Miraculous visions of the clairvoyant without sight

By Simon Forsyth

Sharon Neill has that rare gift of being able to ’see’ what other people cannot. Yet the 36-year-old clairvoyant from Glengormley has been blind from birth. A professional counsellor, she is reaching super-star status in her native Ireland. Here she tells Simon Forsyth her remarkable story.

The sighted may regard blindness as being a handicap. That is, until they meet Sharon Neill. She spent six weeks in an incubator after a premature birth destroyed her eyesight and because her mother had other children and needed to work, Sharon was brought up by doting grandparents and aunts at Sydenham, Belfast.

Today as a leading clairvoyant she’s in demand all over the United Kingdom and Ireland. She is the UK’s only blind clairvoyant and has just finished an English tour. The famous consult her for readings. “I’ve done readings for Melinda Messenger, Van Morrison, Janet Ellis - I did a reading for her on UK Living just before Christmas”, she says. In fact, her work gives hope and comfort to many people.

And she says that the ‘gift’ is in all of us. “I cannot explain it. I don’t think anyone could,” she says. “It’s beyond explanation. I believe everyone has guides or helpers working with them even if they are not aware of it. I know that some people can see them; some people can connect with them the way I do.”

Sharon was just five-years-old when sometimes in the middle of the night she would be awakened by people ‘talking’ to her. Their messages were unintelligible as the words were too adult for her to understand. She admits these midnight ‘visitors’ used to give her nightmares. But as she grew older she realised that they were only deceased people “trying to connect with me”.

“I was quite young when I accepted them totally”, says Sharon. And these people are with her still. She consults them whenever she needs them. There are eight of them, of different ages, who remain on “another level to us” and it is through them that she helps others.

One, she says, is a doctor of 45 who was killed in a road accident while going to see a patient in Bristol. One is just 20.

“I have a group of people who work with me - I don’t like to use the term ‘guides’. I prefer to call them my team. There are 8 of them and they all have different functions. Some of them work with me only when I am on stage, helping me to receive the communications as clearly as possible. They make sure that only one person is communicating at a time.

“Other members of my team used to be doctors while on earth. Their job involves making sure that my energy levels are correct when I am demonstrating and that I don’t become too drained.”

One such member of her team is called Jim. Sharon related an astonishing example of just how close the Spirit people are to us when she described how he saved her life when she was suffering from appendicitis.

“I had no idea I had it,” she admitted. “It had almost burst, although I didn’t have any outstanding pain with it, which I thought you would have to have. Jim kept saying to me ‘Go to the surgery, go to the surgery!’ This was on a Monday morning. My health centre was so busy you would never have gotten an appointment on a Monday morning unless you had made it well in advance. But Jim assured me that I would get a cancellation. So I phoned up the surgery and they told me there had been a cancellation. When I visited the doctor he diagnosed possible appendicitis and sent me to the hospital. They examined me and that night I was operated upon.

“I would definitely not have visited the doctor if it hadn’t been for Jim. When I was in the hospital after surgery they put me on a drip. I felt a tingling sensation coming from the area of my arm which was attached to the drip. I didn’t say anything to the nurses because I thought they had enough to do as it was. Again Jim came through to me and said ‘Get a doctor to take out your drip.’ So I wondered how on earth I was going to explain to them why I wanted a doctor. I could hardly tell them the truth, could I? I would have been sent to the mental ward!

“Jim said, ‘I don’t care - it needs to be done now.’ I asked him why, but he just told me to ask a nurse to get a doctor to have a look at it. So I called a nurse over and said the drip felt weird. That’s all I could think of to say! The nurse said that it looked ok to her, but I insisted on a doctor being called.

“When the doctor came and looked at the drip he asked the nurse why the drip hadn’t been removed. The nurse said again that it looked all right to her and the doctor replied that she should go and re-train. It turned out that the vein that was taking in the fluid had collapsed and the fluid was going into the tissue. If I hadn’t had it removed it could have caused septicemia.”

Understandably, Sharon has a very close relationship with her ‘team’. Their bond helps her through the highs and lows of being a modern medium. I asked her what she found difficult about her work. She had strong views:

“For me, it’s not being able to give everyone a message from their loved ones when I am demonstrating. It’s impossible when you have an audience of a few hundred people. It still upsets me even though I’ve been doing larger demonstrations since August 2003. I always make time at the end of the demonstration to talk to members of the audience. They are the people who are giving me the support to enable me to do the shows, so I always make time for them.

“Also, I think poorly developed and fraudulent mediums makes it harder for genuine mediums to be accepted. People are suspicious, and that’s understandable.

“But I have enjoyed a lot of support from the public who have seen me demonstrate. They know that I’m the only blind psychic in the whole of the UK. So I can’t be accused of having plants in the audience signaling to me or anything because I can’t see who I’m talking to!

“I’m determined to carry out my work to the best of my ability and help as many people as I can. People ask me what it’s like to be a celebrity medium and I say it doesn’t bother me. Celebrity isn’t really important to me - my work is. If that means that my work makes me well known then so be it. I want to be able to reach as many people as possible. A lot of people who want readings are on a low income but they can’t afford the prices some mediums charge - sometimes nearly a hundred pounds an hour.

“There are also these psychic lines which I certainly wouldn’t get involved with. I’ve been asked to promote a couple of these but have refused because I know that in many circumstances the mediums are trained to keep customers on the phone for as long as possible.

“I have actually phoned up a couple of these lines myself to see what happened. I’ve had people put the phone down on me after I had given them my name because they knew who I was. What does that tell you? In my view, there should be stricter guidelines as to who is allowed to do this sort of thing. At the moment, anyone can set themselves up as a medium and promote a psychic phone service. How are the public to know what sort of training these people have had?

“I also think mediums should also go on a counselling course because you do get people coming to you who are suffering severe bereavement. You can also get people who are suicidal and even schizophrenic. These are people who you have got to deal with very carefully and a lot of mediums just don’t know how to deal with them. That’s why I think all mediums should go on at least a basic counselling course before they work with the public. I studied counselling at university so I hope I am able to deal with vulnerable people in a skilled and sensitive way.”

Sharon’s talents have also brought her requests to help the police. She has been asked to help in difficult cases where orthodox methods of detection have drawn a blank. While always willing to help, she is careful to avoid publicity.

“I don’t want any public recognition for such work” she says. “I do it purely to help, not to make a name for myself. While not giving specific details, Sharon described her involvement in a case she has been involved with recently.

“It was a little boy who lived just outside Belfast. He had been involved in an accident and had been washed out to sea. I was on tour at the time and got a phone call from the search co-ordinator. I went to the boy’s house and met his family. I showed them on a map where he would be found. Of course, being blind I can’t see anything but my team on the other side will tell we where to point to. I had help from a local fisherman who had already passed over.

“I told them that the divers wouldn’t find the boy, and that the sea would deliver him up. I described to the family that he would be found beside a drain or sewage pipe. A week later he was found beside a drain pipe.”

While such work can be very sad at times, Sharon points to the rewarding aspects.

“The boy’s family were able to give him a proper burial. Hopefully, the information I gave them will help them realise that he is still around in a different place and give them comfort.

“I’m dedicated to this work I do, it’s so rewarding for me but I never would have believed it would get as big as this. I knew nothing about mediums in my childhood. When I was younger I never for a minute imagined I’d be doing stage shows or be on television. It’s a career to me and I love it.

“This is my spiritual fulfilment. I want no other job but this one.”

Sharon Neill’s website can be found at: www.sharonneill.com