About me...

Throughout my life I have always had a heightened sense of intuition. I would often ‘know’ things without being told, feel the emotions affecting others and foresee circumstances before they came to light.

For years I kept this a secret, afraid of questions I couldn’t answer and ridicule from those who feared what they didn’t understand.

I had to learn to be careful what I said to others, people would sometimes look puzzled when in conversation with me and ask how I could know so much about them personally regarding dates and time periods, what past relatives looked like or how they ended up in the situation they had found themselves in.

As a child I used to relish the opportunity to join my mother when she read the Tarot. Anticipation swelled when she shuffled the crisp cards rich in knowledge and covered with symbols, vivid colours and strange pictures.

They had an attraction and a certain similarity about them. They gave me a strong sense of belonging and connection.

Throughout my teens and early adulthood, life was filled with strange occurrences and alarming incidences of dejavu. As quickly as I tried to pass these strange events off as mere coincidence the next occurrence would follow giving me cause for alarm, reflection and even concern.

These were not preconceptions of big events, indeed they would often be mundane; future encounters with someone I haven’t seen for a long time, the contents of tomorrows post, sudden changes in someone’s health or random thoughts like got to take my puncture repair kit with me on the way to work only for the inevitable to happen when I was far from home. With immediate warnings of what was to come next I learned to change my actions to divert trouble or danger. But the warnings didn’t always come, I mean to say that this wasn’t something which happened daily and of course I too have found myself in the stickiest of situations with my back tightly against the wall. Equally strange I found I was able to get myself out of these tight spots easily by simply explaining the situation out loud and asking for help, only to find that in the last minute an unforeseeable factor came into play causing the trouble to pass me right by and bring benefit to the situation rather than regret.

My first chance to really experiment with this came when I was a teacher & tutor in post 16 education. Many of my students had experienced severely disadvantaged childhoods and many of them arrived at my door looking like the world had chewed them up and spat them out. But this was my favourite type of student, a person who needed the support, guidance and a few more chances to make a real difference in their lives. The tutoring side was my favourite part, it was without a doubt the toughest job I have ever had but by far the most rewarding, I was able to help the individual and change peoples circumstances for the better. I found I could hone in on the student to such an extent that I would ‘intuit’ the problem before they could bring themselves to tell me tell what had happened. As soon as they walked through the door, no matter how well they looked, acted or spoke I sensed the danger they had found themselves in, or trouble they had caused, relationship issues going bad, or incidents which were going to have future repercussions. Through constant exercise my ‘knowing’ grew in accuracy and reached a level that could no longer be dismissed as mere coincidence but was something that I could now rely upon to help others, It felt like a part of my soul which refused to hide away any more. And with a deep sense that I had only touched the tip of the iceberg I made a vow to explore this in much greater depth.

Now I was the one who needed a tutor to help me.

Having previously made a connection to the Tarot I saw the cards as a way in, an open door that would help me to expand my understanding, a mechanism for helping me structure these intuitions and insights. After a brief Google search of Tarot courses in my local area my attention was drawn to London’s College of Psychic Studies, a college that offered a variety of courses in all levels and types of psychic interest.

Dishearteningly though I found the Tarot course to be already over subscribed but I did notice that the college offered open days and workshops. Again, typically the tarot event was full but there were a couple of places left on a Spirit Guide workshop.

Spirit guides was a term I had heard of a few times before and to be honest I wasn’t too keen on the idea but after promising myself that I would make every effort to explore this sense of being ‘different’ I felt nudged into making the booking regardless of my doubts, although to be fair, I did feel somewhat heartened once I had.

The college itself reminded me of Harry’s first experience when entering Hogwarts, not necessarily in appearance (although the house is of the Victorian period with marble fire places, high decorative ceilings and old portraits of past practitioners lining the stairs) but of a comforting feeling, a ‘home from home’, calm, historical and friendly, an atmosphere of controlled nurturing energy and mutual acceptance of those with a similar purpose and gift.

Our workshop started with an opening meditation, again this was something I had only heard of and never actually explored and as we sat in a circle and closed our eyes the workshop practitioner Amanda Roberts guided us all in a basic alignment but it wasn’t a comfortable experience to say the least. I felt overwhelmed with an energy I had never encountered before to the extent of fearing that I would fly away and never return, I felt a complete lack of control, very unbalanced and with a strong sense of motion sickness I kept on having to open and focus my eyes in case I fell off the chair, or worse, threw up!

Paradoxically everyone else seemed quite happy and placid within the circle, I however was far from relaxed. Amanda must of picked up on my difficulty as she immediately came over to my position, put her hand on my shoulder and asked me to quietly sit on the wooden floor. This immediately felt better, ‘grounding Alex’ she whispered, ‘grounding’. Strange I thought, we hadn’t introduced ourselves yet.

After an uneasy introduction into the process we began taking notes as to what spirit guides are and what their purpose is. ‘Guidance’ someone said, ‘healing’ came another, ‘protection’. ‘Yes’ said Amanda as she wrote all the suggestions on the board, ‘but protection lies more with the Angels than with your guides’.

Err what? Sorry but did someone say Angels? ‘Oh come on’ I thought, ‘really? I could just about accept the notion of spirit guides but not the reality of something I see carved on the side of churches or floating around baby Jesus and the three kings. As Amanda continued to discuss the differences between the two, I put my pen down, thought about what else I could have spent the money on and concluded that next we’ll be colouring in fairies to take home and stick on the fridge.

The exit looked very tempting, however, even if the workshop leader had lost it, the money was spent and to be fair I was able to relate to some of the points discussed on Spirit Guides so I figured what the hell I might as well stay and see where this takes me.

Soon we broke off into smaller groups. All groups were given the same collective brainstorming tasks, the first of which was to write down our expectations and desires of what we hoped to achieve by the end of the workshop.

As I now think back, the purpose of the task was highly relevant to the process, as within any communication with spirit it is a necessity to be absolutely clear as to your question and intent, when working with Angel’s - clarity of the problem is a must. I remember writing down ‘protection & enlightenment’ and by the end of the workshop I was far from disappointed.

After a brief group discussion we moved onto the next part of the process, which was to meet our Spirit Guide. We regained our place in the circle (nervously I sat on the floor) and Amanda led us in a guided meditation. Focusing upon her voice and my breathing, with a certain apprehension I forced myself to relax and accept the level of energy passing through me. Her voice started to pass in and out of consciousness as tried to remain on the same visual path as everyone else when another voice started to slowly creep in, it was a familiar comforting female voice sounding like an echo at first before tuning into the same frequency as that of my instructor. Often Amanda would pause giving time for others to catch up on her instructions for visualisation however the other voice did not pause and before long both voices had switched places on the timeline as Amanda’s became the distant echo. Both instructions were absolutely identical, word for word, but with Amanda’s now at least a couple of seconds behind, evidently I was now being led by spirit.

The visual instructions had led me into a wide open hallway with a grand staircase leading up to the right, wooden panelling covered the walls and a red carpet lead down towards a grandfather clock quietly ticking away at the far end. Unbeknown to me at the time, this visualisation would play a huge part in my future learning and become known to me as my Hallway of Learning.

A tall wooden door to my left was slightly ajar and that same familiar voice came from within, ‘I’m in here’ she said. Opening the door and stepping inside I found myself in a large darkened room, the window blinds were half drawn allowing for only a limited level of light to enter. Large potted plants and comfortable armchairs shifted in vibration around the edge of the room while in the centre sat a circular table and my Granny Smith.

To be honest this wasn’t a complete surprise as my ‘Granny’ had often come through to me when I had had readings from mediums in the past but this was the first time I had seen or heard her since I was about 5 years old. ‘Come and have a seat then’ she said as I made my way over and sat next to her at the table. I can remember the experience quite clearly. Strangely my granny was wearing a green visor on her head while placing some playing cards on the table reminding me of a pro saloon dealer from the old western films. She seemed a little nervous in herself as she explained how long “they” had all been waiting for this moment. I had the notion that she had been chosen to greet me first and that this encounter was just as important for “the others” as it was for me. Amanda’s distant voice echoed in the background ‘. . .and as you enter the room your spirit guide will be waiting for you’. . .

Granny put her cards away and turned to face me. She discussed the importance of ‘knowing’ and why I should develop my foresight, ‘think of it like one of your computer games’ she said, ‘would it not be better to have constant health, unlimited ammunition and a map with all the short cuts?’ ‘It would certainly help’ I thought. ‘I have a gift for you’ she said, ‘don’t be alarmed’.

A few years previously I had been to see The Chemical Brothers play live at Bestival. Even while stood in the middle of a pitch black field wearing sunglasses I was at times forced to turn away from the stage due to the lighting FX being far too rapid and fierce.

Granny’s gift was a similar experiance. It felt like I had 3 light bulbs in the colours of royal blue, emerald green and purist white flashing in sequence directly in front of my eyes. For those who have ever been for an epilepsy test the experience was pretty similar but much more colourful. Squinting my eyes and trusting in Granny’s judgement I became accustomed to the brightness and rapidly changing configuration displaying my three most favourite colours in their most intense and glorious shades. It has got to be one of the most awe inspiring moments of my life, truly amazing.

Granny’s gift had come in the form of colour and from what I’m guessing, it was an attunement.

‘And now your guide will give you a gift’… came the echo of Amandas voice.

The lights stopped flashing. ‘Right that’s it kiddo, see you next time’ she said smiling.

‘Accept your gift and thank your guide’…

‘And if you every need anything, anything at all, just ask’. ‘Many thanks Granny’ I said.

‘And as you start to leave the room and drift back down the hall’…

Some of us had been given crystals, others flowers or coins but nobody had received colour. Excitedly after the workshop had finished I called my mum and told her of my fascinating experience. ‘But why would I have seen Granny with a green visor and a deck of playing cards?’ I said. ‘I don’t know about the visor’ said mum ‘but she was a keen card player, she was eventually barred from every Bridge Club in the area because she kept on winning’.

‘Ha!’ I thought, I bet she was’.

Alex Beattie

Formal Training -

The College of Psychic Studies, London

Tarot Reading - Advanced Level

Angelic Law - Advanced Level

Spirit Guide Communication - Advanced Level