I’m just back from a week in Lily Dale, where I worked at several outdoor message services while Benjamin helped Sharon Klingler with her week-long mediumship workshop. My week had many highlights, including jumping up on a bench (like Sally Field in the movie Norma Rae) to give messages because a microphone stopped working, meeting a woman who spoke fluent Lemurian, giving spiritual healings at the Healing Temple, and delivering three greetings from spirit that astounded me.
Lily Dale, New York, is the largest Spiritualist community in North America. See the newest album I just launched on my Facebook page. This gated Victorian village hosts three public message services and two healing services every day. The healing services are held at the Healing Temple, a rectangular building where white-shirted spiritual healers stand behind backless benches. When someone sits for a healing, the worker moves his or her hands around the person’s aura. Spiritualists believe healers are conduits of healing energies, which comes from a higher source. The goal is not to create spontaneous healings of a physical nature, but to fill one’s soul with a sense of peace.
I don’t usually volunteer at the Healing Temple, but the place was short-staffed that week, so I rolled up my white sleeves and helped out. Later, after a cup of English Breakfast tea at Cup-A-Joe’s, where I would sit on the wraparound front porch and read or kibitz with my fellow spiritual sojourners, I headed to Inspiration Stump to work the 1 p.m. message service. I also served at the 4 p.m. Forest Temple message service, and the 5:30 p.m. Stump service as well
I can’t recall many of the dozens of messages I brought through that week, but these three really stick in my mind.
As I stood before several hundred seated people, all eagerly looking at me and hoping to hear from a friend or loved one in spirit, I had the impression of two peas in a pod. This mental image suddenly changed into two fetuses… and then one melted away, leaving one embryo in the womb.
I concentrated a moment, thought a quick blessing for the departed child, then said, “I feel the presence of a child who died in utero. I believe he was one of a twin, and I feel his surviving brother is here in the audience. Can anyone take this?”
A deep silence filled the air. Then a hesitant hand went up from a man sitting about ten rows in front of me. “There are three sets of twins in my family,” he said quietly. “I was supposed to be part of the fourth, but my brother didn’t make it.”
“Thank you,” I said, both to the man and to the spirit coming forward. I gave the man some personal details about his life, which he understood, then finished with, “Your brother is telling me that he walks with you all the time. And when it’s time for you to go home – and that won’t be for quite awhile – he’ll meet you on the other side.”
I was a little stunned as I sat down. I’d never received and delivered a message like that before. The chairperson of the service, the lovely Shirley Yusczyk, smiled at me and placed a hand over her heart.
Another time, I stood before the crowd and closed my eyes for a moment and asked spirit to come through. In my next breath, I felt the weight of sorrow on my shoulders. I looked at the people and spoke to the impressions I was getting.
“A man is talking to me about a gunshot wound,” I said. “He’s telling me his wife is in the audience. He left behind a child – no, I’m sorry, I’m being corrected. The child hasn’t been born yet. It’s going to be a boy.”
I described the man, and a woman raised her hand. “That’s my husband,” she said, fighting back tears. “He was killed in a holdup last month.” Then she confirmed that an amniocentesis had revealed the child was male.
“He’s telling me that he will be there at the birth of your child,” I said. “And he will continue to watch over the two of you from the spirit world.”
Thank you, the woman mouthed as she wiped her eyes. I took a breath to centre myself, then felt the next spirit presence that wanted me to talk for it.
Perhaps the most satisfying message I delivered that week was bringing the words of a boy who had passed when he was eight years old. Being a parent, I have no idea of what it would be like to lose a child, and those kinds of messages always leave me with an ache in my heart.
I described the boy to the audience, and the sensation I was feeling of how he had died. “He wants his parents to know that he’s alright now,” I said. “And he’s sitting on the floor playing with a little red fire engine. He says that’s his favourite toy.”
The parents acknowledged my words with nods and gentle smiles. Afterward, they approached me to say that one day a firemen had given the boy a special ride in an engine, and his favourite toy was indeed a shiny red fire truck. “In fact,” the father said, “it’s sitting on top of the pile of toys in his room.”
But what made my day was when he said that before this afternoon, he hadn’t believed in the afterlife. “Thank you,” he said. And as the couple walked away, I thanked spirit for allowing me to deliver those healing words.
If you have any questions or comments on this subject or on any other spiritual matter, feel free to write me at mail @ carolynmolnar.com. And please visit me again!