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			Psychic News’ founding editor Maurice Barbanell in front of Marcel Poncin’s painting of the spirit guide Silver Birch.

My father started giving me books to  read on the unexplained in my early teens. This proved to be a major influence in my life. One of the first spiritual books I ever read was Anthony Borgia’s Life In The World Unseen. It had a profound influence on me.

I entered the Spiritualist religion at the age of nineteen – 41 years ago – by attending a Spiritualist church in Bristol.

In my 20s, I started sitting in a development circle. During one circle I was told to try psychic art. This proved to be very successful.

Later on I started to sit for physical mediumship – which I had always felt drawn too – and the psychic art fell by the wayside for a few years.

At the time I felt I wanted to concentrate all my energies on one thing, so physical mediumship it was.

I have been sitting for physical now for about 30 years plus and it has gone from strength to strength.  

In the meantime, my art continued to progress by painting pictures of animals and landscapes.

	Famous spiritual healer and author Harry Edwards.

Around ten years ago, I started using pastels and found that I was sensing the subjects with me when I was painting portraits.

It then occurred to me to paint famous healer Harry Edwards, who I had always looked up to. I wanted to paint him in colour, as most of the photographs of him were in black and white.

This was the start of my journey painting some pioneers of Spiritualism.

The next subject was Colin Fry. The reaction to the portrait was so good it surprised me.

When I told people in the Spiritualist movement about my plans to paint the pioneers in colour, thus bringing them to life, they seemed to appreciate it and wanted more.

My next subject was Estelle Roberts. I was amazed how strong her presence was around me. It really made an impression on me and showed me I was on the right path.

Since then I have been encouraged by others in the movement to keep painting more mediums from the past. Many people wanted prints of the mediums I had painted. I have sent prints to Australia, USA and Germany.

The list has also grown to include many present-day mediums – especially physical mediums.

Scottish physical medium Daniel Dunglas Home is reported to have the ability to levitate to a variety of heights.

 
The biggest problem I have had is obtaining good photos of past mediums. This is because some mediums, by their very nature, are very shy individuals and prefer to let their mediumship speak for itself. This means that photographs of them are very limited or not of a good quality.

One thing I have found with Spirit is that if you need help it will always come along at the right time. It was then that I found a photo app that enhances photos and makes them a lot clearer. This enabled me to see the subject’s eyes whereas before I could not. After all, the eyes are the windows of the soul.
 

I would like to continue to paint more of the pioneers in the future. Certain names have been mentioned to me many times, so they have to be part of my future list of people to do.

I’m honoured that what I’m doing is resonating with people and that the paintings are bringing a lot of pleasure.

It is very important that our pioneers are never forgotten. They are the reason why Spiritualism stands proud today.

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