The Ghost Whisperer: A Real-Life Psychic’s Stories

It was my turn to ask for some answers. ‘What does all this mean?’ Linda went on to tell me that her beloved husband of only two years had died in a house fire – in their beautiful new marital home in fact. She had been at work and received a call halfway through her shift advising her of the tragedy. She raced to the hospital, terrified, fearing the worst. The worst was confirmed minutes after she arrived. Her darling husband had died in the fire. He was dead before they got to him.

The consultant at the hospital refused to let her see Tommy, a decision backed by other senior staff, police and members of her family. Linda admitted to me that she was just as devastated by that as she was by her husband’s death. She could not get over the fact that she never got to say goodbye and then was denied the right to see him in his coffin. They’d told her he was just too badly burned and that it was deemed entirely for her own good that she did not view his body.

When she asked if he had suffered, the consultant merely shook his head, admitting that they had no way of knowing. Poor Linda had visions several times a day of her beloved husband screaming, terrified, knowing he was locked in a blazing house with no way out. She had nightmares of him trying to escape but failing to do so. She imagined the fear, the pain, the awfulness of it all.

But now, on the day of her consultation, without prompting and without me actually having a clue about what was going on, Linda was finally told the truth about what happened that fateful night.

I asked Linda if she thought it a bit cruel of Tommy to say he looked like the Elephant Man – surely he couldn’t have been that bad. But Linda merely laughed and told me that Tommy had been a vain man, and as he had bushy hair, he spent a long time fixing it. He would joke in the morning, when his hair was all over the place, that he looked like the Elephant Man. Apparently, one side in particularly was very bushy and stuck out much more than the other side. So Linda reassured me that Tommy wasn’t being hard on himself, that he did in fact use the term jokingly.

I wonder just how badly marked Tommy was. It must have been bad if the medics refused to allow Linda to see him. At least she now knows he didn’t suffer, that he didn’t even know about the fire until after he died.

What comfort Linda must have felt that day. And thank goodness there is life after death, otherwise Linda would have gone on for years enduring the most horrendous nightmares and day visions, wrongly assuming that her husband had suffered a torturous death when, in fact, he had simply stayed asleep, quite oblivious to the blaze about to take his life.

Jim, My Gay Spirit

Messages from spirits come in all shapes and sizes – all styles and all sorts of different, unimaginable formats. One, which caused me and my client great hilarity, sticks in my mind. I still smile about it today, some four years after it occurred.

Jim from Glasgow arrived for his scheduled appointment. Without wishing to sound demeaning, he was ‘obviously’ gay. In fact, Jim took this as a compliment. To say that Jim was camp would be an understatement. He was clearly a colour freak, as I counted at least six different bold, bright colours on the clothes he was wearing. And his nature was equally colourful.

Jim was a delightful man but a sad man. He put on a brave face for the world but underneath his gaiety (pardon the pun) lay a very unhappy and lonely man.

Jim had lost his lifelong partner, also named Jim, just a few years earlier. My client wasn’t a young man. In fact, he was well over 60. In his words, being gay in those days wasn’t as easy as it is today. He had only ever known one partner and vowed he would end his days alone, as no one could ever replace his Jim. I believed him.

Jim told me his reason for visiting was that he so desperately needed to have proof that his partner was near him. I instantly told him that of course he was because I firmly believe the dead are so very near us. But Jim told me he desperately needed proof, real proof. He had visited many other psychics, clairvoyants and the like, but no one had given him anything of substance. ‘What makes him think I can’, I wondered. However, I knew I would try very hard because it was clear to me that this colourful, amusing chap in front of me was aching for some sign that his lover was nearby.

I didn’t have to wait long, for within a split second, the loudest, most gregarious, most delightful spirit joined us. In an acutely feminine voice, I heard words to the effect of ‘Why did you do that to the lounge? What possessed you? And those curtains, tuh! Those curtains.’ I could all but see this spirit’s hands rise in disbelief. ‘And get that bloody awful wheelchair out of our bedroom – I hated it when I was in it, so don’t make me have to look at it every minute of the day!’

Jim burst out laughing. This indeed sounded like his lifetime partner. He admitted that Jim was bossy, loud and brash, liked his own way and more, but he was so, so thrilled that he had come over.

Jim had kept his lover’s wheelchair – not for any sinister reason but because he felt it was such a part of him. Clearly the other Jim did not want it to be a part of him. My client told me it would be removed as soon as he got home – to his newly decorated lounge.

Spirit Jim had much more traditional taste. Although client Jim admitted he really hadn’t minded, their home was largely decorated to spirit Jim’s taste. After his death, Jim redecorated and completely changed the look of their home. It was evident that his dead lover did not approve, yet everything he said, albeit in a somewhat imperious manner, was really quite light-hearted. I somehow knew to take no offence from the spirit’s words, and clearly so did my client.

My client was by now much happier and the entire consultation was taken up by the spirit giving orders, making affectionate comments, then giving more orders. Clearly the two had loved one another deeply. We laughed a lot, and when Jim left, I thankfully saw that not only were his clothes colourful but his face, his eyes and undoubtedly his heart and soul also had a great deal more colour than when he’d arrived.

If you’re reading this, Jim, I hope you are coping with Jim’s orders, even now, beyond the grave.

Wartime Sweethearts

A lot of people wrongly assume that my kind of work is sought only by ‘women of a certain age’. This is certainly not the case. My clients are of all ages and come from many different walks of life. I have teenage boys, old men, professionals and manual workers among my clientele. So why am I telling you this? Read on …

Bertie came to me at a ripe old age. He was an agile man for his age, although arthritis had made him smaller as the years went by. The lines on his face defied his age but his heart was worn out, both physically and emotionally. His eyes were sad. In fact, I’d say his eyes were pretty dead. Gone was the sparkle I immediately saw when I imagined him as a much younger man.

Bertie came into my office and sat down. I was about to close the door behind him when I stopped as I felt the presence of another. I waited and unseeingly allowed the other person to follow us in. As they did so, I was engulfed by a smell I couldn’t name but which reminded me, for some reason, of my childhood.

This ‘other person’ floated past me. I heard her say, ‘Hello dear, I’m Elsie’ as clearly as Bertie had said, ‘Hi Katie, I’m Bertie’. But no, I didn’t go as far as to pull up another chair!

Naturally, I described everything I was seeing to my client, and to my surprise he told me he already knew. He told me Elsie had been his wife for most of his adult life. Together they had survived a war, the raising of seven children and many other hardships life had thrown at them. But they were strong and as much in love more than 60 years later as they had been the day they met.

Visions crossed my mind, many going back to when they were young. I simply sat and narrated to Bertie everything I was seeing. I saw their children, now grown, as little people playing in a park (this particular scene flashed before me many times and clearly I was seeing them over many years as the children were bigger each time). Bertie smiled at this as he remembered well the park I was seeing. He told me that the park no longer existed and that it had been turned into a housing estate.

One very profound scene involved Bertie as a handsome young man, dressed in war uniform. The couple looked sad, which was to be expected, but there was something about Elsie’s eyes that made me more inquisitive. I asked Bertie why I felt extremely sad, apart from the fact that he was going to war. My query was answered when Bertie told me that the day he left to go to war was the same day Elsie buried her mother.

If this story serves to teach me anything, it is that death needn’t be final. Bertie believes he has lost his wife – at least he’s lost her body – but he firmly believes her soul and everything she was inside is with him every waking moment. He still misses her, even though he is comforted by the presence of her spirit.

Sisters

Caroline had been troubled for some time. This was by someone or something that seemed to be following her everywhere. She had never believed in the spirit world. To her it was nonsense dreamed up by people with vivid imaginations who wanted to believe that their loved ones hadn’t left them. That was why she was so surprised when she first sensed that the shadow flitting round herself didn’t seem to belong to anything. This was just the start.

Caroline found herself haunted by someone who picked up pieces of jewellery from places where she had left them and put them down elsewhere, by a shadow which went into rooms ahead of her and put on the television – a ghost which seemed to know exactly what she was thinking. Caroline was terrified.

When she first came to me I was a little sceptical. Caroline lived alone and I thought she might be suffering from an over-exuberant imagination – one that saw ghosts in every corner. But then I became convinced. As the reading progressed, it seemed to me Caroline did have a spirit round her, and this was someone she should have known well, because it was a sister.

The trouble was, Caroline said she didn’t have a sister. She was, she said, ‘an only one’. This didn’t seem possible. The girl I was seeing was exactly like Caroline. In looks, in height, in weight, they might have been twins. I was amazed she could say there was no one in her family like this, that her parents had never had another child. What was more, it was coming across clearly to me that this sister had chosen to look out for Caroline since she moved away from home.

‘But you must have had a sister,’ I could only gasp. Like most of us, I hate being wrong, and in this instance Caroline’s insistence made me feel like a complete fool. Here I was, having actually set out not believing her story, now saying it was true and a non-existent sister was looking out for her.

I was very glad when Caroline left my office. This was one phantom that didn’t exist, a real ‘phantom phantom’, so to speak. I wanted to go and lie down in a darkened room and forget about ever doing a reading again!

I didn’t though. The next day I was back at it, with several new clients. I’d even managed to put Caroline out my mind when the phone rang and there she was. ‘You won’t believe this,’ she said. I confess I actually thought, ‘What is it now? More doings of the phantom sister?’ – quite uncharacteristically, I must add!

‘I expect this won’t much surprise you, but I do have a sister. I asked Mum.’

It turned out that Caroline was not an ‘only one’ after all. There had been a ‘first born’, a girl who, if she had lived, would have been two years older than Caroline. But she didn’t live. She died roughly a day after she was born. Caroline’s parents had been devastated. Then Caroline came along. With a typical ‘stiff upper lip’ they never again discussed the little girl they had lost, throwing all their energies into raising Caroline. And after a while there seemed very little point in mentioning it to her, until Caroline asked.

Yet her sister was very clearly with her. In fact, she had probably always been but was waiting for her moment, for the time when she felt she was needed. That was when she decided to make her presence known and do what every big sister does – look after the little one. It was as if she had decided that even death wasn’t going to stop her.

‘You must go back for Alison … she needs you’

When Kirsten first came to me, she’d no idea who this phantom Alison was. But she was very disturbed by the thought of her and by what had happened only a month before. So disturbed, she felt she had to seek help, at least to get it off her chest. The experiencewas so profound, she didn’t know where to turn. Although she knew that the people, or rather the spirits of the people, involved were her own dearly loved parents, the confusion was such, she was left wondering if she had imagined it all. I was convinced, however, that she wasn’t. When one of the things they said to her came about, what other proof was needed? When you hear this story, I’m sure you’ll agree, to quote the bard, ‘there are more things in heaven and earth …’.

Kirsten’s story begins on Christmas Eve. She had been allowed home from hospital just for the festive season to spend some time with her husband and children. Kirsten had been very ill. So ill that, at one point, staff had feared she would die. Kirsten didn’t die, however, but held on bravely. As Christmas approached, she begged to be allowed to go home. All the other members of her family – her beloved parents and grandparents – were dead, so she was especially desperate to be home with those she was devoted to. The hospital staff agreed, and at five o’clock that evening, the taxi carrying her drew up at the door of her house.

She was delighted to be home but she had not been there long when she began to feel unwell. The excitement of the trip had been too much for her and she begged to be allowed to go upstairs and lie down. Her temperature shot up. She became delirious and, as she did, realized she had made a mistake in asking to come home. Downstairs she could hear her husband and children laughing as they set up the table for the next day. Suddenly she felt strongly it was a meal she was never going to see.

As she grew progressively weaker, the room seeming to fade away before her, she attempted to rise from the bed. But she was weak and toppled over. Instead of falling down, however, she was aware of a strange sensation, as if she was floating. Suddenly, she didn’t care if she hurt herself. She was too weak to cry out for help. The feeling was wonderful – all her cares were draining away.

A mist grew up round her. As it did she saw that the room was swathed in layers and layers of white tulle – so beautiful, she gasped. Then she became aware of the figure coming towards her. It was her father, as clear as if he was still alive. Behind him, and looking exactly as she remembered him, was her beloved grandfather. Now Kirsten’s eyes filled with tears – ones of happiness though. She tried to reach through the mist towards them in the hope of touching their hands, but though they both looked happy enough to see her, her father shook his head. Kirsten remembers clearly the words he said.

‘You must go back. You will recover and you’ve much do to in your life before you can join us. You’re to go back for Alison, she needs you.’

Only at that point did Kirsten feel that she was being robbed. ‘But I don’t know any Alison,’ she said. ‘Please let me come with you.’

Her father shook his head. Kirsten felt the image fading. Then she must have fallen asleep. She was woken by her husband bringing the children in to show her some of the decorations they had been making for Christmas Day.

Kirsten had no idea whether what she had seen was a dream or not, but for the first time she felt better. The next day passed wonderfully for her and she went back into hospital to be told she was on the mend. She came to me because she wasn’t sure. There were things about what had happened she didn’t understand. Most importantly, she’d no idea who Alison was. She needed to find out.

‘Well, that’s not a problem,’ I told her. ‘I’m surprised you don’t know already. My vibes all tell me you’re pregnant.’