Somewhere within this period, I found out about a place called Camp Chesterfield. Camp Chesterfield is one of the country’s oldest Spiritualist camps. By Spiritualist I do mean the medium types that hold seances and all that. Now, I was fascinated by the thought of the place and felt deeply compelled to go. By this time my psychic senses had hit extreme levels and were hard to control. I was unwilling to stop what I was doing however, because I also felt deeply connected to the universe. I didn’t want to give up my spiritual growth just because there was a few psychic things going on that made me feel insane from time to time.
By this point I looked like a New Age Hippy. I was always in a tie-dye, smelling like incense and oil. Had long hair and walked around talking about meditation and Higher Powers and such. So you could imagine how I looked walking around this Spiritualist camp as dawn broke. I was expecting us to get kicked out or at least looked at funny. The true story is even stranger however.
We arrived in the very early hours. It was just getting light. I was walking around the grounds taking it all in. Every house had signs out front that said things like “Healer”, “Clairvoyant”, or “Direct Voice”. It was like a psychic mall. The grounds themselves have a certain magical quality about them. They have been there since 1886 so it has this true turn of the century Spiritualist feel about it. The land itself has been used for spiritual practice for as long as it has a recorded history. It is said that it was sacred Native American grounds, part of the Mounds Indians’ grounds. Then was owned by a farmer who happened to be a Spiritualist and would host large gatherings there. Apparently covered wagons would sit where small houses now sit. The Spiritualists would travel a couple times a year and hold seances and such. Then when he died he willed the land to the Association of spiritualists and it became Camp Chesterfield. Then the town of Chesterfield kinda grew up around it.
After making my way around the grounds I turned this corner around the back and there sat this log cabin. As I was passing the log cabin I heard a voice calling out to me. I looked over and there stood this tiny woman in her pajamas with two tiny little dogs. She waved me over to her and said “come here young man”. I of course listened and thought this may be the part when I get kicked out. She instead looked at me very intently and said, “you know you're not crazy, you're gifted. Come back later when I'm dressed and we will talk about it.”. The woman was Rev. Lillian Major and she would become one of my most important teachers. She and her husband Joe became like my spiritual grandparents over the next several years of my life.
I of course went back to talk to her and ended up getting a “reading” I think that may have been the first psychic reading I ever got. To this day it was one of the most accurate. She taught me so much just on that day and over the next several years. Because of her kindness and wisdom I began to show up at camp every weekend and would attend Seminary classes whenever I could. Not only was I getting an amazing education, I was also having some of the most amazing experiences of my life time. This seems like a great time to talk about the many people and things that happened to me as a result of constantly going back. This all happened over the course of many years, so I’m kinda breaking my time-line a bit, but it will be worth it trust me.
I guess the easiest way to talk about my time a Chesterfield would be to first talk about some of my general experiences there and then talk about more specific experiences that I had with the people that I met there. Any other way would make it seem very scattered since all this happened over a period of years. I would say from the ages of 19 to early 20s.
Camp Chesterfield was a world I had never seen before. The camp itself is beautiful and although the Spiritualists are technically Christian, they believe that Jesus was a great teacher and medium and recognize many other great teachers as well. This was perhaps the first time I started really thinking that way. Seeing many great masters all teaching great things. I wanted to absorb it all. However, at that time in my life the psychic part of their teaching strongly appealed to me. Lilian would warn me about that from time to time always reminding me that “Spirituality can cause phenomena, but phenomena does not cause spirituality”. Still some really cool things happened to me there.
I experienced my first real seance there. I was afraid for a while to go to one. I thought for sure my sister would show up and I wasn’t sure I was ready for all that yet. It was one thing for me to see her, it was another thing to have a medium confirm it all for me. Eventually I knew it was time, but I wasn’t going to do it alone, so I had two of my closest friends with me. One of course was Rod, and his future wife Carol. We all sat nervously waiting for what was going to happen. We sat in a section that was easy to get out of in case we felt like we needed to leave. I’m glad we did, not for that reason, but because it also gave us a good vantage point. Meaning it would have been pretty hard for someone to fake what happened to us where we were.
The seance we went to was in “The Big Chapel” and was the size of a medium size church I would say. None of us really knew what to expect, and certainly didn’t expect what happened. It started off with a short sermon I think then we sang some hymns. We were told that was to raise the energy and call the loved ones forward. Then they turned off the lights. I was in between my friends, Carol at times would grab my arm. It was kinda creepy. Then I heard a thump then another. Then I felt a thump against my leg. It kinda hurt, I thought Rod had kicked me by accident. Then Carol leaned over to me and said “Stop kicking me, you're scaring me”. I of course told her I didn’t do it and had felt the same thing. At this point I really thought it was faked, but as soon as that thought crossed my mind, I felt fingers in my hair. I got chills like never before and turned around and because we were on an exit row, no one was behind us. I looked down the row, and seen no one and nothing. I felt a couple more touches that night. I was told by Lilian that was normal for anyone with doubts. The spirits could sense it. It was by far one of the coolest experiences I have ever had. The cooler thing is I have been able to bring that experience to others at times in my mediumship work.
The next amazing experience that I had involving a seance didn’t actually happen to me personally, but someone else I just witnessed it. I was in the big chapel again for a seance and one of the most gifted mediums I had ever met was on stage. Phyllis was the medium’s name. She was doing what is called a billet seance. A billet seance is done as follows.
The medium is usually blindfolded, in Phyllis’ case her eyes were wrapped in bandages. Now, I have always seen this as being very theatrical and in some cases I’m sure that it is. Phyllis explained to me however that she did it to keep from being distracted. She liked working what is called a “cabinet” which is just what it sounds like, A small enclosure that is completely dark. She said that the bandages helped her recreate that while working the platform.
Next the medium is handed a tray or basket filled with folded pieces of paper that the attendees have written the names of loved ones, spirit guides and any questions they may have. These “billets” are held during the singing portion. The idea is that some of our “vibes” get on them. The medium then use these “vibes” to contact the loved ones, spirit guides or whatever. When Phyllis would do this as with most mediums I seen, she would touch them to her forehead, going through the stack pretty quick until she got a hit on one.
Now, again this all looked very much like a magic trick to me when I first seen it, but Phyllis stopped at one of them and identified the names written on it, to which a young girl said it was hers. Then Phyllis looked confused and said the energy on this feels different. She said it is real easy to read psychically. She then asked what she wrote it with. The girl answered quite astonished, she said that her pen had stopped working and so concentrated on the names while writing them with her finger! Now, magickally speaking that makes a whole lot of sense to me know. Then I was quite amazed by the whole thing.
I would say that some of the most amazing experiences I had at Camp had to do with the amazing people that I met there. It was the first time in my life that I really felt like I fit anywhere. It was also the first time in my life that I would experience people singling me out as being special in some way. In those days being a kid of 19 and 20 I took it very seriously when folks would tell me I was gifted or special in some way. It was an odd time, I would have people pay for hotel rooms for me, give me money for business cards, and ask me for readings. I was just a kid, it was so strange to be looked at like something special, especially after my own personal holy war when I felt like I had been defeated.
These days I take it like a grain of salt. It has happened to me so often within so many spiritual traditions, it has lost its impact. I have been told I am all kinds of things of a spiritual nature. My answer these days is “of course I am, but so are you”.
Anyway on with the introductions. I had already mentioned Lilian Major so I will start with her. Lillian was a great grounding influence on me in those days. I was so swept away by my experiences most of the time and was being told so constantly that I was some special something or other, it was hard to stay grounded. Lillian was so very important for that. She was a clairvoyant and so we shared a similar gift. She was also one of the very few people that taught the Hawaiian Religion of Huna. So in many ways she was my first introduction to magick.
Every time I was at Camp, I would go and sit on Lillian’s porch and talk with her for hours. I felt like a part of the family, I even made her little dogs tie dye shirts. She was very excited about that. She was always instructing me like a patient grandmother to her grandchild. Her advice was always practical, insightful and born out of experience. Many of the things that she taught I still utilize to this day. She was the one that told me I would one day make my living from my “gifts” and because of this she was giving me the tools that I would need. She warned me about letting any of it go to my head, warned me about people using and exploiting my abilities. Warned me about energy vampires. She did a lot of warning! All of it so very useful however and always with perfect timing.
Her Huna practice was quite amazing. I would come into Camp especially to attend her Huna Healing services. They were quite amazing, I have never before or since experienced anything like it. It usually took place within the small chapel at camp. The place would be filled with fresh flowers and have a wild but pure feel about it. Lillian would transform into such a powerful force. This tiny woman would just emanate power in a noticeable way. She would usually explain in brief the Huna idea of the three selves and the purpose of the ritual. Then begin to invoke in Hawaiian, until the room would undergo an obvious spiritual transformation. Then this tiny woman would walk down the middle of the chapel, stopping at each row and hold hands with the first person on each row while we held hands within our row. I could feel her pushing the healing “Mana” through the row. It wasn’t just a spiritual “good vibe” feeling. It was an obvious physical sensation like a static charge moving through my body. Lillian was amazing to me, her level of practice, her absolute control over this energy gave me something to aspire to. She realized this and gave me yet another warning. She told me to not tell everyone my interests, that the people in Camp were still afraid of “magick”.
Lillian was also a numerologist this is most likely were I solidified my interest in the subject. I was fortunate enough to take her numerology class a couple of times and even more fortunate to have her personal attention in really digging deep into the subject. She was really good at reminding me that all forms of divination are dynamic and rely heavily on intuition to fill in certain blanks. She instilled in me that the science and the intuition can and should work together.
Another huge influence on me in these early days was the very mysterious figure of Francis Zendell. Francis was almost the direct opposite of Lillian, so together they really gave me a balanced education. Francis was mysterious, powerful, insightful and often very intimidating. She could read me like a book, knew all my secrets, yet never even attempted to use them against me. She was compassionate, deeply spiritual and very protective of me. I was her child and she would often remind people of that fact. She would actually call me “Child” in a thick southern accent. She sounded like she was on a porch drinking sweet tea even when she was talking about aliens and ascended masters.
Francis always seemed to know much more about my origin than I did. She would never come out and tell me who or what she thought I was, but always seemed to base her teaching me on her understanding of it. She would often refer to my “home” and “my people” and “her children” in a way that should have been creepy, but it wasn’t. In fact even now, writing about her I want to cry. I miss her presence in my life deeply. She really did understand me in a way that I don’t think anyone else ever has. I often wonder if she really did know who and what I was before I was this crazy mystic. If she had some insight into the dust that settled into this body.
I think Francis was important in the sense that she gave me a lot of the skills that I would need to protect myself psychically and she also showed me the many possibilities out there. She always encouraged my exploration and didn’t judge it. It also didn’t matter what strange subject I was into, she always seemed to know about it. I would have loved to really got her story. She was such an interesting person with some interesting abilities. She could reach into someones mind, literally and pluck things out. She called it her “mind picking” technique. She would do it to me when I was stuck or trying to figure something out. It was always very insightful. Then there were her disappearing acts. We would be doing a meditation or something and when we would finish up she would hug me. I would go to hug someone else and when I would turn around Francis would be gone. We would be in the middle of camp or on top of the Indian mound, so it wasn’t like she would duck behind something, she just wasn’t there anymore. I usually wouldn’t see her until the next day.
Outside of those tricks there were cases of amazing phenomena that I experienced with her. She was once showing me how to use a technique called the “Violet Flame” to cleanse the “Aura” and she said watch me. She took a step back, put her hands to her sides with palms up and her whole body starting at her feet began to glow with this etheric flame like violet light. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Then she abruptly stopped opened her eyes and said “now you try”.
There was also the time she gave me a set of crystals because I had told her I was “home sick” and didn’t know were my home was. She said they would help me and showed me how to use them to form a crystal meditation grid. Then she told me to use them while she and her friend Mary went out for a bit. She shut me in her hotel room and let me practice with them. I set up the grid and laid down to meditate and I felt myself being lifted up in the air. I of course thought this was just a sensation from meditation. I often had feelings of floating with deep meditation. After some time the door opened and I hit the floor with a thud. Francis was smiling and she said “My god child, you were floating”. I meditated with those crystals for years after that and eventually gave them all away one by one to people that also felt “home sick”.
I would meet up with Francis a couple times a year, she would normally write me and tell me when she would be at camp and I would go down and meet her. Sometimes I would write her questions in between our meetings if anything important came up. This letter writing process ended up being an important aspect of my study with her. I remember one instance in particular, she had me meditating in those crystals and as a result I started to have experiences both within the grid and in my sleep. I would often dream of going to a classroom without walls and study esoteric subjects under what seemed to be enlightened beings. This is described by some as astral school or the akashic records. Anyway, Francis told me this may happen and so part of me thought it was much like a guided meditation in the sense that my mind was generating the whole experience based on her suggestion. Then one day I was in a dream and I was introduced to this being with a white hood and a five pointed star broach type thing on his neck. When I woke from the dream I looked up to see that same figure standing over my bed. I didn’t see him like I normally “see” spirits. What I mean is I saw him with my physical eyes, like a smoky translucent being standing over me. I wasn’t afraid at all and actually really wanted to have another experience like it. It was a very cool and powerful experience. Then I received a letter from Francis with a drawing of that same figure. In the letter she said he was a teacher of healing and had come to her and told her he was going to instruct me in healing. That was possibly the first time I started actually looking into learning some form of energy healing. Was also when I started to take the whole “Astral School” thing seriously.
The last time I seen Francis I had come out as gay, had traveled a great deal and had a pretty good sense of who I was. Francis seen me from across the camp and said “My god child you have turned into a woman, how beautiful”. Her statement embarrassed me but she was right in a very real sense, I had accepted all my feminine energy and she could tell it from across the grounds. We sat up for a long time talking that night. She basically told me I didn’t need her anymore. The truth is however, I will always need people like her. I love and miss you Francis.
Another big influence on my was my friend Hoyte. He was much closer to my own age than everyone else, and introduced me to the writings of Clifford Bias who had lived at Camp. Hoyte actually had a chandelier from Clifford’s seance room in his own seance room. So I felt a real kinship with Hoyte and still do as a matter of fact. I have fond memories of sitting in Hoyte’s seance room practicing or baking cookies with him during seminary week. He was a welcomed friend and in many ways because he was a successful medium, was someone in those days I looked up to. Although he has always treated me as a peer, and for that I am very grateful. Our paths still cross from time to time and I make a point to stop in when I am in that part of the country. Hoyte is one of those life long friends that I am ever so grateful for.
Mixed in with these amazing people were several others that I had an equally amazing, but not as close relationship with in my years at Camp. There was Ellen who ran the bookstore. She would always know what I needed to read. I’m not talking in a used car salesman kind of way. I mean I would literally walk in with a question and before I could ask her she would hand me a book that had my answer in it.
After this happened a couple times I just accepted it and would walk in and buy whatever she handed me. She once handed me a book on constellations and pointed out a section that I should read. Upon closer inspection I realized I had a set of moles on my chest that was an exact match for that constellation. Things like that happened all the time with her. She got me started in my study of magick and western mysticism. She handed me a book by Manly P. Hall and it was just enough to make me want so much more. She seemed to always have the next book that I needed in my studies of the subject. She groomed me from Bias to Crowley in a very gentle way. She would also tell people I was the best psychic at camp, which would often get me in trouble since I wasn’t on staff, hell I wasn’t anybody but a seeker. She was one of my favorite people and biggest fans.
There was also Shaila who helped me learn control over my psychic skills. It was her and a group of students who were all trying to get ready to pass their board certifications that became the basis for a class on psychic development I would later teach. To get certified as a medium through the camp in those days you had to prove phenomenon in front of the board. This was no easy task! So we would gather in the dorm room sit in a circle and practice for hours. Those sessions became so important to me developing control over my abilities as they unfolded.
Because of all this I developed quite the reputation around camp that landed me in some strange situations. The one that sticks out in my mind has to do with one of the annual student psychic fairs. I had showed up to meet with Lilian that weekend and she saw me in the cafeteria and asked me if I was going to be in the fair. I said I didn’t know I could be and she said I could and told me to sit down in a seat she pointed to. I was very nervous, but quickly had a line forming to talk with me. Soon the president of camp came up to me and she was not happy at all. She asked me who told me I could read there and said she had to approve any readers even for a psychic fair. I said Lillian had told me to participate. She said to follow her. She took me over to the side of room where there were a couple of other ladies sitting. I found out later they were also on the board. She said “read for her” pointing to woman. So I looked at her and said some stuff that I picked up on and the woman nodded to the President. She then said and her ? I did the same and then she said, fine go sit back down, but next time check with me. I found out later that the president, really liked me after that and paid attention to my progress.
My time spent at Chesterfield was strange and wonderful. It was and still is a very magickal place for me. It was a safe environment to unfold filled with encouragement and support. The people there really wanted me to succeed. It wasn’t unusual for me to show up and find someone had booked me a room and paid for it. I would have my meals paid for in the same way. Random gifts would show up in my car or in my hotel room. They seen in me only good. They seen the me that exists now long long before I did.
Along with all this there was the classes I took there, I learned mediumship from mediums that had been doing it for 30, 40, 50 years. Then there were the people I would meet who were just passing through. The late night conversations in the hotel lobbies or on the porches. It was in my opinion the best of all possible times to have been involved in Chesterfield. The collective knowledge that I had access to is beyond compare. This was possible the first time that I was fortunate enough to come across some really great teachings. Fortunately it was not the last.
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