Interview by Caz Streeter - August 2006

Introduction

Paul Hanrahan has a long list of gifted abilities including clairvoyance, trance medium ship, clairaudience, clairsentience, spiritual healer and Reiki Master. Paul is also a dowser, a writer for Paranormal Norfolk and CaSPIR’s very own Psychic Consultant I was very lucky to have been given the opportunity to interview Paul at his home one sunny Sunday afternoon.

Caz... Where were you born Paul?

Paul... London, opposite the houses of parliament I was born in York Road hospital.

Caz... What first stirred your interest in the paranormal?

Paul... When I was 10 years old and my dead Grandmother was standing by the side of my bed.

Caz... Fair enough! I think that would probably stir my interest too! (Laughs) So how did you realize your gift of medium ship?

Paul... Through my Grandmother. When I went to bed at night, I’d have a dream that was precognitive, and something would happen a week, three weeks, or a month in the future that was directly related to the dream. It might have been a football score like an England match or the horse that won the Grand National that year or something like an aircraft disaster.

Caz... Did your Grandmother have a gift when she was alive then?

Paul... Not as far as I know she was strictly Roman Catholic and would have thought anything like this would have been witchcraft!

Caz... Oh right! So it must have been quite surprising then when you saw her of all people?

Paul... Yes, and what’s more surprising is her step sister who comes back and visits occasionally called ‘Aunt’. I only ever knew her as Aunt, but whenever she comes back she calls herself Polly, and I found out that her real name was in fact Polly Anna. So she’ll come back through a circle or through another medium to talk to me, gives me the name Polly, and will always tell me that she lived with Mary so I know who it is. She was also strictly Roman Catholic, she’d bless everyones bedroom doors before she went to bed at night and yet they both come back and communicate!

Caz... When was the first time you used your gift, and what happened?

Paul... I suppose during my teenage years. That’s when I started exploring those sorts of gifts. I went through trying to explore a full range of telepathic gifts as well as psychic gifts, trying to move objects with will power and dowsing and all sorts of things. I tried turning my hand at anything that was, shall we say, supernormal with some success and yet at other times with no success at all. I don’t think parents help at that age because they will say things which try to discourage you like ‘oh well that’s the sort of thing that person would do’ or ‘that racehorse has won x, y and z so it was probably going to win this race anyway’ etc.

Caz... So putting doubts into your mind?

Paul... Yes putting doubts into your mind so from the age of about 16/17 I blocked it all.

Caz... So when did you come back to it?

Paul... When I was 28! Yes I was a nice normal person until then (laughs).

Caz... Normal is boring! (Laughs) So when you go into trance do you know what is happening to you at the time, or afterwards do you know what has been said or who you have been channeling?

Paul... I think what you’ve got to remember is, the first thing with any trance medium, is that there are different levels of trance. One can go into a very light trance where one will remember everything that’s said through them by the spirit that’s communicating. Or you can go into a very heavy trance and you wont remember a single word of what’s said, you’ll have no concept or idea of what time is, you certainly wont know how long you’ve been in trance for and on three or four occasions I’ve gone into instant transfiguration so not only did I have the voice of the spirit talking through me but also the face superimposed over me as well.

Caz... Yes I’ve seen you do that it’s a very weird experience! What has been your most weird and/or frightening experience?

Paul... Virtually nothing I have ever done has scared me. But I was driving from Margate Theatre, when we were filming Ghost Detectives, up the A1 with the researcher in the car with me and they were taking me up to a pub where I was going to be spending the next five days boarding out in South Shields before they took me on to another place, that I didn’t know at the time, would be Marsden Grotto. I was aware of a spirit in the car called John, and he had come from Marsden Grotto to find me before I got there, so we pulled over at the a Little Chef, and I spent two hours in trance whilst John drew the floor plans for Marsden Grotto including the lift shaft that goes down the side of the cliffs. He also told me that he was there in the 1700’s and that he killed people etc. all sorts of information he gave over. After he’d gone I was a little bit tired and worn out so we went in the Little Chef for a coffee and a toasted teacake, little did I know that they actually have a poltergeist in this Little Chef! I went into the men’s toilets and was aware of a spirit standing beside me at the sink whom I ignored. As I turned to face the sinks the sinks had push down taps, and each hot and cold tap went bang, bang, bang, bang as I stood there. And instead of hot and cold water coming out of the taps there was only hot water and steam coming out of all four taps. I decided there and then that I’d had enough and I wasn’t going to be doing anymore work that night and I walked out of there and I’ve only been back there twice since. It’s well known apparently that this Little Chef is converted from two old houses and a lot of the staff there have experienced poltergeist activity whilst working. That was the only time I’d ever been freaked out, and that was because I’d spent a lot of time working unexpectedly and then I got confronted by this poltergeist activity which is only probably the second time I have ever witnessed true poltergeist activity.

Caz... What do you think about ‘alleged’ paranormal TV programs?

Paul... I never watch any paranormal TV programs on the basis that if I do, and I go to a location that has been filmed and aired on TV, that my credibility as a medium will be damaged and therefore I refuse to watch any TV program that alleges to be paranormal, I haven’t even watched Haunted Halloween Live or Ghost Detectives which I was in myself!

Caz... Well apart from those you mentioned you’re not missing much! (Laughs) What is the most memorable TV show you have taken part in?

Paul... I can tell you some that I’ve turned down! (Laughs) For me I think filming Ghost Detectives at Bowden House was excellent because Bowden House ‘is’ an extremely haunted building. Charlton House in Greenwich was interesting too because not only did I channel through Sir William who was a womanizer who chatted up all the women in the circle the night he came through me, which is completely alien to my normal personality I hasten to add! (Laughs) I actually bumped into him on the stairs whilst we were doing the live show, and he was running about the building trying to see what was going on.

Caz... Do you think there is intelligent life on other planets?

Paul... Yes! I think with the size of the universe and the number of stars, and planets that must be rotating around those stars, that it’s virtually a probability certainty that life exists on other planets that has to be intelligent.

Caz... What is your opinion on crop circles?

Paul... I have investigated a crop circles, and have only ever come across one that had energy in it that I couldn’t identify as being natural. Therefore from what I’ve seen a lot of crop circles are fake and I would say that 99.9% of them are fake.

Caz... OK. Have you ever used a Ouija Board? What is your opinion on them?

Paul... I have publicly stated that Ouija Boards shouldn’t be used. They are a Victorian party trick for communicating with spirit but they open up a portal to lower planes of spirit world, and tend to pull in things that are earth bound, and people don’t always know how to close that portal down once they’ve opened it. A Ouija Board requires the right protection to be put in place around it when it’s used. If you don’t know how to do that then you will leave yourself open to problems. So I have publicly stated that I will never be associated with a Ouija Board or a séance using a Ouija Board and I never have.

Caz... What’s your favorite piece of investigation equipment and why?

Paul... I love using my laser thermometer. I use it as an aid. One of the best results I’ve ever had with this was at Pengersick Castle, where there is a central staircase which goes up inside the entire height of the keep. It’s a circular staircase. As you all know hot air rises and cold air sinks. I followed a pocket of air up the staircase which was 4° colder than the temperature either side of it. And it went up from the ground floor through to the roof, all the way up. It was well defined, 2’ wide 4’ tall. Either side of it was 10°C and in the pocket it was only 6°C.

Caz... So what is your best tip for someone starting out in developing their own psychic abilities?

Paul... Find a properly run spiritualist circle. Look for a Christian spiritualist church. Most of them run development circles which are taken by one of their most experienced mediums. You also want a trance medium, because if you have a medium who has never experienced trance, and somebody goes into trance, they need to be able to know how to deal with it. They will also need to be able to know how what to do if you get yourself into trouble whilst you’re in meditation, because a medium needs to be able to tune into your meditation to get you back out of it. You see if you do a meditation and say for example you have a smoky quartz crystal near you, it could release your Kundalini. Kundalini energy is an energy found at the base of the spine, in the muladhara chakra. If this happens it can screw you up mentally and physically for years. It can cause physical symptoms such as palpitations, migraines, and back spasms. It can also cause people mental illness just as can sleeping or sitting in a Ley line. I’ve seen it happen to otherwise stable people.

Caz... What ambitions do you have?

Paul... I take things pretty much how they come. Opportunities always present themselves. Sometimes they present themselves if you wait for them and sometimes you have to actively go out and find them. I suppose I’d like to become a published author, although I write a column for a paranormal magazine, I’d like to have a book published. I’d also like to go and work in America and that dream looks as if it will be fulfilled some point soon because I have been invited to go out and work there just recently. But really, I think you’ve missed out a question haven’t you?

Caz... Have I?

Paul... Yeah, or haven’t you asked it yet?

Caz... (Laughs) That depends what is it?

Paul... Something about ‘as a medium what do I want to achieve’ is it?

Caz... You’re good you know (Laughs) because I did actually have that question down, but I took it out again as I thought it was too similar to the ambition one! (Laughs)

Paul... Right, because as a medium what I want to achieve is being able to provide proof of survival of the human soul, on an individual basis.

Caz... OK cool, I’ll add that question back in again then! (Laughs)

Paul... For myself I’d like to be a published author, work in America, perhaps do some more TV though I’m not too sure if TV is right for mediums or not. It would have to be a TV show that I was in complete edititorial control of. Working with spirit is subjective isn’t it? I could go out and I could walk into a building and I could say ‘sixteen ghosts here, nine men six women and a dog’, how can you prove that? But hopefully with my reputation if I go to a place and I say ‘yes this place is haunted, I have found a spirit’ and that’s published in a magazine I hope that people will believe that because that is the truth that I have experienced when I’ve been in that building. But it comes down to personal individual truth, and burden of proof, what’s proof for me isn’t proof for you and what’s proof for you isn’t proof for me. This is where in the paranormal field you are always going to have this problem, it’s like will anybody ever win the £1million Randy prize? His burden of proof alters. If you suddenly complied with 99.9% of his proof at burden, because he wishes to be the complete and utter total sceptic, he will alter the conditions of proof. Therefore you could have the most amazing video of this full bodied entity walking across the room, but there’ll be something not quite right which will mean that it’s not proof for him. That is the problem that you have and therefore you have to present what you have got and allow people to make their own minds up. This is what we’ve found; now you decide.

Caz... Yes that’s all you can do.

Paul... I went to a spiritualist church for six months when I was 28. I sat in the corner and I used to think well he’s faking it because he knows her and she knows him etc. and one night they had this coach load of people in from Southend and they were doing blindfold clairvoyance. So what they do is blindfold one medium sat down and another medium stands by the side of them and puts one hand on their shoulder and with the other hand points to someone in the audience to give the blindfolded medium a link. The people in the audience could only nod or shake their head. The medium standing would only say yes they can accept what you’re saying, or, no they can’t. So there'd be no communication going on between the audience member and the blindfolded medium. I’m sat there thinking ‘oh he can see through the blindfold’. One night this medium says to me, my guide is telling me you can do this, get out here and do it. I wouldn’t go and three times he asked me so in the end I went out and thought it’s ok I’ll be able to see through the blindfold, so I put the blindfold on and couldn’t see a bloody thing! I’m thinking ‘oh’.(Laughs) As I sat there in this chair seeing and feeling things, it was ‘oh, how do I explain this?’ After I’d done three links and everything I had said was spot on, six months later I decided that I couldn’t explain this any other way other than it was real. But it still took me six months of watching thinking it was fake and six months of experiencing and thinking ‘now how can I explain that away’ before I gave up (Laughs).

Caz... Please tell me the first word that comes into your head after the following words:
Orb...

Paul... Part of the Royal regalia!

Caz... Most Haunted...

Paul... Don’t watch it, no comment!

Caz... Glass...

Paul... Scrying!

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