The Monks Habit

A true account of my experience at the age of 23, and my memory of what happened when I was 8.

The Monk’s Habit

 

Back in 1993 I was renting a small bedroom in a Terraced house just off Westgate Road, Newcastle.  I was seeing a young woman named Jacqueline who lived in a flat near the Tyne River.  We’d been together for a few months I think, and one day she asked me to accompany her to a spiritualist meeting in Jesmond.  She told me she was hoping for some contact from her grandmother, who’d passed on a few years earlier.  Jackie told me she’d also invited her neighbour, who was an elderly woman to come along.  So one afternoon, Jackie, her neighbour and I walked up the hill towards Jesmond, to the building where the spiritualists were having their gathering.

I didn’t know much about spiritualism, but I wanted to support her and be open-minded about what we were going to.  But I remember being curious about what these people could do.  We entered the hall and found some seats near the back on the left side.  There must have been around 30 people present, most of them sitting in front of us.  There was one person, an over-weight woman dressed in black, who sat behind us on the right side of the hall.  At the front was the stage.  Two people appeared, a young man and a woman.  I was slightly surprised how young they were.  Apparently they were going to practice their psychic abilities.  One of them would choose someone from the audience and begin to tell them whatever they picked up from them.  I don’t remember much that was significant to the people they chose.  But they kept trying anyway.  Jackie was patiently waiting for one of them to tell her some news from her grandmother.  With each new person that one of the young psychics chose I could sense Jackie’s disappointment.  But I’d continue to sit there, observing all I could.  Sometimes I’d feel a shiver of energy shooting up my spine.  This was not strange for me in those days.  It often happened without warning, and I was used to it.

At some point the young man focussed his abilities on me. He  began to tell that he saw me taking part in a parachute jump, falling through the sky, but something was wrong, and I thought I was going to die.  But it all worked out fine in the end.  Interesting.  I told him I’d never done a jump, and wasn’t intending to.  Jackie was still hoping for something from her grandmother, but no one had addressed her yet.  Minutes passed and the young psychics kept trying their best, undeterred by their apparent lack of success.  Then they told us that the session had come to a close for today.  Jackie sighed with disappointment.  Then the large woman who had been sitting alone behind us stood up and came over to me.  She told me that every time the energy shot up my spine she could see a form behind me, a monk dressed in a brown habit.  This was all she said, but she was very clear about it.  I immediately thought of the time when I was eight years old, when I’d climbed the ruins of the Priory at Tynemouth.  At the top I swear I’d seen a monk moving through a doorway which was barred with iron, and which led to the open air.  I’d almost forgotten about this strange event, but when this woman told me the form behind me wore a monks habit, then it all came back.  I didn’t really know what to make of what she’d said, but my curiosity was engaged.  What was my relationship with this man in the brown habit?  Will I ever learn the truth of this?