The Psychic Questing Weekender

Although I've followed Andrew Collins' career for over 25 years, it had always proved to be one of life's disappointments for me that I'd never found the time to attend one of his annual questing conferences.

However, for once, circumstances allowed that I, along with Laura, was able make the 2008 event, held at the village hall at probably my most favourite location of all, Avebury, in Wiltshire.

Collins, for the uninitiated, is a respected author, writing almost exclusively about alternative history, science, archaeology and the paranormal for the last 30 years or so and who is also widely credited with rediscovering psychic questing for the 20th Century.

Since 1986 he has been organising annual questing conferences as a way of presenting additionally background information to his work and new discoveries, as well as providing a platform for others in the earth mysteries field.

This year's event, held within the world famous heritage site at Avebury, sold out very quickly. It was deliberately a smaller gathering, restricted to 40 or so people that Collins himself hoped would enable him to get back to basics and return to his questing roots.

We had decided to travel to Wiltshire on the Friday evening before the event, not wanting to risk the morning traffic, which would enable us to make the early Saturday morning start without any last minute hitches.

Finding ourselves joining the evening commute out of London, heading westwards towards the setting sun, the trip proved uneventful and after a couple of hours we found ourselves at our destination just as night was falling, a small village a couple of miles outside of Avebury, that would act as our base for the weekend events.

Arriving at the village hall just prior to the 10am start, we quickly registered and took our place amongst the already assembled gathering. The venue, although not the largest, was the perfect size for the number attending, with just a couple of spare seats remaining.

The conference soon commenced, with Andrew Collins himself thanking everyone for attending, some having travelled from Europe and a few even further afield.

Without any further ado, Andy gave a brief overview of what he would be covering over the next two days, including quantum theory and bringing us all up to date with his latest work and questing adventures.

At this point I shall depart from the content of the lectures, which is covered far more eloquently than we could ever manage (and can be found elsewhere on the internet) and focus upon personal events that occurred to both Laura and myself over the weekend.

Early in proceedings, Andy revealed that he and his wife Sue had concealed, within the henge at Avebury, an artefact that had featured in a previous quest of his and, over the course of the weekend, it would be the task of the audience to attempt to recover the item in true questing fashion.

This was followed by the first meditation of the day.

Mediation is something that I've never been able to manage successfully so far and I knew that this was something that Laura also struggled with, but regardless, we gave it our best!

During the meditation, out of the corner of my I noticed that Laura was scribbling on her programme, which obviously piqued my interest.

Once the meditation had ended, Laura showed me the programme and on it, amongst some names and dates, she'd drawn the left profile of what I took to be one of the standing stones located in the Avebury henge.

A short refreshment break was announced, so we took the opportunity to return to the car and retrieve the artist pad that Laura often uses to scribble down notes and make sketches from what she 'senses'.

As we walked to the car park Laura told me that during the meditation she had visualized herself standing in front of the stone with the concealed artefact held in the outstretched palm of her hand.

She said that the artefact was the size of her palm, was made of metal and was 'copperish' in colour.

Returning to the lectures, Laura continued to make notes and sketches as the morning progressed, including a remarkably accurate drawing of one of the road junctions approaching the edge of the henge, where she picked up a couple of names relating to a traffic fatality and subsequent suicide taking place there.

The road junction where Laura 'sensed' a road fatality and suicide

Laura was also able to draw a quick sketch of what she thought was the concealed artefact, which (to me) looked like the silhouette of the head and shoulders of a bust, surrounded by 'spikes' similar to the radiated light surrounding a religious icon that you sometimes see.

Interestingly, Laura drew as part of a map a building (with three gables), or three terraced houses, the central portion marked with the number ‘81’, located on Reeves Rd. Beneath the map she had jotted down the name 'KELEHER' and the number '33'.

Although I didn't reveal anything to Laura at this time, the similarity to the name of Alexander Keiller, the archaeologist closely associated to Avebury and who was active at the site during the 1930's, was very striking and the building she later identified as the

Later that afternoon, during the tour of the circle, Laura would identify the Alexander Keiller Museum building as the building she attempted to draw, whilst we were stood in the northwest quadrant of the circle.

Breaking for lunch, we took the opportunity to take a walk around the henge in the late autumn sunshine and visit some of the shops.

It was whilst visiting one of the shops that Laura drew my attention to a box full of horse brasses - "that's it!" Laura exclaimed "that’s what the artefact is - a horse brass!"

I could see the similarity with the Laura's sketch, so this was an interesting development, but now only time would tell if Laura was correct.

For the start of the afternoon session, we gathered outside the antique shop which was almost directly opposite the Red Lion public house, where Andy took us on a guided tour of Avebury.

During the walk Andy pointing out a several interesting features that I’d never noticed before, including a visit to the 'Tolkien trees', situated at the eastern entrance to the henge.

This was a location that we would return to later that evening for a final meditation and bring the day's events to a close.

Retiring to the village hall, the afternoon's lectures continued at pace, with Andy touching upon recent questing activities in Essex and the West Country (where he was now based), with another meditation bringing the day's lectures to a close.

We later met with the rest of the attendees for an evening meal at the Red Lion for a couple of hours, before making our way back to the Tolkien trees for a final meditation.

By now darkness had fallen, bringing a whole different atmosphere to proceedings. We passed through the wooden gate at the entrance to the field and slowly made our way up the slope to join Andy and the rest of the group gathered beneath the outstretched branches of the trees themselves and sat ourselves down, trying to make ourselves as comfortable as we could on the exposed roots of the trees.

Andy then explained the purpose of the meditation and proceeded to hand out Jackdaw feathers that he and Sue had collected and would ‘assist’ with the meditation.

During the walk earlier that afternoon Andy had revealed his theory regarding Jackdaws and the Avebury henge. He had explained that the whole Avebury area had one of the highest concentrations of Jackdaws in the country (indeed it was hard not to notice them) and that he felt that this was not a coincidence.

Andy believed that the Jackdaws, historically, served the same purpose as vultures for the Parsi community in India, cleaning the flesh from the bones of the dead prior to burial, set out on high platforms, known as ‘towers of silence’, since ancient times.

There being no vultures (of the avian variety at least) in England in recent history, it was left to members of the corvidae family to perform a similar function and pick up the pieces, literally.

As our group settled down, a couple of passers-by stood paused on the footpath at the foot of the slope beneath us. Dark shadows, their positions given away by the glowing red tips of their cigarettes, no doubt curious as to what so many people were doing sat beneath the trees clutching bird feathers at this time of evening.

Unbeknown to myself at this point, Laura was aware of a pale white spirit standing next to our human observers also watching events play out. Laura took some photographs to try and capture what she saw, much to the distained of some of the others amongst us, but nothing of note appeared on the photographs upon later inspection.
In conversation, Laura later told me that the ‘guardian’ had stood next to the entrance gate as we first entered the field. She felt that the spirit was a guardian as opposed to the usual entities that she usually senses, by the way we were being deliberately watched.

With everyone settled, Andy commenced the group medication. Yet again, nothing was forthcoming, although Laura later reported that she had images of skulls flying towards her, some whole, others with chunks missing, from the dark, which she found unnerving.

The meditation was brought to a close and Collins wished us a good night and the group faded away into the dark Wiltshire night.

Rather than head straight back to our accommodation, Laura and myself chose to return to the southwest quadrant of the circle, nearest the village hall, for some evening photographs and an EVP session.

The following morning saw another 10am start and this time we made sure that we arrived at the hall with plenty of time to spare.

Today’s session would start with updates on Andy’s recent psychic activity interwoven with a couple of meditation sessions, before the talks turned towards Andy’s forthcoming book ‘Beneath the Pyramids’, documenting his research of the Crystal Chambers

It was during the meditations that Laura commenced drawing and making notes again.

Leaning over her shoulder, I could see that she’d scribbled the names (amongst others) Eggerton and Melaya (a reference to Meonia? - discussed later in the day in a talk regarding the green stone saga), but most prominent of all was a crucifix, with what at first sight appeared to be flames shooting up from the base.

As the meditation drew to a close, Laura turned to me and asked me how close was the church to where we were sat? I pointed out that it was immediately opposite the village hall. “We have to go there” said Laura, explaining that she had a sudden compulsion to visit.

As we quietly discussed the developing situation, proceedings were conveniently brought to a close for a 30 minute break, before we commenced the hunt for the hidden questing artefact.

St James Church, Avebury - scene of some co-incidences or something more meaningful?

This allowed us a bit of time to explore the church grounds and hopefully gain access to the church itself to try and establish the reason behind Laura’s feelings. Perhaps there was a connection to the traffic fatality and subsequent suicide that Laura picked up on yesterday?

Making our way out of the hall, we quickly headed across the road and into the church grounds.

The church, dedicated to St James, was Anglo Saxon in origin, the oldest part of the building dating back to around 1000 AD. The building that visitors will recognise now, including the tower, dates from the 15th Century, although major work had been underway since the 12th Century.

Taking a couple of pictures as we explored the churchyard and looked at the names on the graves, we made our way towards the church porch where we were faced with two old wooden doors, complete with wrought iron furniture, barring our way.

I approached the doors and pushed – they were open.

Entering the church we split up, so that we could cover more ground in the limited time we had, Laura turning left towards the tower, whilst I went right, through the nave and into the chancel.

As I entered the chancel, I noticed some memorials that were located on the north wall far to the right. One in particular took my eye. Constructed of white marble, mounted on black marble background, it was dedicated to William and Mary Ann Tanner, who had passed away in the mid 19th Century. I stood there silently and studied the memorial.

What took my interest was the stonemason’s name etched in the lower right corner – ‘Reeves Bath’. Taking into account that Avebury was located just off the A4 roman road to Bath, was this the ‘Reeves Rd’ Laura had picked up on during yesterday’s meditations?

It's all in the name..........

Even more was to come.

Continuing deeper into the chancel, on the opposing south wall, I spotted a large brass crucifix, highly ornate, with small fleur de lys sprouting from the main column of the cross. Again, was this the crucifix that Laura had sketched? There were no ‘flames’, but the fleur de lys could be an alternative take on things.

                              The crucifix

I went and found Laura to show her what I’d found. Laura could see my reasoning with the name on the Tanner memorial, but what did she think about the crucifix?

Laura explained that she didn’t really interpret the crucifix in her sketch as having flames, but instead, as having ‘something’ coming up from the base as opposed to a straight forward cross design. In this context, the crucifix in front of us could be a match.

Conscious of the time, I suggested that we meet up with the others and come back on a later occasion if we felt the need too.

Laura exited the church, whilst I paused to read a notice on the south aisle wall, next to the doors. As I left the church I was faced with Laura, who, with a look of surprise on her face, told me that she thought she’d found a third match with her sketches.

She asked me to walk towards her and turn around to face the doors. I did as I was told and slowly turned around. I immediately saw the reason for Laura’s excitement.

The 'zig zag' design at the top of the doorway

Looking at the old church doors, there, to my astonishment, was the ‘bust’, surrounded by spikes, as originally sketched by Laura – the church doors representing the bust, whilst the carvings in the archway over the door representing the spikes.

As we walked quickly to meet up with the rest of the group, we discussed our morning’s findings but still struggled to arrive at a meaning to all this.

We’d possibly found matched for three of Laura’s sketches, but there appeared to be no links, that we knew of at least, to the road fatality and suicide that I’d originally assumed we’d be searching for. Puzzles answered with even more puzzles. Very frustrating.

Joining up with everyone else, the conversation was who was going to be successful in locating the artefact. Satisfied that everyone was now assembled, Sue and Andy led us into the north east quadrant where the search for the artefact was to take place.

As we walked into the field, I noted the stone that I thought matched the closest to Laura’s sketch. Laura herself had changed her mind and thought that the artefact was now located elsewhere. With more of an interest in documenting the event, I decided at this point not to take part, but take photographs for prosperity instead.

Andy gathered everyone in the centre of the field and asked people to start walking to where they thought that the artefact was located. Laura headed westwards, towards her new target.

After a less than a minute, Andy asked everyone to stop and eliminated those, including Laura, on the wrong side of an imaginary line.

He confirmed that those still left were heading for the right general direction.

Off went the remaining contestants, towards their chosen mark.

The elimination process was repeated a couple of times until the contestants were narrowed down to the final two, who were gathered around, to my surprise, the stone I’d been able to identify from Laura’s sketch.

Andrew Collins "I didn't help at all - honest!"

After a bit of prompting (and some subtle hands on help from Andy himself) the artefact, a horse brass with a swan design, was finally recovered by Michael, who proved to be a most popular winner.

Michael with the Horse Brass

Inside I was again surprised – not only had I been able to identify the correct stone from Laura’s sketches, the artefact itself had also been correctly identified by Laura as a horse brass.

More food for thought.

Reconvening for the afternoon session, we undertook a final indoor meditation. At this point in the proceedings, the focus was fully upon Egypt and the Crystal Chambers, so this formed the basis of the meditation.

Interestingly, Laura once again picked up the flying skulls, only this time she described them as floating towards her rather than flying.

With the Psychic Questing Weekender coming to a close, Andy invited everyone to accompany him to Silbury Hill and then a walk on to the West Kennet Long Barrow, followed by a meditation at nearby spring to bring the weekend to a close.

Overall, it was a very enjoyable weekend, bringing together people with similar interests to experience psychic questing first hand and learn about Andy’s latest work.

On a personal level, for both Laura and myself, it raised a set of whole new questions with no immediate sign of any answers.

What exactly was Laura ‘sensing’?

Was it purely imagination or was there a relationship with the real world?

Were the matches we made with this information pure coincidence or just wishful thinking?

Hopefully we’ll find the answers one day!

Mark D.

Further Reading:

If you’re interested in learning more about psychic questing, I would highly recommend reading the following books, authored by Andrew Collins, which cover the subject in far more detail:

The Sword and the Stone (1982)
The Black Alchemist (1988)
The Seventh Sword (1991)
The Second Coming (1993)

Although out of print, you will often find copies available for purchase at the usual online auction sites.