It was late summer 1997, and I was in the bath. I was relaxing, almost to the point of nodding off to sleep, when suddenly a calm stillness came over me because I sensed a presence. It was as if I was waiting for somebody to speak to me and yet no one was there. Then the following words came into my mind; 'A member of the royal family is going to be killed or assassinated.' I had heard voices before, but never really paid attention to them thinking that it was just my wandering mind, but this time it was different, it was specific.
Later that day, I was working in the kitchen of our bed and breakfast in Brittany, France when a friend of ours, Noel, asked me what I'd like to bet on today - you see, to pass away the time spent preparing meals in the kitchen, we had a little board on which we wrote our make believe bets on topics such as what the weather was going to be, who'd win the football, in fact anything we could think of. There was no money involved; it was purely a fun game of chance. I told him that I wanted to bet on a member of the royal family being killed or assassinated, and he laughed and said "OK a million to one". That was the 28th August 1997. The morning of the 31st August 1997, he was shouting to me and my wife Wendy from the bottom of the stairs to our bedroom. "Jon, Wendy, have you heard? .... Di and Dodi are dead." At that precise moment, what had occurred a few days earlier somehow made perfect sense.
'A member of the royal family is going to be killed or assassinated.'
Noel was understandably a little nervous with me for the next few days and on the night before leaving to go back to England; he asked me what I thought the future had install for him. Why not, I thought - as long as no one gets hurt. I didn't seem to get much detail through at all, but told him that in two months there was an important time for him and also that he would own a black sports car, which appeared to us all that unless he won the lottery this was going to be impossible. Noel left and the weeks rolled by.
Then out of the blue, he telephoned explaining that two months after he had left France, he'd met the love of his life (they are now happily married) and that his elder brother, on returning from a trip to the USA brought him a somewhat bizarre present - a scale model black sports car.... And things just went on from there.
Over the years these experiences came and went, like strange visits from the unknown, but I didn't do anything about them, and to my error continued to ignore them.
In early 2002, we were having dinner at home with some friends, when for no reason at all, I fell into trance. Now I knew nothing and had read nothing about the phenomenon but all the same, I fell into a gradually deepening trance. I began to hear voices, have visions, speak in tongues, gave verifiable mediumistic evidence and to channel. This went on for three hours or so during which I was 'given' three insights into planet Earth, visions of her past, present and future.
Over the next few months, I unknowingly and naturally developed as a trance medium. Every time I meditated, my guide James would come in. These sessions, in front of Wendy, friends and colleagues alike, would typically last for several hours.
Later that year, we went on summer holiday with our two children to Cornwall. One evening while browsing the local freebie newspaper I came across what was described as "Spiritualist Meeting at Wadebridge Town Hall 19:30". I knew nothing about this type of evening, and was still ignorant about mediumship. Anyway, we decided to go. When we arrived, we followed the signs and eventually entered a small room with about thirty other people present. The service started with a hymn which was followed by an address from the medium, Margaret Preece. She was a lady in her early fifties, smartly dressed and well groomed, who spoke words that at a deeper level seemed to make perfect sense. There was a real charge in the air and every time our eyes met, a powerful exchange or recognition followed.
