Finding Spiritualism

OK so this is what this site is really all about. Its about me and my spiritual beliefs and values. Not many people realise that spiritualism is actually a religion. It still seems to have a great stigma attached to it with what we would class as the "main" religions all to eager to debunk it. Unlike them, I feel others are entitled to an opinion and if they can't, won't or don't believe in the things I do then so be it. In the words of Catherine Tate.."Am I bothered?"
The thing I want to cover here is how did I find spiritualism (or did it find me?). The story begins on Sept 29th 1983 when I was on my holiday in sunny Spain. Salou to be precise. At around 6.30 in the morning I woke to "hear" a mans voice in my ear. The voice was saying goodbye. Slightly unnerved by this I dug Loraine in the ribs to ask if she could hear it too. The reply was what I'd kind of expected "No, it must be all that Bacardi you had last night!". Cutting a very long story short I spent the rest of that holiday wondering what was going on. Even I expected the men in white coats to be waiting at the airport. Upon my arrival home, I was greeted with news I did not want to hear, but news that explained what had happened. A friend of mine, Martin, just two days younger than myself had collapsed and died on his way to work on Sept 29th. Taking the time zones into account it would have been 6.30 ish to me in Spain.
Trying very hard to put my mind around what had happened I started visiting psychic evenings at pubs around the Birmingham area. Well its an awful job but someone had to do it. (I say had because I am now teetotal and have been since 1985.) This certainly built up an interest in what you may call the paranormal, but I still felt I was going nowhere with it. That isn't saying I wanted to go anywhere with it but I felt a little like that Richard Dreyfus character in "Close Encounters". Finding an answer had become an obsession. The answer didn't come along until 1996. It came with more tradgic circumstances. My sister Tracy had her second child, a little boy named Corry. When only two weeks old he was rushed into Birminghams Childrens Hospital with a heart condition. It turns out he had been born with a condition called Cardiomyopathy. This was literally killing him. My sister asked me to go to a church with her to pray, not something I normally did but drastic times call for drastic measures. The church was a Spiritualist one. I did know of their existence until that point. A few days later Corry was taken off life support and is still with us today. The church was going to see a lot more of me.