NEWS
Spiritual healers have hands-on approach… SPIRITUAL healers at two of the Isle of Wight’s Spiritualist churches have adopted a handson programme to take healing directly into the community. The details came from Sylvia Knight, the healing leader at Ryde church, which has teamed up with counterparts from Ventnor Spiritualist Church. Maureen Turpin is the healing leader at Ventnor church. “We’ve joined together to work in the community at healing and well-being shows around the island,” Sylvia told PN. “The joint venture began eight years ago – and is still going strong.” It first began when “we were at a healing session in Ventnor church. A young man came in and told us he was arranging a healing festival in Ventnor Botanic Garden to raise funds to help towards the cost of running the gardens and asked if we would like to take part. “As this was a Thursday and the festival was on the following Saturday and Sunday, we decided we would give it a go. I had a gazebo and between the rest of the team we cobbled together a stand. “We were very surprised and pleased with the response we had at the festival. We now have our own gazebo and banners advertising the churches. “The island has many festivals. Depending on time and cost we try to do at least three a year.” Between five and ten healers are involved, but the number of those attending “varies due to work and other commitments.” The healers come from various backgrounds. They include “a hairdresser, a shop assistant, three carers, an assistant manager at the local cinema, a pizza delivery man and a receptionist. The rest of us are retired.” Sylvia said that members of the public are sometimes surprised to find spiritual healers offering treatment. The most common complaints for which people seek healing help are “aching limbs. “Others just like the peace and calmness they get. We’ve treated those of all ages from small children to senior citizens. “We’ve also given healing to dogs, but several of us have treated horses. Last
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PSYCHIC NEWS | JULY 2018
HERE Phillippa Read gives healing to a young alpaca named Sunny. He is being held by Christabelle Kemmish, the daughter of the farm’s owner.
month, some of us went to one of Ryde church’s patients who has horses, sheep and alpacas to practise healing.” Ventnor church has a team of ten fully qualified healers and one trainee whilst Ryde has three fully qualified healers and five trainees. Their congregations average 26. Asked, “It has to be said that not all Spiritualist churches get along – what’s your secret?” Sylvia said: “We don’t have a secret. We’re all adults. We have strong spiritual leaders and have been taught well. “We all actually like one another and get on really well. All the healers who attend the festivals have a good sense of humour and we enjoy working together.” Three healers have also treated several residents at the Elms Nursing Home. Registered to accommodate up to 48 people, it cares for those requiring rehabilitation services and folk needing nursing. In the grounds, there are also seven assisted-living cottages which allow residents to live independently in their own homes whilst knowing that the
nursing home is only a short distance away. “One resident we give healing to at The Elms is Peter West, he has had a couple of heart attacks and a couple of strokes,” said Sylvia. “He also has diabetes. All the toes on his right foot were removed. Peter is the brother of the vice-president at Ryde church. “The other resident is Reg Brown, who has heart and chest problems. Reg used to come to Ventnor church for healing. When he was no longer fit enough to drive, we would go to his home to give him healing. “At the beginning of last year, Reg was taken into the nursing home and asked us to visit him there.” Sylvia added: “We have had several people who come on holiday to the island each year and seek us out at the Ventnor Botanical Healing Festival. “The festival is held in August. The gardens were originally owned by the council, but are now privately owned. The charity which the festival aids financially changes each year, but is always a local one. “People of all races and religions visit us for healing at these festivals. I doubt they would have come into a Spiritualist church.” The founders of Ryde Spiritualist Church were Mr and Mrs Perkis. Daisy Perkis began Spiritualist meetings in her home in Ryde in 1922. These meetings then moved into a schoolroom, as numbers were averaging 21. On August 10, 1923, an inaugural meeting was held in the Anglesea Hall. Oliver Perkis became the first president and Mrs Perkis the secretary. An application for affiliation to the Spiritualists’ National Union (SNU) was accepted. Regular Sunday services were held from September 16, 1923. The property the church now occupies is a converted stable. Meanwhile, Ventnor Spiritualist Church as it is today was dedicated on November 30, 1938, by Ernest Oaten, a former editor of Two Worlds. The church’s roots go back to 1924 when regular services for 60 or more people were held in the Co-operative Hall. A building fund was formed to buy the present property. Sylvia added: “Another item of interest
NEWS
SYLVIA KNIGHT is seen giving spiritual healing to Reg Brown, who has heart and chest problems. Reg is a resident at a nursing home on the island.
is that during the dedication Ernest Oaten revealed he had introduced Spiritualism to the Isle of Wight with a talk in Ventnor in 1903 and again in 1923, this time with a demonstration by medium Ruth Darby. “More Spiritualist history is that Ventnor’s first president was Mr W. Jermy – known as Willi – who was the father of Heather Hatton, so this was her home church. “Heather’s husband Eric was a former president of the SNU. The couple were extremely well-known throughout the country.” Of the healing project, Sylvia ended: “Please don’t make me out to be the hero of all this, although I am the linchpin. We are a team and all equally important. “Sadly, we recently lost Carole Dixon, who was one of our healers, quite suddenly. Aged just 62, Carole was part of the first group of healers I trained on the island ten years ago.” Ventnor Botanic Garden enjoys a microclimate on the south coast of the
Isle of Wight. Protected by the chalk downs of the Ventnor Undercliff, it offers a collection of rare, subtropical and exotic plants. Normally found in glasshouses, the plants there thrive in geographical plantings based on the Mediterranean climate zones of the world. Specimens on show include those which thrive not only in the Mediterranean, but Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. The healers have also offered treatment at the island’s Winter Gardens, which stand where Ventnor parsonage used to be. Amongst famous faces who appeared there in the past were comedian Dick Emery, Brian Poole and The Tremeloes, Screaming Lord Sutch, Jess Conrad, saxophonist Acker Bilk and Davy Jones and the Lower Third. Davy Jones changed his name to David Bowie a couple of months later and is probably the biggest name internationally to have appeared on the Winter Gardens’ stage. ■
Lottery winner has premonition A GRANDMOTHER who won £5.4 million on the National Lottery after her “dead” brother told her in a dream she would win has had another premonition of a further win. Deana Sampson, who returned to meet the postmistress who sold her the winning ticket 22 years ago, said: “I know I will win it again. I think it will be soon – within a year. “I’ve had a premonition. My brother’s watching over me and so are my mum and dad now.” She was speaking as the lottery unveiled one of the new gold coloured ticket machines it is placing at various outlets throughout the country. At a Sheffield post office where she bought her original winning ticket, Deana said she needed a lucky break as life had been “a struggle.” Deana’s first husband, who she called the “love of her life,” passed after a road accident.
As well as losing a baby at two months, just weeks before her win, Deana’s disabled brother Glyn also passed on. He returned in a dream to tell Deana, who then lived in a council house, that she would win. Within days, she purchased a winning ticket after visiting a post office to collect child benefit. Recalling the moment, Deana hugged Balwinder Dhillon, who sold the ticket
and still runs Stradbroke Post Office. “We were so excited when she won,” said Balwinder. “She was one of my favourite customers, chatty and lovely. “She’d come in with her kids for her benefits. Sometimes I’d run after her when we forgot to give her milk tokens.” Deana, who now runs a property business, has left her “lucky handprint” on a lottery stand at the post office for other players to rub. ■
PSYCHIC NEWS | JULY 2018
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