Introducing...

The Persian Gentleman

When Michael first began sitting with Joan - his spiritual teacher and mentor who helped him to develop as a medium over a period of seven years - he was introduced during their weekly meetings to a number of guides who at the time worked with Joan (and still do), would subsequently work with Michael and now work with both Jane and Michael in bringing through spiritual knowledge.

The Persian Gentleman, as they call him, is one of those guides and is (or, rather, was) just that - a gentleman from Persia who, during that particular life on earth, was a combination of astrologer and astronomer at the time of Christ. The features he had during his Persian incarnation are those he chooses to appear with whenever he communicates with Joan, Jane and Michael.

The Persian Gentleman is tall, black, bearded and handsome and appears at a number of earthly ages, although at the moment he seems to favour being around his mid-forties (he looks younger, however). His robe changes its colour according to the needs of the moment, with him at present usually appearing in a beautiful mauve colour. He wears a hat, which is more angular than a turban and is the same colour as his spirit robe.

He can be extremely serious but also has a wonderful sense of humour and will laugh out loud when something amuses him. Whenever he comes through the atmosphere in the room suddenly becomes peaceful and loving. He is a great lover of books, many of which Michael has seen in the circular library room that forms part of his home in the spirit world. These are no ordinary books, however. When one is opened up its contents suddenly appear in the air above it as three-dimensional objects of light. The Persian Gentleman's library contains many charts and astrological maps as he has carried his enthusiasm for these objects and the skills he had in Persia through into his soul life.

He is concerned with the healing of souls on earth through the passing on of spiritual knowledge and the manipulation of coloured rays. He believes firmly that the truth sets people free. At certain times he speaks to Michael clairvoyantly and at others he 'overshadows' him - stepping into Michael's aura so that a more direct link can be made with his mind. He has told Michael and Jane much concerning the nature of spirit guides and how that guidance is able to manifest itself around the soul it concerns. He also speaks to them in detail at times concerning the workings and nature of 'group souls'.

Introducing

Silver Star.

When is a Native American guide not a Native American guide?

When he's Silver Star, one of the most vocal and active of the spirit guides who frequently visit Michael and Jane.

Silver Star (his choice of name, by the way) chooses to appear 'dressed' as a Native American due to his fascination with and deep respect for Native American culture and its peoples during his life on earth, which has continued into his 'soul life'. He usually wears a silver costume of fringed tunic and trousers with a silver headdress, although these sometimes change into gold when he wishes to bring through a more 'potent' vibration. He was, in his last incarnation, a white American male from either Madison County or Madison itself (we're not sure which) who died in an accident when his pickup truck went off a bridge. He passed to the spirit worlds during the 1940s and his daughter is still alive, although we don't have her name or location. He is one of two 'contemporary' guides visiting Michael and Jane (the other being 'Dappy John'), having last lived on earth in comparatively recent times. He is extremely kind and tolerant, loves to laugh and joke, and sometimes makes dreadful puns that relate to Michael and Jane's day-to-day lives. He cares passionately about the spiritual information that he gives through them, however, and is deadly serious and precise when talking on spiritual topics. We know that he is a 'twin soul' (more about this topic in future) and that his twin is with him in the soul group he is a part of.

Silver Star has worked with Michael for many years (and still does), often guarding him when challenges with his emotional karma cropped up during his younger years (Silver Star went through similar experiences himself and was therefore in a perfect position to advise and 'steer' Michael through the emotionally demanding periods in his life). He now also acts as a guardian and inspirer for Jane and is very protective of her and often around her.

It is not unusual for guides to come through to mediums with a cultural image that differs from the one they actually had when they were last on earth a mediumistic friend of Michael's, for example, has a guide who always appears to him as an Arabic gentlemen with a horse, but has explained that he has never incarnated as someone from that race. Sometimes a particular costume and perceived cultural background are chosen because it is felt they will have a more dramatic impact and the guide is more likely to be listened to or more easily recognised when they appear to the medium; sometimes it is because the guide, as in Silver Star's case, simply feels most comfortable in that guise. The majority of guides, however, will appear to mediums culturally and racially as they did in one of their former incarnations.

Introducing

The Big Indians Life Story

I would like to tell you a little about my life. I do not talk about it much to people because I feel it is a very private thing but if it helps you at this time then I feel that I should do so.

Michael is resisting me saying that I was Shoshone but that is the tribe I was a part of. I was a native American Indian and I appear in white because, in the tribe that I came from, the white blaze down the front of our ponies and down the front of our tunics was of religious significance, particularly to those who were initiated into the priesthood - which was a very different priesthood to the one you understand. We were called watchers because we would look for signs and would read the elements so that we could provide the tribe with safe passage through uncertain times and through the years ahead. This, of course, has helped me in providing safe passage now, so no earthly experience is ever wasted.

When I was twenty-four my tribe moved into a different area of America and there we were met with great hostility. We were sought by slavers and our women were raped and our animals killed and I was taken into slavery. I was put - along with other members of my tribe (including older men who were too old to do work) - onto carts and then taken to ships. I laboured for many years, not in a household but in preparing oil from a plant - we boiled the plant down to produce oil and this was a constant process, day and night. There were some people who were kind to us but not many. It was a brutal society and, if they did not like the way you had done something, you would be whipped, punched and belittled. Often people were made an example of and killed so that the rest of us would work harder. But they would always kill the weak or the old those that were of no value to them.

I have said in the past that I was reunited with my family but I do not mean reunited with them here on Earth - I was reunited with them on the spirit side. When I died it was through a riot - my brothers and I were trying to escape and I was hit on the back on my head and was not aware that I had died. So severe was the blow that killed me that it fractured my skull and I fell to the ground and instantly got up again but, of course, it was my spirit that got up. I spent the remainder of that day trying to encourage my brothers and then they were rounded up and taken back to the compound we were held in but I was still out in the fields and I was still free.

Then I saw them dragging my body away and the bodies were looted for the scraps of clothing they had on them and were buried in communal graves with no ceremony, with no religion, with no prayer to the Great Spirit. Then I saw a mist ahead of me and I saw a fellow Shoshone Indian come for me and address me as Brother. He gave me a white cloak that covered my nakedness because, when I saw my body, I realised I was naked. He directed me through marshes and swampland and then, at the other end of the swampland, he said, Now brother it is over to you, you are on your own and I must leave you and there was the tunnel.

I walked up the tunnel and saw my mother, aunts and father and I was reunited with my tribe. They had waited for me and had preserved my culture on the spirit side so that I could have a time to recover and that which I had lost through being enslaved was brought back to me for a time through the grace of God.

Then, for some time I worked as a guide because I wanted to guide people to that better land, to that summer land. I would always link myself to those souls I knew would pass through violent means or who would end up lost. I would ask that I be permitted to be around to pull them out at the end of these violent lives and to take them across to the Spirit side and also to guide them during their lives.

I then prayed to God because I wanted to do more and I was approached to take charge of a project to take people across en masse. I have done this for a great many years because when I was enslaved it was a time before the modern Americas, before the wild west.

To my mind I say I have been working on the Boat for 200 years but that is how I judge the passage of experience and not time.