(all the same person)
For the next couple of years, I got used to having Ridge in my life as a frequent visitor, almost a member of the family, as he continued to ‘pop in’ for informal visits. Bill was a generous and hospitable soul, and Ridge had been a convivial neighbour in the past. We knew he was largely on his own, being estranged from his ex-wife and not seeing his sons as often as he wished.
He shared his magical experiences with me more than with Bill, who was less open to such things, but he didn’t conceal that aspect of himself from any of us. He was an interesting conversationalist on many other topics, too, outside of the magical realm.
And he was grateful, and sought to return the favours. For instance, he developed the habit of resting his hands on our gentle German Shepherd, Suey, for several minutes at a time whenever he visited, saying that he could sense she needed healing. My mid-teen kids used to scoff at this when Ridge wasn’t around, though they were polite when he was actually there. They didn’t believe in magic. Bill and I kept more open minds. Mine was more open than Bill’s, but I still wasn’t quite sure whether to buy this story. I believed Ridge believed it, but I thought he could have been kidding himself.
Several years later, when for some time Ridge hadn't been around to keep attending to her, Suey suddenly collapsed without warning. Only my son David and I were home. A young man already, and muscular from a holiday job on a building site, David picked her up in his arms and placed her in the back of the car to go to the vet. The vet discovered a cancer, one which he said had evidently been unusually slow-growing for its type. He was unable to save her at this stage, so it was a euthanasia situation, but I was grateful in retrospect to Ridge. She had not appeared to be ill or in pain before her collapse. With hindsight, I believe he both eased her symptoms and gave her extra years of life. A gift to us as well, who loved her.
He continued to talk to me about his magical practices, explaining them when necessary, as I was completely ignorant on that score. It was much later that I realised he was in fact my teacher, these casual-seeming chats also acting as lessons for me. This wasn’t author Colin Wilson speculating, on the basis of carefully gathered evidence, as to what might be; but a practising magician, a friend and crony of other magicians and also witches, describing what actually happened and how it came about.
He made it clear he believed in reincarnation, and karma. He told me that the reason he was helping me now was because he had to, because I had helped him in a previous life; that was how it worked. He was shown a scenario, which he described to me, of a battle scene: some people storming the walls of a city while others tried to fight them off. (I got glimpses of it myself as he spoke, but whether they matched what he was seeing, I never enquired.) I saved Ridge’s life (whoever he was in that lifetime – and whoever I was) by pulling him away just in time as someone tried to stab him. (I think I was a man too, then.)
He still did readings for me now and again, with his Tarot cards, and/or holding my hand, closing his eyes and ‘tuning in’ to whatever he was given in answer to my questions. Bill became somewhat intrigued, and once requested the explanation of a strangely vivid dream he had. He had described the dream to me after he woke that morning, and I recognised it as having the quality of some dreams of mine which I categorised as special and different – not ordinary, sifting-through-the-day’s-detritus dreaming. Mine were either prophetic, in which case what they prophesied (not necessarily anything dramatic) would happen in due course. Others I strongly believed to be past-life recall, though that of course is harder to verify. They were vivid, detailed, coherent, and carried a feeling of significance (hard to describe).
Bill’s dream had been about the sudden death of our sons! Ridge explained that it didn’t mean our sons in this life, but it used their images as a sort of code or shorthand to indicate Bill’s sons in a previous life. And at this juncture I have to confess that I can’t remember what the actual point of the dream was supposed to be! Sorry – it was over 40 years ago, and it wasn’t my dream. I do know it wasn’t a bad message anyway; maybe just a bit of karma to be worked off in that form rather than in a lived experience; or perhaps a warning to behave a bit differently in this life so that a similar situation would not lead to a similar outcome. (I'm guessing, on the basis of my present understanding.)
My mum, widowed by then, came for a long visit one year, over the Christmas holiday period. She enjoyed talking with Ridge, and he occasionally read the cards for her, which fascinated her. She and my stepfather had been deeply and happily in love. Ridge once told me that my stepfather in spirit was still focused on her, longing to be reunited. But he wouldn’t tell Mum herself, and advised me not to. I thought she would get comfort from hearing it, but he said no, ‘the anguish would be too great.’ For the time she had left to live here on earth, she needed to learn to adapt and go on.
Just before Christmas, Bill (who, you will remember, was an abalone diver) experienced the fate every diver dreads: he got ‘the bends’ (described by Wikipedia as decompression sickness or DCS, ‘a medical condition caused by dissolved gases emerging from solution as bubbles inside the body tissues during decompression … Since bubbles can form in or migrate to any part of the body, DCS can produce many symptoms, and its effects may vary from joint pain and rashes to paralysis and death. DCS often causes air bubbles to settle in major joints like knees or elbows, causing individuals to bend over in excruciating pain.’) He recognised what had happened to him, and went to the Alfred Hospital in Melbourne, where there was a small decompression chamber.
But it was Christmas Eve! The hospital was very short-staffed. It’s quite possible the people on duty didn’t properly understand the condition or its treatment. He spent several hours in the chamber and was sent home, still feeling weak and uncomfortable. But none of us knew what he was supposed to feel like after treatment; it had never happened to him before.
Ridge, who lived just around the corner, was spending the evening with us. My brother Denis was there too, staying a few days because Mum was with us (and we had enough spare rooms). Ridge soon became worried about Bill, and kept muttering to me that something wasn’t right; I should try and get him more treatment. Eventually I became worried enough myself to tell Bill what Ridge was saying. Ridge followed this up by asking if Bill knew any doctors who specialised in this kind of thing, whom he could call. I realise now that he would have been given a strong suggestion from his guides that Bill would know someone. And sure enough, Bill did. He had become fairly prominent in the new abalone diving industry by then, and as a spokesman for the local fishing industry in general. He was interested in medical research into aspects of diving, including the bends, and had had conversations with a particular specialist who was very involved in this research.
‘Phone him!’ Mum and Ridge and I all urged. So, even though it was a public holiday, he did, and left a brief message on the man’s answer machine as to what had been happening to him. Five minutes later the guy called back. Bill answered, had a brief talk, then came to tell the rest of us what had transpired (no speaker phones in homes back then).
‘Nissen!’ the very no-nonense doctor had yelled without preamble. ‘Get your arse up to Geelong! NOW!’
He asked if there was someone who could drive Bill. My brother volunteered. The doctor (a well-known and important person in public life) had asked to be phoned back with the number plate of the car Bill would be travelling in. He arranged for police clearance all the way from our suburb to the city of Geelong (about 75k to the southwest of Melbourne) and ordered my brother to drive as fast as he safely could. At Geelong there was a centre for medical research into diving, which included a huge decompression chamber. Bill ended up spending nearly a week there, closely monitored the whole time by especially-trained medical staff. We all drove to visit him a couple of times, and to bring him home when he was pronounced cured. Another time I was very grateful to Ridge! Indeed we all were.
And here I must distinguish between his various gifts. With Suey, and later with Bill, no magic was involved (as far as I know). It was Ridge’s clairvoyance which enabled him to know something was wrong and needed addressing. And in the case of Suey, he helped her with his healing abilities, via a ‘laying on of hands.’ I have learned a number of healing modalities myself since then, and now know this to be a form of what’s called energy healing. I suspect it came naturally to Ridge. I never heard of his having undertaken any healing courses. (It may have been, specifically, ‘spiritual healing,’ in which healers – including doctors – who have ‘passed over’ are understood to work through the hands of a living healer when called upon. But we didn’t discuss it enough for me to be certain about that.)
He bragged a bit about being able to use telepathy. Which he could. But he wasn’t always well able to demonstrate it! I have a rebellious personality. One time I had popped down the street to get something from the shops while Ridge was at our place having a yarn with Bill and my mum, when I heard his voice in my head quite clearly, saying, ‘Come home now!’ I didn’t get any sense of anything being wrong at home, and I was in a mood to dig my heels in rather than answer a peremptory summons. So I continued shopping and arrived back home in my own good time. Sure enough, he said he had mentally called me to come home, so as to demonstrate his telepathy to the others present. When I didn’t return immediately, he decided I hadn’t picked up the message, so I must not be very telepathic myself. I don’t know how much anyone believed me when I claimed that I had heard him, but just chose not to return home yet – but eventually, when I stopped to think about it, I was thrilled to realise that, obviously, I was telepathic too.