Introducing Paul Salmon

When we asked Paul Salmon, Editor of Eternal Spirit Magazine, about his life before he discovered Spiritualism his first answer was “Nothing out of the ordinary”. It then transpired that he was a martial artist, a Morris Dancer, and had been a fairly regular visitor to our television screens in the 1980s. He even appeared with Hale and Pace in his guise as a Morris Dancer.

He worked for years to get his black belt and describes himself as being mentally exhausted after working so hard to obtain that level of training. He continued training for many years eventually reaching 3rd Dan, however, he eventually found himself thinking “what next?” This made him realise that for him the excitement was in learning and having a target to aim for, rather than the status of being a black belt.

He remained with Karate for a while but eventually found himself losing interest, at which point, and for some long forgotten reason he found himself invited to dance for the Morris Men. He went along to his first evening of dancing and actually laughed “I had taken Karate so seriously over the years that I realised it wasn’t exactly fun for me. Injecting fun and laughter into my life and enjoying myself at the same time was a revelation.”

“When I see karate on television I still think that I’m part of it, and recognise that it’s instilled within me, so too is the Morris Dancing”.

Paul married into a folk family and even organised the Suffolk Festival – an evening of dance and music in the park. At one time there were 60 Morris sides taking part from all over East Anglia and a side came especially from France.

However, a few years later he realised that the buzz of excitement had vanished. One moment he was thoroughly enjoying the work and the next he realised that he was still not satisfied with his life. Some friends recognised this and noticed that he was giving up important things in his life, and he remembers feeling that the things he had done hadn’t fulfilled him regardless of how successful they appear on the surface.

Spiritualism had entered Paul’s life by this time, as yet hovering on the fringes, and it took him some time to realise that it was seeing the legendary Medium Doris Stokes on television that had first inspired in him a desire to do Spiritual work. Although for Paul the philosophy was and still is more important than the messages.

He believes that “we are on this earth plane to recognise the divine in each of us and return to the godhead”, although he says that he “has a way to go”.

Paul feels that everything we do in life is part of our Spiritual journey and contains Spiritual lessons, and he also believes in synchronicity saying that “I saw the Morris Men on Surprise Surprise with Cilla Black years ago. My mum said ‘You’d love to be with them wouldn’t you’. I certainly did and couldn’t believe they were my local side. I wanted to do Karate and found a local club run by a Japanese master just one mile away from my home. I’m a Graphic Designer and wanted to design a record sleeve for my favourite singer – Sal Solo – and while going to work one day in London I saw him at a bus stop and gave him a lift and my business card. He got in touch and I ended up designing a couple of his record covers and writing the notes for one of his albums”.

He’s now writing a book about his Spiritual life for his family but “if a publisher shows an interest...who knows?” Hopefully someone will cross Paul’s path and the book will be published.

All this from someone who felt that his life before his Spiritual journey was “nothing out of the ordinary”. Yet like many people on this path he always remembers feeling old. “I remember feeling old in the pram, even when my Grandfather pushed me in the pushchair when I was about eighteen months old.” He says he felt embarrassed to be in a pushchair because he felt too old to be in one.

For thirty years of his life Paul was afraid of dying. The fear manifested when he was four years old and his father found him crying in bed one night saying that he was afraid to die. His father told him that “we are like flowers and when we die we move over to let other flowers grow.” It was a beautiful explanation but it didn’t make Paul feel any better then, or for many years to come.

It was when a friend asked him to accompany him to a Spiritualist Church that the fear finally went away because he realised that there is no death.

His personal experience of continuing life came just after his father passed over. “I was in my kitchen washing up dishes when all of a sudden the kitchen was covered in orange light. I heard a voice inside my head saying ‘Everything’s going to be all right’. I felt so peaceful and so much love.”

It wasn’t long afterwards that a friend invited him to the Spiritualist Church and the Medium gave him a message from his father and his best friend, who had recently passed away. From then on he was constantly told that he would one day be a Medium.

Paul’s family found him to be happier in himself, and that he gained confidence to do things that he wouldn’t have done before, such as speaking in public and presenting his own radio show. His mum was “just pleased that I found something I could believe in.”

Perhaps the most interesting group of people he had to inform about this great change in his life was his Morris Dancing side – The Royal Liberty Morris Men, A.K.A. The Heavy metal Morris Men. They would turn up at gigs on motorbikes, dance in leathers and boots, and use scaffolding poles instead of sticks. “Letting some of those macho guys know that I now believed in Angels was quite an experience, but this would lead some of us into further discussions. Especially that my late friend who came through to me during my first visit to a Spiritualist Church was one of the Morris Men.”

Paul is a person who believes in being well informed about the things he’s involved in; consequently he was a constant visitor to his local church library. He was advised to start with reading books by Silver Birch, and then he felt drawn to The Curse of Ignorance by Arthur Findlay. Eternal Spirit is now sold at Stansted Hall, the home of Spiritualism that is more famously known as The Arthur Findlay College.

Eternal Spirit Magazine represents the first piece of Spiritual work that Paul has undertaken. He had been in publishing for a number of years and the magazine represents a way that he can combine his real life skills with his work for the Spirit World; which is why it’s called Eternal Spirit, although the story behind that is somewhat interesting.

“When I was struggling for a title for the magazine I knew I wanted the word ‘Spirit’ included in the title but I couldn’t come up with the rest of the title. So I asked my dad ‘can you help me to pick a name for the magazine please?” I looked up at the ceiling, opened a dictionary and stuck my finger somewhere on the page. When I looked my finger was pointing to the word Eternal. It was meant to be.”

His dream for the magazine is for it to be a nationally recognised publication in its own right; to be a recognised authority on Spiritual matters, and to be appropriate for all genders and all ages. He would be happy to have the magazine sold on high streets all over the world rather than just over the Internet.

He also wants to inspire people to change their lives for the better.

Paul’s other love is his weekly Radio show The Eternal Spirit Radio Show which he presents once a week from Ipswich Community Radio; you can also listen to it over the Internet at www.icrfm.co.uk.

His aims for the show are broadly similar to those of the magazine, and his guests were originally intended to be Mediums and those from the genre of mind, body, spirit. However, the show has grown and developed and recently he has been fortunate to have interviewed Vicars, Ministers, Bishops and born again Christians, receiving some surprising answers on the subject of Spiritualism. He would now like to interview people from other religions present in the UK.

From the Psychic field he has interviewed Colin Fry, Tony Stockwell, TJ Higgs and Psychic Surgeon Gary Mannion. In the future Philip Kinsella is coming on to talk about UFO’s, and he’s also interviewing a ghost hunter, dowser and palmist.

His long-term plans at the moment are to continue with the magazine and radio show. However, he’s also considering making a film, and would love to see an Eternal Spirit television show.

He would also like to concentrate more on his work as a Medium and be the bet that he can for the sake of the Spirit World and his guides. He would like to help people the way he’s been helped in the past by having contact with other Mediums. He would like to speak to groups about how he overcome his fear of death by embracing Spirituality, and he wonders if there are groups for people who are afraid of the unknown?

It would be true to say though that Spiritualism hasn’t helped Paul to conquer his fear of quite everything.

 One evening just after he’d been to a Spiritualist Church he wandered home thinking about ghosts; later he decided that he would make himself a sandwich when he felt a presence behind him. He saw a shadow appear; it grew larger and loomed up behind him. He saw the shadow of the head followed by the shape of the shoulders. He was absolute petrified, his chest heaved and he thought his heart was going to burst out of his chest.

He steeled himself to turn and face his fears whether it be a ghost or a thought form he was ready for battle! Trembling he turned around and the ghost – or his wife Justine as she’s normally known – said “Did you have a good evening? You look pale?” It would have been worth a great deal to have a camera in his kitchen for that particular moment!

We asked Paul what he would like to be remembered for and he replied “if I could be remembered for being a decent person that would satisfy me.”

After this article we’re hopeful that he will also be remembered for being a deep thinking, black belt Morris Dancer with a real commitment to and passion for helping people, and the drive and determination to translate that dream into action. As well as being a thoroughly decent person already.

© Deb Hawken - First published in Eternal Spirit Magazine Spring Equinox 2010