Shiver Me Timbers, Mate! It's Pirates!


By Summer Bacon

For “the many rather than the few” who have witnessed my evolution as a trance medium, there has rarely been a dull moment...and there have, without a doubt, been many FRUSTRATING ones.

Like the times I’ve changed my mind about things. LOTS of things. Like books, and newsletters, and whether or not to continue with private sessions, and where my latest venue will be for open sessions, etc.

Spirit has had me jumping through so many hoops over the last few years that I sometimes don’t know whether I’m coming or going. It’s all about growth and surrendering to the journey.

Part of that growth began in 2000 when I met a wonderful man named Jerry Helmeczi and agreed to read and edit his book, Now That I’m Dead, a true story in which he documented his experience of living in New Jersey, only to discover that real pirate treasure was buried under his house. He dug it up, and put it back. Turns out there were some pretty frisky pirates buried with the treasure, and their spirits pretty much wigged out sweet evangelical Christian Jerry.

Little did I know what I was getting into when I chose to edit his book, but the subsequent events began to make sense of my life in ways I never could have imagined. My next couple of newsletters are going to focus upon a couple of excerpts from the book that I wrote about this editing experience. It’s called Now That I’m Alive...a true mystical adventure which I’m sure you will enjoy.

Agreeing to read the book, Now That I’m Dead, and actually getting the opportunity to do it were completely at odds for awhile. Jerry had given the book to my mother to read. It was, he had thought at the time, his only copy. My mother lost it. My mother never loses anything, so this was weird, and there had to be a point to it.

“Not to worry, Lisa” Jerry teased her mercilessly, “It’s just 80,000 characters that poured from the depths of my soul. It’s nothing, really.”

My mother was strangely casual about the loss of the book. She knew, as I think we all did, that it would show up at the right time, in an unusual place. She was, however, a little upset that her role had to be as The One Who Lost The Book.

Mom and I tore up her house looking for the book for three hours almost every day for a week. Dr. Peebles, the spirit that I channel, said the book was placed by my mom in a bag near the night stand. I told my mom this.

“I know I put it there!” she said, not surprised, “But it’s not there!”

I pulled apart every inch of her bedroom, looking in books, boxes and bags. Looking with expectation in unexpected locations. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. My frustration was greatly enhanced by the ensuing experiences.

Without the book in my hands, I was beginning to panic, because my mystical world had accelerated at a pace that had me reeling. Pirates danced across my consciousness as I lay soaking in the bathtub with my eyes closed. One by one they would parade in front of me in living color, as if someone were playing a newsreel from the early 1700s. They said nothing, but just stared at me.

I would run the bath water and hear, “Put salt in it. We hate fresh water,” if I forgot the Epsom salt. I always obeyed their command.

I pestered poor Jerry relentlessly throughout the day, calling every few minutes to tell him about the visions, about the story that was unfolding in front of my eyes, although I knew but a speck of the written tale. He was incredibly patient with me, listening intently to my words, and I could almost feel him grit his teeth in concern for me, for my safety and my sanity. He would frequently apologize, as if he could have stopped them from coming. He knew he couldn’t. I knew he couldn’t. So, there really wasn’t anything to apologize for. I was the next player. I knew it. I knew what it meant, but I wasn’t sure if I could handle it.

I described to Jerry the men that I saw, and he gave each one a name as he recognized them. Eric Duvall. Ethan Doyle. Captain Elias Gordon. John Heffren, Jr.. Peter Phyfe, William Skyles. William Sykes, Thomas Ashton. And, when the old woman with the round face, and gypsy costume appeared, Jerry breathed deeply and said quite solemnly, “You really have got to read the book. That’s Zsiros.”

Then there were the warnings of things I could not understand, “Be careful, baby doll, these guys are frisky,” Jerry would say quite seriously. Frisky? What in the world did that mean?

All night, every night, from that point on, I couldn’t sleep soundly. Even when I was sleeping, they would come to me, taking me off into another plane, showing me a world that no longer existed in mine. They showed me the coastline of Jersey in the early 1700s, and the tavern of the boarding house at the Heights; the one owned by Kathleen and her father. They took me on their ships, and showed me acts of treachery that I could never have conjured up myself—like what they did to Kathleen when Captain Gordon left her. It was something even Jerry didn’t know about.

I watched in horror as the newsreel vision of Kathleen’s end rolled in front of me. There were at least three men. I had not seen them before. They robbed her (of what, I did not know). They beat her. They strangled her. They raped her. Then, in the most graphic visual I have ever seen in my work as a mystic, they beheaded her. I sat up in the bathtub gasping for air, as if I had been there.

I called Jerry, who listened with interest. Jerry didn’t know much about Kathleen at all, except that she had green eyes like mine; that she loved Captain Gordon to the depths of her soul; and that she still felt the pain of losing him. That is why there was so little written about her in the book Now That I’m Dead. I knew more about her than Jerry did. He wondered how that could be. I didn’t. I know who I am, and now I know who I was, now that I’m alive.

I was Kathleen McClean.