In the pages to come you may hear me talk a little about Spiritualism*, but this book is not out to reinvent the wheel. There are plenty of books out there on the subject of Spiritualism so adding one more seems……?

My job is to give you an insight into the mind of a Medium. Actually, I will let you see inside quite a few minds because some of my colleagues have graciously agreed to share their experiences.

This book came about because I did a short presentation in front of my Circle*.

I was asked to describe my process and what goes on inside my head when I’m giving a reading. Our group leader was impressed with my performance [I do love a live audience!], so he invited me to do a similar talk in front of a Spiritualist Centre audience.

So far, I have done this talk several times and I’m constantly amazed that it comes out differently each time. When I speak live, I tend to react to the audience and whatever Spirit* sends me, and this varies from time to time. The basic material is the same, but the delivery is different.

In your case, I have to imagine my audience and what your reaction might be, so it is going to be interesting.

I’m going to ‘cut to the chase’ and assume that you know what a Medium is and that you have seen one perform. There are plenty of TV Mediums around these days so you have probably come across a few.

Maybe you have been present when an audience reading was being performed. If you are very lucky, you have received a private reading from a Medium.

As I said, I don’t want to waste your time talking about the ins and outs of Spiritualism, but I do want to clear up one point.

I’m a Psychic Medium.

Without getting too deeply into the subject, let me explain that a Psychic usually ‘reads’ a living person [that would be you]. A Psychic can tell you a lot about your personality, your likes and your fears; your strengths and your weaknesses.

A Medium, on the other hand, brings through the Spirit of a person who has died. A good Medium will give you clear and unequivocal evidence that the person they are bringing through is someone you know, or someone you are related to [even though you may only have heard of them].

This book will tell you how we learn to give that evidence, but more importantly, it will tell you what is going on inside our head while all this is going on.

Before you launch yourself into the first chapter of this book, let me tell you that this is great fun, and incredibly rewarding work.

I was quite lost when I discovered my ability, but that is a story for another book.

It is important to let you know that no two Mediums work in exactly the same way.

Most of us share some similarities but, generally speaking, our styles are unique.

For this reason, it is a big mistake to try and ‘clone’ the abilities of a Medium.

Trying to do this causes more harm than good.

You are going to have a lot of fun as you come on this journey with me.

The people I work with are amazing. We laugh a lot, and we know how to party.

Laughter is energy and, as you are about to discover, energy is very important in the world of Mediumship.

Just so you know, Spiritualism has been around for nearly two hundred years and Mediumship goes back way before that. The Bible references Mediums in a positive light, and despite what modern religions would have you think, it was commonplace and acceptable to consult with a Medium way back then.

So, settle yourself in and come with me as I bring you into my world. I hope you have some fun along the way.

As a bonus, I have included a few stories [fiction, it’s what I do] at the end of the book. These stories were written as a reaction to readings I have done in the past.

They are an eclectic collection and I hope that you enjoy them.

I always wondered where the inspiration for my stories came from.

I no longer wonder, I know exactly where they come from.

Terry

May I Come To You Madam?

I have to admit that the thought did occur to me, What the Hell am I doing here?

I had been doing readings for a few months, and my wife could count her experience in weeks!

Somehow, after only one experience in front of an audience, we were ‘on platform’