TRUE SPIRITUAL ENCOUNTERS: Paul had strong reasons for his interest in belief in the afterlife and reincarnation.

One of the writer’s eeriest and defining moments occurred while he was serving a prison sentence. This occurred due to a miscarriage of justice.

Since his release, he had thought it best to put the trauma behind him, and he moved on. He never mentioned the unjust prison sentence to anyone. He did not speak about the eerie experience during his time in prison. He kept this to himself, not even sharing it with Deborah.

The fetid stench of his cell built during the Victorian age had soured his lungs. The rankness of the odours evaporated over time.

The same might be said of the humiliating cell prison searches. There was also the loss of personal control. The dreadful pyjama-like attire reminded him of outfits worn by concentration camp inmates.

Paul recalled being in the vast prison hall and experiencing a spiritual experience that defied all understanding.

No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t shake it off. An apparition of a long-forgotten past provided stark evidence. It proved that he had undoubtedly lived before.

That poignant day in prison, Paul was just a name and a number, as were all the grey-clad inmates.  

As that bleak afternoon, he took a seat in the serried row of seats in the massive prison hall.

Paul was unjustly gaoled and looked indistinguishable from several hundred other inmates. They were all dressed in the same prison uniforms. He seemed to disappear into a multitude of prison grey. Paul took his place in a central row of the auditorium.

Long forgotten the reason for the prisoners being in the hall. But, never would the writer forget one of the creepiest most hair-raising experiences of his life.

During that afternoon’s event, Prisoner KA3145342 Paul Ireland was conscious only of his non-existence. He was lost in the uniformity of over 1,000 grey tunic convicts. He paid scant attention to whatever was being said from the stage.

Paul sat in the middle of the prison hall. His slumbering mood was unexpectedly awakened. A creepy telepathic sensation made him feel he was the focus of another person’s thoughts.

Instinctively, Paul turned in his seat to identify whoever it was who was showing an intense interest in him.

The backseat rows in the prison hall reached back further than he could see. There were in the rows of seats immediately behind him a multitude of faces of similarly attired prisoners.

Paul’s eyes were drawn like a magnet. He noticed the presence of three prisoners. They sat close together several rows back from him.

It was obvious that the convicts who sat in several rows of seats behind him were known to each other. These rough-looking men clearly knew each other. They were as inseparable as Siamese twins. He could be quite certain of that.

As his eyes unerringly met their cruel gaze, Paul’s skin prickled. It was a physical sensation. It warned him even before he had turned in his seat. The three men’s malicious attention was focused on him alone.

Their malevolent stare had telepathically entered his subconsciousness. It warned him of the menacing danger the three convicts presented. There was in the three men’s gaze a chilling malevolence that could have no rational explanation.

Paul’s blood ran cold. For whatever reason, he knew that given the opportunity to do so these three thugs without a reason he could think of would fall upon him and bludgeon him to death, such was their malice and their hatred for him.

But why, for as far as he could recall, had he never in this life met any of these men? There was no reason for their obvious hatred directed at him alone.

Interestingly, as Paul awoke to the trio’s sinister interest in him, he realised something. He recognised their faces. It was as if the three convicts had once been his companions.

Equally, their recognition of him was as certain. Yet, scarily, until this moment, the three convicts and Paul had been unknown to each other in this life.

The hair-raising phenomenon freaked Paul out. He clearly recognised the men in the rows behind him as evidently as they recognised him.

Paul recognised the men from a previous life. They had been sullen mutineers. They had justly earned the wrath of the vessel’s uncompromising and rigidly disciplined captain.

Paul was a senior officer on that same vessel previously. He would have been delegated to carry out an extreme punishment. This punishment was final enough to deter other would-be mutineers.

In this life, Paul had no recollection of the men’s wrongdoings. He was unaware of the penalties that had been awarded to them.

Whatever the consequences of their rebelliousness might have been, he was a ship’s officer. He would have had little choice but to carry out the penalty.

Now, the four men met by Fate again. The shipboard sentence caused malice. It occupied the consciousness of the mutineers long after their mortal deaths. This presumably happened in the 18^th Century.

Why Fate had decided that their executioner should again meet the three was a mystery. Paul knew he could never unravel this mystery.

The novelist had never attempted to understand the mystery. He had no reason to figure out the brief and sinister encounter.

Paul was subconsciously aware of this. At the time of their being court-martialled and sentenced, the matter had been soon afterwards largely forgotten.

In such circumstances, there were far more pressing matters to handle. Addressing the threat posed by three mutinous sailors was not a priority.

The supernatural experience in the forbidding English prison was a stark reminder to Paul. It indicated that he had lived before. Presumably, he would live again.

Could it be, he thought. This unnerving prison encounter might serve as a reminder from Fate. It reflects the consequences of an unjust sentence.

LEFT: The Soul Mates true paranormal story by award-winning novelist Michael Walsh. Click the picture to access information.

There may be a good reason for the three men being confined in the prison. However, there was no reason for him to be in the same prison at the same time.

Never again in this life, at least, was Paul Ireland to ever encounter the malevolent three men again. When he accepted this, much about his present life on earth began to make sense.

On meeting those ‘absolute strangers’, Paul had discovered an unaccountable hostility. It reinforced his impression. The mortal experience was simply a pause on a stepping stone across the ages. This was an odyssey taking mankind from one life experience to yet another. There was no other accounting for a phenomenon that defied explanation.

NOTE: This story is an excerpt from the paranormal novel The Soul Mates by Michael Walsh.  

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