A STRANGE ENCOUNTER. (My life's most fascinating story.)

Written By Ed. F. Dickinson FAITD


It happened on Monday, November 17, 1986. Gwen and I had been married I year and 40 weeks, and I'd been to a meeting of Melbourne's Industrial Mission [I.T.I.M.] in the city. But let me put it in a wider context.


I was 47 years old on our wedding day [9th February 1985], and as I had said in my wedding speech, Gwen was close to 40. (I didn't say which side.) It was the first marriage for each of us. My mother had died, two years before, in 1983. I remember well her funeral in the scorching heat of Ash Wednesday as we stood in the sun at the Melbourne General Cemetery. I was an only child, and my mother's great wish was to see me married. I met Gwen in a church sponsored meeting some months after my mother's death. I was still a confirmed bachelor when my mother passed away.


And, by the way, you'll notice that I'm reading this story. It's important that the story is always told the same way. And if you have questions I'd rather you keep them till I finish the story, which takes about 15 minutes to read.


Now, back to 17/11/1986. After the ITIM Meeting I walked up to the food court of the Hyatt Hotel where I sometimes met friends. As I stood by the bar with a glass of white wine, I was approached by a lady much about my own age. She told me she was with three friends, the oldest of whom wished to speak to me. I looked across the food hall and saw a table with three other ladies ranging in age from mid fifties to ..well, I don't know . perhaps 70. The lady who had spoken to me said that the oldest lady had a message for me.


I hesitated. But, there were about 40 people in the food hall, and the ladies looked respectable, and so I walked across to the table. They were drinking coffee. I was offered a seat, but I refused. In those days there were a number of 3 metre high ceramic pots in the hall, each containing a flowering shrub. I stood with my back firmly against one of these pots and greeted the ladies.


The - perhaps 70 year old lady - said she had a message for me. She told me that she was a Mystic and asked me if I knew that there was a lady standing behind me. I knew darn well that the only thing behind me was a big flowerpot. She then said that the lady behind me was my mother. I smiled - not believing her. She went on to describe my mother and told me that she was old, had grey hair tied back in a bun, had a walking stick, was crippled and was being supported. I went a little weak in the knees. This was a most accurate description as to how my mother looked prior to her death. (How could this stranger describe my mother so well ?) She went on to say that she never communicated messages from people who had passed on, in public places, but because my mother was so insistent, she found she had to comply. (Again the description of my mother was true to character.) She told me the message was "Your mother is very happy with your new union, even though she didn't meet your partner in the flesh." She said the words, almost parrot fashion, as though it was a business partner; she seemed to have no cognizance of the real meaning of the words. I was now willing to sit down.


She went on, there was more she had to say. She reiterated that my mother was being supported. She said, " Your mother is being supported by a man, he is your height, and whereas you have grey hair, his is silver. He tells me that he is your father. " My father, as a young man was red-headed. All the Dickinson men went grey in their 20's. I had done the same. But from being redheaded, my father's hair had turned a lovely silver colour.


My mystic friend continued. "I've asked your father if he has a message for you and he tells me that he hasn't. He told me that he does not know you as an adult, only as a little boy." She asked me how old I was when my father died and I said I was 10. She nodded.


She gave me two more messages from my mother: one concerned me learning the value of gold, and one was about other ladies I knew of whom I should be wary. Time has proven the messages to be of significance, but as they concern people still living, I cannot invade the privacy of those people by recounting the messages. Anyway, I have forgotten the detail of the messages, for once I had come to understand their meaning, they were of no importance.


She then said that my mother was trying to tell her something else, but she was having difficulties understanding. She implied that now that my mother had said the most important things that she was 'fading' a little. The lady asked if I would be kind enough to leave her and her friends for a few moments so that she could concentrate, but that she would call me back if the message became clear.


I went back the bar. My friends were not there - in fact they didn't come that day. I ordered a glass of soda-water (it may have been dry ginger ale - certainly it was not alcoholic), went to a public phone, phoned Gwen and said I may be a little late. I told Gwen what was happening and she was most interested. After all, she has a sister who was in charge of a hospital which had a visible ghost - seen by many staff, and Gwen appeared to be not as skeptical as I had been some 10 minutes before. I then returned to the food hall, and the lady beckoned me back to the table. She asked me if I had had an "Auntie Maudie ". I told her that one of my mother's closest friends from school days was a Maudie Nichol. Not only had they gone to school together, but they had both attended the Newmarket Baptist Sunday School, and both stayed at that church all their lives. I told the lady that I had always called Maudie "Auntie". Maudie Nichol had died about three years before my mother died.


The lady said that as far as she could understand the message, my mother wanted me to know that she (my mother) visited Maudie quite often and that Maudie was well. She said my mum and dad were no longer present at the Hyatt. She asked me if I had any questions of her. I now think there are many questions I could have asked - of many people, places, our afterlife or some such. But I did ask her a question, and it probably tells you quite a bit about me and my priorities.


I said to her, "Are you a Christian?"


She said. "Yes, and I go up and visit God every day and we talk."


I thought: " Ha Ha !, I've got you. Because I know I can talk to God at any time without going somewhere else." So I said to her, "So am I, and I talk to God each day from wherever I am."


She said, "That's because you are not a Mystic and do not know our ways of meeting Him. But He is a God of love and compassion and willingly comes to all who put their trust in him."


I had no answer to that.


At no time did we introduce ourselves. She did not use my name and I did not learn hers, nor those of her friends who remained present, but silent, throughout. She told me that she and her three friends met for coffee in the Hyatt food hall each Monday and that I was free to come to visit them any time I wanted to. Then she said that she would give me a sign to prove that she was genuine. I said there was no need to, but she insisted. She told me that she knew I was travelling by public transport and she said that when I reached my usual stop I would fall into a deep sleep and go past several stops. We said our good-byes and I went straight to Flinders Street Station and caught the Broadmeadows train, bound for my station of Ascot Vale. I played mind games and prayed all the way home, determined to stay awake. So I was elated as the train pulled into Ascot Vale station and I saw, with glee, the newly erected cyclone fence along the station platform, glistening in the late afternoon sunshine. Just as the train slowed, I felt my head nod forward, so I jumped to my feet and alighted from the now stopped train. The cyclone fence reassured me. The sun still glistened on the new wire. . But the ticket office and the brown wooden station gate were not there. And the people on the station were walking in the wrong direction. I was not at Ascot Vale. What ever the station was, it too, had a new cyclone fence. It was Glenbervie. I had slept, soundly, through Ascot Vale, Moonee Ponds, and the junction - and often rowdy - station of Essendon. All I could do was to cross to the other side of the station and wait for the next train back to Melbourne in order to travel the three stops back to Ascot Vale. It was, indeed, good that I had phoned my wife; I was very late home.


There is a sequel to this story - a happening which took place the next day, but I must say first that I went back to the Hyatt the following Monday. I entered by the Collins Street entrance and from the railing on the floor above the food hall, I surveyed the people. I looked for the table of four ladies who had told me they came each Monday for coffee. They were not there. Or, if they were, I didn't recognise them. I've wondered that if they were there, did they see me? I have not seen them since.


The next day, Tuesday November 18, I had another lunchtime meeting at the ITIM Office. It was a different committee from the one I had attended on the Monday and one of the members was late. There were several clergy and laymen there. Among them were Rev Lawrie Styles (Anglican Director of ITIM and later a Canon at St Paul's Cathedral), Rev Father Bill Smith (a Jesuit), and others. With nothing to do until all members were present, I recounted my experience and waited for what I presumed would be a somewhat critical response for me allowing myself to be involved with people who were into mysticism.


Lawrie was the first to speak. He said. "Gwen must be delighted with such a message from your mother." There were no criticisms. After a while, I said, "I thought we all received new bodies in the next life. Why does my mother still use a walking stick and need to be supported?"" No one answered. Then Bill Smith turned to Lawrie Styles and said, "You're the senior priest here, you can answer that." Everybody laughed, but I offered a comment. I said, "Of course if she had come back to us in a manner different to how she was at the time of her death, I would not have recognised her from the description." Lawrie agreed, as did the others. At that point our ITIM treasurer, Bill Osborne, arrived and our meeting got under way.


Of course, I told Gwen the full story when I arrived home. We lived in Ascot Vale, in the home my mother had bought in 1949, two years after my dad died. Gwen told me months later that on nights when I was out she had often felt a presence in the house and was conscious of something like a shadow moving through the room. It did not happen after my experience at the Hyatt.


My theology has changed. From early adolescence years I had believed that after death Christians slept and that at the Second Coming of Christ they would be awakened, given a new spiritual body, and taken to be with Him. Now. I have lots of questions, and have read widely many books about after death experiences, or near death experiences and related theological texts. I have a number of questions you may like to consider, or perhaps you may like to ask some of me .. ?












My Questions.


1. Leviticus 19: 31 tells us not to turn to mediums or wizards, and chapter 20: 6 says if we turn to mediums and wizards that God will set His face against us and turn us off. Should I have turned down the invitation to hear the message? Remember, I did not seek it; the Mystic came to me.


2. The lady claimed to be both a Mystic and a Christian. Is it possible to be both? In I John 4: 1, John says we are not to believe every spirit, but we must test the spirits to see whether they are from God.


3. The Mystic said they came to the Hyatt for coffee each Monday. Yet I never saw them again. Do
you think God told them not to return? Or did He make me unable to recognise them?


4. What do you believe happens to us immediately after death? [ I Corinthians 15; 51 - 52; I Thessalonians 4: 16 - 17]



5. I am intrigued with the advice that my mother visits her life time friend. Jesus said He would prepare a place for us. (John 14: 3) Will we have an abode where we can be visited?