Trance Healer Autobiography: A Mere Grain of Sand



A Mere Grain of Sand (2004) is the autobiography of Ray Brown.  His wife Gillian and Paul Dickson are the coauthors.  Ray is a trance healer whose body is regularly controlled by spiritual healer 'Paul' to treat patients.  In the Introduction, Paul Dickson commented about collaborating with Ray, Paul and Gillian:

Ray and Gillian's stories are narrated in their own words based on edited, recorded interviews with them.

 
Paul's story is also drawn together from interviews and his lectures in which he always explains that he is the spirit of the early Christian leader, Paul of Tarsus, who was beheaded in Rome during the reign of Emperor Nero.  He says he is the same man who famously was converted to Christianity following a vision on the road to Damascus.  After his death, he says he chose to train as a doctor in the spirit dimension and was later selected to return to Earth to heal and also to teach and increase our understanding of the spirit world.  In addition to his new teachings and explanations of the spiritual dimension, Paul also explains his reasons for working through Ray and Gillian.

In one of our early interview sessions, while I was talking to Gillian, I was suddenly aware that Ray was staring at me.  But in fact this was not Ray!  Paul had arrived unexpectedly and unannounced in Ray's body.  I felt very uncomfortable as he continued to stare very intently at me.  It felt as if he was reading my mind.  Afterwards Ray and Gillian told me smilingly he was just checking that I was up to the job!

Ray Brown was born in Birmingham, England in 1946.  His father left home when Ray was five.  His mother then began a relationship with Bob Black, who continuously "battered" Ray and his elder brother.  After a period of illness upon contracting tuberculosis, Ray returned to school when he was ten.  The missed lessons resulted with him being placed in "the D class, D for Dunce!"

Ray described childhood out-of-body experiences: "The next morning I would remember what I had seen, but it would seem just like a dream . . . At one stage I came out of my body every night.  Paul told Gillian that the reason for doing it was to make the transition between Paul and myself easy."

 
After Bob "married his girlfriend using Mom's money," the family lived with Ron and Marjorie Wells, who later brought Ray to their spiritual healing group.  Soon after Ray's fifteenth birthday, Ray's mother gave Bob a second chance and he resumed living with the family. 

Attending the Christopher West Healing Group was a step for Ray toward becoming a trance healer.  "George Jones, the leader of the group had a spirit called Dr. Hoist who came through and told me that a spirit would work through me, and that I had to prepare myself . . . He said that I had to sit and train for trance."

George Jones, with Dr. Hoist working through him, chose the healers for each patient and asked them to place their hands on the affected areas.  The healing was done by the laying on of hands.

We were allowing the power of healing to pass through our bodies without them being taken over.

At age 17, Ray left home and began an unhappy first marriage.  He formed a home development circle with two Healing Group members.

I sat on and off for nearly four years waiting to go into trance.  Then one night, soon after my 21st birthday I said to the group: "This is going to be my last night.  I have had enough.  I could still be waiting here in another 20 years."

They all understood.  I sat down and suddenly, it was as if a hammer had struck the back of my head.  It happened as quickly as that.

I sat down and closed my eyes to go into a state of meditation.  I felt my eyes go 'boom, boom, boom.'  Lights were flashing in front of my closed eyes.  Afterwards, the group said that they saw nothing move, but I felt as if my eyes were going berserk.

 

When Waters Running cane through he (or I!) started dancing round the room.  I was aware that I was there, but still thought that I was sitting in my chair.

 

On that first evening, I knew that I was talking but I could not hear myself.  There was a brief pause when I felt that I was slumped on the table.  I think that was the change over between Waters Running and Paul being in possession of my body.

When Paul first came through, he announced himself as Doctor Andrew Portlock.  It was a far deeper sensation than with Waters Running.  Paul did not reveal his true identity until much later, and it was not until the 1990s that he explained his background and spiritual mission in public.

On one evening at the home circle, instead of Waters Running coming through prior to Paul, the Native American Indian Chief Geronimo took over Ray's body and, upon being interrupted with football scores, angrily threw the new participant against the wall.  Ray observed: "That evening really taught everyone in the room that you should always take care over who you invite into a physical circle."

In 1971 after his mother was killed outright in a car accident and Bob died from his injuries a few days later, Ray returned to work at Portsmouth dockyard and fell over a hundred feet from his crane after a handrail broke away.  It was one of a variety of accidents that Ray has miraculously survived.  He divorced his wife in 1973: ". . . by then, thanks to all the added stress of Helen's abuse accusation, I had suffered a complete mental breakdown.  I became an in-patient at St. James' Hospital, Eastney where I met Sally a fellow patient, who was to become my second wife.  It was Sally who helped me to reconnect with Paul."  Ray became employed as a bricklayer.

My dealings with the spirit world had been on the back burner, to say the least, since my mother's death.  But one night, soon after we moved into the flat [in Southsea], Paul materialised in front of Sally and recommenced my spiritual development.

The incident resulted with Ray becoming acquainted with Sally's aunt, Janet, who was knowledgeable about spiritualism.  Janet began a circle for him at her house.  Paul (still known as Andrew Portlock) healed members of her family.  During this period, other guides came through Ray to talk, including on one occasion apparently the Anglo-Saxon 'King Athelstane.'

In the mid-1970s, Paul's cousin introduced him to Jeanne Lambourne and he went to her development circle for a couple of years.
 
In December 1979 while working at the Portsmouth Naval Base dockyard painting submarines, Ray was exposed to toxic fumes.  While driving home, he passed out and his car collided with three other vehicles in quick succession.

As the dust settled, people rushed over to free my leg from the clutch pedal.  If I had been wearing a seat belt, the steering wheel would have speared me through the chest.  The car had been compacted by the three blows and resembled a cube!

Waters Running spoke about the incident —

I have always protected Ray when he has had big accidents like the car crash, by lifting him out of his body.  This allowed his body to relax and prevent any real injury.  He would not be here now, if he had been in his body.

In May 1980 there was another incident when Ray inhaled toxic fumes while painting the submarine.  He lost track of time while in the ballast tank and his lungs collapsed when he was pulled onto the deck.

Paul had a hand in getting me out of the tank.  Because they were struggling to get me to move, he intervened, took over my body and put my hands through the hatch.  Everyone was amazed that I managed to get out.

Paul's next job was working for a firm of undertakers yet he later returned to the building trade.  In 1985 Ray became involved with a weekly healing circle at the home of Pat Cowen and this became the site of his first regular clinic. 

His second divorce resulted with "a big depression . . . I had lost my house, lost my kids again . . ."  Some help from Jeanne Lambourne and other friends enabled him to eventually "make a go of full-time healing" in 1990.  The same year, he met Gillian, who had been involved with a spiritualist church for fifteen years.  After hearing about Ray, she sought healing for a repetitive strain injury and a longtime earache.  Gillian invited Ray to do a demonstration at the church.  The following is from the chapter description at the beginning of Chapter 12.

Gillian was drawn closer and closer to Paul and his work.  The medium, Paul Lambillion did an auric drawing, which confirmed that she was going to pursue a full-time healing career.  Gillian consequently began organizing Ray's clinics and went all over England with him doing demonstrations at spiritualist churches.  Because of this a rift appeared in Gillian and Terry's marriage.  After she went on two healing trips to Kenya with Ray, who nearly drowned in a diving accident on the second visit, Terry gave Gillian an ultimatum: choose between him or Ray and Paul.  Gillian decided to stay with Ray and Paul.

In Chapter 19 of the book, Paul is quoted about what happened when Ray's second marriage ended.

I went back to Spirit and asked them to look for someone for Raymond, who would help get him on the right pathway.  It was suggested that Gillian would be the right person.  She was experienced in mediumship, and had all the skills that were necessary to steer Raymond on the right pathway.

Gillian's guides already knew what they wanted for her.  She had her life with her previous husband, but it was gradually being steered towards meeting Raymond.  My contact with Gillian was with her Spirit guides who worked through her.  She was like a voice crying in the wilderness and was really asking for a change.  There was no better person for us to choose.  She is good in every aspect of the work.  It was meant to be.

It was not until I saw her for the first time that I knew that she was the one for the job.  Whenever I meet people for the first time I always sit and look at them and pick up on their wavelength spiritually.  Then I endeavor, within spiritual laws, to manoeuvre the situation to where it needs to be.  I cannot, however, interfere with free will.

 

Ray and Gillian married in May 1995.  They and Paul became the subject for a segment of the six-episode BBC documentary TV series "Secrets of the Paranormal".  The show was telecast in May 1996.  In 1998 there was more publicity when the newspaper News of the World published a succession of articles about Ray and Paul with reports of many successful "spirit surgery" cures.

Chapters in A Mere Grain of Sand offer an outline of Paul's Earth life and spiritual teachings.  "I was born Saul of Tarsus.  Paul was my Roman name."  After becoming a Pharisee, he led the revolt against the Nazarenes, whose leader was a man named Stephen.  "We eventually found Stephen preaching and stoned him to death.  We then continued to terrorise and beat the Hellenic Nazarenes of Jerusalem . . . I did become increasingly troubled, and started to regret the terrible suffering that I had inflicted upon others.  In fact, the guilt weighed so heavily upon me that it badly affected my health."

Paul experienced a vision of Jesus, who told him: "I am Jesus of Nazareth who you are persecuting."  The vision resulted with Paul's conversion to what is now known as Christianity.  The following are some excerpts of Paul's quotations from the book.
 

Instead of persecuting the Nazarenes for their beliefs, I became one of them.  I am nothing.  I wish to be nothing.  That is the way that it has been throughout my life, until given life again by God.

  

Spirits do not come down from on high.  We pass from our own dimension which is Spirit into your dimension, the Earth plane.  The only reason that you cannot move between dimensions is that you are attached to your body.  If you tried, you would hurt yourself.  I could walk Raymond to a wall and he would hurt his nose, but I could pass through to the other side as I am in a different dimension.
 

Every person on Earth is equal.  What makes you different is the clothes that you wear and the material things that you possess.  The same as we are all equal in Spirit, depending on the level we have reached.

Once I reach my level I am with the people of my time.  The disciples are in Level Nine and Jesus comes down from Level Ten to meet with us.

  

Jesus taught love, lived love, and gave love.  He taught us not to be afraid of those who threatened us.  For although they could hurt our bodies and take away our lives, we would live on in Spirit and become part of him and the universal power.

 

I started studying to be a doctor about 300 years ago in Earth time.  The High Council in Spirit, on Level Nine, asked me to train as a doctor to advance healing on Earth, and at the same time to teach people the correct pathway to Spirit. 

 

On Earth or in Spirit, a doctor is a miracle worker; a nurse is a miracle worker.  They repair your body and get you back on your feet.  Childbirth, the beginning of physical existence, is a miracle.  The creation of the universe is a miracle.

 

When I first worked through Raymond, I did not want anyone to know my identity, although I still wanted to keep the name Paul.  At the time it was not right for anything to be said.

There was no purpose to be served by revealing that I was Paul the Tarsean, a Rabbi in Jesus Christ's time.  There will always be opposition.  But now is the time for the truth to be revealed.

 

Speaking English through Raymond has become natural.  When I first came through him, it was a bit rusty, because I came from a level in Spirit where we do not need to speak. 

 

In addition to collaborating with Ray, Gillian and Paul to write A Mere Grain of Sand, coauthor Paul Dickson interviewed 21 people who provided testimonies concerning this case.  One of the interview participants whose commentary is presented in Chapter 25 "Patients and their Healing" is Ray and Gillian's secretary Carol Epstein, for whom Paul once 'untrapped' nerves in her back.  Carol remembered:

Between my first and second [healing] appointments I contacted Gillian about the secretarial job.  We had just settled terms on the day of my second appointment.  Gillian took me in to let Paul have another go at my back and said to him: "This lady is going to be our new secretary."  Paul looked at me and smiled: "Yes, I already know that."  I think that on my first appointment, when he had given me that really intense stare, he had looked inside me to see if I was the one to work with him, Ray and Gillian.  I have always felt honoured by that."

 

Jeanne Lambourne is another of the interview participants whose commentary is included in the book:

. . . the time came when Paul told us that he was moving to Suffolk to 'go up a gear' and work for Spirit full time.  We were privileged to have worked with Ray and Paul.  The wonder of it all will always remain.