What is reproduced here is the lecture I gave at the event. My brief was to cover elemental spirits in cases of haunts I had come across. I am not the only psychic who has experience of these interesting beings. Most psychics know of them, but not all psychics can communicate with them. Terry O’Sullivan helped me to develop this skill and I cannot praise his own gifts, and kindness, enough!

Both GRFI & Talisman Television Productions, the creators of Ghostcon 2003, are not currently functioning. Talisman changed their name to Pure Television in 2004, and is currently under-going a third revision. GRFI has fallen into the same black hole. Perhaps, in time, they will resurface and another Ghostcon will be created.

Good evening ladies and gentlemen. Let me introduce myself, my name is Judy Farncombe, I was born with psychic ability. I trained at the Spiritualist Association of Great Britain during my teens. I have explored different meditation techniques since my twenties, and I have recently become interested in Shamanism, particularly Celtic Shamanism. I am the editor of Psychic Tymes, an ezine that has been running on the Internet for three years.

I was asked to give a talk on a more obscure aspect of ‘ghost’ hunting. Those of us who indulge in this strange hobby sometimes come across phenomena that do not fall into the usual pigeon-hole of ‘Human Dead’. Are all the spirits we come across Human Dead? And if not, what are they? Could they be spirits of the earth, air, fire and water, nature’s elements in folklore, elementals that our ancestors populated the world with?

As a practicing psychic I was always aware of strange entities that were not human. When I come across human spirits they usually make me feel warm. The ‘Others’ have a completely different effect on me; their energy feels like there are ants crawling up and down on my skin and the adrenalin rush makes me want to flee the spot as soon as possible. What normal people feel around Human Dead.

Judy Farncombe on the stage at Ghostcon 2003. Photograph © 2003-2005, Farncombe Publishing

When I was much younger I used to avoid spots in the countryside that had that effect on me, but time passed and the fears one feels in youth, go away. Now I have tried to understand who or what these ‘Others’ are. I am going to share with you some of the stories of my and my friends’ interactions with them, and the understandings I have reached from the experiences.

Now I must ask you to suspend your critical minds for a while and I will tell you stories of these beings I call the ‘Others’.

'You have to negotiate in the unseen world of nature spirits. They do not follow rules laid down by logic, science or Christianity. You have to go back into Shamanic practices, where knowing someone’s true name gives you power over them.'

The first contact I had over a long period of time with such a manifestation was at my parents’ home in Devon. The valley the house is built in is an ancient landscape. On top of one of the hills is an Iron-age fort, burial mounds from the Beaker Folk litter most of the hill tops. There is an Elizabethan manor house close by my father’s house. He bought the Water Mill from the local Lord of the Manor in 1967. It was built in 1901 to feed electricity to the manor house. Originally my parents’ home was an industrial shell. My father, who is an architect, redesigned it into a country home.

For several years in my early teens I used to avoid a spot in the garden. My mother, who states that she is not psychic, planted a triangle of poplar trees around the spot I found objectionable. Some years later my father decided to extend the Mill to allow for guest rooms, guess where he extended it too – yes over the spot in the garden that I had been avoiding for years! This caused me some difficulty as I had to find excuses over the years to avoid staying in the guest wing of The Mill, preferring the main house as it was a spirit-free zone. There is something disconcerting about taking a shower and being joined by a spirit entity! Although I am not easily spooked I like to shower in a ghost-free environment!

Time came to pass and I thought that I should sort out this problem at my fathers’ house; especially as my father was making it difficult to share the main house with him. His deafness was encouraging him to turn television, radio and music up to full volume. He could now hear them but everyone else could not hear themselves think. The guest wing had the gift of blessed silence, as well as the weird spirit.

I had the chance to go on a course in Celtic Shamanism run by the O’Sullivan’s in 2002 for a review in my ezine. It turned out to be an excellent chance for me to ask questions regarding the being now living in my fathers’ house. Terry O’Sullivan gave me some very wise advice on how to deal with the ‘haunt’. My description of what it felt like, and the fact that the mill stream ran under the new extension at a depth, pointed to the distinct possibility of the haunt being a nature spirit of some type. I was very certain that it was not a human ghost due to its physical effect on me.

His analysis was that we had an amphibious nature spirit living in the guest extension. If you believe in ghosts it is not so far a jump to believe in nature spirits. Terry went into possible ways of helping the creature move out of the house, where it was unhappy, and back into ‘nature’. After all, my father had built over its home without permission and now we were stuck with each other!

You cannot get nature spirits moving on to ‘the light’ in time honoured Spiritualist tradition! They live in our world, just an ‘unseen’ by normal eyes variety of it. My new task, as given to me by Terry, was to establish a connection with the nature spirit to find out what it would like; then to ask the local ‘Lord of the Valley’ to allow any potential move to happen.

So what is a ‘Lord of the Valley’? I have to add at this point that the concept of a ‘Lord of the Valley’ and the existence of nature spirits was not alien to me as I had read extensively in mythology. You can compare one to the local Lord of the Manor in human terms. But this Lord has feudal rights over the spirits and land he or she looks after, rather than the human equivalent, who has long since had such powers taken away from them [and rightly so]. These spirits have the power of life and death, slavery or fiefdom over those in their charge.

I also had a very good clue as to where this local minor deity might be hanging out. I had known the valley for over thirty years and wandered its hills and vales, roads and tracks, and pathways. I had felt where the ant like tingles on my skin indicated where strange things lurked.

Terry explained to me that you have to negotiate in the unseen world of nature spirits. They do not follow rules laid down by logic, science or Christianity. You have to go back into Kabala and Shamanic practices, where knowing someone’s true name gives you power over them. You also have to ‘barter’ for what you want with gifts and favours, sometimes even bodily fluids; you cannot just ask and expect it to be given to you. The hidden ones owe us no favours, quite the contrary; we owe them much for stealing their land.

So what did I do? I brought some beautiful crystals from the local New Age shop in my home town and charged them with energy. The next time I went down to Devon I visited the place where I knew the local ‘Lord of the Valley’ spent a lot of time. It was high up on Ball Hill, with a fine view towards the South East end of the valley. There were a couple of trees that had grown into a throne suitable for a nature deity to sit in. When I got there I gave a little courtesy and asked the local deity the favour of moving the amphibious spirit squatter, by name as I knew it, to other locations on my fathers land. I have to add here that the little nature spirit had given me the name of the Deity!

With the gift of an amethyst, carefully tucked into the roots of the tree he sat in, the deal was sealed. I was on my way back to my own home in Surrey so asked how the news would get to the little spirit. The ‘Lord’ told me not to worry and he sent the message down by Rook mail. I thanked him and left. It was interesting to note that the North Amerind tradition of Ravens being gossips and news spreaders is the almost the same in the ‘Old Country’!

The next time I returned to the Mill I checked the bedroom in the guest extension as I was going to be sleeping there. The amphibious spirit was gone. Next morning I checked out the fountain where she wanted to move to and she was happily splashing about in it.

The deal was done, the house free [although she can come back inside if she wants to], and I was more comfortable sleeping in the guest wing! It will be interesting to note if the room becomes less damp in the future now the ‘Boggy One’ has moved home.

'I became aware of a cheerful spirit bounding down the lip of the coire. He was so happy to see me, welcoming me to his beautiful mountain.'

This story helped me to understand how these spirits are tied to the land. Although the first story tells of something that took place over many years, this one was something that happened at one place, and only the one time I visited it, although my husband became aware of the spirit when he climbed the mountain in question in 2001.

My husband likes to climb mountains. The Munro’s in Scotland are a great favourite with him. I am scared of heights so tend to let him do his own thing when he feels the need to climb. One year we were spending two weeks in the Loch Torridon area of North West Scotland. He went to climb Laithach [which mean Grey Place in Gaelic and is pronounced Lee-aghach] it is too hard for the likes of me to climb. It is notorious for claiming the lives of climbers, once you start moving over its arêtes you have to carry on, regardless of in-coming weather. So I arranged to climb Beinn Alligann, which means Jewelled one in Gaelic, a much easier Munro where complete beginners can feel safe on the gentle rolling slopes.

I left early to get up the hill, going the opposite way around from the usual way climbers take. This was because I was going to go down the easy route, by passing the Horns of Alligann [the only difficult part of the climb] I felt that they would be too difficult for me to negotiate.

As I reached the coire on the final push up to the peak called Tom na Gruagaich [Tom Na Gruagaich means Maiden’s Knole, pronounced Towm na Groo-agich] I became aware of a cheerful spirit bounding down the lip of the coire. He was so happy to see me, welcoming me to his beautiful mountain. He told me I was the first one of the Hill that day. I called him Tom because of the name of the peak I was about to visit. It may not have been his true name. Tom told me that he was the mountain’s spirit and was happy that I had come to see his mountain, the most beautiful and gentle of the mountains of Scotland, not like Liathach next door. A nasty cruel spirit lived there, one that hated humans and was known to push them off the top. This information did not please me as that was where my husband and brother-in-law had gone to climb that day.

Tom accompanied me as I made a push for the top of the coire, and then for the peak itself. There I stopped and gazed across the landscape and enjoyed the view towards Skye. Together we left the first peak of the Munro and walked towards the second, Sgurr Mhor [pronounced Skoor Voar, which means Big Peak in Gaelic].

He left me as I left Sgurr Mhor to go down the mountain by way of the easier route. He was surprised that I was not going over the Horns. He dashed off to see the other climbers who were arriving on his home by way of the usual route.

I walked down the comfortable slope towards the waterfall. As this was the less well used route the pathway began to disappear amongst the rocks. I got lost in the boulders and found my nerve beginning to break as I gazed down over the rock wall. I do not like climbing, and I do not like climbing a route not clearly laid out by people who have passed that way before. Where were the cairns that mark the route? I had to accept that I was lost. I sat down and cried, imagining that I was lost and my bones would be found by the local mountain rescue in the months ahead. As I was crying Tom came bounding back. He was so upset that I was upset. He loves to share his mountain, not make people afraid. He calmed me down and took me under his wing, leading me back across the rocky outcrop, around a few boulders, until we reached a cairn and the waterfall I was looking for. ‘There you go, follow that path’ he told me ‘it is clearly marked from there on in’. I thanked him joyously and bounded off down the path. I was so relieved to get to the real path that I did not leave it, and did not stop until I was down off the mountain and at the car park. I even refused to stop long enough to take a drink of water from my knapsack!

So what did I learn from this encounter? Mountains have spirits that live on them, spirits of place. They will welcome you and help you, or they can hurt you like Laithach’s spirit does according to ‘Tom’. I had no gift to give Tom, only the gift of conversation and appreciation of his mountain. This was my first positive encounter with one of the ‘Others’ and as such I treasure it. If I ever go back there I will take him a gift as I owe him one.

'I was grabbed around the knees by a small salamander. She came up to my waist and was dressed in a tunic that looked like leaves. Her hair looked like wiggly flames. Her skin was white, and her face had a pixie quality to it'.

One of my business associates knew of my understanding and recognition of the Celtic Shamanic tradition and asked me to visit her home. She had a non-human spirit problem and did not know how to deal with it. Her link with the world of Spirit was mainly through Spiritualism. She had been brought up in a family that had practicing mediums within it. She also has a considerable psychic gift of her own. Normally she would not need anyone to help her with a spirit problem. But she could not see this spirit and it was troubling her children.

When I visited her home as we were working on a project together, she showed me a drawing one of her older children had made, and told me the story regarding its creation. The picture was of a fire elemental, a salamander. I told her this and she took me upstairs to meet the being it was a portrait of.

Once upstairs I was immediately grabbed around the knees by a small salamander. She almost came up to my waist, she was lightly dressed in a tunic that looked as if was made out of leaves. Her hair looked like wiggly flames. Her skin was white, and her face had a pixie quality to it. I had to ask the salamander to let go of me and let me use the bathroom before we got down to the business of helping her, and the householder, to come to terms!

Once relieved, I talked with the salamander in the smallest bedroom, her main home within the house. I discovered that she missed fire. The house was a fire-free zone as there were small children about. As she was a fire spirit she encouraged the children, who could sense her, to light candles, causing a potential fire hazard. I explained that she really must not encourage the children to light fires as the house could be destroyed, and as they got older they might end up being arsonists! I asked the householder if there was any way she could light a candle once or twice a week to satisfy the salamander. I also gave the her access to the Salamander’s name so that she could control the situation if necessary. I also gave information about helping the Salamander to move home if required. I left it at that.

About a month later I had the chance of attending a party at the same house. During the fun I went upstairs with my husband to introduce him to the Salamander, and to see how she was doing. I indulged in a small meditation in the bedroom and asked her during it why she was stuck on the first floor? How did she get there? The answer I was given was that on this spot once stood a sacred grove. One of the trees had been struck by lightening. The salamander had been riding the lightening and ended up being stuck in the tree. In time the forest was felled, the grove destroyed, and the land built upon. So now the salamander was stuck in a house!

In days gone by it would be lucky to have such a spirit in the house. It could guard the hearth, keep the building warm and dry. Of course, there was always the chance that the house would be prone to burning down!

So my business assosiate now keeps and eye on her warm house spirit. She has the name so that some control can be maintained. And she can keep a watchful eye on how the salamander interacts with her young children as they play together! If in the future she needs to move the salamander on, she can, I have told her to negotiate with the local ‘Lord of the Land’ as I did for the Boggy One at my parent’s home!

I have not yet had a personal interaction with an Air Elemental so now follows a very strange story regarding Cosmic Deities.

'The girl was Brighid, the Celtic goddess who keeps the eternal flame. She comes to guard the forge fire as he uses it to work metal.'

The story I am about to tell you is not mine. It belongs to a very dear friend of mine who is a practicing Blacksmith. If you know your myths and folklore well, you will also know that there is a deep and abiding link between the human blacksmith and the ‘Ancient Gods’. Many of the human pagan religions have a god who is also a blacksmith, Hephaestus, Vulcan, Wayland Smith, Regin and all the other names associated with the Blacksmith deity. Our ancestors’ worshipped fire and those who controlled fire and used it to create iron held a special place in all man’s religious Pantheons.

When my friend was learning his art under a Japanese sword smith in the mountains of Japan, he had to work on his own projects during his free time in the forge. He had always been psychic and now became aware that he was being visited by young female spirit as he worked on his first attempts. The description he gave me of the young girl was that she was a teenage female, with long red hair and wearing a medieval green dress. Originally I thought she might be an ancestor of his as he has fiery red hair and his genetic roots were from Ireland!

When he returned to the West after two years, he took a few courses in America under a master smith to further his skills. As my friend started to work his own forge in Europe, bringing together all the skills and styles he had learned, he created Saex metalwork pieces. This type of metalworking is very complex. It is pattern welding and was used to show off the Blacksmith’s prowess, and also increased the strength of the item be it sword or knife. It was the Porcshe of its day. Only Master Smith’s would be able to do this kind of work as you have to plait different types of iron into a cohesive whole.

When he was working with the Seax techniques the young girl would come and watch over him in his forge. She was soon accompanied by a tall man dressed in Saxon clothing. He only arrived on the scene when Andrew began to successfully create Saex-work.

Now my friend is recognized in Europe as a Master Smith, and he finds that when he works on a particularly fine and complicated piece he is surrounded by the girl, the first male, and now a second male spirit. This new being is small compared to the first male, very square, has long black hair threaded with beads and other things and he has one eye and has a grey long cloak about his shoulders. This spirit is a very strange one and really puts the wind up my friend Andrew!

When Andrew first asked me about the visitations it was just the girl and tall man who were checking him out. Using my links in the London Wicca community I had developed regarding my ezine, I came to the conclusion, with their help, that the girl was Brighid, the Celtic goddess who keeps the eternal flame. She comes to guard the forge fire as he uses it to work metal. The tall male we think is Wayland Smith, one of the metal-working deities. But we still have not identified the newest visitor. This newest one scares my friend very deeply as he feels very alien to normal spirit beings.

My friend is a deeply committed Christian and finds these pagan deities a worrisome addition to his art and craft. I have told him to refer to their Christianized aspects; Brighid becomes St Brigit, Wayland Smith becomes St Dunstan. One day we will identify the one-eyed deity [could it be Odin?] but I suspect that this one could never be identified with a Christian equivalent!

One of the interesting thing about the visitations that Andrew experiences of the ‘Others’ is that they have come to him, a deeply committed Christian, and in far flung places – from Japan to the New World.

In all my travels through various pagan communities’ I have learned that deities choose you rather than you choosing them. Here is a deeply committed Christian being over-looked by beings that belong to our pagan past and present. They were unlooked-for, they were not called, and yet they still come and watch ancient metal craft being worked once more in his forge. Is this the magic of the Blacksmith’s art and why they were so revered in ancient times, as they had ability to commune with Deities?

Treat them with the respect they deserve and find a compromise that you can both live with. Or help them move home to a place that they will be happy; after all you may be squatting on their property!

I could tell you more stories from further a field, but I have kept to stories of the strange and wondrous spirits that I and my friends have encountered nearer to home. Are they real? Are they figments of mine, and my friends, imaginations; or are they Jungian Archetypal’s from our collective subconscious?

Two of the stories are personal accounts; two of the stories are other peoples. Whatever these wonderful beings are, they come from our folklore roots, our shamanic past. No amount of logic can deal with them, only keeping to their rules works. So if you come across spirits that do not respond to Christian exorcism, spirits who will not go ‘to the light’, if they seem like ‘devils’ and poltergeists, I ask you to consider another possibility. Have you found a nature spirit, one of the Elementals that still inhabit this world with us?

If you have, do you want to help it go back to a natural environment and leave the house you are visiting elemental free? If you do then dig deep into your racial memories, look to your folklore roots, remember the magic of your childhood and lay aside all hubris because we have forgotten much regarding these ‘Others’!

Treat them with the respect they deserve and find a compromise that you can both live with. Or help them move home to a place that they will be happy; after all you may be squatting on their property!

Thank you for you attention. I hope you have enjoyed a walk into the weird world of Celtic Shamanism. And if you take anything away with you from this talk – remember you may be squatting on their land!

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