Lisa Williams Interview

Well for me it was normal, I though everyone had this and saw dead people?

Did you know they were dead people?

No! I didn’t I just thought that happened to everyone, but when my dad started to brand me with the whole ‘over-active imagination’ thing I started to think that no one was listening to me. I had my own world and I believed in what I was feelings, but yes, at times it did scare me and I did hide under the covers and think “oh my God, if I look up I’m going to see a dead person”

But it was only as I started getting older that I realised that these people were dead… so I think it scared me more as I got older, when I was like seven or eight years old. I would think “please go away, I don’t want you here” but when I was really young it was just like ‘oh there’s another person.’

Surely when you were growing up you heard about people with this gift, how come it took you so long to pursue it when you clearly had something special?

Well it was funny because I didn’t want it! Even though my grandmother did it, it wasn’t spoken about until I was much older, we weren’t really allowed to talk about it in the house because my dad is an atheist and he didn’t want it talked about in the house even though he got on well with my mums mum it was still a touchy subject.

What happened was that my grandmother gave me a reading where she told me I would be doing her work, but I thought it wasn’t going to happen because I had been brought up with my dad’s views and I was quite sceptical myself and I didn’t want to face it, I wanted to be normal, but when you start seeing things like this you start saying information to your friends and they look at your weirdly and think “yeah whatever.” so I wanted to fit in with my friends and so I just didn’t say anything.

So me trying to fit in was why  left it for so long, but then the feelings became so strong that I just because impossible to ignore and that’s when I started to develop it, and I’m glad I waited until that point because I think if I had tried to do it younger I wasn’t in the right mindset to do it and I would have probably screwed it all up! I think I had to learn certain lessons in life to appreciate it fully what it was.

I have to ask you questions from a sceptical point of view, and I have to be honest with you, I’m not quite sure where I sit on clairvoyance at the moment, because I went to a spiritualist church the other week, and to me it seemed so vague and like accurate guesswork… do you think there are people who do that kind of thing?

You know, there are those people out there, I don’t know if you’ve been to LA but in LA, there’s  a psychic on every corner. Now there are psychics and mediums who give us a bad name because they prey on the emotions of the needy but I’ll address two things here; you do have that side where everyone has the ability to be psychic.. It’s like singing, we all have the ability to sing - whilst some of us can only really sing in there shower, there are others who can belt out a tune on karaoke and do have the potential to go on something like the X Factor.

So yes, in a way you can develop your ability so that’s probably what you saw at the church, people developing their psychic ability, but with mediumship, you cannot. [FF: They were claiming to be mediums!] right you see, you can learn how to be a psychic, but not every psychic is a medium.

When I teach mediumship there are people who can develop and have that ability to develop it, but when others come along to the workshop I ask them; “So why are you here? Have you ever seen a ghost? Have you ever had any interaction with the spirit world?” and they’re like, “well no but I thought you could teach me.” well no, you can’t it’s a given gift.

Ah, well at this Church they had this trance demonstration last week and they had this guy who was saying that he had become that person, and that he was taking over his vocal chords, but he spoke in the same voice and he seemed to be speaking how great it was to be involved in the Church as every ‘person’ which to me sounded like blatant trickery and promotion.

You see, that’s the thing, I can’t tell you because I wasn’t there, but you have to trust your own instincts! [FF I’m hoping you’re going to change my mind Lisa!] haha, well I’m going to be honest, I’ve come from a completely sceptical side to this and I look at it and my dad has helped me because I won’t come across and say; “I’ve got a man here and he was this and he was that,” I will say “I’ve got a man here, his name is this… and this is the situation” I always give the person I’m reading for some specific information.

For example, I was doing a reading for someone and I was getting a date, and I told the person that it was his birthday but it wasn’t it was in fact the day he died and sometimes the spirits call the day they die as their birthday because it is the date they were born into the spirit world, so they call it their birthday.

I give specific and not general information, and I think that’s what makes people question whether or not it is real, I think spiritual church is often like that, there will always be good mediums and bad mediums.

There are also programmes on TV now, such as The Mentalist, which imply clairvoyants are just hyper observant people who can read small facial expressions and moods, do you think this makes it harder for you to convince people that what you see is real?

Well you know, not really because you have shows like Ghost Whisperer which counter balance that, but there has to be an air of scepticism because it makes us work harder and I think that’s really important to remember, but I can understand why people will say that but I’ve done readings blind folded and not seen the person. It takes a bit of doing but I also do telephone readings so I can’t see their eyes flicker of this or that, all I ask for is a simple yes or no, and over the phone it does take a bit more time and is a bit more difficult but there are those people who argue, point blank, that this is trickery, but I always just say; “Come along and see it and believe it!”

I actually point to people and say; “here you are, you’re the sceptic, now your father is standing at the side of you, so get up and let me talk to you!” and they sort of go “Oh my God!”

Okay, but to me, I would have to have someone tell me something that they couldn’t possibly know for me to believe, do you find you often have to justify yourself like that?

Well I always say to people to come along and see for yourself and there is so much that is out there and we all want something very specific and relevant and when you’re meant to have it, and when you’re ready to accept it into your life, you will then start.

I once told a woman that she wasn’t ready to experience this, her grandmother had just passed away and it was really, really sad and I told her; Now I’m going to tell you something now that you will point blank refuse to believe” I can’t remember what it was but it was something along the lines of ‘every Sunday morning your grandmother sat there and put yellow ribbons in your hair’ and she said “No she didn’t” and like I said, she wasn’t ready to accept that, so I told her to go home and ask the question to your mum, because she might be able to remember it.

Anyway, I then got an email back saying- bear in mind that when she came to see me her grandma had only passed a few weeks before -; “when I was ready to, I asked my mum and she always used to work on a Sunday so I would go over to my grandparents house and we would put yellow ribbons in each others hair!”

Now she couldn’t remember that far back because she would have been a child, but she wanted something very specific, and this was relevant to her grandmother and not to her, and I think that’s what people need to remember; that it’s not what we always remember in our minds, but it’s what they want to remember…. It’s incredible how many emails I get that say; “I couldn’t relate to that but now I can.!”

Well Lisa, it’s been brilliant speaking to you, super enlightening too, so I look forward to seeing you in Salford!

Haha! Yeah definitely! See you soon!

FemaleFirst - Ruth Harrison

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