Soul Sync with Jason Paul

From Stripper to Healing Medium with Colin Bray

• Jason Paul • Season 8 • Episode 33

Share episode

Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.

0:00 | 53:45

Colin Bray’s story is not what most people expect when they hear the words healing medium.

In this open and often hilarious conversation, Colin shares the extraordinary path that took him from a working-class upbringing in Rotherham, through life as a stripper performing across the UK and even in Japan, to finding a deeper calling in healing and mediumship.

But this is not just a story about transformation. It is about hardship, ego, addiction, bankruptcy, feeling emotionally shut down, and the slow process of learning empathy, peace, and self-understanding.

Colin opens up about why mediumship did not come easily to him, what he feels is missing from parts of modern Spiritualism, and how spirit helped inspire his memoir, The Memoirs of a Stripper’s Journey to a Healing Medium.

This is a conversation about the unexpected roads life can take us down — and how even the darkest chapters can become part of the person we are here to become.

Short description

Medium Colin Bray shares his remarkable journey from stripping stages to spiritual healing — and the hardship, addiction, empathy, and awakening that shaped him along the way.

Episode notes / show notes

In this episode, Jason is joined by medium and author Colin Bray.

Colin’s life has taken him through experiences most people would never connect with mediumship: running his own gym, becoming a stripper almost by accident, performing in the UK and Japan, financial hardship, addiction, bankruptcy, and eventually a deep spiritual awakening.

Together, Jason and Colin explore:

  •  Growing up without much money and why “having more” does not always bring peace 
  •  How Colin unexpectedly became a stripper 
  •  Performing with a male stripping group across the UK and in Japan 
  •  The adrenaline, ego, and altered state of performing on stage 
  •  Addiction, financial hardship, debt, and bankruptcy 
  •  Why Colin felt emotionally shut down in his early life 
  •  Learning empathy and emotional depth through life experience 
  •  Why mediumship did not come easily for Colin 
  •  The need for stronger development and evidence within modern Spiritualism 
  •  Colin’s experiences at Arthur Findlay College 
  •  How spirit inspired him to write his memoir 
  •  Why protecting your peace and stepping away from drama matters 

Colin’s book:
The Memoirs of a Stripper’s Journey to a Healing Medium
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Memoirs-Strippers-Journey-Healing-Medium/dp/191850315X

Connect with Jason / Soul Sync:
www.jasonpaulmedium.com
https://www.youtube.com/@jasonpaulsoulsync
To subscribe to my newsletter, go to the bottom of any page at www.jasonpaulmedium.com


✨ Enjoying Soul Sync?

A quick rating or review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify genuinely makes such a difference. It helps more curious souls find these conversations and keeps the podcast growing.

If an episode has made you think, feel, laugh, question something—or simply helped you feel a little less alone—please take a moment to leave a review.

Thank you for being here. It means more than you know. 🤍

🎧 Listen to the full episode wherever you get your podcasts.

Support the show

Introduction

Charlie Kelly Medium

Hello and welcome to the SoulStink podcast. I'm Psychic Medium Jason Paul and it's as lovely as it ever is, my darlings, to have you here with me. Now, this next conversation, I'll tell you this, it's guaranteed to make you laugh and smile because I'm speaking to a northern medium called Colin Bray. He's just released uh his personal autobiography, which is titled The Memoirs of a Stripper's Journey to a Healing Medium. Now, yes, you heard that right. That is a stripper's journey to a healing medium. It's the uh even the title of the book looks like the kind of book that I would have got drawn to in one of these sorts of bookshops in Soho when I was in my twenties. Uh, it's Colin there standing there with a six-pack that's been airbrushed. Um, and it did make me laugh as soon as I saw the title of the book. Colin comes on to um explain some of his journey, which started from humble beginnings in working class England to the fast-paced world of mail stripping. Now, it certainly was a fast-paced world from what Colin told me, and he shares the raw truth of his life experience, the family struggles, heartbreak. We talk about our shared threads and experiences of addiction and what we've noticed in mediumship development on why people get drawn in uh to searching um for answers. So, this is my conversation with Northern Medium Colin Bray. Now, my darlings, I must tell you firstly, this episode is proudly British. If you are easily offended, do look away because we are discussing mail stripping. So uh I don't know where you want to look.

Meet Colin Bray & the story behind the book

Charlie Kelly Medium

Colin, Colin, Colin, welcome, my dear, to the Soul Sink.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, thank you. Thank you for my uh invite. Very pleased to be here and share a few things.

Charlie Kelly Medium

Well, it's very lovely to have you on. Thank you. So I will begin. You are, you know, a medium. I first came across your lovely self when I was on a course developing my mediumship, and you know, I have to say, you've come on today because you want to talk about your journey, and you've just released a book. And I have to say, Colin, when I first saw the cover of your book, I thought this is even gonna be one of the most unexpected spiritual memoirs I've ever come across, or something that maybe I picked up in Soho in 2007. But what really struck me was the image. So tell us about you.

SPEAKER_00

Well, many years ago, I mean, I'm I'm age 66 now, so as you can see on my book cover, I do look a bit younger, and it also you look very funky on that.

Charlie Kelly Medium

As I said, it was something after being Soho.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, well, I've got the actual cover, what I uh originally did before it went to to uh publishers. I did I I actually did myself that's the actual image. Can you see it?

Charlie Kelly Medium

I can see it, and for anyone listening, honestly, it's like a six-pack, you've got your abs out there. It it really is what I imagine a Chippendales back in the day. You know, muscly hunk would look like Colin.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, so that's that's what I sent to publishers, and then they sent they sent they sent me a cover bike when they'd done it, which is now it's

Growing up, money & the search for contentment

SPEAKER_00

not the one they sent by because I turned around and I says, I don't want that, it don't even look like me. So they messed about with it. Obviously, they've done a bit of airbrushing on it.

Charlie Kelly Medium

You're not meant to tell us that, Colin. Well, made to say you're not meant to tell us to speed airbrush.

SPEAKER_00

That was all you. I'm the honest person. No, so but it is basically me.

Charlie Kelly Medium

So what's jumping out at me straight away, obviously, is the title The Memoirs of a Stripper's Journey to a Healing Medium. What what do you think people assume the book is about when they're first looking at it?

SPEAKER_00

Well, the reason I I put that picture on the front is because I see my book as going from one extreme to another, from sex industry, more or less, to uh an early medium, which is completely opposite on spectrum, isn't it? You know what I mean? So and I thought to myself, will that appeal to people? I'm not sure whether it does or not yet. I thought it it if people see that, especially ladies, they might be drawn to it. That was my first sort of thought.

Charlie Kelly Medium

Well, it's a very good thought. You're thinking like a marketeer, aren't you? Well, yeah, I were. Take me back to Rotherham in 1960. What kind of world was you born into?

SPEAKER_00

I was born into a working class family. My dad worked in steelworks, my mother had an odd part-time job. But we we were we were brought up in a terrace, terraced house. We didn't have we didn't have a lot of money. But I think that's how things were in them days. You you didn't you sought out clothes what you went out in, and clothes what you played out in. You didn't have no designer, designer trainers or designer clothes or anything like that. But basically, I mean I think times are better than than what they are now. Why do you think that is because I I feel like everything in the world now is everybody wanting, it's it's turned into a material world, and I don't know if you see that. I mean, I don't either would you are inside of me, but everything now is uh is money oriented. And I speak about it in my book quite a bit about money. And as you as you know, as a medium yourself, you're not you don't take any when you pass the spirit world, you're not taking anything weird, but people get obsessed with building empires and big bigger house that bigger house they can buy, the the better it is. And well, let me tell let me tell you that I've lived in a big house, a four-bedroom, detached house, and now I know happier in that house. In fact, I'll probably more miserable in that house because all you do is you get bigger bills.

Charlie Kelly Medium

So, you know, I think well, I think even just on that point, you know, I I think I've actually been my happiest when I had the least money, actually, and I've kind of gone full spectrum. I've grew up with not a lot, you know, very like you said, and there was something about even though I'm kind of approaching 40 now, the the going outside, the being connected, you know, there was even a richness in the TV because there was only four channels, you know, there was excitement, everything now is people wanting, wanting, wanting, wanting in the now, in the moment, and actually, you know, I've even built my company up to be a multi-million pound company, and my God, I was never so miserable. It was actually once I'd built it to multi-million pound level, I kind of had an awakening because I thought, Jesus, I've never been more miserable, but this is everything I thought I wanted. Do you know what? As every staff member came in, I thought, okay, I've now got 27 headaches. Uh, very negative way of looking at it, Colin. But you know, that was it. But there was something about, you know, back in the time, and I think, you know, you don't need to be an expert to realise that we have a social problem as a society, don't we?

SPEAKER_00

Well, it's it's just to be honest, I mean, I I don't know if it'll ever get any different now, but I think it's gone past people's got this obsession with money, and I mean, you know, I see it every day. I said I I see it where I live, I see people that's retired and they're still trying to make money doing things. I mean, I I live on a I live on a caravan site in a chalet, you know, and I see it on here all the time where people's got you know that they've got enough money to live on, they've got probably more than enough money to live on, but they're still wanting, it's like they're obsessed with money. When I've got opposite way now, and it's like as long as I've got enough to live on, that's direction up gone. And and to be honest, I'm quite content now. And you've only got to look, really, you've only got to look at your your your rich stores, you know, your your pop stores, your footballers. They've got that much money that and a lot of them ran manic depressives, you know.

Charlie Kelly Medium

Well, it's definitely the root of all evil, it is.

SPEAKER_00

It was I talk about it in my book quite a bit about money, and I always put money money is the most evil thing in the world. I mean, if if if it weren't for money, you won't you won't be having sex trafficking, you won't be having prostitution, you won't be having gambling, and all these sort of things. So your money is the the main. It's got to be.

Charlie Kelly Medium

I mean, I guess you know, being devil's advocate here, if I go back to 40 years ago, money was still there. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00

You think is the attitudes are changing to you know I think it's uh it's uh a society where all your big your big companies they're wanting to sell alt time, and oh you know, you've got your Amazon, your eBay's, and all these other companies, your Timu and all these, you know, they're just wanting to sell all time. And I don't know if anybody else does it, I'm presuming they do. You know, you buy stuff you don't actually need, you know, you'll see.

Charlie Kelly Medium

Well, you do. We live in a fast consumer society where I mean it's all about you know getting as much as possible. And the irony of it is, is you know, if I ask myself what is my relationship with money, I probably have a because of the traumas that happened to me in my 20s and the fact that I have built up money and then been at moments in my life where I've had no money and then nearly lost it all. I think I've got this kind of wanting to stockpile mentality.

Becoming a stripper by accident

Charlie Kelly Medium

I don't know what it is now. I'm sort of, you know, with the pandemic has probably scarred me a lot as well. But, you know, I'm at a really interesting crossroads of my life now where actually the industry that I've worked in, recruitment for all these years, it's all about money. It just evolves around making deals and money. And, you know, I've had to really, you know, it doesn't, it's a it's an opposite world to mediumship. I know that in the evenings I want to be connecting to the spirit world, but all through the day, I've been in the land and the world of the ego. It's all about prestige, status. I work in law, it's about, you know, I'm this lawyer and I do this and I build this much, and it's you know, but I I don't I I kind of um it that what makes me really good at the job I do is the fact that I kind of use my psychic skills without knowing, I just feel my way through. So, you know, the book mentions about hardship and bullying and things like that, and so it sort of walked me through, you know, how you navigated your childhood and what that looked like. Because I want to find out about the journey that led to you, Colin, becoming the stripper, quite frankly.

SPEAKER_00

The the reason I become a stripper was actually it wasn't something I'd ever dreamt of doing. To me, what happened were I used to have my own gym and uh of course several lads come in, and one particular lad come coming to my gym one day and he says, Somebody's advertising for strippers at Sheffield. You fancy going, and I says, I don't think so. Well, part of my uh plan at all that and every day it came in.

Charlie Kelly Medium

Was you confident enough from going to the gym to even sort of entertain it all? You know, was you being dragging being dragged, kicked, kicking and screaming, so to speak?

SPEAKER_00

Well, I kept I kept refusing, I can't I kept saying no, that's not for me. But the the lad that came in, it was it it was his dream to be a stripper, but it weren't mine at all, you know.

Charlie Kelly Medium

Why was it his dream? Was it because of the being an attract, you know, being almost like a desirable, or what is it about I think it were probably with him.

SPEAKER_00

But he kept on at me, and at time I was married, and I I said to my wife, I says, I says, he keeps coming in and asking me to about this stripping. She says, Well, why don't you just go and have a look? And I says, Well, it's not really my cup of tea. I can't see me stripping, you know. So she says, Well, I'll just go with him, like, you know, just as a company. So when he came in, I says, All right, we'll go. And it were a it were a man at Sheffield, and he were he were at he wanted to make a a strip group, you know, like full Monty.

Charlie Kelly Medium

Oh my goodness, you're joining a band, so to speak.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, real Monty. I mean, Real Monty's from Sheffield. So I says, Go on, I'll I'll go with you. So we went up Sheffield and we met at this, I think, I can't remember where we met actually. It might have been in a pub or something. And then this blow said he was gonna finance it all. He got all these big plans, he was all the money he was gonna sort out. So we all agreed, the only five turned up actually. So we all agreed, and at the time I got my own gym. So we agreed to make meet at my gym the week after. So the week after we all met at the gym, but who didn't turn up, the man that were financing it all, whose idea it were, and all this, so we all thought, well, that's it, you know, no point in going ahead with it. But one of the other lads, he he's a bit he's good with chat, put it that way. And he says, well, why don't we why don't we do it on his own? So we did. And really, he he sort of he organised more or less everything, you know what I mean? And he said he'd got a manager who managed all the strippers in Sheffield, Crime Corps they called it, the uh and he says, it's coming to it's coming to watch us, so we actually rehearsed in a scout up, and we got this this this lady to come that did all the co choreography. So we did it, and we that we're all and he come and he says he says, right, yeah, he says, he says, oh, it's pretty good. He says, I'll see if I can get you a

The first show & finding confidence on stage

SPEAKER_00

venue. But the thing is with stripping, if you're doing a group stripping, all your moves have to be the same. If you're doing that Oh, oh, you have to rehearse the well, yeah, you did Yeah, so it's all dance and rehearsing and and everything. If you're doing an in individual strip, then there's no rehearsing, it's you do it as it comes to your mind. So you you know, you're dancing about and uh tormenting women and and in some cases.

Charlie Kelly Medium

I always say you get put in this group. How are you feeling? Sort of, you know, I can imagine maybe you know, you would feel perhaps more comfortable with the fact that you're not the only one, first of all. But I myself couldn't imagine ever potentially doing that. Um, and you know, I without sounding crass about this, is it sort of down to the underwear than we politely stop or well?

SPEAKER_00

I was totally embarrassed to be honest. I mean, and I couldn't, I just could never see it happening, but it did. Uh and the funny thing were the lad that convinced me to do it in the first place, two days before his first show in Porcatel at Rotherham, it were an An Summer's party, and it were upstairs, and there must have been I don't know, 30 or 40 women there. And two days before we did his first show, he backed out.

Charlie Kelly Medium

Oh, oh, oh, oh, I can imagine he well.

SPEAKER_00

Do you know what the fact you still went ahead with it as well? Well, we got we got we've got all uniforms, we got everything we're velcroed. I mean, I don't know if you know about stripping, but your trousers were velcroed because when you take them off, you rip them off. Oh, yes, I suppose so.

Charlie Kelly Medium

Yes, because well, if I take the way I take my trousers off at the end of the day, it was certainly not flattering. I mean, so I said I understand that, yes.

SPEAKER_00

So all this were all this were organised, we got all uniforms for full monte, you know, take your that off Tom Jones and all that. So everything was organised, and like I said, that this guy backed out two days before, so we had to rush then and and and reorganise summit dancing. It weren't quite it weren't difficult, but we did do it, sort of thing. And sure went ahead.

Charlie Kelly Medium

And me and we didn't I bet if you smoked, you were having a good few fags backstage. First of all, I can imagine you were coming through a 20-deck in no time at all.

SPEAKER_00

The uh the bloke that uh the bloke that actually manages it, he were uh a drag artist, Dave. His his stage name was Penny Change, and he'd done it for years and years. And he got he got good hair for a bloke, actually, got long blonde hair, you know, and he he he sort of did he did drag act and then when introducing us like this. And two of us did of course there was a drag queen involved, of course, yes, and then we actually we had uh Mark Denham, who was from uh Real Monty, who once had a programme on TV. I don't know if you ever watched it. Oh, I love that film. No, that was I actually you're you're thinking at Full Monty, there were there were a group in Sheffield called them called them Real Monty. The real Monty. The Real Monty. Uh and a few years ago they were they had a thing on TV with the showed them, you know, doing shipping and that. And one of them came that night and he he's he stood in with us. I think it was just a bit of encouragement, really, you know, because he was sort of professional at side of what it were after his time. But it really went down well that night, much to my surprise and everybody else's, it went really well. And then this guy who dropped out, when he found out it went really well, he wanted to come back.

Charlie Kelly Medium

Oh, of course he did, yes, cap in hand. And was he accepted gracefully or not?

SPEAKER_00

No. No, he come he came in and he says, I'm back in. I says, I don't think you are. I says, You let us down two days before. I said, You can't just jump back in.

Charlie Kelly Medium

Yeah, especially the fact that you're stripping, you know. The fact if it you know, it's not like any other business enterprise where he may have let you down, he let you down. The choreographer the choreography had to change. Yeah, I'll get that. The bot the band or the group is now formed. I imagine it was comic.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, so it was his dream, but it ended up as my my the my dream, really. Well,

Performing in Japan

SPEAKER_00

I never wanted to do it, but I sort of got drawn in, and and that's how it that's how it occurred. So then we started getting a few more shows, a few of them were uh you know, for uh what to call it. Uh you know, charity function. Oh, you were doing for free. I couldn't think of a word then, charity. And we d we actually did one at Barnsley with uh Chris Rock, Chrissy Rock of Benedome. I don't know if you've you're aware of Blonde Air. She did a show with us at Barnsley. And uh I've got to sessie what the funniest woman I've ever I've ever seen. She had everybody in stitches, she was really good from beginning to end. Yeah, so we we started doing more and more shows, and then eventually we we got invited to do a show with uh a Japanese guy. And Dave, who what manager at the time, Penny Change, he he got us this, he organized it, and it was a guy that came from Japan, and he was told he were doing a uh a TV show for Japan, it was called Homestay, where he came to this country and then he stopped with somebody in this country, and they told him he was playing football with Sheffield Wednesday. Little did he know he was doing a strip show with us. So at first it was oh no, no, no. But they filmed him all week, he stopped with one at Lads and Then we did a show at Dog and Portridge at Sheffield, bit of a rough place where it were like, and show went really well. And then 12 months later, we got invited back to Japan for a week, stripped group, and and to Dave, who what drag queen like. We all went to Japan.

Charlie Kelly Medium

You were going stripping with the drag queen going international. I can only imagine that the fan that was had on that aircraft rides out.

SPEAKER_00

Yes, yes, uh we we got invited to Japan and we didn't get a lot of time to dust things ourselves because it were all organized, though they with bloody film cameras all the time and they wanted to film this and that and other. And then they set a they actually set some at up downstairs in a building, and they got joiners in and they made a stage. There were even ladies joiners there, and they made a stage for us all we in a day, and then that night we did a show, and there were 400 Japanese women there.

Charlie Kelly Medium

Do you know what? I'm quite surprised by that because Japan is a country that I did go to a couple of times in my cabin crew days for Virgin Atlantic, but I only had two days there at a time, but I did cram a lot in. But I and the Japanese culture is one of you know a lot of respect and this, that, and the other. But even I have a story about that because when we used to go to the crew hotel, there used to be this hotel called the Happy Santa Hotel, and I just think, what the hell is this? And I don't know where they used to put us in Japan, but that hotel was paid by the hour, and apparently it was. There is this sort of under society where there's you know that's explored in different ways, so to speak.

SPEAKER_00

Right, yeah. Well, what it were, we we did this show, there were 400 women there that couldn't advertise it. Although there were 400 women there, they couldn't advertise it, and there were no drinks, no alcohol allowed, and they built this stage and we did show there that night, and it was really fabulous, really good atmosphere. Uh but there were no drinks, and but we couldn't go any further than a G-string.

Charlie Kelly Medium

Oh, okay. So they they sort of put provisions in there, haven't they? A very different way of doing it because I can imagine

Adrenaline, ego & altered states

Charlie Kelly Medium

in the UK there's lots of drinks, there's lots of rowdiness, there's wine flying everywhere, I imagine. But in Japan, it well, they it's very underground because even the there is seediness to look to Japan. There is. But I didn't feel that I could have long enough off from my business to go there. But it is on my it's actually where I want to go for my 40th. Interestingly enough, but how did it feel? You know, it I imagine you it felt empowering, I imagine it was building confidence. But how was it making you feel on the inside? How was your life sort of how was you feeling about all of this?

SPEAKER_00

And I loved it to be honest. I mean, from going from not wanting to do it to doing it, it it was a bit of ego there, you know, there were a bit of a wanting to do it then. And we did shows in Liverpool and Newcastle and and and all over, you know, and it were all it were a buzz. It were a buzz. I've got to I've got to say it were a buzz. Adrenaline. Now, anybody that says I couldn't do it like I did, you don't actually you can liken it actually to mediumship because you go into an altered state, you can't help it. So when you're going on stage, you've got all your gear on. I used to have leather gear, got all my leather gear on and what have you. You know, you you got a adrenaline kicked in, and then your mind sort of you were focused on what you were doing then, so you didn't look at anybody when you went out there, you didn't look at anybody, you just sort of did it what you're doing in an altered state. So probably if you were in your old state of mind, you wouldn't do it. But because it's because you're there on spot, adrenaline's going, you know you go in, you know what you're doing. It were quite easy.

Charlie Kelly Medium

Well, I imagine there's a hell of a lot of dopamine flying around, you know, and well, as you go through that experience as well, because you've got people, it's you know, screaming at you and all sorts of reactions. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, you get comments and all sorts, but you just like pull a funny face, you know. Well, indeed, indeed. But then you're like, you're off, you get dressed, and you've you've gone. Because most spots were if you did an individual spot. I mean, I went to Newcastle a few times, and we used to look at gay pot gay bars in Newcastle, the what at Rockies and Rock House and this, and all gay bars were sorted in a certain area. So I did them a few times up there, but it was like two hours travelling for a 15-minute spot, you know what I mean? So it was a lot of travelling, but and you didn't make it, you didn't make much money, aren't it, to be honest. I mean, to make a lot of money, aren't it? Some professional like real Monty, they were doing shows, you know, maybe four or five times a week. So they did make a bit

Addiction, hardship & life’s darker chapters

SPEAKER_00

of money, but not a lot. I mean, nobody was gonna get rich out of stripping, to be honest with you. And the time you've paid for things, your fuel and you know, your outfits and everything else. It's not it weren't a uh it's not a well-paid sort of job, not what you think. But it it was fun of doing it and adrenaline rush, you know, and doing something that you think you'd never do. Uh so so yeah, it it were parts of my life where I thought I'd never do. Well, you know, just where a couple thinks I'm gonna be a stripper, but it's happened, and I've got to say I'm glad it did because it it's another it's an it's another pathway, ain't it? It's another, you know, some people don't know all through their life, where I can say I've done a lot of stuff.

Charlie Kelly Medium

Well, there's something in that, isn't there? Because you know, I know the book mentions um things like you went through addiction and some darker chapters, and I often, and I think from reflection now, because of how much I've been through, even with it things like addiction, psychosis, loads of struggles in my in my twenties and even in recent times. But I now look back and think that knowing that my path is to be a medium and fully believing and knowing that that's my soul's journey, I feel that I went through that to get that rich tapestry of that's you know, that's right. Yeah, and that becomes part of your fabric, doesn't it?

SPEAKER_00

I

Learning empathy through mediumship

SPEAKER_00

mean, I've been in mediumship maybe 20 years now, but I've struggled, I've I've struggled with mediumship from day one because I I went to classes and awareness classes, and some people get it like that. Well, I never did, and many a times I thought I'm just not getting this, and I was expecting other things to happen, and it's took me a long time now. It's took me a long time, and I realised why it's took me a long time, because to be a median, right, you've got to have empathy with someone, you've got to understand someone, and now I've fed up and I mean I write about it in me, but I fetched up and there weren't a lot of feelings when I was a kid. There weren't a lot of love I don't feel, and I was fetched up and I was like a block of wood to be honest, you know. I'd not lost anybody at the time, I didn't have feelings for out, you know. So I I I liken I like liken myself to a block of wood, and I've had to learn through a lot of hardship and things to to gain feelings, emotions, and all that sort of thing. Because how can I with no feelings expect to give someone

Is modern mediumship losing its depth?

SPEAKER_00

that's lost a child any emotion or empathy if I if I don't know it myself? Do you understand what I'm saying with that? So I do write about this in book because I think I've struggled because my first years and years I've had to learn feelings and emotions and all that sort of thing. Like I said, I've seen a lot of mediums and I look in the mediums in the Gina Message. I don't I don't look at messages as as B and be all and end all and everything me. I I don't I don't work rostrums, very rare I go private sittings, I'm more interested in my own journey, my own building my own, you know, my own journey and uh and what have you than standing up. And I see a lot of mediums on churches now, and once again, this is in my book because I feel strongly that a lot of mediums now are really underdeveloped on churches, and the last maybe six or seven I've seen, they haven't proved life after death at all. You know what I mean? I don't know if you've seen any of that.

Charlie Kelly Medium

Well, I think that my granddad was a uh medium who went to churches, and unfortunately, I never got to see him actually demonstrate. But I I think I think churches are struggling in a lot of ways. Well, definitely, definitely, and they're not getting the calibre of mediums, but I don't think they there also a lot of them are not you know getting enough people through the door. I think the religion is losing momentum. I think society's changing. I don't think it's all on the religion, but I feel that when I went to spiritualist churches prior to my awakening and all the trauma that I went through, what when when I went to spiritualist churches, I never felt that it proved to me life after death. Not that I felt that was its sole purpose, but I was going there for that. I wanted that because I wanted my granddad to come through, that's why I kept going to them. And it and even when I had readings, it never I never felt that my granddad was really coming through because I felt that the messages were clouded and I it just didn't feel right to me. So I almost had to go in search of the spirit world, and what led it led up happening to me is I then started wanting the proof that I want proof of the spirit world, and no other medium was giving it to me. And then what I went, and one day someone did give me a message, and then I found myself giving messages, and then what became the proof for me was the fact that I was doing it. Then I then I went through a phase of thinking, well, that person must be just, you know, maybe they're just saying yes or whatever.

SPEAKER_00

I think we've all been we're all being here, don't we?

Charlie Kelly Medium

Yeah, I thought maybe they're just being kind to me, you know. I don't know. But yeah, it's interesting. So you were explaining about, you know, when you started developing your medium shit, you know, you felt like a block of woods as you describe there. But what was your life like, you know, at that time of you trying to develop? Because what was what drew you to it? Because to go through addiction, I now know that addiction to me was because I was, you know,

Bankruptcy, debt & the turning point

Charlie Kelly Medium

my soul was yearning out to for understanding, and because I was living a life that just wasn't I needed to to understand what life was all about, but and you know, that was what kind of drew me into medium shit. I'll go down a million rabbit holes, but you know, to ask you the question, what was life like? What drew you into it?

SPEAKER_00

Uh it well it basically my life was just like anybody else's, uh drinking, splitting up with me my ex-wife. I I got my gym, I went bankrupt. And my life was a mess, to be honest. I walked at neck in debt mainly because of my gym, because I borrowed money for equipment. When you're in debt, nobody wants to help you. Banks, you know.

Charlie Kelly Medium

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

I mean, I went to a bank and I says, Look, I'm struggling here. Can I lower my payments? No, you can't do that. You know, you think, well, I says, well, you know, it's up to you. I said, you're not gonna get any money back then. And I owed them £12,000. And rather than lower my payments, they'd rather lose £12,000, which they did because I went bankrupt.

Charlie Kelly Medium

Oh, banks are a nightmare, they're only interested in you when you're making money, and even when you're making money, they're not of any help to you. No, no, no. Uh you know, I have a bank manager.

SPEAKER_00

Council was the same, you know. I I went down and I says, Look, can you lower me my uh rates on building? You know, uh that I rented my gym off. I mean, he was good and he helped me out, and he, you know, he deferred me payments and and stuff, but I I just I just couldn't make the money. And plus then I was living on my credit cards, so then I was getting more and more in debt, and I just ended up saying I just shut doors one day and said that's it. So it I had a marriage breakdown after that, you know, and a lot of things I I'm not proud about because it were all bad decisions on my part, really. But you we're all the same, you don't realise at time, and then you go into a survival mode where you know and all that. So then what got me into spiritualism, really, it were uh I used to have a computer with you know with tower tower and and camera were on top of little bloody, you know. I used to go on they called it face party.

Discovering Spiritualism

SPEAKER_00

Oh yes, I remember that website.

Charlie Kelly Medium

Yeah, you remember face party? Yeah, that was the very very, very first kind of Facebook y type thing, but it was exciting then, wasn't it?

SPEAKER_00

It was better it was better, yeah. It was there were a summit called Look It's Me. I were on both of them. So I used to chat to people, and I started chatting with a woman from Ul. We're still friends to this day, to be honest. I mean, I don't I never see her, but you know, I'll text every so often, and she would she did tady cords, uh, and she was brilliant with tad accords, but she never did it as a to make money or out, she just did it with her friends and that, but she was really good, and uh and I'd it. I'd never heard of spiritualism, spiritualist churches, I never heard her out to do with spiritualism, and then she told me she used to go to a church in Ull, and then she used to go to uh an awareness thing. So she invited me to go and I went and I went a few times, and it was really good. And that was my introduction, really, because then back up in Yorkshire, where I was from, I'd never even heard of a spiritualist church, believe it or not. And then when I looked them up, there were six there's 16 in that area: Doncaster, Sheffield, Barnsley, and Rotherham, you know, and then there's Castleford that's not that far, and Ponty for so there's a lot of churches, so I started going, and I used to I used to be there seven days a week at different ones, different awareness classes, and I struggled, I really struggled, I couldn't get no, I just said I'm not getting no to know. So I was a nightmare at first, but then I met a I met a woman at church and we ended up together for ten years, and she was a she were a medium on Rostrum's, and she was a real good medium, but she'd had it since a child, you

Development, Arthur Findlay College & finding inspiration

SPEAKER_00

know, and she I think she got it quite easy. And I used to ask her questions, you know, what what do you see and what what do you hear, and what you know, and she could never really answer. And because I was with her, then I I were more involved with churches, and then I started going to Stanstead. I mean, I've been going to Stanstead years, I've been 26 times maybe over years. And I met a guy that uh you know him as well as I do, Colin Bates. And I just to be honest, I mean that bloke, he didn't know it, has inspired me since I met him because his lectures were second to none, I thought. And I I could I could hear it, I could listen to his lectures time and time again and do the same lectures. But it just I was just fascinated out, you know, his knowledge and everything. So, yeah, so like I say, I've been to college loads and loads of times. But I got to say with college, when I first went, it was a lot, I've got to say better, better energy, uh, better atmosphere. I used to sit at the library, I used to go to the library at night, and I'd sit there, everybody else were in bed, and I'd be at library at 11 o'clock, 12 o'clock at night, pitch black, sitting in there, and I used to get a rate buzz, aren't it? I mean, I could feel things, I could see snowstorms, I could uh you know, to and sometimes I used to walk out and I'd look back and I'd be oh I'd get got to get out of here because it was pitch black, do you know what I mean? And then you're walking up, you've been a stanza, they were walking up corridors and that, and it were so it was very eerie, but there was that atmosphere about it now. The inn't now it I don't know why, they just didn't that same atmosphere, but I I just love going. You can't even sit you can't even sit at rules at night now. You're nine o'clock, you can't go in. But that's their rules now, you have to stick to them. But people always spoil things, don't they?

Charlie Kelly Medium

I think that's why that well they do spoil things. I think the college, you know, I unfortunately I was never there in what sounds like the golden era. I I came in, I think, just as it was the wheels were starting to come off, and it's a shame really because you know, love is all that matters, and that place, you know, what it can do for people, it isn't just about the classroom sessions, it's about the whole energy of it, the spending time with the other students. There is something different, and I have to admit, the last couple of times I've gone, I've just thought, yeah, there's something energetically that just doesn't feel the same to me.

SPEAKER_00

No, it's not the same at all, not same, but I mean, I'm booked twice this year, like I said, I can't help but go. And I said I weren't going anymore two years ago. They had all them politics and all that, all my favourite tutors left, you know.

Charlie Kelly Medium

Well, I think so many great tutors left, actually. And so many of them have actually been on this podcast, interestingly.

SPEAKER_00

You know, as soon as you got the they welcome you, they know your name. You always had a laugh with them and everything else, and then it sort of changed, bumped like that. So I said I weren't going no more, but I thought to myself, well, you know, I'm cutting my own throat because I like going and I like sitting in gardens, you know, you're being in what gardens are like.

Charlie Kelly Medium

Well, I'm confident, Colin, it's gonna go back in eventually to the ways of the old. I think that change is coming. I feel change is on the horizon with the college because I feel the light needs to be put back into it, quite frankly. Yeah, well, but you know, it's important. I I I feel very much the same as you. I'm still gonna go because I don't want it to hinder my, you know, the experience for me, but you know, it definitely needs to change. I wanted to ask you because you mentioned that, you know, in the book

How spirit inspired Colin’s memoir

Charlie Kelly Medium

your spirit helpers helped to inspire the book. How did they work with you on this?

SPEAKER_00

I felt, to be honest, I mean, I never intended writing a book. I saw this desk, I mean, you can't see it, but there's a writing desk here, and I saw it on Facebook Marketplace, and it was £10, and it were an hour away in Grimsby. And it's it's old, it's old fashioned type, you know, wooden, it's it's really heavy. And I thought that's not bad for £10. So, you know, I texted them and says, Is it still available? Yes. Can I come and look? And I went and I thought I says, Yes, I'll have it straight away. So I fetched it back. I struggled to even get it in here because I was on my own and it's really heavy, although it's not that big. Anyway, I got it planted here, and then I loved it. I just loved it. I mean it's got a few uh dints and cracks and things missing. I think we call that. Yeah, and I thought I started writing. And we in we first day I'd wrote 10 pages. And it went from there, and as I was writing, I I think everything in in life is spirit a lot of stuff's spirit, you know, spirits there sort of with music, art, these sort of things. And I felt like I were writing and I was writing before it would come in thinking. So it was strange. You know, I'm not gonna say it were automatic writing. But as I'm writing, stuff are coming into my head. So I I do feel like it was spirit. And I think spirits uh I've got this opinion that spirit will always put you where you needed to be. Now I'm not doing since I moved to Mablethorpe, I don't do anything. Uh the church, they're not churches to be honest, but the places I've been around here, I'm not impressed with. I did a few readings for a shopping in village. So I weren't doing nothing at all. So I'm out so I'm thinking that's spirit because I've got to say, Colin Bears, who I just mentioned, years and years ago I had a spiritual assessment of him. In fact, I had two, what ye one little year and then year after, and they were fabulous readings. He turned round and he says, I think you'll write something. And I thought, I don't think so. I can't spell, I was rubbish at school, I weren't interested in school. I thought I'll never write. I'll never write note. Well, I have done, so you were right, and that was 20 years ago. So but I've got to say, uh, you know, min my books, my book's not perfect.

Charlie Kelly Medium

Well, Colin, I'll I'll say you know, I admire anyone who writes a book because I've said to myself so many times, I have to write my life story because it'd just be unbelievably interesting, I I feel anyway. A definite page turner. But the you know, I I just couldn't imagine it. So I have you know so much respect for anyone that does because you know, even it's not just about writing the book, it's especially when it's your own story, you know. It's I imagine it's quite healing, but I imagine you know, you're going back into some of the things of but not the nicer parts of life that you don't maybe want to bring up to the surface. But I imagine by writing it, there's a release that happens. I I imagine.

SPEAKER_00

Actually, somebody asked me the other day. I mean, I'm trying to get in fact they're putting a they're putting a uh a bit in where I used to come from, Yorkshire. I got in touch with local paper and they're putting a bit in for me, you know. A spread. A spread, yeah.

Charlie Kelly Medium

And he was I think we call that in the uh newspaper business, Colin.

SPEAKER_00

So he he were asking me a lot of questions and that, you know, and I can't remember where I'm going with this now.

Charlie Kelly Medium

Well don't worry, look, I think that you I think it it your story is amazing, and honestly, we've only just scratched the surface because we're never gonna get all of your story into this, but you know, I know that you're such a beautiful soul, and your story, as soon as I even saw the book, Colin, I just thought to myself, oh, do you know this just seems like my sort of read. Um just a lot from the well, I went well, Colin. Do you know what? I've learned

Colin’s final message: focus on your own journey

Charlie Kelly Medium

funnily enough, and I think there's a bit of uh uh I've learned not to judge a book by its cover, but your book, Colin. I was making a few judgments, I'll tell you that. It's lovely to have you honestly onto the soul sink and your book. If you do want to find out more, go to the show notes where you can click on the link and obviously find out more about the memoirs of a stripper's journey to a healing medium. Colin, leave us on a final thought today, then. How do you want to close the episode?

SPEAKER_00

Right. I want to set a people work on your own journey because and try to ignore every try to ignore everything right, because I've found I found that I've found peace in my life. And stop away keep away from dramas and and you know arguments and and family squabbles, and just turn other cheek and say, I'm I'm not getting involved with this, because when you look back at things in your life, or dramas, and you look you think, well, what what point in it? Do you understand what I'm saying? What what point in that drama? Why didn't I not why did I not give an opinion and just you know you're better off just trying to lead your own life. I mean, we all see now that country's in a right mess, you know, and this there's stuff on media and it bombards you. And I think one of the worst things that's that's ever happened is uh this social media thing because

Social media, overstimulation & protecting your energy

SPEAKER_00

everything's brainwashing, don't you feel? I think it's over stimulation every day, yeah. And if you didn't put your telly on or you didn't put your your phone on and you just lived your life, you know, you wouldn't even think about a lot of stuff.

Charlie Kelly Medium

But do you know what? I actually think if you was to cut yourself off from technology for a period of time, you could really manifest the life that you want. Because I feel that you get so distracted now with social media, you're on your phone, you're scrolling, you're getting fed this, it's making you, you know, perhaps not feel good. And and what you've got to understand is everything is energy, it everything is energy, and when you're watching something that you know is not positive or is that carries a frequency, and I feel that's going into you. So I I really feel that you have to be protective of your energy. I feel that is one of the biggest life lessons I've ever learned. And even in the absolute eye of the storm, in and I've been through many of them in recent times, the ability to just protect your energy and be very aware of that because and it's so easy to have your energy drained, and I feel that I'm becoming very aware of that and content and what I'm allowing to enter my energy. You look you look absolutely shocked, Colin. Like I've just given you the uh the biggest answer of life. I thought I'd lost you, I've obviously shocked you, Colin. Honestly, my dear, it has been a lovely delight to have you onto the soul sink and thank you for coming on and sharing a bit of your story.

SPEAKER_00

I find I'll just uh my last point, I'll just go on. I get really frustrated with people that are not spiritual minded, such as us. And I feel like I just want to tell them, you know. They're just they seem to be on a different vibration, whether they are or not. I feel that they're on a low vibration, you know. I mean, I used to be a drinker, I've not really done drugs. I mean, I did steroids when I walked bodybuilding and stuff like that, you know what I mean? Uh but I feel like I'm on a different vibration to a lot of people.

Charlie Kelly Medium

But you are on a different vibration.

SPEAKER_00

I've turned into an hermit. I don't like going out because you see you see people that are ignorant, they're not very nice, uh you know, and all this and that. Sometimes I just I don't want to go out through the door, I'd rather be in here in me, peace. No, you can't.

Charlie Kelly Medium

I think it's like that for a lot of sensitive people, Colin, because there you are on a different frequency because so many people are just in the land of the ego and the you know scarcity mindset and always chasing the next thing. You are on a different frequency, and that's why you're choosing to protect your energy. I spend a lot of time at home, and I, if anything, I need to get out there and stop being so much the hermit because I but I love just coming home to the peace.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, yeah. Well, I'm retired, so I don't I don't have to go out. I mean, I go to the gym sometimes, and I've just got myself an allotment, you know. So but I can't I can't stand on a supermarket. I can't really I don't want to be out in crowds and and because the strange thing to say about people get on my nerves.

Charlie Kelly Medium

No, I can under I can very much understand that, and I think that's not going to be lost on a lot of the people. But listen to this, honestly. But I think you're gonna have a lot of people that probably agree with you there. So thank you. Well, wasn't that an interesting conversation? A couple of side notes I wanted to just tell you about. My diary is open up quite widely for mediumship um due to me uh selling my business. So if you do want to book a reading, whether that be Psychic Mediumship or perhaps both, just go to jasonpaulmedium.com where you can just book uh directly into my diary now. Um I've just got all that plumbed in, very exciting. Also on my website, you can sign up to my monthly newsletter where you can become my pen pal. Until next time, lots of love.