A FORMER Royal Air Force officer will be bringing his spiritualism to Darwen Library Theatre next week.

Medium Andrew Dee says that a message from his late grandfather while serving in Iraq helped set his life on a fresh career path.

“People want to think that there’s more than just the physical world,” says Andrew, when asked about the growing curiosity in the paranormal.

“Interest has been around for a long time.

“You go back to Victorian times and they were holding séances behind closed doors.

“But back then it was very secret because of the backlash from the church.

“Now it’s out there in the open there’s a lot of information online.

“I think particularly when people approach their 40s and 50s, they’re more aware of their own mortality and are looking for answers.”

A medium is a person who spiritualists believe is able to see, hear or sense beings in the spirit world, and who carries messages from the spirit world to this one.

Andrew, from Liverpool, says he was aware of his abilities as a child.

“I’d be there with my eyes closed and I’d see people I’d never met before — strangers.

“It wasn’t something I ever used to talk about because I don’t think I really understood it back then. When I contact the spirit world now, I’d describe it as like being in a cinema. You’re looking at the big screen but you’re also conscious of the man in front of you eating popcorn.

“So I’m aware of being in a room with an audience but I can see the spirit world as well. It’s like a dual channel.”

Andrew recalls he was on his morning break in Iraq in 2006 when he spotted a clog-shaped, silver key ring glistening in the sand.

He explained that his grandfather, who died when he was 10, was Dutch, while his father had a famous restaurant in Liverpool named Clogs.

“To anybody else this was fairly unremarkable, but to me this was most definitely a message,” he said.

“At that moment, everything in my mind began to swirl and I suddenly felt a rush, almost like I was not in control of my own thoughts. Or, more like somebody has taken control of my thoughts.

“It also felt like I was looking at the clog through somebody else’s eyes and I knew whose eyes they were.

“For a split second my grandfather was with me and had completely enveloped me with his presence.”

After leaving the RAF he began visiting spiritualist churches, working with other mediums and raising money for charity.

“The communication between our world and the next is a bit like tuning a radio into the airwaves and looking for a signal.

“There is a lot of white noise in the airwaves and it a case of working in a disciplined way to ensure the accuracy of the message I receive.

“A lot of people want to receive a message and will make the information fit.

“When this happens, I often ask spirits to give me the information that only one person can understand so that the recipient is left in no doubt who has come to communicate with them.”

n Andrew Dee, Spiritual Awakenings, Darwen Library Theatre, Saturday, June 8. Details from 01254 706006.