Navigating the Paranormal: Phill Webster's Journey into the Afterlife

Hey everybody, this is Brian, back with another episode of Grief to Growth, and today I've got with me Phil Webster. What if? What if mystical experiences are real? What if inspiration, instinct and ingenuity are the same as intuition, divination and clairvoyance? Phil's written a book called Letting Glow, and it's an adventure and a mediumship, and it takes a deeper look at how we experience things like time, consciousness and a relationship to our higher self all the stuff we like to talk about here on Grief to Growth. It's profoundly personal account of grief during the global COVID-19 pandemic, and it aims at finding solace and hope by connecting with our intuition, and he says it's simple changes in thinking, meditation, exercises and shifting our perspectives on everyday reality can transform our lives into ones of intense purpose and deeper connection with all it is Now.

Phil himself is a writer. He's an author and a spiritual teacher, and, after living abroad for 20 years, he returned to the UK, where he resides now, and he ventured into acting. He's since gone on to appear in movies alongside people like Sylvester Stallone, ben and Dick Cumberbatch and L Fanning, among others. Phil lost his mother in 2021 and realized he'd been dismissing spiritual calls to action his entire life, and he writes about that in his book again Letting Glow. Phil has such trained with Indigenous shamans from North and South America as well as world-renowned mediums like James Van Prague, gordon Smith and Claire Broad. He's also studied female spirituality in the Middle Ages at the University of Barcelona and is a trained meditation teacher as well as a personal trainer. So with that I want to welcome Phil to Grief, to Growth.

Hi, brian, thank you very much. Thanks, yeah, that always sounds like such a lot, but most of those things they just came from never knowing what I wanted to do with my life, so just stacking these things up along the way.

That's kind of the way I find life works. You know, we never know what path we're going to take to get to where we are, and I feel like we do take the path that's the right one for us. So you talk about. You had some, I guess, spiritual experiences early on in your life. What was it that finally triggered you to awakening?

I guess for lack of a better word- Well, there were a couple of things along the way which sort of came to light in hindsight of what happened around my mom passing, which is kind of really the main catalyst for writing the book and which really sent me down this path completely. So just yeah, straight off with that. We've just been through the pandemic 2020 and we'll know about that, and my mom lived in a place called the Isle of Wight, which is an island which is south of England and it's a good few hours away from where I'm based in London and I was adhering to the government guidelines and all that kind of stuff and I was seeing it where I was allowed to and, you know, keeping away when we wasn't supposed to. And I hadn't seen it for a couple of months at this point. She was supposed to come to London for Christmas, but then, once again, there was a new variant of COVID or something and we didn't end up seeing each other for Christmas. So over this whole year, she's sort of grown increasingly lonely, somewhat depressed. She was 76 years old and had various age-related health problems, but we would face time every day and on this particular day it was about two weeks into 2021. And I've already spoke to her a couple of times that day and again we were in a lockdown and this was quite late at night. When I had this conversation with her it was like 9.30.10. And just to sort of give a little bit of perspective around this, we didn't have any family there on the island, why, she was very much on her own and it's a very rural place, so I kind of knew all of the neighbors and people like that. And again, just to sort of stress, we were in lockdown.

And then she answered the call this night and as she sort of clicked on the screen and I saw her lean into the call, she had a phone charging on the floor. There was a man leaning in from the other side of the screen and I was kind of taking her back. There wasn't supposed to be anyone there and she was always alone when I called her and I saw him long enough that I could describe him. He had thinning gray hair glasses, looked like he was maybe late 60s, something like that. And as she sort of pulled the phone up he went out of shot. So I was like, well, who's that? And she said who's what? And I was like okay, I was like well, the guy. Who's the guy? I just saw someone.

She's like no, no, no, there's no one here, and just kind of dismissed it. They didn't even sort of take any notice of me and so they're talking about her day and again I interrupt her. I said I said sorry, mom, you know, but I just saw someone. Are you telling me that you're on your own? And she was like, yeah, there's no one, been no one here all day.

And I could always tell when there was someone with her because, like over the years, it used to drive me nuts when I was a teenager, especially if someone was with her and I tried to have a phone call. She'd like turn on all these airs and graces and it would be impossible to have a conversation with her. You know, just be like, okay, come on, just just be yourself. But she wasn't doing any of that and it was a pretty small house that she lived in. She wasn't acknowledging anyone else and we spoke for about 45 minutes and I thought, well, I must have been mistaken. So I just kind of dismissed it as some sort of glitch on the screen or something.

Obviously that isn't really a thing, you know, with both had iPhones and I just left it and I went to bed that night and then the next morning got a phone call from a neighbor. They couldn't get in the house and my mom had passed away. She'd had a heart attack. So, yeah, that I mean. Obviously the initial grief was what it is, and I went through all of that but at the back of my mind I was like, well, what was all that? You know, are we talking ghosts here? Are we talking spirit guides? And that wasn't something that I was into into at all or really interested in. And then, yeah, as the months went on, I kind of gradually opened up to this idea that that was the most logical explanation to me was that that was something that I was interested in, because that was something letting me know that my mom was about to pass.

Hmm, so do you have any idea who it was to this day?

Well, that's the thing, you know. He didn't. He didn't look like a family member. I mean, I lost touch with my dad when I was 18. At a stretch it could have been him, you know, at the age he might have been. If he's, if he was still around, I've no idea. I'm assuming he's not. He was quite a heavy drinker and he had one lung. He still smoked. And then there was COVID. So I mean, if he I shouldn't like sort of not, not, not to make light of it but if he made it through that, then you know that I wouldn't have thought so.

I mean, I ended up writing my book that I sort of thought that it was possibly him, but I just don't know. You know, and and, like I say, I didn't really sort of get any comfort out of it. It was just like, okay, that happened. And I would tell people about it and, depending on which side of the fence people were, you know, people would be saying what it was grief, and I'd be like, well, it wasn't grief, because it was before the fact, you know, and then, and then I would meet people that say, well, yeah, that was, that was clearly your spirit guide, or your mom's spirit guide and somebody letting you know that they were. They were there for you know. So, yeah, I ended up going that route.

Okay, and so I, first of all, I'm going to say I'm really sorry about your mother. I know that had to be a tremendous yeah. Yeah, yeah. So, and before this you were an actor. You've done several things, so I know you've been an actor and you're a trainer, so what were you doing at the time?

So at the time, I had come back to the UK in 2017, after living abroad for 20 years or so and when I came back, I've sailed in London with my partner and I thought, if I was really honest with myself, what would I love to do? And I'd always been obsessed with movies and I thought, well, the logical way to get into that would be perhaps acting. I don't have any experience in film directing or editing or anything like that in my 40s, so I went to drama school and very quickly got a few small parts but I use the word like actor very loosely when I refer to myself about it. You know, I literally walk on sail line and walk off again. And that's me done, you know. But it was good. You know, we paid the bills for a few years and I must admit, my attention has really gone away from it now since writing the book and kind of the path that I'm taking now.

I feel that there are a lot of egos on film sets, which is kind of to be expected, and I feel like that's not really the environment that I'm leaning towards these days, you know.

So, yeah, sorry, so, after your mother passed, tell me what was your journey like then, because you eventually ended up with shamanism and etc. But what was your journey like after your mother passed?

Yeah, so just talking about the acting thing, I was scheduled to start immediately on one of these big Marvel superhero movies it was Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness, it was called and I've been waiting for it for months. It had been a really quiet year because of COVID and it started like two days after my mom passed and I thought, well, I'm just going to do it because it'll keep me busy and I need the money as well. You know, the expense that comes up all around losing somebody, as I'm sure a lot of your listeners know, is just something else. So I just kind of got on with it and I barely spoke to anyone for two months, I think, on set. You know, I just kind of had my head down. It was COVID, so we were all kind of separated anyway and I just kind of buried my head in books that I'd read years before. I kind of reread some books that I'd read when I was younger and I would say that they were sort of like a very soft introduction towards spirituality. I was reading things like Neil Donald Walsh and stuff like that kind of the broader sort of picture and not really delving straight into mediumship or anything. But they helped, these books helped.

And one day on the set, when I eventually kind of started talking to people, I spoke to this young lady and I told her the story that I just told you and she said, well, you should ask for a sign, you know. And I was like I've kind of thought of this, but I almost didn't want to. I was like what if I ask for one and I don't get one, you know? So just to sort of ramble on a little bit, we just moved into a new apartment during the time I was filming this thing and I had a day off and I was putting away a bunch of Blu-rays right, I've kind of obsolete now, but I've got a stack of them all in a box and I was putting them very methodically away in a very geekly order and I'd got these films, these superhero Marvel things, and while I was doing this I was like, oh yeah, okay, let's do this. I was like, all right, mum, if you're around, give me a sign.

And I sort of carried on tidying up and as I put these Blu-rays away, I noticed that one was missing, and the one that was missing was Doctor Strange. So that was the original movie to the sequel that I was working on and I thought, well, all right, that's kind of what. I didn't really attribute it to me, asking for a sign at that point. So anyway, I was just kind of annoyed that it wasn't there. And then I went about tidying the flat and then later in the day I came across a stack of books and on the top of the stack of books was this Blu-ray, doctor Strange. And I was like, well, that's just really odd that that should have been in the box with the rest of them. And then I looked at the book. Underneath the Blu-ray was poking out and the author's name was Maureen, which was my mum's name, and then the title of the book. Underneath that one was poking out part of it and it said living. So I've got Doctor Strange, maureen living. And I thought, well, I don't know, maybe, maybe is that.

You know, depending on which way you look at things, I was still kind of somewhat cynical about stuff at the time, but you know that came up pretty quickly and things tended to follow on from that, so I understand you had some paranormal experiences, so tell me about some of those.

Yeah, I mean, I think that that was really the biggest one and I truly, at this point, have settled on the idea that that was, you know, a spirit guide of some form. Let me know that my mum was about to pass. If that hadn't happened that evening, I wouldn't have wrote this book, I wouldn't be talking. It just sent me on this whole different trajectory.

So that was what actually triggered you to go on the journey? Yeah, yeah, definitely. You know, I just kept going back to that, well, like who was that guy, you know? But yeah, and it kind of made me reevaluate other things that happened over the years. So when I was a kid, I remember stuff used to happen around the house things moving, stuff like that and and you know, as a kid that was kind of like exciting. And then as I grew older, I thought what did those things really happen? Or was that just like I was into that stuff? You know, I was like watching Ghostbusters in the 80s or something, and you know, and and I sort of doubted it all.

And I remember in my teenage years I came across this term, astral projection, and read up on it and try to invoke it, and I had this experience which kind of freaked me out and and again, as years went by, I thought I don't know, did that really happen? You know, was it just like wishful thinking? Maybe I was dreaming or something like that, although everything that I read about it after was kind of confirmed that that was the experience that I've had, but I would put all these things to bed, you know. And then something in my mid 30s very profound, and this kind of weird talking about this, because I'm talking years apart, right, you know, like in the five years in the middle I'm just living regularly, paying the bills, not thinking about any of this kind of stuff. But in my mid 30s I remember having this very sort of very profound experience where I kind of I was living a pretty hedonistic lifestyle. At the time I was running bars and nightclubs in Helsinki and Finland and I was kind of like very self absorbed and just not really thinking about anyone else's business but loan.

And I remember waking up this one morning and something just kind of and it wasn't like a new thought, but something shifted with this thought and I just started thinking about time being nonlinear. You know that all we've got is this moment of now and that's it. You know like everything else is just kind of a memory or a thought of what we want to do in the future, but all we really have is now, you know, all the time. And as I sort of contemplated this, something shifted and it was as though suddenly I were outside of myself, like observing my thoughts, almost like a depersonalization experience. I suppose that is what I've kind of come to learn since, and it was terrifying something shifted and I can't really emphasize how terrifying it was All of a sudden, sort of reality just fell away, you know, out of nowhere, and and linear time just seemed absurd, and my whole existence at that point did also.

So this is going kind of out there, but I was like, okay, what the heck's this, you know? And I went outside and I just tried to walk it off and it just didn't stop and it's really hard to describe it. And it was at the time I was trying to tell my work colleagues and friends and people were just kind of glazing over, being like, okay, sure, you know like I sound completely nuts, but it was, it was truly terrifying and it was just like now, now, now, now, all the time I couldn't just sort of drift off, think, well, what am I going to eat for dinner later? Or what did I do last night? It was just like this hyper awareness that just didn't stop and people talk about, yeah, like, like you know, people talk about trying to attain that right, you know, live, moment and now. But this was like that times 1000.

And and I truly started doubting for my sanity, you know, and it kept going on. It went on for weeks, just didn't let up, and I ended up going to a doctor who I explained all this to as best I could, and they started using words like psychosis, which just amplified this terror. You know, I've never thought that that was on the cast for me, and they gave me a bunch of mad, slight anti anxiety pills which didn't touch it at all, sleep and pills which would like knock me out, and then I'd wake up and the whole thing would just start over again. And I think the best way I could describe it was like I was. It was almost like I was hanging on to, like a slippery bar by my fingertips and just about keeping a grip on reality. Essentially, it just felt like I was.

I don't know what was going on and I went to see another doctor because I wasn't happy with the psychosis diagnosis and he said the same thing and and eventually, after a couple of months of this, I started thinking Well, this just isn't. If this is the way my brain works, now I'm out of here, you know, and I don't mean to take this down a dark path, but I didn't see any tragedy in that, you know. I thought this just doesn't work. I can't function properly like this.

And I ended up going to see a psychiatrist and what attracted me to this guy was that he was also a hypnotist. So I went down and I was like, hey, you know, hypnotize this away, right, I just just make it stop. And he explained to me it didn't. Didn't work like that. He said you know, we need an anchor point and it doesn't really sound like you've got one and you know, and. But he said, you know, he said I believe that what you're having is is an awakening. And I was like, well, whatever, I was like just make it stop, I just want to get back to the herd, I want to get on with work. And he said we use them words like mystic and talking about shamanic sickness and all these things I've never heard of before. I wasn't interested in any of that. I was just like just make it stop.

And he gave me a couple of meditations, really powerful but kind of basic meditations, and and I started practicing these daily and very gradually I kind of came back to to you know where I wanted to be and just get an on with life.

So, yeah, so that was a long-winded story, but I kind of again, once I got through it and I got to say I came out of it a lot humbler.

I feel like my ego was just smashed to pieces, you know, when I was kind of doubting for my sanity. And I did come out of it just through these meditations on a daily basis and and, and it kind of made me stop sweating. The small stuff which resulted in moving back to the UK, exploring, acting, all that kind of stuff, but I didn't really look at it as a mystical event until again, what happened around my mom passing, and then everything else sort of kind of learned about, made me look at this as though, okay, every few years something would pop up like that, you know, and that was a particularly extreme one, but it seemed like something had been tapping me on the shoulder like the whole time. And I feel that now, you know, after doing various things like you know, for for work and this, and that I feel like I finally, you know, found the path that I was possibly always supposed to be on.

Yeah, well, I thank you for telling that and I think it's really interesting and for for people that are younger, possibly listening, because life doesn't make sense as we're going through it. I forgot who said it was. A philosopher said that you know, it's like life can only be understood living back or looking backwards way to live it, moving forward, and we do. As we look back, we find these events and we put, we put together the pieces of the puzzle and we can see how they make sense. I also think it's fascinating you talking about that. I've been reading a lot about time is not linear, time doesn't exist. You know this kind of stuff and trying to wrap my brain around it, which we really can't do, I think our brains just don't work that way and you know I could totally with the book the Power of. Not Everybody wants to live in the now, or so we think. So it's interesting that you had that experience and you know it's. Yeah, I didn't not pleasant.

It wasn't pleasant, it was. I've never actually read that book. I've heard snippets of him talking and I'm like, oh yeah, well, I know all about that, but it was out of nowhere. It was just like it was such a shock. It wasn't something I was exploring or anything and it came so powerfully and just altered everything you know. But again, in hindsight, the way I was going about my life at the time I wasn't wasn't terrible, but I wasn't the greatest you know human being on the planet and and and. It really made me take stock of everything and and and started treating people nice. I started treating myself nicer and it kind of yeah, it definitely created a big shift.

Yeah. So after after the passing of your mother, and you're starting to open up to these spiritual things and you have the signs, what made you decide to start studying mediumship.

So I just moved around into this new area that I was mentioning earlier and I remember walking up and down the street a lot. That was just like a couple of blocks away and I never noticed this place before and one day I just took notice of it. I probably walked down there 30 times at this point and there was a small spiritualist church. I don't think you have a lot of them.

We have a few that, not as many as you do in England.

Yeah, yeah, I mean, I'd never heard of one before, you know, and I was like Okay, didn't really never heard the term spiritualist church. And I stopped to look at the notice board outside and they said they had a demonstration of mediumship every Sunday and I thought, well, kind of interesting. You know, and I just very recently been starting to look at that stuff, I've come across a book by a medium called Claire Broad which kind of got me thinking about that and just so many weird little coincidences, right, and just to just go off the track a little bit, when I started reading this book by Claire, she could have been from anywhere in the world. I didn't research her or anything, but her story immediately took place and the opening chapter, right across the street from where I was living at the time, which I thought, well, that's so odd. You know, she could have been from the States, she could have been Australian or what have you, but no, the whole thing took place like across the road, I could see what she was talking about. And then a couple of weeks later I stumbled across this church and you know again in hindsight, but I went along to this place and I was kind of still skeptical somewhat. I remember I'd said all of my social media stuff to private no, I'd nonsensical completely, because it's not like anyone knew that I was, you know, going to show up there or knew my story or anything.

And then I watched this lady work, a lady called Janet Neville and she started working, working away, away around the congregation, I suppose you could call it of maybe 15 people or something, and she started telling people about you know how I describe in a house in Scotland and she claimed that she'd never heard of this place in Scotland and this lady was sitting confirming it like yeah, yeah, that's my, that's my husband's family you describe in their house. And then she went on somebody else and somebody else and she was getting like 90% affirmations that people completely understood what she was talking about. And by the time she got to me I was like I was like, okay, wow, this is amazing. You know that she's telling people these things. And she got to me and she started talking about a young man and I was like, okay, well, no idea who this guy is. You know, I was there hoping to hear from my mom, right, if this was going to be a real thing.

And she started talking about this guy. And then she started talking as him, which was kind of interesting. I didn't know that was coming, you know. She started sort of referring to me as as though she was him speaking directly to me and um, and started talking about me being a medium, or a voice for spirit, as she called it. And again, this wasn't something that was really on the mind at the time. I just only to start to sort of looking into this stuff and I thought, well, that's interesting itself. They're just saying that because it just took an interest in it. But she started saying, yeah, you know, one day you'll be up here and give people messages. And I was like, okay, cool, but still don't know who this guy is.

And then the penny dropped and I realized that it was somebody that had passed when we were. I was probably 18, he was 20. Tragically, he got in with the wrong crowd and overdosed, and then everything that she'd said, you know, found a place. I was like, damn, she's talking about him, you know. And then, just right at the end of it, she said, oh, I've got a lady here, like an elderly lady that's recently passed, and I kind of choked up, you know.

And she described the situation around my mum passing and her accent changed. Again, this was like a game changer for me, because this lady the medium, she had a very sort of strong London cockney accent and then it kind of just went to this Northern English accent, my mum's accent, and she just kind of the language she used although it was a very brief message, it was my mum speaking to me, you know, and it was life changing. I say, you know, this hadn't been something that I've ever looked into before, and then I just went along this night and it just, yeah, essentially changed my life, I would say I'm excited to announce I have a great new resource.

It's called Gems Four Steps to Move from Grief to Joy, and what it is. It's four things that I've found that I do on a daily basis to help me to navigate my grief, and I'm offering it to you free of charge. It's a free download. Just go to my website, wwwgrieftogrowthcom. Slash gems G, e, m, s and grab it there for free. I hope you enjoy it. Wow, yeah, yeah. So that was your first experience with mediumship. And then, yeah, make you decide to start like I think I can do this story. I want to do this.

Well, it's an interesting thing, you know, because, like, did I start doing it because she said I was going to do it, or or because she suggested it, or was it on the cards already, and I kind of came to the conclusion that again, there've been all these things along the way, there was a couple more that we might get to. But, yeah, I was like, oh right, this seems to be, this seems to be my thing, I don't know. I thought everything kind of made sense after that. You know, I've always kind of I would always want to have deeper conversations with people, or you know, why is this or what? What are we doing here?

And, and typically, people wouldn't really be interested, and I always used to find it kind of frustrating, you know, and I feel like, well, what more important question is there, you know? But I get it. You know, we've got stuff to get on with and I've got a lot of friends that are sort of skeptical of this stuff and I respect that and I'm not trying to, you know, enforce my beliefs on them. But yeah, it seems to be. It makes sense to me now.

So how did you get started in terms of studying? Because you studied with some pretty amazing people.

Yeah, so I'd finished. I finished this book by the medium, claire Broad, and very quickly afterwards I came across this place called the College of Psychic Studies in London, and I did again. I was like didn't know there was a place such as you know the Good.

Exist.

Yeah, I was like, what is this? Like the X-Men school or something you know, and Claire was the author, she was doing a class there, pretty much like weeks after I'd finished the book. And again I was like, well, that's a weird coincidence, I'll go along. And I told Claire pretty much all these stories that I told you when we had a break. And she was the first person that at that point was like oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, that makes perfect sense. You know, that's your spirit, guys trying to get in touch with you, that's this, that's that. And the first person that didn't really sort of dismiss this whole thing as just rambling nonsense, you know. And she asked to keep in touch.

So, yeah, I very quickly became like fast friends with her and took a lot of her workshops and classes. And then, you know, in sort of downtime, anything else that popped up, like Gordon Smith or James Van Prouder, I would sort of jump on a Zoom class with them or something like that. And yeah, just try to sort of keep practicing, you know. And then soon after that I met another lady that did a kind of like a fortnightly circle, like a development developing mediumship circle, which I still go to. So, yeah, just kind of been practicing and so far so good. I'm definitely not calling myself a medium at this stage, I think, you know, just in respect to the people that have done it before me. They've told me they've done it seven, eight years before he even actually gave a reading, you know, but at least in practice I've pretty much had a hundred percent success rate. So yeah, it's crazy.

Yeah, mediumship is different in the UK than it is here. I mean, here people, they'll take a weekend workshop and they'll go out and start calling themselves a medium, and in England it seems like you guys are a lot more serious about developing. And you know, have you? You know, have you heard of Nikki Allen?

I'm not sure it might sound familiar.

She's a medium in England and she's written a couple of books. In one of her books she talks about, you know, going to the spiritualist churches and they're like you've been practicing long enough so they wouldn't even let her on the platform.

So that's something I'm very conscious of because you know, I've wrote this book and I wrote another book straight afterwards that they'll be out next year, and I kind of feel like somewhat like a little bit of a Maverick step in saying, hey, I'm a medium in a year, you know, and this is how to do it, and I've kind of like, wrote what's worked for me and in theory, the reader could, you know, follow these steps and progress as well. And I'm also conscious of not upsetting this very traditional, you know, long, long history of spiritualism in this country. Like you say. You know that I don't want to sort of be frowned upon for suggesting that anyone can go out and do this. Yeah, I don't know.

You know, I remember seeing a girl one night step into the church. She said she'd been doing it for a couple of months and she just gave, you know, confirmation after confirmation of people everyone's hand would have gone up and all agreeing with what she was saying. It was. You know, she seemed as good as the ones I've seen doing it for years. So I don't know, maybe there's just kind of a traditionalist hierarchy, I'm not sure.

Yeah, well, I think it's kind of like and I've been talking to millions for several years now, seven or eight years, and you know, and so what I've come to the conclusion it's kind of like people that have skills of playing music. There's some people that are prodigies, you know, and they can pick up a guitar and teach themselves a play, and there's someone like me that could study for years and never be any good at all, and there's everything in between, right. So there's nothing that says that you have to be a medium for 10 years before you can be good, but it's probably an exception rather than the rule.

Yeah, yeah, that makes sense, that makes sense. Yeah, yeah, I'm just, like I say, just very cautious about stepping on any sort of traditionalist toes, because there are people around that that I've met that really started with people from a hundred, you know, that were around 100 years ago. You know they kind of met them at the tail end of their lives, learned from these people that were the pioneers of this stuff and then, like two generations away, you know, it's kind of really close to that traditionalist element. So, yeah, I'm kind of always trying to be respectful for it, you know.

Yeah, I think that's great. I think it's great that you take it seriously. But also I would encourage you to be confident in your abilities, because I've again, I've known lots of mediums. Some are just natural born. I was talking to one just the other day. She's just always been, she's always seen spirit and has always been with her. And then I know people who have developed, you know, in their 30s or 40s or even 50s, and it took them, you know, years to develop after that. So it's everything in between.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, no. Well, I mean just sort of to bring it sort of full circle, I mean it's very much helped me with dealing with the loss of my mom. It's been well. Yeah, it was January 2021. So you know, we're approaching somewhat the three year mark and I feel like it it's somewhat accelerated the healing process for me.

I'm not sure, of course, we all go through this at our own pace. The first year was unbelievably hard. You know I wasn't prepared for how hard it was and you know a lot of people lost people around that period of time and a friend of mine had lost both of his parents, a few friends actually, and you know a couple of them are like well, you know, it's cool, I'm moving on, you know, six months later, and I'm like I can't even comprehend that. You know that I wanted to hurt, I wanted to feel all of it. That being said, learning about this stuff was a very sort of mixed bag of emotions, and right in the book too, because, as much as I was pouring my grief into it and it definitely helped to sort of write about it I was learning about these amazing things. You know they were happening almost weekly as I explored mediumship. So yeah, it was kind of a very bittersweet journey, you know, but it definitely helped, definitely helped.

So have you been? Have you been a contact, your spirit guide since since then? Are you, are you making connection with them?

Yeah, I'm still learning to meet them. It's kind of funny to have like a few years ago I would have dismissed this whole thing, you know I would have probably been intrigued but I wouldn't have taken it that seriously. But to talk about it now yeah, you know I've met a couple of them. I feel like I'm still on my way to sort of get into no more. Definitely the last couple of months since the books come out and talking about promoting it and sort of thinking about all that stuff, it's kind of made my practice suffer somewhat.

I haven't been meditating as much as I should and all these kind of things, and I can see it's kind of gone to the wayside a little bit. But I plan to get back to it very soon and I think that's fine. I think that you know we're also we've also got stuff to get on with. We need to pay the rent and you know we've got practical obligations and we are having a physical experience. So I think that it all happens in its own time. But yeah, I initially, the first year or two of the yeah, up until recently, I felt very much connected and, yeah, it's been interesting. It's been interesting and just being able to sort of differentiate between my thoughts and what I believe is coming from them. Yeah, thank you.

Well, I know you've said you've been. You feel like you've been guided to write a trilogy, to write three books. I assume that's coming from your guides, or where is that coming from?

Yeah, definitely so. The second book, which goes way out. There is kind of less about me and more about the bigger picture. I've pretty much, to an extent, told you my whole story as things that have happened to myself. So I don't want to just write a bunch of books saying, I mean, I've read books like this where mediums are talking about, you know, confirmations that they give to people or readings that they give for people, and it's kind of a list of that. I don't want to do that, you know, I don't want to just be like and then this person said that, and then they said that, and then they agreed that.

And while those things did help me initially, I feel like there's a bigger thing going on here that we should look into. And I feel that the second book I feel that half of it wasn't from me, you know. I'd look back at it and I'd think, okay, that's way smarter than me. I'm not. I wouldn't have come up with that. You know, when I read it now, I couldn't, sort of, off the top of my head, talk about some of the things that are wrote in there. I truly believe that it has come from something higher than me, yeah, so I've left it at that. I haven't made a start on the third book yet and I'm just trusting that it'll come to fruition when it does, you know.

Okay, so in your first book, the book that's out now, there's I know this talk about like meditation and exercises and things that people can do, so it's more than just your story, right? So tell me about what the other parts of the book are.

Yeah, definitely. I just started writing about what really worked for me in terms of meditation and that was really a game changer from back before my mom passing or anything like that.

I was kind of looking at it as a more sort of practical mental health practice that I learned about, but then as a subtle exploring for mediumship. It seems that meditation is truly the doorway to open, open us up to that, and one of the things I like to sort of talk about is that, and that there are probably a way, smarter terms to use them, the way I'm going to describe it, but as though we've got like a backseat driver. You know which is our consciousness, which is observing our thoughts, right? So you know we sort of we react to our thoughts and respond to them and everything comes from thought, essentially, right. You know and I really sort of ran with that idea in the book that when we can sort of take a step back and don't get attached to the emotions that are sort of we're constantly being bombarded with this, and that you know, for example, one thing I always say is kind of you step outside and you're on your way to do something, you see somebody in a red t-shirt and you know that kind of triggers some memory of somebody at school that bored you in a red t-shirt or something like that, and you got that going on while you're trying to do what you're trying to do and it's just nonstop right.

And I feel that meditation is really beneficial to being able to step back from all that and just taking a moment to yourself and then recognizing that we're not our thoughts. You know, we're something that's internal, external to that. I'm not sure about that yet, but yeah, there's a huge benefit in it and I believe that, again, learning about mediumship, when you can sort of separate that, then when something else comes in, then you recognize it as something else. You know, okay, that's not part of that whole you know, passing train of thoughts over there, this is something that's coming from somewhere else and still you're the one at the back that's taken all this information in. So, yeah, I find it fascinating and, yeah, the meditation seems to be really that seems to be something that people are really have responded well to with the book?

Yeah, I think it's really interesting. I have a big proponent of meditation and a lot of people push back against it because they say, well, I can't do it, they don't understand it. So do you give some practical tips for people that are struggling with that?

Yeah, definitely. I did one the other day. Actually, really, very gradually, I've been going to these sort of spiritual festivals and stuff like that that are a thing here, and I did one the other day. A lot of people showed up I would have been happy with one and I think about 60 people showed up, but I kind of there was a lot going on around us. It was a big sort of festival. There was Jumps playing somewhere and people doing this and that.

And I think that you know we have this sort of illusion that we have to, you know, be sitting in silence and not get distracted and kind of I think it's fine to get distracted as long as you just bring yourself back. So, with that meditation that we did that day, I was like, okay, well, let's use these sounds, you know, to sort of ground us to this moment, because I think that's also key, you know, just being present in the moment Nothing as terrifying as I talked about earlier but just being conscious that we're right here right now, focusing on the breath, always come back to the breath and you know, if you do hear a dog barking in the distance, just use it. You know, be like, okay, that's me right now. That's keeping me right here, while I, you know, sort of go through this and you know distractions are going to come up, it's inevitable. But just yeah, always come back to the breath, always come back to the present moment.

Yeah, I think that's great that you do that and describe for people and it's kind of I was kind of smiling there when you talked about coming back to the present moment, thinking about your terrifying experience of being able to get out of the present moment. But there's that balance in terms of being human. You know, I just said I'm struggling right now with this concept of because I'm reading all these books telling me that time is an illusion and there's really no past and there's really no future, and it's a concept that I struggle with. But you've had the flip side of that experience.

Yeah, I mean, it was so terrifying. But then I've had things since around mediumship, like, for example, I shouldn't really tell all the tales that are in the book, but for example, I was struggling with this whole mediumship at one point and I was begging for you know, I'd had signs but I wanted more. And I was at my mom's house. You know, she'd been gone a few months and I still sort of kept hold of the house just to sort of be there and be around her things and grieve. And I remember going to the beach one night and I was like, okay, well, you know, if this is the thing, if you, whoever you is wants me to do this, then give me. I need more, you know.

And this was like a pretty crazy experience, I have to say. And I settled in this spot on the beach and I was crying. I was very much missing my mom. I probably had a bit to drink that night and I started kind of just like yelling. I was like proper freak out moment. I was like, all right, you know, just give me something if this is what you want me to do.

You know and I'm talking spirit guides here and I've been sat there for a while and I was kind of given up and I turned to my left and there was a.

There was a cafe right next to me and there was a chalkboard on the cafe and this is I still don't really get this like and on the cafe chalkboard was my name. I said Phil wrote in chalk and all around it is said hi hi, hi, hi, hi, hi, hi hi, as in like the greeting, and I was like, okay, there we go again. You know, I'm asking for a sign and there's my name and a bunch of like sort of greetings around it and I've gone there before. The fact right, so I've gone there before. I was kind of asking for the sign and stuff like that. So the whole thing you know about time being nonlinear and maybe on the other side that that's probably the case, that the kind of I'm assuming that's recognized my plate taking me to the place that was going to give me the you know, the comfort that I'm on the right track.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's great. So can you explain to me, because I know that I was reading your notes and one of the things you said that really intrigued me, that you said the inspiration, instinct and ingenuity are the same as intuition, divination and clairvoyance. So what do you mean by that?

Yeah, absolutely, I think you know and this is something I say a lot, but I really I believe it's true.

You know, people talk about having a gut feeling, or we say we can't put our finger on something, or we talk about walking into a room and cutting the air with a knife where someone's had an argument, and you know we pick up on these things and we all agree that this is a real thing. You know, no matter if you're skeptical of any spiritual stuff or not, but then, yeah, if you start using was like Clair Sentience or Clair audience or anything like that, or a sixth sense, then people typically just dismiss you or look at you like you're nuts. But I think it's simply a question of semantics, right, we're talking about the same thing, we're talking about the same moments of knowing that we get, but we're just using different language. You know it's the same stuff, right, and I've felt that again, since learning about meditation, learning about mediumship, I've really become more in tune with intuition and my honest, you know, sort of authentic self. Yeah, I think we all have them, it's just we just use different times for them.

Yeah, I think that's a really good point. We do shy away from certain terms and we've all had the experience. You know, for example, you think about somebody in the phone rings and it's them, and you know, we just we chalk that up to coincidence and things. I mean, we've all had experiences like that.

Yeah, that's it. And you know even some of the more sort of profound, I would say sort of mystical spiritual experiences. They somehow I feel that they don't quite sit in your memory of the same way as everyday practical stuff, you know. So when something does happen, like like me sitting on the beach and there's my name rope on the cafe, or or I've had a couple of other things, one with my partner who she's very much on the fence about this stuff, she kind of it's kind of good, she keeps me grounded somewhat but, she's very sort of leaning more towards agnostic.

I suppose. We had an experience together that was very overwhelming and profound, and and she was like, okay, what, what is this? You know what? There was something physically, since they like going on something with us, sure, and and I said, well, this is what I'm talking about, this is exactly what I've been talking about all these months, and I know she experienced it, and I said, after this is done, I said you're not going to remember this the same way, because it's not like something that comes in through the usual sensors, it's not something that you can touch or taste or or or.

I mean these things happen as well. But this particular thing that was happened to us, it was more like a knowing or a very odd sensation that was that was happening between us, and afterwards she kind of was like, yeah, well, something happened, but I don't know, you know, I thought that that thing was going to change everything for her, but it didn't. You know she's still like, well, yeah, something happened, but it doesn't mean that I believe in life after death at this point. But you know, but yeah, I just to go sort of back again to the point I feel that these things don't really sit in our memory, the same way as you know what we just did this afternoon.

You know Well, you just described something there that I think is very important that we, that we kind of dig into a little bit, because you talked even about some of the experiences you had earlier. We have an experience, it's very visceral, it's very real to us, we, but then over time our brain talks us out of it. Did that really happen? Did that really happen the way I felt it happened? And especially when it's a subjective experience, when it's only us, just just one person seeing it, two people see it, we give it more weight. I think that's really interesting about about our culture too. It's like if I see something, I describe it to you, then people are like and maybe it happened, but if two people describe it, then we give it more weight. But we I think we all talk or tend to talk ourselves out of things like that.

Yeah, absolutely. You know, I'd still do it myself and I still I've heard of mediums, you know, that have been practicing for years, saying that they still question it. Even though they they get this information like on a regular basis, they're still like I don't know, is this real? You know, it's kind of weird. You know, like I and for myself, like I know that these things that I'm given to people, no idea where it comes from. You know, I know in theory how it works, but I don't know the actual mechanics of it and all you can sort of do is just trust that it, that it's a thing.

And I think that's really the key and that's probably where a lot of skeptics sort of point out that that that's what's not logical about it. It's like, well, if you start believing in this stuff, then you're going to be looking for it and then you're going to sort of confirm to yourself because you're actually searching. You know, you know what I mean. So it's, I get it. But yeah, you know, I had another experience and sorry, I won't keep rambling on about stories, but for me it was amazing and I even it was again a paranormal somewhat experience I saw an orb and I caught it on camera and I said to my friend I was like look at this amazing right. And he was like yeah.

I don't know man. He was like maybe it's a light from outside, and I'm like, no, it's not okay, and I'm not in the habit of lying about these things. You know what I mean. It's like we've known each other for 30 years, you know. Like when have I ever come up with something like this, you know? And but still he's like yeah, I don't know, I don't know, it just doesn't sit right with him, you know.

Well, there is and this is. I've just realized this to myself. I'm a very rational person. I'm a chemical engineer by training and I realized this was just a couple weeks ago.

I'm reading all these books by physicists and, you know, philosophers and everything, trying to understand how things work. And I think it's fine to try to understand how things work. I think that's part of being human. But the problem is we tend to dismiss things if we don't understand how they work. And what I find with the materialist people say is like, well, since we don't understand how mediumship works, therefore it can't be true. I don't understand how near depth experiences happen, therefore they can't be true.

And I was just really recently hearing Neil deGrasse Tyson talking about, like what you're describing? Something that we can't measure, we can't see, blah, blah, blah and that's just that's, that's imaginary. And I'm reading this book. They're talking about dark matter and dark energy which nobody knew existed until 1998. We still can't, we still don't know what they are. The physicists just tell us that they it has to be there because of the way the universe works, but we don't know what it is, we can't detect it, we don't have. But and that's fine You're like this is OK. We'll accept dark matter and dark energy, but we won't accept the fact that that Phil can talk to dead people, because we don't understand how it works.

Yeah, now, that's it, isn't it it? I've read and I wish I could reel them off now, but I've read of a few converts from from science that have really sort of gone down this path and they're talking about science almost as a as a religion. You know that. Ok, just, they just won't touch it because because it's. You know, I'm just going to butcher this now, but one lady was talking about, you know, they say well, this study has been done on that.

She's probably talking about one thing that hasn't really been funded and someone's been like doesn't make sense. Ok, it's not a thing, you know. She's like no one's actually really looked into this and and a lot of the research I think she was saying showed that. You know, in terms of people saying they've got clairvoyant abilities or or, or remote viewing or all these kind of, you know, things that sound kind of nuts, that there's a lot, there's more evidence that is for it than against it, you know. But nobody wants to touch it because it just it just calls everything into question, you know. So what can you do?

Well it's. I was listening to Julie Byshele who's she's done research on mediums. She has one runs a thing called the Windbridge Institute and they've actually brought mediums in and they've done quadruple blind or quintuple blind studies and, and there's, they've eliminated all the things the skeptics say cold reading, hot reading, you know, bias, all this, all this. They've eliminated all those things and they've proven that some mediums can pass, you know these tests. But she said something I hadn't heard before. I thought this is really interesting.

Some people's brains, when they hear something new, the front part of their brain like lights up and they get really curious about it and they're like what's that? I want to find out more about that. Other people, when they hear something new, they're amygdala lights up, their fear receptors light up and you're like, oh no, this must be dangerous, we must run away from this. And I just heard this, like a week ago, and I'm like that's profound to me, because there's some of us that say, ok, well, this is new, I don't understand it, let me find out more about it. And others of us say, well, I don't understand it. Therefore it's got to be scary.

Yeah, that's that's. I like that as well. That's interesting. I got a couple of friends that I spoke to recently and I feel that something that possibly avoiding me because I'm going to go down this road with them and they're like I just don't want to go there, and and one of them said, well, that you know, that's all great, but that doesn't help me. You know, that doesn't serve my day to day life at all. That's interesting or whatever, but so what, you know, so what? Like I've still got to go to work, I've still got to do this and I've still got to do that, and her brain just doesn't go there. You know, yeah, so again, and you know I respect that and a few years ago, if I'd have come across somebody talking like this, I'd be like I don't know, man, that's a bit. You know, it sounds quite out there.

Yeah, yes, and you know, again, I think that goes back to that balance thing we can't, we can't live. We have to live in this world, we have to live the physical, as you pointed out, we have to pay the bills, and so those people are correct. But death is something that is the only thing that's universal, that we're all going to face, personally and for people around us. So it's you know when, when something happens and this is, I find this, a lot of people like your mother passing or losing a child, or losing a spouse, that's what kicks us on to that journey that says, ok, this stuff is important, but that's that's what's really important. Yeah.

Yeah, definitely, and that's it. You know, I can't imagine. I've heard your story and I can't imagine how that must, must be. I feel that when we, when we lose a parent and I say this quite a lot as well, but we really lose like the one true witness to our lives. You know the person, and obviously people have different relationships with the parents like I'm not saying that this is across the board, but yeah, that person that's been there since day one and for me it felt like stepping into an alternate universe suddenly. You know, you just kind of assumed that they were always going to be there and and yeah, back to what you said, we kind of assumed that we was going to be here is kind of so odd the way we've got things set up around death. And yeah, I think it would, you know, be a good thing if we could somewhat normalize it more and talk about it.

Yes, it's well, it's scary and we don't want to talk about it. And your friends, you know I it's. It's really interesting. My, it's been eight years for me since my daughter passed and we just had my wife's 60th birthday party yesterday, two days ago, and our friends were here and they know it's like, ok, this is what I talk about, this is what's right. And it was funny because a friend of mine called me over during we're during the birthday party. She said do you want to get philosophical? I said yeah, always. And she started asking me a question about what was going on with this family, if I believed in soul planning and stuff like that. And I'm like that to me felt really good, that she felt comfortable, you know, having that conversation with me. So I think there are people like you and I that are put here to. This is what we're here to do, I think.

Yeah, I believe so. And again, in hindsight, I feel like I was always drawn to these things but I didn't really know where to go. I would always kind of hit a brick wall, you know it would be, like, well, that's really interesting, but we just don't know beyond that.

And I feel that I'm starting to learn something and it would be really arrogant to say that I know something more than I did before, I suppose. But I feel like, yeah, I'm on the right track, at least. I guess we're just not designed to know right and, you know, it'll sort of figure itself out in the end.

So where do you see yourself going? I know you just said we don't know, because we never know where we're going to go, but do you see developing to professional medium or what do you see yourself going?

I'm still on the fence about that. I find it fascinating. I've got to be really careful. Again, I don't want to come across as sounding arrogant. I feel that, you know, I'm very much at the start of my journey with mediumship, like when I'll give a reading, I'll see somebody, I'll be able to physically describe them. I usually see the circumstances around the passing and then I'll ask for a message and that will come to me as a very basic symbol, you know, like a ship or something like that, and so I feel like it's very rudimentary what I'm offering people, whereas I don't feel that I'm going to be able to say anything. I feel that I'm at the stage where I could actually give anyone anything hugely beneficial, you know.

I feel, like I get these three things and then I'm done, or perhaps that's me just sort of setting myself short, I don't know, but I'm not sure mediumship, working as an actual medium, is my sort of final destination. I just feel that it's a key to something bigger. Definitely the second book, the things that I've written that, like I say, it goes kind of way out there about time and stuff like this, some stuff that I'm almost apprehensive about people reading definitely people that know me they're going to think, okay, he's gone. But yeah, I feel that there's a bigger picture around all this and one good thing at least we can say is that it does seem to be able to be a bit easier to talk about these things than it was 10 years ago or 15 years ago. Even skeptical people seem to be somewhat open to at least giving up the time of day for a little while, even if they shut it down. I think, yeah, people can have these conversations a lot more easier than we're used to.

Yeah, I think so. There's a couple of things here I think science, frankly, is catching up with philosophers and theologians have told us for thousands of years. At this point, you look at quantum physics, quantum mechanics, quantum theory. Everybody knows what that is. Now You're mentioning the Marvel movies and they're exploring a lot of these themes. The Doctor Strange movie when I went to see that I was like, wow, this is a deeply spiritual movie. I know that's not what they meant to make, but it is.

Yeah, I remember I was on a plane and I watched the animated Spider-Man movie from a couple of years ago. I was like this is deep. When I was a kid I was watching Scooby-Doo and they would pull the mask up somewhere, Right, right, that would be the end. They're talking about multiple dimensions and stuff like that. Really, if that's how kids are thinking these days, that's pretty impressive.

Yeah, and Disney's putting up movies like Soul. I think what's happening is I think people are moving away from religion and people tend to mix up religion and spirituality, but people as we're getting these messages in a non-religious way, people are more open to them. I think people crave this stuff. We tend to push it down because society tells us that we need to, so I applaud you for being brave enough to put yourself out there.

No, thank you. Yeah, I mean it's been like I say it's been somewhat of a healing process for me. After I'd written the first book, I just felt like I'd learned so much and I felt that my story was done to an extent. And then I'd learned all these amazing things and I was like, well, I've got another book here and really went into that and the bigger picture. It still comes down to my opinion somewhat. So I'm not saying that it's all for one of a better word gospel, but it's food for thought, I suppose.

Yeah, yeah, well, I think your opinion. I'm trying to think how to respond to that. I mean, everything that we write, I guess, is pretty much from our own point of view and we can share things and hope it resonates with somebody. But even again, being a scientific person myself and realizing that every new scientific theory is laughed at at first, it's all like that's crazy, that's insane. Quantum theory was laughed at. The first guy that talked about microbes. He said I think diseases are caused by these invisible tiny things that are floating around in the air. There's no evidence for that, so it's all laughed at at some point. So, yeah, your opinion, your experiences, and I do read a lot of talk to a lot of people, and so I see, when I look at the commonalities between people say that's where I see the truth, and there are a lot of people saying the same things that you're saying now. They're people that are putting that message out.

That's a. I think that's a hugely important point as well. Yeah, like when I've been looking into this, it's like, okay, there are so many of these stories. You know people talking about near death experiences and so many commonalities and all of them is. And how has this just been ignored? You know, like I don't know how many thousands of people talking about you know similar experiences, especially when they've passed and come back again. They're all the same story, essentially. You know there's got to be something to it.

Right, right, and again people. This is why people like us seem to keep telling, because people think, oh, near death experiences there's, you know, every once in a while people have. It's a lack of oxygen to the brain, it's a hallucination, and there are people that have done research. So whenever someone said to me I'm like you need to read this book or you need to look at this research, because people have actually controlled, for all that and it's, I think, the estimates between five and 10% of the populations had an NDE at this point, which is literally billions of people on the planet that have had this experience.

Right, right, and I, I under shot there with thousands.

Yeah, yeah, it's millions, and just in the US, I mean yeah, and if you think about worldwide, it's billions of people. So, yeah, keep you know. We need people like you, need to keep putting this out there and it makes it acceptable to other people and our friends might scoff at us, but also, one day they'll be. They'll be there asking you questions. They'll be. They'll be calling you over and saying my mom just died and that's it. This has been my experience. Do you think this was real?

No, well, that's the thing, isn't it? And just to sort of get back to the grief thing again, you really don't know until you know. I thought I anticipated what, what it was going to be like, you know, and and again losing a parent. You kind of you know that's probably on the cards, but the experience itself was, was nothing that could have prepared me. You know, it's just been profound, yeah, yeah.

It's something we're all going to go through, where, like I said, we're in the people. I know it's, it's an unpleasant thought, but it's something we're all going to go through, might as well. Be, you know, prepared. It's my, my way of looking at it. So so, phil, let people remind people of the name of your book and let people know where they can get it.

Yeah, it's called letting glow, so really was just kind of a play on the, on the, on the words there, of sort of getting through grief and coming out of it a bit brighter. Yeah, it's available at all the usual bookshops. If they haven't physically got it, you can ask for it and it's, of course, on on Amazon. Social media wise most active on Instagram, and I've got a website that I'm probably going to redo is not the best, but people have been getting in touch with me through that PhilWebsacom.

Okay so, and it's filled with two L's. Yeah, Fill with two L's, yeah, okay so, yeah, and then the audio too, because sometimes people are out walking and listening. Well, phil, it's been a real pleasure getting to know you. Thanks for being here, thanks for doing what you do.

Thanks for very much for having me on. I've particularly been looking forward to speaking to you, like I say after hearing you a few months ago on another podcast. So, yeah, yeah, pleasure speaking with you.

All right. Well, good luck with the book. We'll talk later. Thank you, you're welcome you.