Industry Standards? Don't make me drop a house on you!

Anyone who knows me knows there were a few weeks in March/April where things were a bit rough to say the least. The most shocking thing was that a lot of the hurt was caused by other practising mediums trolling me on Facebook! People that I don’t know, who have never met and quite honestly I don’t want to meet them! It lead me off in the direction of some research and I was gobsmacked with what I found! This industry needs professional and moral guidelines because it’s seems sometimes a mediums moral compass accidentally points to “bitch!” Because we are spiritual people we seem to think we can get away with it too!

The psychic arts are a multi- billion dollar industry, unregulated and unsupervised. No one has to answer to anyone. F-k you all! We can do what we like when we like and hang the consequences.  We can charge as much as we like, call it what we like and make as many claims about our abilities as we like. A tepid application of the Trade Practices Act might get you your money back but who wants to go through that kind of embarrassment and expense?

If a Doctor, Lawyer, Check Out Operator or Cleaner did or publicly said some of the things that have happened over the last few months they would undoubtedly be in serious trouble. At the very least humiliated for their gross lack of professionalism and warned by their employer or ruling body. Heck even one of John Edward’s staff jumped on the bandwagon by making publicly spiteful comments about someone else when allegations by a random nutter were posted on his page. Why would someone like him bother? People are so desperate to be the next John Edward, but you don’t fool me. You want the money and the big house, the fame and the recognition. The material stuff, not the feel good, that’s just a bonus to roll in after the crowds have adored you and you have waved goodnight.

My research indicates a large number of Australian and US Facebook pages that are owned by mediums are also used to bitch out other mediums or metaphysical practitioners. To make sly comments, open and scathing criticism and generally mud sling and bleat not very sweet nothings about people who apparently share the same goal; the greater good. No other industry or profession does this!!!!

Just before I go any further I would like to say I have had the absolute HONOUR of never having a client express any kind of disappointment in me. Ever. It doesn’t mean it isn’t there or that it isn't coming at me one day, but so far never has a client seen fit to attack me. It might come and if I deserve it, my chin will be sticking out and ready to take it.

So how did we let it get so out of control? How did we go from people who genuinely deal in love and light and the energy of God to egotistical malicious hurtful people who attack anonymous individuals or name names because we simply think we are better than them? How did some of us become vipers who goad others into a vicious frenzy so they cause harm and hurt? Then hide behind social media, ‘pen names’ or the skirts of sacrificial friends?  It seems we will do everything we can to enhance our own reputation by spewing forth angels, auras, peace love, mung beans, fairies and butterflies but at the same time spit fire and the f-word whilst doing everything we can to destroy someone who, in the grand scheme of all things our own  is completely meaningless?

Can you imagine if Coles and Woolworths decided to launch attacks on each other because they both sell cornflakes? Stop for a minute because that is exactly what is happening. Petty jealousy, rivalry, and EGO.

Do clients really want to seek hope and guidance from people who take others lack of tolerance and understanding only to weave them into a hangman’s noose?  Do we really need to trust in someone who makes poison darts for others to send on their way? What HAVE we done? We think we are oh so good with our connection to spirit and our “loved ones” and “God” and the “Divine” but we haven’t evolved spiritually at all! We should be ashamed of ourselves!  We have learned something new  about the two worlds in which we live and have no real clue what it could possibly mean to the human race we are too busy making money, the understanding can come later right? We have de-volved not evolved. We have caved in. In the wrong hands active spirituality is just a money machine, an ego trip.. We aren’t learning to be good and kind through our own spiritual connection. We are learning pomposity, greed, avarice, competition and spite. We are learning that we must destroy the next person in case they are better, bigger or stronger than us. Look what happened to Jesus when the power brokers feared his compassion and passion. Nothing has really changed has it. Shame on me. Shame on you. Shame on all of us for dragging God out from his chair and shooting at his feet to make him dance so we can get our face on the internet, or better still on the telly.

The power of God and the Universe is scientifically, morally and spiritually stronger than we can comprehend. Unseen life and forces can communicate and move amongst us, seeing hearing and knowing everything we do and think.  It goes without saying that the life after death is a wiser, kinder and much more humble way of being. That is why we use it to guide us and to teach us.  Only we turned prophets into profit without turning a hair.

I admit I make a very small part of my living out of reading and so far my spiritual helpers (my beloved Arty and P mostly, but there have been and I am sure there will continue to be others along the way) have been kind and supportive and I have managed to do right by others as far as I know.  I’m not going to say I don’t enjoy it. I have had more laughs with and involving dead people than live ones recently. A medium once said to me, “You have more dead friends than live ones.” I wonder why? I love my human friends very much, but these last few months and my factual research has left me reeling and wondering what motivates someone who practices the psychic arts to then show their dark side so vehemently and so viciously.

I know for sure that not everyone is like this and I thank God, literally. This is just another and hopefully tiny facet of the industry. Are we really so dumb that we are reading, and seeing and connecting for other people but we don’t get the message ourselves? I am sure my beloved Arty and P would drop a house on me if I ever behaved like that.  The world is awakening and it won’t be long before we are all our own spiritual counsel and mediums won’t be needed. Make hay whilst the sun shines but don't steal anyone else's sunshine whilst you are doing it. There is plenty to go around.

Me? I took a year out of work to write a book and explore my own spirituality after spending years battling with it, not really understanding it and trying to find out where it fits in my life. For the most part I have loved and been loved  and have met some truly beautiful people, mediums, psychics and everyone in between and on either side! But the tiny peek into the human dark side of this "industry" has left me reeling. I’m not the only one either but I am not here to speak for others. I am here to speak for me, and me alone in the hope that others who have been subjected to this kind of treatment (I can name 9 without trying!) can be heard by default.

Kindness costs nothing. Your ego will cost you everything. You can be sure of it.

The word on EVP - Part II

Wednesday April 16, 2014

Let's not forget we are trying to explain EVP in a more or less "non scientific way" so we can all have at least a basic grasp of what EVP is.

First of all think of a dog whistle. You know that high frequency whistle that we humans can't hear that our canine friends respond to? Dogs can hear it, we can't. So that being the case we have the principal in place for Part II; it is quite possible there are noises we cannot hear with the 'naked ear'. Regardless of whether some EVP recordings are considered genuine or not it is no longer in dispute that their are sounds that are such a frequency or pitch that the human ear can't hear them. it makes perfect sense that if they aren't generated by a human there is less likelihood we will understand the concept, science or language behind these noises. Don't forget, no one has ever "gone to dead" and come back again to explain the science of the afterlife. Near death experiences are always personal rather than research gathering. What we don't know is far greater than what we do know, but we make judgments on that tiny little atom of knowledge anyway.

The second part of the mystery is how are the noises made? Spirit does not have a human voice and yet we always record human voices that are reported to be EVP's. It makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. Dogs don't make noises like humans so we can understand what they want! Spirits are no longer human so why do we expect the,m to mimic us like parrots? Get the principal here or are we getting a little too 'out there?'

It is an interesting concept that we don't question as much people "seeing" spirit but we do question the hearing and recording of them. This is because when we see, we have hard evidence in plain sight that we can easier process with our human brain-processor. When we record sound we have nothing tangible to prove anything other than some distorted sounds that we decide to put into words. We more readily accept the appearance of spirit than the sounds of spirit for some reason.

I have found one thing over and over and that is mediums tend to get better (clearer) EVP recordings than those who are just experimenting. So there has to be some kind of connection energy there. I remember once I left a recorder on my bedside table and the next morning it was clearly the sounds of people talking, people walking over a wooden floor and the scrape and squeak of wheels. The apartment I lived in at the time was a converted tobacco factory and the bedroom where the recorder was carpeted. There was actually a name on the tape and we (my husband and I) went looking for him. We found him as an old employee of the factory so that EVP was genuine and real, it must have been.

Some EVP's are really a bit of a stretch seriously. I mean if you go to a lunatic asylum, disused hospital or something similar you really aren't going to get a recording of someone saying "Do take a seat and stay for a nice cup of tea!" are you? The energy that was generated in that physical place was pain, frustration, hostility, fear and all sorts of other negative things. Soit's always "Go away" or something like that. I always kinda switch off when I hear those kinds of EVP's. They have been done to death. Literally!

You can record an EVP on anything, pretty much any recorder will pick it up, I guess the more sensitive the recorder the broader range of frequency but I also feel the speaking spooks 'know' what frequency they need to play on to be heard. I am also of the belief passed from Arty and Nikola, that we don't know enough about energy to actually find (hear) a lot of the communication. Just imagine for one second there is an energy we have yet to discover and name. It would be arrogant to think otherwise. To think we have discovered all we have to discover in the field of energy. Thank goodness some of science's greats didn't think that and leave it there. The highly specialised equipment required is really for the afterwards part! Don't forget with an EVP recording, like a dog whistle, you might only hear 1/10th of what you actually got with the naked ear. Again you can only test for something if you know it exists in the first place though.

Much of my channelling about communication comes from Nikola Tesla (What? You don't actually think I claim to know all this myself do you!??).  Edison filched some of his work but in the 1920's they were both working on the same thing by the same principals of electricity and current transfer. But did one of them actually discover the ability to record the dead? Nikola says "He knew it was possible but it wasn't where his work lay at the time. " In 1933 Decca Records allegedly produced records (vinyl) that recorded communication with the dead.  This was apparently done under controlled conditions to avoid future allegations of recording fraud but still it doesn't stop the nay sayers I guess.   How they did this was rather ingenious, they spoke into a normal microphone which in 1933 was going to be in no way as sophisticated as those we have these days. The mics were placed in different areas of the room to enable different energies to be heard.  Apparently these early tests produced results but fear of losing their jobs (as sound engineers!) they refused to publicly release the material although they confirmed that had captured "spirit voices". It wasn't until 1938 that a spook was recorded on a phonographic record. His or her first LP I guess!

The "voices" heard on EVP messages almost always demonstrate a frequency outside of the normal human voice range. Not to be confused with the normal human hearing range. This is why the production and analysis equipment is more important than the original recording equipment in some ways. A human voice ranges between 300hz & 1000hz, in general terms. Spook voices seem to reach as far as 400hz.  So we know they CAN be recorded so let's ask again, "How does it work?" I roll my eyes at this point because that actually is NOT a scientific question.   Some out there have weird and absolutely nutty explanations that the voices are "left behind" or an imprint remains. I mean seriously! How many times do you have a conversation with someone and then go back to the same place and hear it again because you left a "voice imprint." Ooh! ooh! I know the answer to that one! NEVER!

So Nikola, Arty and I; by the way the last line amused both of them and Arty says he is 'rather fond of my wit' but I digress and shall not further! Nikola, Arty and I all agree that an EVP is a spirit who is present at the time of the recording and not like a lingering smell but only audible! Another mystery solved. As we all know when we "see" someone who has passed over we really can't be seeing them at all because they no longer have a body. We are "seeing" something spirit has conjured up for us so we can, well, see them! This is the exact same principal for the "voices".

Going back to the adage that we are part electrical energy which upon death cannot be destroyed but only reformed AND that there is other energy around us that we cannot detect that spirit can use. Like the noise of the energy of the dog whistle, spirit uses their own energy and other energies to create and form words that we can understand. THAT is why they are distorted and sometimes have to be (wrongly) interpreted. Think of it as giving a spook energetic play doh! They make words out of it! The energy can be angry or sad but they have to form the words so we can record them. They DON'T talk! If that makes sense.

Mediumship communication is far easier because to all intents and purposes it is "silent" to everyone other than the spook and the medium, the exchange of energy is far easier as it goes from "mind to mind" if you like. As a medium I don't "hear" with my ears it is like a process of transferring thoughts into my head. Whereas with EVP you are asking  spirit to come into the human world. We do that all the time; we go to foreign countries and expect them to speak OUR language rather than learning about theirs!  We can't learn about spiritual language and the ability or not for speech because we are trying to put the cart before the horse. Good grief we aren't even sure where the spiritual dimension is, let alone be able to shout at them in the hope they understand us!

Someone once asked me about other equipment to make the energy or ability to hear or "speak (by spirit) stronger." I am reliably informed by Nikola that it makes things worse not better. They have a  bit of a laugh about all the "balderdash" that is spoken and the "gadgets" we will buy just because someone tells us it will make things work better. The fact is we don't understand the afterlife well enough to make anything with any reliability yet.  All we can keep doing is EVP recording and analysis and hoping that the spiritual side keep cooperating so we can learn. In the meantime we can continue to pretend we know everything I guess!

“Life is and will ever remain an equation incapable of solution, but it contains certain known factors.” Nikola Tesla

What's the word on EVP? Part I

Tuesday April 15, 2014

I am not a scientist. Not even close. I had an asthma attack in a chemistry class once when we were doing something with magnesium sulphate and accidentally electrocuted myself trying to change a power plug. I was 7, give me a break ok! So what qualifies me to write about EVP, electronic voice phenomena? Well other than Arty and Nikola Tesla nothing to be honest. I first saw Tesla as mentioned in my book when I wrote it and he tried to explain electronic things to me in terms of communication. He had to dumb it down. I mean really dumb it down so I could understand communication by spook. So there you go; that's what qualifies me to write about it. Expert advice I don't understand! 

Let's start with the obvious and something I repeat a lot. Our "minds" are the part of us that is spiritual. That intangible part of us that only we can get into and the place where we generate thoughts and feelings that are totally unique to us. We may one day be able to transplant a brain but never a mind. Never mind. 

Our brain creates electrical energy, our mind IS electrical energy that we then individually play doh into thoughts, dreams, spiritual experiences. It is the part of us that remains after death. We have labelled this energy a type of electromagnetic energy.  That's what we call it because it acts like EME, which means that the first place you should look for spooks in your house is more than likely in the microwave! Different frequency perhaps or we would all be able to boil cabbage in our ears! 

We must remember though when making claims of recording the dead that they have absolutely no biological attributes that enable speech and speaking as we know it. So we aren't recording voices of any kind. No way no how. It is simply not possible. It is like when people ask me when I talk to their loved one's do I hear "a" voice or do I hear "their voice".  It's "a" voice although sometimes I will be given an accent, a word or a phrase they used to use which helps validate them. But I am not physically "hearing" voices, my mind is downloading a message, essentially from another "mind" and I am decoding it.

Confused yet? Let's go deeper! So what exactly are we recording? Who is making the noise and how do they, if they do, make it sound like words? It's not a "mind" connection because we are recording it on a mechanical device. I have done a few experiments, one was leaving a digital recorder on "meeting" mode overnight and aside from my husband snoring and making other "man noises" we also heard people walking across a wooden floor, what sounded like squeaking wheels and muffled talking. Kind of scary are we were living in a warehouse apartment at the time with a carpeted bedroom. What we seemed to be hearing was the noises in the old tobacco factory that was the converted building we now call home. We had carpet on the floor in the bedroom so there was no way the noises could have possibly been "other stuff" happening whilst we were sleeping - a mouse with clogs on maybe? We didn't live in a windmill so it couldn't be. 

My very first EVP experiment was accidental a product of leaving a tape recorder running overnight. It was part of a "stereo" unit so there was no external microphone. The morning after there was nothing on it other than a clear voice (not distorted) saying remember me....we had a little boy.  Unknown to me at the time I was about a month pregnant and yes I had a boy. Who was saying remember me? I don't know - a past life connection? A spook who had visited once before? I don't know but whoever it was it was like a reintroduction rather than a request.

But here are where my experiences and others end because all the EVP recordings I have heard to date have been unclear, sometimes hard to validate or interpret properly and involve non mediums but rather people with voice recorders.  The human brain is a fickle little piece of us. It can drive us off on wild goose chases so if we want to hear something there is a good chance we can distort our own thinking to distort the crackle and hiss of EVP into a scary message or a warning in a lunatic asylum.

So HOW does it work if indeed it does? Where do science and the natural being of life cross over? Part II is where we find out who said what in the spook world. 

Religion & Spirituality - The same but different?

Wednesday April 9, 2014

I was asked a tricky one yesterday and I thought it would be a good subject to blog about.  What is the difference between religion and spirituality? Is there a difference? Isn’t being religious the same as being spiritual? Ok that is more than one question but it definitely got me thinking. I wasn’t raised in a religious household, in fact it was more like hell than anything even remotely God respecting so I suppose my perception of religion is personal to me. For some people their religion is their support, it is what makes sense of their lives. Everyone has  faith in something or someone. I realised when trying to think up a vaguely intelligent response that spirituality is a search for something within whereas religion is an education that gets foisted upon us from without. We are brought up or taught religion and how to be religious. Spirituality is unique to the individual and we have to decide to go looking for it, ourselves. There is no book just You and the universe and it is up to you to decide what that means and represents to you. No one can decide for you.

We discover our own spirituality but we are told what each religion means and what it holds true. There is no arguing with religion because it is written. Spirituality is more like science, it is a constant journey of discovery and sometimes we have to get it wrong and accept that to eventually get it right and believe it, know it to be true by our own experience rather than rely on the words of others. We find our own truths when we become more spiritual in our outlook, they aren’t forced upon us by some book that may or may not have been doctored to suit the power brokers and the pollies throughout the ages.

Something that also came to mind is that there can often be quite negative connotations attached to religion; wars start over them, people have and continue to be slaughtered purely for their faith but no one has ever sought out or segregated those who exist within their own spirituality. Mediums don’t start territorial wars or scar others because they won’t be told to believe in the same God as we do.

Another interesting thought that came to my mind is that organised religion, in my opinion, all but erases God, Allah, Buddha or whomever is the focal point of your particular worship from the scene anyway.  We appoint “mere mortals” and they are the ones who decide what God meant when he said it! We go to confession and speak to a cleric, prayers and hymns in organised religion are written out for us, supposedly handed down by by whom and who decides what is written and how it is used. In short there is much more human intervention and very little free will involved in organised religion. Spirituality is all about the free will of the individual.  Religion is very much do what you are told to do, spirituality is about listening to your own spirit, your intuition, your inner voice and learning to disregard the clatter of the human world when you do.

I am definitely not anti-religion, I'm not really anti-anything. I am respectful of others beliefs and their own reality where their faith is concerned. This is just my view, something we are all entitled to have. To me religion is about doing, being seen to be doing and following the rules. Spirituality is quite simply about being.

A Place to Call Home

Sunday April 6, 2014

I was talking to a friend once about writing my book and I said to him but how can I prove it’s true? He said well it’s your reality so it may well not be true to some people. Deep. Very deep but a darned good point! So when I write I write about my own spiritual experiences, meditations and communications. The reason I am saying that is because I don’t profess to know everything I just write about what I do know and most of that comes from Arty and Co. Anyone who can communicate with spirit knows that sometimes it flows and sometimes it doesn’t and sometimes we have to translate ‘a feeling” to get the message.

Well that’s the preamble here’s the amble! It’s about spook space and what it is and why I believe we all have one and should find it, it is a place of peace and spiritual connection and unique to each of us.  I preface this with the knowledge that anything spiritual is not about a physical place, it’s about being. We can “be” happy but we can’t go to happy. We can “be” emotional but we can’t go to emotional. That I believe is the spiritual part of us; the intangible side that we and we alone can experience; our minds, our thoughts and our feelings. So when I talk about finding our spiritual space, I’m not talking about a place at all. I am talking about a reference point for us to start learning the ways of spook! This is actually an excellent meditation exercise and can be very revealing about who we really are.

As human beings it has become apparent through the ages that we need to relate all things spiritual back to the physical. God may be an energy that we can’t actually see, but we still have to create a vision of a middle aged man in a white robe. Angels may be a slightly different energy but we create white robed beings with wings and golden halos. Once we have created our physical reference point, that is exactly what we see when we see God or angels when we are within our spiritual self. It is what we NEED to see so we know what it is – if that makes sense. It’s the same principal when we see loved ones who have passed over. They have no body and no physical appearance but they create one that is familiar to us, so we know that particular energy is them.

So, what is our spook space? When I meditate I always “go into my room”. It is a place in my mind and my spiritual heart that I found by following my inner self. I wanted somewhere to be, a state of mind, where I could “sit” with Arty and talk with P. Meditating and being out there in the ether in a dimension I don’t understand was not a place I envisaged meeting with the spirits of those I love so much.

During my meditation one day I asked my spooks to show me “my” spook space. We all have a human space and we all have a spiritual space. I knew they would have to give it some kind of reference point so I could relate in the human. We mortals have to give everything spiritual a human reference point or a label to understand and connect with it. So off I drifted into a meditation asking Arty to take me where we would meet in future. I went through a small gate, up a stone pathway guarded by lawn and through some white gloss painted French doors. Inside was a room with an alcove to the left, where Mr Trumble my gatekeeper sat! As I was floating with the vision I was quite surprised (although now it seems totally logical) to see my gatekeeper there.  Of course, he was manning the door to my spook space! There was a fireplace but the fire wasn’t lit, a white couch that was fabric, a side table and another alcove the other side of the fireplace.

So this vision was created by me? By Arty and P? Who knows but what it did was give me “somewhere to go” when I need to be with Arty and P. Sometimes I have meditated into that room and seen others on the couch and sure enough there has been a message for me or for someone else.  I remember once I went into “my room” and saw a woman who had been murdered and it was all over the news. She told me what happened and sure enough it eventually came out that what she had told me was indeed the story of her death.

I have found it is my anchor and my link to the spiritual. We all have a spiritual self and I guess this kind of delineates the two beings that are me. I didn’t create the vision I waited to see what was given to me. I don’t have a favourite style of house or décor so it wasn’t something that I “imagined.” I taught one of my students to find their space and he said it was like a late 1800’s library and he would go there and speak to his Grandfather. He would say “I saw Grandad the other day in my room.”

So many of us try and see our loved ones in the physical world, in the human world. Trust me it is far easier the other way around. This is a meditation exercise so go on the journey and see where you live in spirit! I can't help thinking it is no accident that mine has space and land around it, my beloved dogs are usually there and it is light and airy. It is no secret that I prefer to read outside in natural light or darkness. I love the space, the trees, nature and animals and this is reflected in my room. What does your room say about you?

Monsters Mushrooms and Crusades

Wednesday April 2, 2014

There is a Chapter in my book "Don't Blame God" where I share some of the more random connections with spirit. It's not all seriousness and sombre predictions you know! Every spirit was once a person (not to be confused with an entity or an energy) and so they act like people most of the time when the come into the human space. It makes me crazy trying to explain to people that once you pass into the next life you don't automatically become a "whiter-than-white-sorry-for-everything-bad-I-did", sort! You are you until you move forward and if you regret what you did - You say sorry if you don't; you don't!

Having said that it is no secret to those who know me that I don't "close the door" to spirit. They are with me when they want to be, dropping in when they feel like it. Some days they are around me and the day is still rather ordinary. Arty may comment on my health (he was a doctor and is mad with me at the moment over something); P might comment on my fashion sense, as she has more than me and we both know it! Other times I get random visitors at the most inappropriate or inopportune times! People often ask me "Can you find so and so?" Or "Can you communicate with (eg) Da Vinci?" Well yes but it is up to them not me to connect. I'm not some all seeing all communicating Goddess I am just a phone waiting to ring. Here is one that made me laugh from a few years ago.....coincidentally for those who think I have finally lost it, there was someone else there (a human) when this happened and we had a good laugh about it!

Often I do wonder about historical events and people. Just wondering if we got it right. I am a bit of a buff for natural, geographic and social history. I remember my consternation at the need for Christopher Columbus to reveal his sexual orientation and that he was not exactly the master seaman history depicted him to be.  It's all in the book and was another impromptu spook visit! Maybe he just needed to get both matters off his chest and picked me to do it to. So I suppose I should not have been too surprised at the following out of the blue information from my spooks.

Half regarding a television program on the crusades between 1096 and 1292, of which there were about 9 in total from memory, there came a segment about the belief by the crusaders in monsters. A one eyed one legged Cyclops, a man with ears like elephant trunks and a flying bird that was so big it could swoop in and carry off cattle. During the narration of the program it was revealed that none of the crusaders had actually seen these monsters but the travelling people, nomads or gypsies if you like, HAD encountered these strange looking beasts in the forests. Coming out of the woods and through the thickets into the daylight the travelling vagabonds were always so panick stricken that they saw fit to warn the battle weary and battle ready of the potential for danger from the one eyed, one armed flying purple people eater; and the like!

Out of nowhere as I was watching the TV and at the same time doing something on my laptop, my head was filled with this horrible smell. I really felt nauseous but was also a little fixated on the grainy fuzzy vision before me in my spook space! As the spirit materialised it became obvious it was he who stank like a yak that had been marinated in another yak and then left out in the sun!  He appeared to be in front of me although I could clearly see the TV screen "through" him.   My "visitor" had a kind of thick yellowing film of clag-fur over his teeth, seemed to have made a head-hole in a folded blanket to wear like a dress and although his shoes kind of looked like shoes they also looked like they were tied to his feet with string. His hair was blondish and seemed to be in clumps. It looked like it was just sawn off at the ends with a knife, a mud caked coiffure. He was also sporting a leather or fabric braided neck 'thingy'.  He had a scar over his right eye and one of his earlobes was funny, like it had been partly cut off but was still there!  He grinned, ‘Magic mushrooms!”

I then got the entire story from the attending spook who said his name was Simon but he didn't look like a Simon he looked more like a filthy! It actually sounded like he said "Shimmon."  He proudly offered the reason the crusaders feared monsters they had never seen ; the soldiers were fed on meat and grain products prepared within their own camps and castle walls. The vagabonds and pedlars would travel the woods scrounging whatever they could to eat; including slightly toxic and very hallucinogenic mushrooms! As a result the itinerants would ‘see’ all sorts of wild and woolly things and when leaving the woods they would tell those they met along the way about the fearful and strange monsters lurking in the trees. The truth was the monsters were lurking only in the peddlars imagination!

Thanks spooks, another one of histories’ mysteries solved and certainly one of the funniest I have had!