Physical Mediumship with Winter Brook
Podcast
Episode:
Physical Mediumship with Winter Brook
by Danielle Searancke
Today, I am talking to Winter Brook, a psychic and transfiguration medium, reiki master, spiritualist minister, teacher, attorney, and humanitarian. We met through Mavis Pittilla's Advanced Mediumship. I did it two years in a row and we were in a circle together in the cohort we were both in. We didn't have much time to engage with one another there, but we continued to follow each other on Facebook. Getting to know more about Winter and her physical mediumship through that connection is why I wanted to have her on today. This interview also showed how Winter’s love for animals and humanitarian work overlaps with her spiritual work. She is a natural teacher and we are so excited to have her join us in the Spirit School Collective as a guest mentor for the mentors to experience her energy and wisdom.
In this episode, Winter defines some of the key terms associated with physical mediumship and transfiguration to provide us with a basic understanding. She shares some of her experiences as both a sitter and a medium, giving us more context around what happens in a dark seance. Winter also talks about how skeptics going into a reading with a code word can ruin a reading because the sitter’s energy impacts the energy. The only negativity she has experienced in this work is from other humans. For those feeling that there is negative energy around, Winter reminds us that we are also spirit and can set intentions for our energy!
If you want to see the images discussed in this video, head over to Youtube around the 30 minute mark: https://youtu.be/eGG1Y8xMmyY
Episode:
Physical Mediumship with Winter Brook
Spirit School Podcast
In this episode:
Winter shut down the gifts she had as a child
She raised her two daughters in her hometown on Long Island as a single mother
She began to experience people’s thoughts and emotions in 2005
Winter got books from the library and found out about Spiritualist churches in her area
She is an advocate of continued education and we met through a class with Mavis Pittilla
Lily Dale, New York is the largest spiritualist community in the US
Spiritualism is a religion, philosophy, and science using mediumship to prove the continuity of life
You need to be a Spiritualist for a year to live there and most homeowners are mediums
In the summer, there would be 20-30,000 visitors pre-covid for readings and lectures
When you go through the gate, it's almost like the energy is palpable
There are workshops on all different metaphysical topics
Dominic Boag is coming to teach at Spirit School and will be on the East Coast this summer
There is a children’s week with programs so parents can go to classes
Winter is teaching at a symposium of physical mediumship in Victorian times June 18-22
Apports are when something like than object is materialized by spirit
Transfiguration is when spirit changes the features of the medium
Physical mediumship is usually done in the dark with red, green or blue light
Physical mediumship has traditionally been hosted outside the boundaries of Lilydale proper
An image of Winter’s dad with evidence was created on paper by spirit in a seance and after
Not many mediums knew about physical mediumship, so Winter took courses to learn about it
Mental mediumship is messages coming through for the sitter
Sitters witness physical mediumship through the senses
The room gets cold, and people may see, hear, smell, or feel the presence of spirit
In transfiguration, an ectoplasmic mist builds up in front of her face and other faces appear
Physical mediumship takes years of dedication with no guarantee of anything happening
Elementals will elongate Winter’s ear, and recently her middle finger has been elongated
A medium told her that she would know she’s working with an ET when her finger grows long
In one of the photos, Winter’s face is transformed into what is clearly a man’s face
Winter shares her opinion on Surviving Death such as how code words were depicted
Having a code word comes from lack and prevents you from receiving other evidence
Mediumship is not a perfect science, just as no one in other professions are perfect
Mediums use cabinets for physical mediumship to contain the energy that is building
Winter is tied down during transfiguration in case of unexpected movements and ectoplasm burns
Metal jewellery needs to be removed so people don’t think it’s an apport, and to avoid interference
Being able to communicate with animals has caused a “foster fail” for Winter with kittens
Winter does feel some discomfort from physical mediumship but says you get over it
As a sitter at a seance, you may feel nausea or pulling if spirit uses your energy
Winter describes it as a 2 out of 10 for discomfort, though women have high pain tolerance
I had a trance experience where I felt my crown being pulled and felt I needed to heal someone
Trance is not the same as physical mediumship, but can benefit your mental mediumship
I’ve been told by Winter and Mavis that I could do physical mediumship, but I love teaching
Winter says the only negativity she’s experienced in mediumship is from other humans
She does do house clearings and tries to teach people how to do it themselves
We are all spirit, just in a different form, so you can set intentions and step into your power
Connect with Winter
Winter Brook is a certified psychic medium, a transfiguration physical medium, an Ordained Spiritualist minister, retired attorney, and a Reiki Master / Teacher. She has trained in the UK at the Arthur Findlay College as well as locally on Long Island. She has been teaching mediumship and working professionally for 14 years demonstrating at colleges, over 50 Long Island libraries, on behalf of governmental municipalities, at Lily Dale Assembly, Spiritualist churches and Metaphysical centers across the US and internationally. She is an Ambassador for the oldest Metaphysical not for profit learning community on Long Island, the Eyes of Learning. She is a former radio and tv host. Presently she hosts 2 monthly internet video shows on metaphysical topics and has been interviewed numerous times over the years. She is a former Woman of the Year for her volunteer humanitarian work saving the lives of children with heart defects from third world countries with Rotary International’s Gift of Life. She is a single mother of two girls, having adopted the youngest as a single mother, a proud pet owner, and foster mom to feral kittens.
YouTube: @winterbrookpsychicmedium
Instagram: @winterbrookpsychicmedium
Website: https://www.winterbrookmedium.com/
Spirit School Links
Spirit School Collective: https://www.squamishmedium.com/spiritschoolcollective
Join us on the FREE Spirit School platform: https://myspiritschoolcollective.com/plans/
Trauma Informed Lightworker Waitlist: https://view.flodesk.com/pages/6398f03888aca7e15696b1fa
Visit Spirit School at https://www.squamishmedium.com/ for all courses and upcoming programs
View full transcripts of podcast episodes at https://www.squamishmedium.com/blog
-
Hello everyone and welcome back to Spirit School. I have another interview for you today. I am so excited to introduce you to Winter Brook. How are you doing Winter?
I am thrilled to be here and thank you for everyone taking the time out to take a look at the video. I'll let you know I have a bunch of cats, so you might be introduced to them, during the interview and I hope that's okay.
Of course, if you have any background noise, Winter was just explaining to me, she is in her Leo era and she has multiple cats. Can I say how many cats?
Six.
Six cats. I love it. And she's a Leo rising, is that right?
Yes.
Yes. Okay. I love all the cat vibes. So, Winter is a psychic and transconfiguration medium, a Reiki master, a Spiritualist minister, a teacher, an attorney, and a humanitarian. Is that how you introduce yourself out in the world? If I met you on the street and said, who's Winter? How do you describe yourself?
Actually you hit it spot on. You know, I'm a Gemini, so I'm all over the place. I have a lot of interests. I grew up unaware of spirituality and metaphysical topics. Yeah, I was wide open as a child. I interacted with spirit, shut down, forgot all about it. And then, I grew up and became an attorney. I got involved with the Rotary International and I got heavily involved with the program, which saves the lives of children who need corrective heart procedures. We used to bring them to Long Island, along with other charities. And I had one daughter, I adopted another daughter as a single mom, and raised my girls in my hometown where I grew up, didn't stray too far. Around 2006, 2005, I started having wacky experiences where I was experiencing the emotions of others. I knew what they were thinking. And that's what led me to figure out what was going on.
Started at my local library, got some books out, then found out about the Spiritualist churches, found some on Long Island. They seem to know all about it. Studied with some of them, then I went to a place called Omega. I don't know if you're familiar with the Omega Institute?
New York and California. I think they have locations.
Yeah, their primary is Rhinebeck, upstate New York. And I know they do other areas. I know they go down to Santa Domingo or Costa Rica.
Okay. Yeah.
Went up there. Then I found out about Lily Dale, and yeah, I just kept studying. I love to study online. I know that's how you teach your students. I think this is fabulous. It's how I've studied with, Mavis Pittilla, whom, that's where I met you.
Yeah.
And I'm a strong advocate of continued education and study and unfoldment. So even though I've been doing the work 15 years, I still, you know, I want to go study with people who've been doing it 30 years, like Mavis. I study with Tony Stockwell a lot. I still sit for development and then of course I share the knowledge and teach.
I love it. So, yeah, just to reiterate, like we met through Mavis Pittilla's Advanced Mediumship. I did it two years in a row, 2021 and 2020, so I can't remember which cohort we were in together, but I know that we were together one of those circle developments. We didn't get too much time to engage with one another, but we continued to follow each other on Facebook, which is how come I wanted to have you on today, as we move into the physical mediumship questions that I have later on for you. But first I wanna ask a little bit about Lily Dale, because this is something as a medium you hear about a lot. I have not had the privilege of going, but anytime I hear people reference Lily Dale, like I literally get covered in shivers. I know it's a place I have to go. Can you explain to people what Lily Dale is? What the vibe is there, what the intention is there?
Absolutely. Lily Dale should be on your, one of your top 10 places to go. It is located an hour west of Buffalo, New York, so you can fly into Buffalo and then drive there. It is the largest spiritualist community in the US. Danielle, I'm not sure. Are you a spiritualist, honey?
I'm not, but I have studied under Mavis and Tony. And I've just chosen a life of no religions. I talk about the history of mediumship quite a bit and yeah.
Okay, great. So it's a religion, philosophy, and science using mediumship to prove the continuity of life. So, what would happen is in the summertime, spiritualists from all over would gather in this location for lecturers and talks and things. And it evolved where they were, they purchased the land and they built homes. So now if you wanna live in Lily Dale, you have to be a spiritualist for at least a year. And most of the people that own homes are actually mediums. In order to work there, you need to be a registered medium, even if you live there. And then during the summer, between the end of June to Labor Day, pre covid, they would have 20 to 30,000 visitors. There's a couple hotels, there's bed and breakfasts. And seven days a week they have lectures and workshops all day long, and then events in the evening.
There's a stump, it's a famous stump, readings from the stump, and there's a bunch of benches and twice a day you can go sit there, there's no charge, and mediums will get up and give messages. They have one or two healing services a day where you can go in and get a fantastic healing. I avail myself of that whenever I'm there. They have a fairy trail. I've taken photographs there and have gotten fairies and other elementals in the pictures. And they have teachers from all over the world that come in and they vet them. You know, you can't just say, I want to teach there. They will actually vet you and you have to submit documentation to show that you are qualified to teach on the subject you want. So that's also nice.
When you enter, there's a gate. And when you go through the gate, it's almost like the energy is palpable. It's like you're going through, I don't know, like Jello or something. And then you're inside. And of course they have a couple of little shops that you can buy things, drum circles once a week. They have a library. They have a little museum that's really just an oversized room, but they've got original paintings from the Bang Sisters, precipitated art mediumship. And the Campbell Brothers. So, it's just a fabulous place. It's not over exorbitant as far as, I think most of the rooms are like $50 or $75, compared to if I wanna visit my daughter in Boston, it's like, you know, 300 bucks a night for a Holiday Inn room.
It is, yeah.
They also have a campground for those who don't have financial means for that. You can bring your camper or tent and I think it's like $15 a night. You should visit it if you have an interest in mediumship. I mean, they don't limit it to the spiritualist topics. They do have talks about other things, astrology and shamanism, angels, you name it, there's gonna be courses on it. I've been teaching there about five or six years now. I'll be teaching twice this year. We're gonna talk about that special event, but seriously, guys, if you enjoy the metaphysical, try to plan a trip to Lily Dale.
Okay. And you don't have to be a registered spiritualist to attend those months that you mentioned. It was June to September, is that right?
They've expanded so that you might find the occasional class outside, but the season is the end of June. It'll be June 23rd this year, generally the season is open by Tibetan monks who travel through the US, and through Labor Day.
Okay. And do you know Dominic Bogue by chance?
I do.
Okay. He's a good friend of mine. He's gonna come teach at Spirit School in Squamish in the summer actually, because I'm tagging it onto his East Coast trip in the summer. So I'm like, he's probably gonna Lily Dale, like that's why he's gonna be out there.
He does a lot in Massachusetts. They love him up there at the Spiritualist churches.
Yeah. Yeah, he's lovely. He's such a kind guy. I mentored under him for like, after my cat died, I was in so much grief and I was just looking for someone to help me, like build my confidence again, and he was just such a supportive mentor to me. So he's coming to teach at Spirit School in the summer too, so I'm really excited.
He's a fabulous medium and he's got a very strong following. I know he teaches in Arizona, does a lot in Massachusetts. He's a super nice guy. Your students are in for a treat.
Yeah. Thank you. I'm really glad. So I was like, are you going to Lily Dale? I'm gonna try to go for next year. I'm gonna drag my kids, no.
No, they have a children's week. Patricia Bell, she's a wonderful astrologer, she usually heads it up. It's programs designed for the youngers so that mom and dad can go and enjoy their own choices of programs. I've been lucky enough to have taught classes during those weeks because I love kids. So, they'll have programs for the little ones.
Okay. I love it. So we'll have links below too, because I know Winter's gonna be teaching there, you said, this summer, right? So what weeks are you teaching?
Well, they're doing something special. It's not through the Lily Dale assembly, but it's being held at Lily Dale. Sue Barnes, who lives in Lily Dale and is a certified medium from Arthur Findlay, she has put together a symposium of physical mediumship in Victorian times. She'll have three world class physical mediums demonstrating and teaching. And that would be Mychael Shane, who's famous for his apports. And Gary Mannion, who I've studied with and do study with. His physical phenomena seances are, they blow my mind. And an up and coming physical medium, I haven't had the opportunity to see him, I'm hoping to see him that week, Bill Bolt, who also does a lot of apports, et cetera. There'll be five tutors, myself, Sue Barnes, Inge Croson, and Karen Richards from Australia, and Julie Adreani.
So it's gonna be laid out very similar to like the Arthur Findlay style classes. Will all meet together at 9:00 AM for maybe meditation or sitting in the power. Then there'll be two groups. Group A will stay for the main program with one of the top mediums. Group B will go off and have a choice of one to three little programs led by the tutors. I'm gonna be teaching trance and also blending with your guides. Other topics that are gonna be taught, table tipping, plant chat, automatic writing, automatic drawing, apports, learning how to receive apports from spirit. And if I use any vocabulary you think I should define for you,
I was going to ask, I didn't wanna interrupt, but if you could describe apport for the audience, that'd be awesome.
Remember sweetheart, I'm an Irish attorney. We just keep talking. I'm from New York too. So an apport is something that is materialized by spirit. Now, when Mychael Shane does apports, they actually come out of his mouth. There's video. I've witnessed it twice. There was no physical way for him to have it in his mouth. I've seen him do like over a hundred items, all right. The other traditional way that you read about is the apports coming through the ceiling. One of my sitters in my private group does that. She did it once or twice, so we were all excited for her.
Asport is when they dematerialize it. It's like, you know, Hey, Scotty beat me up. They dematerialize it from the seance room and rematerialize it elsewhere, maybe in the room next door. So these topics are gonna be covered and it's not gonna be lecture-based though, is gonna be trying, so we'll have, like, when I'm teaching trance and transfiguration, which is when spirit changes the features of the medium.
Which is mind blowing to me, by the way, which is why I have you on this podcast. I can't wait to get there. But yes, thank you for explaining that.
And it can be done a couple of ways. Now, it's different than overshadowing. Overshadowing is when it's being really seen by your third eye. So this happens frequently, like if you're doing a reading, someone might look at you and see their grandmother because they happen to have clairvoyance, whether or not they know about it. But most transfiguration is done in the dark with, I like to use red light because it's traditional, and the red light's traditional because back in the day when people started sitting, you know, back around 1850, right after the 1 848.
Fox Sisters.
Thank you.
You're welcome. I know the history.
That's good. After the resurgence and the birth of modern spiritualism, families would gather and sit in the dining room on a Friday or Saturday night because, let's face it guys, there was no Netflix and they would try to receive contact. Maybe the table would tip. And they would have the fire going in the fireplace. So by the end of the night you had red light, because it was just the embers that were glowing. So that's where the red light comes from. And the reason you want minimal light is because if there's any type of ectoplasm or energy, it's gonna dissipate in the white, bright light, for the most part. There are some forms of physical mediumship that can be observed in white light, but usually you have to dim the lights so it can be seen. So I like to work with red light. Now, Gordon Garforth, who is in the UK, he's fabulous, transfiguration medium. He likes green light. Tony Stockwell, he doesn't really focus on this, but you know, he will play around with it. We're all interested in all aspects of mediumship. He'll like blue light.
Mm-hmm. I've seen, um, him do a transfiguration demonstration with candlelight before too, when I saw him here in Vancouver.
Usually the white light dispels the energy and in the event the medium is working with ectoplasm, you know, spirit in that particular medium, you don't wanna have white light or bright light turned on because it can cause the ectoplasm to snap back into the medium in an uncontrolled fashion and cause the medium injury. and a lot of phenomena is actually done in a darkened space. and this is one of the reasons that Lily Dale does not normally host physical mediumship. The seances are held at Neal Rzepkowski, who's the former president of Lily Dale and lives about two miles outside the boundaries. He has his own house and he hosts the physical mediums. And for this symposium, there'll be opportunities for the participants to, if they wish, to purchase and see the dark mediumship. So I happened to be in Lily Dale last year and Gary was doing one, so I went. In the dark sand.
Ooh. Covered in shivers right now. Yeah. If you're listening on the podcast, go check out the YouTube because we're doing this by video. We have photos to show you. She's holding up a photo right now of a sketch. Do you wanna describe it?
This is my father and everybody can wish him my happy birthday today. It's Valentine's Day
Happy Birthday.
And at the seance, at Neal's, in the dark and we were all holding hands. There was blank computer paper, you know, eight and a half by 11 computer paper, on the floor next to a box with crayons or pencils. Spirit absorbed the pigmentation through the box and laid it onto the white paper. The paper was crumpled up. That's why if you can see it, it's wrinkled and they have names. These are the six names of my dad's children from his first marriage, because at the time he was talking through the spirit guide to me, giving me incredible evidential information that just blew my mind. And then on the bottom it said, I did it my way, which was his epitaph. This is why I asked him what he wanted on his gravestone. I got the Frank Sinatra song, I did it my way.
I keep hearing it. Yeah.
Yeah. That's my dad. So, after the seance, I had the paper. I had to keep it in the dark. Not all the fine details, like the eyebrows, et cetera, were materialized fully. It continued to materialize over the course of the next 24 hours.
Mind blowing. Just mind blowing.
I think I sent you the picture. I'm not sure. I actually found a picture afterwards when I came home of my dad holding my daughter that is a mash.
Okay. Yeah. And we're going to, I'm gonna edit this video. So again, if you're listening on the pod, go check out my YouTube and I'm gonna link all of Winter's stuff as well. I'm gonna at the end, edit it so that you can have the pictures because there's a few pictures I wanna show because I wanna talk about your physical mediumship. Thank you so much for describing all this and such powerful experiences. I just think mediumship is like one of the most fascinating things ever. Where I'm located, there is no Lily Dale. There is no Omega, but I did get one table tipping experience once. I didn't know what was happening. I think it was in my third year of development with my mentor. She's like, I think we're ready. And she just puts a table in the middle of the room and we put our hands on it. She's like, sing Happy Birthday. And we started, which is like the happiest song in the world, right? So we start singing Happy Birthday, and this table starts lifting and she starts singing the alphabet and it's spelled out the name Chris. And then it started flying across a room and we're like chasing it and it went on for about 40 minutes. Broad daylight. I had no idea what table tipping was at that time, or what physical mediumship was, but when it was done, I was literally brought to my knees. I was so in awe of the presence of spirit, the power of spirit. And like, I literally felt like the most blessed human being on the planet at that time. It was still, to this day, one of the most profound experiences I have ever had on my mediumship development journey. And I would love one day to try to replicate it. So I'm dying to know from you, but like developing physical mediumship, how does it compare? Because I also read somewhere that you call yourself a mental medium. So I wanted to talk about these differentiating titles as well. And then, you know what it takes to develop physical mediumship.
That's wonderful. They'll be doing table tipping and spoon bending too at Lily Dale. You should try to come. They won't do the dark sciences online, on the campus. But one of the reasons is insurance. They can't have a group gathered in the dark. Right. But Neal can. It's his private home, so it's done there.
Yeah. Fair enough.
And honestly, this is the first time they're having something like this in decades and decades and decades. So, it's a rare opportunity normally to see physical mediumship outside of Neal's, you can go over to England, the Netherlands, Australia, and there's a place in Florida. I might have omitted a few people, but what I'm trying to get across is that any given night on Long Island, there are mental mediumship demonstrations galore. You can tune into these podcasts for readings, and it's always readily available, whether it's by virtual means, or on Long Island, there's lots of mediumship opportunities, but not physical mediumship.
I found, as I was unfolding and learning, because I'm a voracious learner, that most professional mediums didn't even know what physical mediumship was. So, I always like to be different. I named Winter Brook, and that is my given name. My father named me, my mother's help of course. I had to find out what was this physical mediumship. And then I also took the Morris Pratt classes, coursework, which is the educational arm of the National Spiritualist Association of Churches. So I did their coursework and they cover it in detail and explain it, and I was fascinated. Basically, in a nutshell, mental mediumship is spirit relaying a message through the medium to be given to the sitter, vocalized, verbalized. Physical mediumship is mediumship witnessed by the sitter. They can witness it by touch, sight, hearing. That's pretty much it, feeling, if you don't consider touch.
So obviously if you're sitting in a darkened seance room with no light, actually though we've been starting, my spirit team is starting to have me develop new things. Like last night we were sitting and they turned our lights down after we turned them up. We turned the lights on, they wanted us in the dark. Even though it's almost pitch black, my sitters can see black figures or orbs in the dark. So, you think you're in the dark, but yet you're seeing things in the dark.
I've had that before.
Okay. But normally, I mean, the cold, the temperature changes in the room, and they become frozen, my sitters. I'm in the box, so they're the ones, I get it secondhand, what you know, because I'm aware of what's happening when it's happening. But I can't tell you after we're done. It's flowing through me. So we have the cold breezes. We have the children that come around and touch the sitters. They smell scents. The room temperature dropped significantly last night. My trumpet, which is a long symmetrical,
Horn.
I guess. It's used to amplify the voice of any spirit speaking. That started to move. because I've always, from day one, I said I can't get my trumpet up. I said that to a male medium in England. He wasn't used to the New York way of, you know.
Yeah.
Anyway, my trumpets are starting to move though. Let's see what else we do. My biggest thing has been the transfiguration though. And what'll happen is there is an ectoplasmic mist, and the mist builds up. You can't see my face anymore, and then all of a sudden you will see other faces. It can be very rapid, the faces, or sometimes they'll stay in place. So last night, one of our sitters, because I have regular sitters, we're a private group. Physical mediumship is very delicate.
Unlike mental mediumship, which you can study for a few years and become very good at message giving, physical mediumship generally takes 10, 15 years of training and sitting and devotion and dedication. And there's still no guarantee that anything's gonna happen because for physical mediumship, it's been said that you have to have certain physical qualities about you that spirit uses and mixes to make the ectoplasm, or the energy needed to create the phenomena. So you could sit for 15 years every week and nothing will happen. In fact, Stew Alexander, who is one of the top physical mediums of this century, I think he sat for 10 years with very little result, and then all of a sudden it took off and he became one of the top physical mediums of this century.
When we do the transfig, the other thing that can happen is the medium's face can look distorted, and that happens a lot with me. And one of the first things that happened, I work with the elementals a lot. They will, and I sent you a picture, hold my ear out, called elongation, and my ear will grow. And you can see my ear is not a very big ear, now is this one. And apparently it gets really long and then it flaps and waves at you.
I love that. I just have to say for any skeptics out there, because my audience may not be used to this type of conversation, like we have receipts. Like there are pictures, which is how come I had Winter on, because I have never seen receipts like this before. And I'm like, I need to have you on to talk about this. So can we project one of the pictures so that you can describe what's going on?
Okay guys. And just so you know, I won the, ADR in law school, which is for ethics, and I had a perfect score on the ethics portion of the bar. Anyway, this is something that has recently started happening. My middle finger, as you can notice, is elongated, that's the term. And next to it is my, other finger, which is also elongated. And now if you look at my index finger, look how short that looks.
Yeah, I noticed the hands when I looked at these pictures.
So here's my left hand I'm holding up, for the YouTubers, you can see that it is, you know, the index finger is roughly just a fingernail short of my middle finger, and yet in the picture plus how skinny, it looks like just a long stick. So that night. I was just sitting there and of course, one of the hardest things I had to learn was to go to this, I have to go to these sittings without makeup on. I look awful. And they were saying it just looked like there was a spirit hand over mine. Now that's not the way the picture comes up. It shows the the finger elongated. And I just took it, you know, because normally they're elongating the ear and the ear is waving and then my nose gets smaller and pixie-like.
But this started happening mid-December, and I had a class with Tony Stockwell. He paired us off and the young woman who read me was talking about I was going to be working. your skeptical students are going to really jump off the bridge with this. Oh, by the way, I'm probably one of the few mediums you guys will ever meet who is certified sane, because in order to adopt, I had to take a big test to prove that I was sane and competent to make a good parent. So when I adopted my youngest child, I had to take this 500 question test and be interviewed by a social worker. So I passed with flying colors.
Anyway, so this young woman from Tony's class said to me, oh my God, this is really strange, but what I'm getting is that you're going to be working with an ET and you'll know it's them when your finger grows long. I have no idea what they're saying to me. They're saying it's the middle finger that's gonna grow long. I burst out laughing. Now, we'd already seen ETs' faces transfigure along with sitters parents and I've sat for my students once pre-covid and two sisters recognized their grandmother's face, so people's recognize loved ones. And then, we've seen faces that resemble ETs or what we would imagine they look like. She tells me my middle finger's gonna be elongated. I burst out laughing. I said, you are not only spot on, sweetheart, but I'm gonna post a picture later and show you picture proof of it.
Wow.
So, it's interesting, you know. Now whether these ETs are, currently living in the ET experience or they're deceased, like deceased loved ones that come through, I don't know. So there's the finger. That's something relatively new. The other pictures I sent to you, you think my face is gone.
Your face. I mean, that's the biggest thing for me, I noticed. I'm like, yeah, the fingers I noticed. But I mean, I put on Instagram and I'm, again, I'm gonna have pictures in the show notes if you're sticking around the podcast, that you can link on. But if you look at Winter's face, like she is all woman, like she's got bangs and like long red hair and like this gorgeous face. And this picture I'm looking at is clearly a man. Clearly a man. Like again, I have attended transfig demonstrations before. I've never seen this type of result myself. Obviously, I hang in very different circles than you. You've probably seen a lot of cool things. To me, this is one of the coolest things I've ever seen in my life. So, one of the main questions I got from my membership was like, does it hurt? Like what does it feel like when this is happening for you?
So, oh, one thing I just wanna say first in this picture, we were using scarves. I have since gotten a new chair and we are using zip cords, zipties.
Okay. Let's explain this too, because I also have a question going back a little bit. The documentary, Surviving Death. Right. So that's really for a lot of Joe Public, the first time that they had heard about or had seen physical mediumship described. I know that that documentary freaked out a lot of people, a lot of heavy critics, even in the mediumship space, who maybe don't understand the history of mediumship and physical mediumship and what it is. Do you think that that documentary did justice to mediumship and physical mediumship? And then can you explain why you need to be tied down, in a box, et cetera as well?
No, I mean, I wasn't happy with the way they treated, was it Nicole?
Okay. Yes, I agree.
I just, I also thought that one guy,
Phil.
You know, he was like, I went to this medium.
Oh yeah.
He actually was sitting already in a circle for a few years, but he didn't mention that during the documentary.
Yeah, he was really annoying. I know a lot of my students ended up having a lot of experiences after that documentary came out with people with code words, kind of like what they'd seen on that documentary. It's like showing up for readings like, if you don't say this one word, like it's not real kind of thing because of how that guy represented himself in the documentary.
Yeah. He'd already been sitting, so I thought that wasn't very nice that he didn't mention that. But the code word, here's the problem. I've done code words. I've uttered last minute the last words of somebody right before they died. But the person just shows up wanting the code word or a song to the exclusion of everything else, it's probably not gonna happen because the sitter's energy is also a component of the reading. I think you did a class on this. And that need for that one specific piece of information, it turns out as a fear of lack that it's not gonna come, and that's going to cut off the information stream. It's gonna muddy up the thing. So when they want a code word and they tell the medium, chances are it's not gonna happen because they want it too much. Number two, the medium and then gets freaked out. because let's face it, we are all human and we want that code word for them because what do we wanna do? We wanna connect the loved ones in spirit with the loved ones here. We wanna, you know, make people feel better. That's why we do what we do. I love law, you know, but I'm doing this because I love this even more. But the code word nonsense is not going to help to have a good reading for those reasons. Plus, your loved one might bring through 20 pieces of wonderful evidence and because not the code word got through to the medium, maybe it's not in the medium's frame of reference, the whole reading would be puff. So that's really bad.
Don't do a code word. It's not proof. What is the proof? The proof is when you receive the information and you just know in your heart that it had to come from the loved one. The medium's not gonna necessarily be perfect, but I haven't come across any profession that they're perfect. Even doctors make mistakes, attorneys make errors, typos, you know? So mediumship, I always tell my clients, is not a hundred percent exact science, it's just not gonna happen. Because I could be completely right, and the person I'm giving the information to is not thinking of that. They're thinking of, I only want the code word. I only want the code word. And they don't accept it. No, no, no, because it's just not registering. And yeah, so that's my take on code words. Don't use 'em. That's one way to screw up a good reading.
Thank you. That should be on a cup.
So, now, as far as using a cabinet, the reason mediums use cabinets is because it contains the energy we're building, versus sitting in the open where the energy is just expanding, expanding, expanding. because sometimes you wanna contain the energy. So there's a thickening of the energy in front of my face for them to create the masks for the transfiguration. It's merely a tool to contain the energy so that spirit can use it.
Okay. And tying down, you need to be zip tied down?
Now, I'm just starting with this because transfiguration, you really don't need to be tied down. But my mediumship is in the process of evolving. I don't know in what way. But Gary, uh, who's somebody I train with, Gary Mannion, he made a valid point that's one of my rescues. I also do cat rescues. You know, your body can jerk sometimes from the energy. It's going through your central nervous system. So if you have ectoplasm exuded, you don't want your hand to jerk and hit it because that can cause it to switch back into the body. And again, when ectoplasm does that, it can cause first, second, or third degree burns. Okay. Just like you're not going to plug electric devices in water, you gotta follow some safety rules with physical mediumship.
Not only that, but depending on the physical mediumship, some of them are very sensitive. Well, first of all, when you go to a seance like this, they're going to take the wand to make sure you don't have any metal on you, like I would not be allowed to wear my jewelry. So if you can't get your wedding ring off, don't pay for a dark seance. They don't want you coming in with rings. Why? Because what if the ring materializes on the floor? Somebody's gonna think it's from spirit when you actually just got it off your hand. So there's that reason. Number two, some mediums are more sensitive and the metal can interfere with the energy.
Now Gary's coming to my office on Long Island after Lily Dale and I was concerned because I have metal pipes in my office. It's an old building. But he said, no, I outgrew that. I can work in a room with a computer and metal. Now with Gary, He's also been developing so that when he is exuding ectoplasm, he can turn on a small blue light or red light, which enables you to see a lot better.
Okay.
But I hear that Mychael Shane doesn't let you have your eyeglasses on. I don't know. My sitter sits with him and she says, yeah, I luckily, I've been always sitting up front.
Your cat.
I did a foster fail. Right? I had four cats. I was very happy. And what I like to do, I like to volunteer. So we were volunteering, taking little fosters, baby kittens, and you know, loving them so they could go to forever homes. This one rescue that I'm now working with and if anybody's interested and you like mental mediumship, the messages, I'm working with Rachel Cope. I don't know if you know Rachel from the UK. I will introduce you. We're donating all of our time. So all the money goes to a rescue near me that rescues cats and kittens. And they're kind to humans because I find a lot of the rescues are not. But these, if somebody's dying from cancer, they'll help them rehome their pet, so the pets don't have to be euthanized. Not a lot of rescues do that, at least in my area. I don't know what the rest of the country's like. So I like them a lot because they're sympathetic to humans and kind. We had these two. And do you do animal communication?
I want to. My dad does, of all people. I have a really great friend who's an amazing animal communicator and mentor. So I have wanted to do it. I just, I've only had one cat and then I just got my first dog. So yeah. So I love trying to communicate with my dog. The dog trainers actually do telepathic communication. They're like, once you can send commands with your mind, you know, you're like all connected. So it's definitely something that is widely accepted where I live in Squamish.
Awesome. Here's a problem when you do animal communication. So I have this little gray kitten and she was found on the side of a busy road. So they couldn't leave her there, but she was certainly taken away from the mother too soon. But the mother was nowhere to be found, busy road, got to rescue the kitten. Well, she's super skittish and frightened. She was hid in my couch for almost three weeks before she got comfortable with me. So finally she's starting to get comfortable and I was only supposed to be a foster. And she looks at me and she just links in and she's like, Am I here? Do I stay here? Can I stay? I don't want to go anywhere else. I felt so bad. I was like, ok, you can stay.
Not just a humanitarian, you're a cat-i-tarian now .
Oh my God. So that went to number five. And then because she was matched up with another cat who's making all the noise in the background and got himself stuck.
It's all good. This is a grassroots podcast here. We are all good here.
Okay, good, because I'm known for this. Classes with Tony. My, red mane Coon will hang over, and look upside down at the class. He loves to listen to Tony Stockwell. Tony can't see it. Cause you know, there's many of us, but the rest of the class starts laughing and Tony's like, why everybody laughing?
In the pictures, because I have my membership on my close friend's list on Instagram, and I was like, what would you ask Winter if she was in front of you? And I mean, I have never had so much engagement on something where people were so into this. Now we did answer a few of them just by our conversation, which I always love. But can you just say like, does it hurt at all or discomfort at all? That came up a couple times.
Yeah, but you get over it. So for example, when they started working with the ear, before they elongated it, I felt the pulling on the ear. I didn't know what, I thought they were going to make ectoplasm, because you know, ectoplasm can ooze out of any orifices. I said, spirit, I will kill you if you make me ooze ectoplasm like Marjorie the medium up in Boston, Harry Houdini's nemesis, Marjorie Cronan. she used to come out of her private parts. I said, don't even think about that spirit. So anyway, when they were pulling my ear, I didn't know what was going on, but eventually, we were getting pictures of it being elongated. That's how I got my doctor at the time. I was explaining to him what I did, and he thought I was nuts. So I showed him a photograph. I said, now tell me how I wiggled my ear. So it became this way. He says, you can't. I said, see, it's real.
Yeah.
So yes. And then of course if you're a sitter at a seance, you may feel tugging on your solar plexus or you might feel some nausea. All you need to do is just kind of put your hands here. If you can tolerate it, then allow it because spirit is using your energy to assist in the evening, because it's not just the medium. Spirit needs the energy from sitters. They return your energy and it's all wonderfully upgraded. I've had like a coughing. They're building a voice box, which is a whole area we didn't even talk about, direct voice, independent direct voice. So, I do feel some things here. As a sitter, I get a lot of discomfort from where I had surgery when I've been sitting, like when with Gary. So that was interesting.
I mean, we're moms, so our threshold for pain is definitely a lot higher than some out there, but like one to 10, how would you say discomfort?
Two. Well, that's what one of the mediums over there in England was, yeah, kveching about how much pain he experiences as a physical medium. And I'm like, yeah almost as much as giving birth, huh?
Yeah, well, I've seen those TikTok videos where they have this machine so men can experience menstrual cramps like on like a two out of 10, and they're like keeling over. So I think that women do have a higher threshold pain, but I grew up watching Most Haunted, like when I was in high school, and Derek Acorah was on there and he always looked like he was like in so much pain, which, how come I never thought mediumship was accessible to me. So I was like, yeah, nothing like that ever works for me. So that's good to know.
Well, you know, again, it doesn't, I don't even know when they're pulling my ear, now we're doing the elongation. I have no awareness of it. In the beginning, yeah. So you know, I think it's like Gary said, in the beginning, he couldn't have metal in the room. Now he can.
Right. Okay. That's good to know. I will say I did sit for trance once, like over the course of a few weeks with like my first mentor. And it took a while for me to get into a surrendering state to be able to experience anything. And the only thing I was able to experience was almost like a pulling on the top of my head. And it felt like it was like pulling me over, like I was even like leaning over. And it was like a bit of a burning sensation, but it was like a pulling on the crown. And then my hands went really hot and I knew, just kind of in a knowing, I needed to heal someone, but I was also six months pregnant at the time, so I kind of talked myself out of it. I was like, what is happening? I literally felt like maybe my soul was leaving, maybe another was coming in, but it was like this pulling and this tugging. And Tony. I studied under Tony, he wouldn't know who I am or anything, but quite a few years ago, and he did always say you could sit for trance with me, which I'm interested in. It's just I have little young babies right now and it's really hard to slow down enough.
So here's the thing. Trance is used to go into an altered state that they use for physical mediumship, but trance is not physical, medium. Trance only benefits you. Okay. And yes, what you described was probably your crown chakra opening, because that's how it happens with the trance.
You know, the, the energy, you'll see the beams of light coming in, okay. The spirits when they influence you. But they're actually not coming into your body, they're just meshing with your energy field. But trance is not the same as physical mediumship and trance is good for everybody because trance will strengthen your connection to the spirits and you'll actually get better evidence for your mental mediumship. So, and I do, looking at you sweetheart, you would be a phenomenal trance speaking medium.
Thank you.
You know, if you wanted to go into physical, that's something else. But, yeah.
Yeah. Well, thank you. Maybe said something really similar to me. I still, I don't know what to say. I'm still stepping into the fullness of my mediumship. I got really into teaching. I love teaching just like you do. I love helping other people try to discover this within themselves. And yeah, the teaching has always taken so much priority, but I want to get back into more sitting, and trance has always been in my peripheral. So yes, thank you for saying that to me. We'll get there. We'll get there.
Maybe Lily Dale August.
Yeah, I will try for next year. This year's a bit tricky because I have my retreat in April. I'm hosting my first retreat. And then I have Dominic coming out too in the summer. So my husband, I know everyone's gonna have to listen to this, but like my husband is not a believer of mediumship. So it's been an interesting marriage in the point where I'm like, where are you going? I'm like, well, I wanna go to a retreat with Tony Stockwell. To do what? And so sometimes it could be a little bit harder to get away with the kids being so young, but I will push the limits to try to make it to Lily Dale for sure.
Well you know I'm teaching the 17th and 18th of August, so see if that coincides with teen week for the kids.
Okay. Yeah. Well, and that's the week before my birthday, so that gives me a little bit more of an edge. See, last year on my birthday I went to Malibu by myself. So, we'll see how this goes, but thank you. Okay, let's just do one more. This is a good one because if you teach beginner mediumship classes, I'm sure that this is gonna be one of the first questions anyone ever asks you as well. Have you ever experienced a negative energy or something negative?
Only from other humans.
That's my answer, Winter. That is always my answer. I'm like, I am scared of a person with hate in their heart than anything spiritual.
Yeah. No, I'm not scared of them, but I have experienced them. It would frighten me to have my daughter walking down the street with a crazy, drugged up person and a gun. Right. But I mean, I've gone in done house clearings. I usually do that. I try to teach people how to do it themselves, but sometimes the spirits are influencing the children and they're having nightmares. So that's when I'll go in, when they need help that way. I'm never afraid of it. And I wanna tell your students we're all spirit. Okay. We are spirit incarnate having a physical experience. Then there are spirits discarnate that are just existing as spirits. They are energy. We are energy. We're vibrating slower than them right now in order to be encased in physical form and have life on earth. They are not more than us, and you have it within you to just say no. So if you feel something that is uncomfortable, do not be afraid of it. Just stop, breathe. Remember, it is only energy. I am energy. My friend says I rebuke you. I prohibit you. Not in my space. And then that's it. If you believe what you're saying, you set that intention, so it shall be. And you have the greatest power of all. You're a mom. So I used to teach people that were nervous with spirit and energy. I'm like, what would you do if you had to protect your kids? And all of a sudden they get, you know, the mom drive comes in. I said, step into your own power.
Yes. Yes. Covered in shivers Winter. That is solid advice. So, I mean, we're gonna have to have you back. We're gonna have to have you back on the podcast because I wanna ask you a gazillion more questions. , I should have reserved three hours for this interview, but I do things, I have to try to fit as much as possible into school hours. So hard.
I understand sweetheart. I was a single mom of two, remember? So I get it. It's hard.
It is.
I used to get up at five in the morning to do automatic writing when my little one was still asleep. It's easy when they get a little bit more self-sufficient, but enjoy this time you have with them. Just like dear father, whose birthday's today.
Happy Birthday, Valentine
He used to, say to me all the time, enjoy them while you're young. You know, time passes like no, tomorrow. And here I am. My baby turned 21 this week, and my big one is 28 and she's a doctor. And they're all grown up. Yet last week I adopted her, and the week before that I gave birth. So I don't know what happened at time.
It goes by too fast. I know.
Oh, enjoy them.
Well, and I'm, yeah, I will. And I'm really excited too because you said you would come into the Spirit School Collective and teach a class, which I'm really excited about. So we'll have to organize that for March or April whenever you're available. But Winter, it's been a joy to get to know you better through this interview. And I know that we'll stay in touch and we'll see you in the Collective. And we will absolutely have you back on the podcast, maybe after Lily Dale, figure out all the stories that happened for you. Maybe we'll have you back to tell some of the stories of what happened this year.
Awesome. Thank you so much sweetheart. And thank you everyone for listening and stopping by God bless.
Thank you.