Exton

When I get home from work, a new email awaits.

 Jack - 

I don't know how to tell you this, it happened like three days ago and I still don't know how to describe it. I have mixed feelings about it - it was amazing, it was terrifying, it was exhilarating - how do I sort that out? 

Well, being me, I guess I'll just spit it all out and hope to make some sense of it as I go. 

Three days ago, I'm working with Sibyl, just standard medium stuff - amazing how quickly this has become a matter of routine - and out of the blue, I get this really cold chill. I think I shivered, and then the next instant, the chill starts settling into me, like it's creeping into my bones. It got hard to think, like trying to slog upstream through cold molasses. 

Imagine the deepest sleep you've ever experienced, the hardest to wake up from, and then multiply that by ten and you might have some idea what this was like. I could barely move and I was freezing, inside and out. 

Thank God Sibyl realized what was going on. I heard her voice like from far away, telling me I could free myself from this, to concentrate my will and push him out. I didn't know what she meant, but I tried - more of that stuff I've learned to take for granted - and suddenly that numbing cold is gone; in fact, I'm sweating like I've been in a sauna for an hour. 

Sibyl got me up, got me into the shower and told me we'd talk about it later. So an hour later, freshly showered, coiffed and dressed, I asked her what the hell happened. 

I won't try to repeat what she said verbatim, but it seems that I'm more special than we knew - yay, me! Hang on for the lecture, I'll try to keep it quick. 

There are two basic types of mediumship. The first is called mental mediumship. It's the one most people are familiar with, where the spirit communicates with the medium and the medium relays the message; trance mediumship, the kind of thing that Sibyl and I do, is a form of mental mediumship. The trance, though, is typically a deeper form of communication with fewer distractions for the medium. Then there's physical mediumship; it involves things like objects moving by themselves, materializations, apports and physical sounds that can be heard by the other sitters. It was the kind of mediumship practiced by the early Spiritualists - some of whom, like the Fox sisters, were later exposed as fakes. Some poltergeist phenomena can now be attributed to unknowing physical mediumship. 

Then there's me. Sibyl tells me that only about one in every ten thousand mediums can do what I do. It's like a super deep-trance form of mediumship where I allow the spirit to physically possess my body and for a time, that spirit uses my body to commuicate. I know now that no spirit can use my body without my consent, and if I want them to go, there's no way that they can prevent me from expelling them. I know that now; I didn't know it that first time, but there's no way Sibyl could have known or even suspected that I had this ability. Since that day, Sibyl and I have been working on psychic self-defense, boosting my shielding and the like, and very carefully, very gradually practicing this new power. Fortunately, we have a "tame" spirit right here in the house; it's Sibyl's husband (ex-husband?) David. He was killed in the same car accident which was responsible for the loss of Sibyl's sight. He possesses me and I flex my psychic muscles and push him out. At first it was easy, but now he's resisting being expelled - all according to plan, don't worry - and I really have to strain to remove him. This is having the same effect as lifting weights - the more you exercise those psychic muscles, the stronger they become. Mind you, I can't see that this ability will ever be useful for anything, but (1) you never know and (2) I want to control my powers, not have them control me. 

 I've given you a lot to think about, so I'll start closing this out. I love you Jack, very much, and when you possess me, trust me, I won't push you away! 

Kisses,


Eira