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The Lynwood Fellowship Weekend The Lindum Hotel, Lytham St Annes Friday 4th to Sunday 6th November 2011  This being not only my first ever visit to Lytham St Annes but also to the weekend seminar, I had been eagerly anticipating it. I was not to be disappointed. The hotel, situated on the South Promenade, was comfortable and the food very satisfying, especially the sweet table, indeed one’s self discipline is very much put to the test! Our Chairman, Peter Hague, promised in his opening remarks to those assembled that the weekend would be dry and sunny. What an oracle he proved to be, we were blessed with brilliant sunshine, magnificent sunsets and dazzling dawns, though the latter comes from hearsay and not through personal observation.  [Barbara Hague, Peter Hague, and Sally Winslade-Rafter] Peter introduced the three tutors: Ann Davies, Mark Foster and Jackie Wright, and each of them gave a brief outline of the areas and range of what they proposed to do. Ann Davies then started the work of the weekend with a condensed illustrated lecture: “An Investigation into Paranormally Produced Automatic Art (1840-2011)”, part of the work she has undertaken for her PhD. This informative talk included such people as Robert Cooper (1810-19090; David Duguid (1832-1907) and his connection to Jan Steen (1626-1679); G.T.Rook (early 20th century); Vale Owen (writing); Molly Francer (9 year catatonic state after illness (embroidery)); the Thompson / Gifford case (1906); Austin Osman Spare (1886-1956); and the Christian Scientist Billy Bob Beamer who drew in a controlled trance state to alleviate pain in his body. After a break for tea or coffee, Mark Foster gave the second illustrated talk entitled “2012 The Unfolding Enigma”. An ex fireman, Mark specialises in ‘Energy Work’, doing consultancy work for private companies and even governments, and his talk of energies resonated easily with those who have experienced ‘spiritual energies’. He went over some of the issues / people / groups that have been highlighted by the media: Mayan Calendar; Mother Shipton; NASA; Terrance McKenna; Nostradamus; Planet X Niburu; Chinese I Ching; Hopi Prophesy; Ervin Lazlo; Operation Looking Glass. The date of the winter solstice 21/12/12 seems to align with both ancient and scientific systems and predictions of great change, but there seems to be agreement on one key element: ‘something life-changing will happen or is already in the process of happening’. Basically there are two main camps of thought. One sees this change to be apocalyptic and catastrophic, a doomsday scenario, while the other sees it as an opportunity for humanity, a new beginning, and a spiritual evolution of the species. Mark cautioned us about the emphasis on the negative and the promotion of fear, as we should be looking to do the opposite. He rounded of the talk with a clip from U-Tube of the ‘Virtual Choir’, a very positive use of technology and modern communications.  Next on the agenda was dinner, an item I take very seriously! The menu was very extensive, with more choice than I had expected – so it involved close study. There were three courses followed by tea or coffee, and there was a bar for those also liking alternative beverages. The food was very good indeed, and on a recommendation, for dessert I sampled a large portion (with cream) of Banoffee Pie, truly a beautiful experience – thank you Shonagh. We assembled again at 8 pm for an “Evening of Psychic Art and Mediumship”, with Ann Davies and Jackie Wright. Ann started the proceedings with her art, executed with pastels, which are suited to this type of work because of the rapidity and delicacy of line that can be achieved. It was fascinating to watch how quickly she worked, talking all the time, adding information and explaining things. The first piece was particularly interesting, as it started out as a female nurse and then turned into a male character, which was accepted. After about five pieces, Jackie took centre stage. Despite some very recent unfortunate personal circumstances, that would have certainly excused her attendance at this seminar, Jackie showed both her courage and commitment by proceeding to give an excellent demonstration. She works mostly with clairaudience and clairsentience, has a remarkably good clear speaking voice, and was able to fill in with lots of detail, such as street names and numbers etc. Afterwards, many of us went to the lounge and sampled different kinds of ‘spirits’, and had a chance to discuss what we had seen and heard today, as well as to renew friendships and exchange news. Sadly, I learned that Julie Smith had been unable to attend, due to the difficulty and number of bus changes. Julie has been ‘in the wars’ with a bad fall earlier in the year, so hopefully 2012 will be a better year – we send our love and best wishes to you Julie. Saturday started in the best possible way – with breakfast at 8.30. I am a firm believer that breakfast is essential; if you expect your car to run you must first fill it with petrol, for humans it’s food, at least for this human being anyway! At 9.20 Jackie guided us away from the material to a more spiritual level with a meditation. Then at 9.45 Mark Foster took the first workshop: “Healthy Homes – Home energy Surveys”. He explained about the Bovis scale of frequencies, where neutral was about 6500 Bovis, below this one was getting into disharmonies and negative energies, while up to 9000 Bovis and above one was getting enhanced and positive energies. There are three main causes of negative energies: Geopathic, Technopathic and Phenomena, and he gave a demonstration of dowsing, using Barbara’s mobile phone. Mark then showed us some of the other equipment he uses, an Electrosmog Meter, and a Trifiod Meter for more subtle energies. He personally likes dowsing with the rods, but reminded us that before we start we should always first ask, can I?, should I?, and may I? The above is only a sample of a very varied and wide range of topics covered. A ‘comfort break’ at 11.00 also enabled us to have tea or coffee and biscuits, and then to discuss the morning’s activities. At 11.30 Jackie Wright had her workshop: “The Mind and the Medium – How Spirit works with us”. Explaining with diagrams, Jackie talked about the different levels of consciousness and ‘compartments’ in the mind, and how the significant parts of a medium’s message are where the mind waves of both medium and Spirit overlap. But it was not long before she got us working! Forming pairs, we became the medium in turn, seeking a song for our partner, asking questions, and then giving a reading. Carol did well, but I drew a complete blank here. However, Jackie had me up front later, and with her help I managed to achieve some connection. Jackie ended with the sequence of medium delivery: B - building energy. I - Investigate. L - Link. D - Deliver. Lunch at 1.00 was thankfully not a big one, just soup and sandwiches. With a full breakfast and three course dinner, plus tea and biscuit breaks, anything else at this time of day is not necessary. It also helps to cut down the number of afternoon naps! At 2.30 Ann Davies gave the first of two workshops on automatic art and writing. Firstly she outlined how children start to make marks on paper (maybe also walls etc!), firstly dots, then small strokes as they start to use their wrists, and then scribbling. Each of us drew a circle on a sheet of paper, and then with our eyes closed tried at random to replicate the child in us. These were collected in and redistributed, we then gave a reading from this new piece. It was interesting to see just how much some got out these ‘scribbles’. We then repeated this drawing style, but this time with coloured pencils. However, due to lack of time, these were taken away and became our homework for the evening – or in my case at 6.30 am next morning! After the tea break, Jackie Wright gave a workshop on “The Feeling Mind – Psychic Exercises”. We are all used to working with symbols and signs in our daily lives, so working psychically, very much involved with the emotional self, we had to interpret a picture. These large pictures (image face down) were chosen by us at random. Then in pairs, we gave our card to our partner to give a reading. The images were very colourful and interesting, some with a surrealistic element to them. Jackie ended the session by taking us on a journey up to and then inside a house, entering three rooms and then leaving. However, we supplied the detail in each part, what colour and style the furnishings were etc. We wrote these down on the paper we had been given, to discover that the rooms represented our past, present and future, though our partners gave the interpretation. We had dinner early at 6.00, as there was a large party expected later on. I ‘earned a gold star’ by having cheese and biscuits rather than a huge dessert! At 8.00 Mark Foster gave a talk on “In readiness for a big energetic shift”. He explained about the energy around us and how we share energies with each other, each receiving copies of the respective energy fields. We also share energy fields with objects like plants and computers. It was important to keep your aura filled with gold, bless and be positive to all things, and not to judge others or send out negative energy. He then said we can balance out negative energies through a process called ‘triangulation’ or collapsing the wave function. Then the Solfeggio frequencies were mentioned, Gregorian chants, 528 Hertz – the love or miracle frequency. After letting us handle a set of Platonic solids, he set out a set of cards and we picked the one we were attracted to. Unfortunately I missed the name of the set, but they were based on crop circles and geometry. Mark read out the relevant sections from the accompanying booklet. As usual a lot was packed into this interesting talk. Next came the all-important raffle! And thank you Sally for picking out the first ticket – as it happened to be one of mine! As no cakes were on offer I duly selected one of Mark’s books: “ENERGY, The New Currency Of Business”. However, the man of the moment was Anthony, at least ten or more of his tickets were picked.  We then retired to the Lounge Bar, where there was entertainment supplied by the hotel and drinks, though the latter were not free. Sunday was another gorgeous day, indeed when I went out there was not a single cloud in the wide blue sky. After breakfast I did my packing, but too slowly, as I missed the meditation with Mark. At 9.45 Jackie Wright gave the first workshop of the day: “Inspired Speaking”. Chris volunteered to come up and talk briefly to the group about her passion – her garden. Indeed, it sounded really nice. Then Jackie asked her to go deeper and talked her down, to try and connect with her higher self, and when she was ready to speak again. This time it was on a different level, less personal and more universal and spiritual. Part of it was, “many do not know how much they mean to others”, which I thought was something that is often overlooked. Jackie talked about the different levels: ‘Normal physical’ – Chris describes her garden. ‘More inspired’ – deeper meaning, but still connected to the theme. ‘Deeper’ – trance states, talk from Spirit. Jan was the next volunteer, this time randomly selecting a card (entitled ‘Be The Change’) with a word on the back and a brief sentence. The same process was gone through, with the same result. The rest of us then paired off with our selected card and went through the process, and everybody managed to achieve something. Finally making two concentric circles with the chairs, but the inner facing the outer, we took a seat. We had to get inspiration for a gift to be offered to our partners. An excellent workshop that was very uplifting. The tea break produced a great deal of talk about the morning’s work. At 11.30 we had the last workshop of the seminar, the second part of Ann Davies ‘Automatic Art and Writing’. Ann began with the effects of colour, how some recede etc., and also about yesterday’s ‘scribbles’, where the heavier lines were more likely to be on the physical level, middle weight lines more on the emotional level, and the lightest ones more on the spiritual level. We were given the choice to write or draw, then gave us a face template that we could copy at home. We were then let loose to be inspired. The results were fascinating, with the writing getting close to being automatic, and a whole range of drawings (and you DON’T need to be an artist) that were often placed. An excellent result! Before we left a full lunch was available, but as I was going out for a curry that evening I had to be very restrained! I thoroughly enjoyed this weekend and certainly will be back next year. The group was very relaxed and supportive of each other, and the tutors were marvellous, all very inspirational and I can’t thank them enough for their energy and enthusiasm. Although it was only a weekend, so much was packed into it; so if you you’re swithering about coming next year – just COME, you won’t regret it. We would all love to meet you! Mike Doig Please click here for details of prices, how to book and more information on our speakers. |
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