Andrew Langley's Blog - Posts Tagged "darren-turner"

Yes, this is me shooting fire out the top of a leather wallet. See the weird shape of the flame on the right? To me it looks just like I'd expect a ghostly apparition to look. Strange eh?

I've studied and performed magic, well conjuring tricks to be precise, for as long as I can remember. From school friends to professional performances, it has always been a part of my life. As a young boy I was fascinated by the thought that there was more to life than we can sense, if only we knew how to tap into it.

The thirst for pushing the boundaries of the unknown led me to study physics and astrophysics, trying to get my head around quantum mechanics and other equally mind-bending theories. But still, there seemed to be something missing. Something unexplained.

In my early teens, one of my brothers returned home with a deck of Tarot cards and I became fascinated by the imagery (and a little scared at the same time). "What did these strange drawings mean", I wondered for hours trying to make sense of them. It wasn't until years later that I truly got a sense of these mythical cards and their power - but more of that in a future blog post.

Things took on an even weirder direction when I visited a fortune teller for the first time at the seaside resort of Great Yarmouth, here in the UK. A beautiful lady with flowing black hair asked me to hold onto a crystal ball, but under no circumstances say anything about myself. Carefully she took the crystal from me and gazed into its depths without looking up at me once. For the next twenty minutes she described my work, my family, and my relationships with such accuracy I was so spooked I headed straight to the nearest pub. The thing that really got me, was she never asked me one thing. Nothing. I held the ball and then she spoke, simple as that. Enter my fascination with the psychic community - a one that has stayed with me ever since.

Nobody can dispute the much publicised cases of psychic fraud, but for the sake of my childhood fascinations I truly hope there is something to it after all. This conflict of proven psychic swindling against the lack of proof on the other side of genuine ability, spawned the idea of the Nathen Turner novels. What if a fraudulent psychic came into contact with a real supernatural being? What would they do? How would they react? So "Mirror on the Soul" was born, and I hope goes some way to answering the question.You can find details of this novel by clicking on this link: Mirror on the Soul

Investigating the supernatural can be an incredibly frustrating experience don't you think? I mean if ghosts really exist how come Facebook and other social media isn't littered with images of all the sightings we hear about in the media? The truth is most of the stuff caught on camera is objects falling over or statues turning on their own, all of which can be easily faked with today's plethora of electronic devices. So is it right to be sceptical? Well yes and no.

Most people I've met over the years have had something unexplained happen to them - they think of a friend, and then they get a call from them, or they get a premonition something is wrong only to find a relative is gravely ill. Many studies have been done on so called Extra Sensory Perception (ESP) but none have proven conclusively it exists. Repeat tests with the same subjects in stricter conditions have not proven the phenomena is any more than within the parameters of probability or chance. Still I'd like to think it is possible that we can sense things with some aspects of our minds that remains, as yet, undiscovered.

What about Tarot cards? Can they really foretell the future? Well obviously not on their own, they are just pieces of card with pictures on them. They need an interpreter, a reader if you like, who can see beyond the fancy drawings and look deeper for what they could mean or represent for an individual. In my experience, good readers help provide deeper insights into challenges people face in their day-to-day lives and give them a better understanding of their potential. Armed with this new information, the sitter now has the freedom to create a new future for themselves through positive change, guided by the insights. In other words, they take more responsibility for their life and make better decisions because of the reading. I'm a big fan of Tarot for personal development, when it is down well by an experienced reader.

I remember spending the night sitting in a photographic hide in the middle of a remote forest. By about 2 a.m. I found myself tuning in to all the night noises, pine twitching in the breeze and the thunder of a nearby river in full spate.Then I heard a guttural bark echoing through the woods that made my blood freeze. Not daring to move, I clung onto my camera and tried to slow my breathing so as to make as little noise as possible. Then a roe deer crashed through the pine ahead and disappeared into the night. I'd been half scared to death by Bambi's distant relative, calling to its friends in the night. A similar thing happened the first time I heard the cry of foxes in the mating season. Again it was the middle of the night and unnatural screams echoed all around me. After a brief silent stalk I was rewarded with a moonlit view of my vulpine night-time companions. Pitch blackness seems to have a strange way of playing with the mind. Without the other senses, perhaps all we have left is our imagination, and with that in play, maybe we can make ourselves believe we've seen or heard anything.

I live in hope that eventually we'll discover the universe is such a strange and wonderful place, it will surpass even our wildest imagination. If you like stories with a spiritual, psychic or supernatural theme, you can find the first in the Nathen Turner series by clicking this link: Mirror on the Soul