They’ll tell you that coming events are presaged in the present. Sure, if it wasn’t true, there’d be no need for prophets, seers or mediums. If you are disbelieving …
… then you were NOT for example, at a packed Market House Theatre in Armagh this evening a week ago when David Meade was powerfully displaying his mind-reading powers: nor will you be likely to attend at the same venue on Tues 15 November when Margaret Hurdman, international medium is the guest artist.
There are many such examples of people displaying their intermediary powers even in the present, and crowds attending, demonstrating the public’s continued faith.
It was, of course, stronger in the past. In rural areas, it was believed that the appearance of certain kinds of birds near a house was of prophetic significance. Strange dreams, unexplained knockings, freakish weather events … there were many warnings.
Tales were told of people who riddled corn between two open doors .. in the name of the devil! … and were relieved of their toil by a future spouse. There were other, less ill-inspired customs, if still full of devilment. One might steal a head of cabbage from a neighbour’s head-rig and hang it over a house door. Whoever was to enter first the next morning was to be the future spouse of the ‘thief’. If the caller could be persuaded to partake of a meal comprising the said cabbage, then the ceremony was as good as complete!
It was the witchery of the thing that drew the future spouse towards it, you see. If the caller was unsuitable (the wrong sex, for example) he/she could find him/herself good-naturedly being beaten with the green head!
But it was of Minnie the Caddy’s powers we were talking.
”If you dream of a ceiling coming down around you, that’s a bad sign.
And if you dream of seeing the black earth being ploughed up, and then left half done, that’s a sign of death!’
Minnie illustrated with another tale from her own experience. In her bed one night in London of the 1920s, Minnie Caulfield dreamt that the bed clothes were lifting off the bed. She was sure it was a portent of bad news.
In the morning a telegram arrived from home in Rostrevor.
‘Come home at once. No hope for Jamie, your brother!’
… more later …