I occassionally attend a Christian Spiritualist church, and whatever the people who do the mediumship do it for, it certainly isn't money or fame. Last autimn in Kent, I was staying at an address almost opposite the Canterbury church and attended on Sunday. I was completely unknown there, no local connections or baggage, and was open-minded about it all - as you should be. The medium leading the service came to me and described the guy who'd taught me Spanish at school. He'd been an aloof, unapproachable, older guy with a physical resemblence to the late Aleistar Crowley, with all that implies. Also my form master for three years - definitely not the right personality for pastoral care of pupils. I think in his way he'd tried to be a competent teacher, but by then in his sixties, somebody who in all rpobability had started teaching in the 1940's and whose social attitudes hadn't moved on much... and definitely burnt out as a teacher, poor old sod. Although "burnt out" wasn't recognised as such in the 1970's, nor was "pastoral care" to pupils who were struggling a bit. Teacher or pupil, you sank or you swam.
The medium made very specific reference to a punishment involving whipping somebody on the soles of the feet. Now not even in a fairly stern school in the 1970's would that have been done. But Mr McDonald used to gleefully describe the "bastinado" as the Spanish equivalent of birching an offender - the capital punishment upgrade being "garroting", slow strangulation with a thin noose - and that he'd seen this done in the thirties. (School rumour was that like many another idealistic Brit, he'd gone off to fight in the Spanish Civil War for a cause he truly believed in. But Franco had been too much of a pinko liberal, so he came back again.)
Apparently this former teacher now had the post-mortem task of going round all the pupils he'd been a poor or indifferent teacher and pastoral guide to, and apologising for all the things he'd done that he shouldn't have done, and the things he should have done but didn't. In my case that he should have realised I was struggling and needed more help than I'd received and that he'd mismanaged my case badly and could have made things easier - helped me to achieve what he now recognised was a greater potential than the school had suceeded in bringing out, that I'd done amazing things from the starting point life had given me, and that he regretted not being more effective in helping me acheive more. That it wasn't too late to really do things, and so on, and not to give up.
All very ego-affirming. The medium said the "bastinado" example had been given to enable me to identify the person involved and that this former teacher had made contact with me before - I do recall he's popped up in my dreamworld in various contexts.
oddly enough, I saw the medium wearing a heavy wound dressing on his left hand, indicating he was going to damage his thumb pretty badly. looked again, there wasn't a bandage there. Odd two-way thing going on. I did say afterwards I'd seen this. Wonder if he did damage his hand later...
An odd experience. Detailed and xomehow had a ring of truth to it. And not in a context of forking over outrageous amounts of cash to a possible fraud. Thought-provoking too. I wonder how many people I'll have to apologise to after I go...
