A Psychic in prison
Psychics are overly sensitive people, so why on earth would a sensitive person choose to take a tour round one of Her Majesty’s prisons? After all it can’t be the most happy of environments.
Well, partly because many psychics need to understand all aspects of life. If you have the privilege of being able to counsel and advise people on life issues, you really want to grasp as many situations and you can. And I am a kind of experience junky.
So when I was offered the opportunity to walk down C Wing at Wormwood Scrubs male prison along with the inmates, I accepted.
You don’t often get a chance to experience being there, unless you are an inmate yourself or a prison officer.
The first thing that shook me about the prison, is how nice it looked from the outside. Beautiful old brick work and an amazing looking Church in the grounds, all things I didn’t really anticipate.
Another thing I didn’t expect although I really should have, was the locking up of the prison doors.
Two doors, one with bars and one without. Metal and very strong. The prison guards are given keys and they open and close each lock every time they go through the doors. To me it looked like the most annoying of jobs that had to be done. There are also strong steel wires with balls on, going across the rooftops from building to building, against helicopter escapes.
The locking of the doors, the lack of natural light, gives such an oppressive energy to the place.
I was accompanied by a prison officer, Alan, a friend of mine, who was giving me this opportunity.
As we walked down the long corridor it reminded me somewhat of a cruise ship. There are doors along the corridor and of course everything is made of metal, which felt very ship like. Even down to some of the doors being very thick, much like the watertight doors on a ship, but the next door has bars.
Walking onto C Wing you can see that the layout is like a capital letter E. The prisoners were having their cell doors opened to allow them to go and get lunch.
As they leave the cell the door is locked behind them and only reopen when they return with their lunch in hand.
I took time to tune into the people around me.
One very old man in his grey prison clothing walked with a limp and found the trip to the kitchen a difficult one. A fellow inmate brought his lunch back for him. Lunch looked like the worst school dinners I have ever seen. Jamie Oliver hasn’t had an influence on prison life just yet.
The energy was oppressive, but calm, as if people were resigned to the situation they were living in. Looking at people I could sense who was there just because they had made mistakes in life. Some had a real dark look in their eyes.
But no more or less evil than a person you might meet in the street.
There were also spirits around the prison. One really wanted to know who I was and what I was doing. As Alan told us about the prison set up, the spirit and I had a little chat. I explained he was dead and could leave the prison at any point. He didn’t seem interested in turning to any ‘light’ and so I moved on.
There was a constant feeling of someone walking next to you. Forms seen out of the corner of your eye. In an old building like this you would expect a lot of energy play back. After all there must be lots of energy from the constant presence of people. You would never feel a sense of space even if the place was empty.
I remember from working on cruise ships, the small stuff becomes really important. The prison officers don’t have the resources to work on any individual request.
20 men together will be taken to the Library to choose 4 books. They have 18mins to choose. This is a tight time frame. If, for example, there had been a problem and a prisoner had needed restraining and putting in solitary, the officer responsible might then be late to take the 20 prisoners to the library. It’s not the sort of situation where you can say ‘sorry, you will have to wait until next week’. Many of these men could have been waiting and this would be the highlight of their week.
This is the sort of circumstance that would cause major unrest. Often people can handle anything as long as there is routine. If we know that round the next bend the traffic will move, we cope with the queue much better.
It put me in mind of when my boss took my crew pass on a ship and stopped me being able to get off after 4 days at sea. The rage in me was indescribable. On the whole people are not so different.
As I walked through the wing, I wondered what would keep me going if I couldn’t do all the things I love, when I want to do them?
Would it be a blessing, that I could simply stop making decisions for once?
Would this make me feel more able to fall into my own thoughts?
I think that wouldn’t last long, before the need to move came out.
We all have our own ways of coping with our own imprisonment. Believing that our past makes us who we are keeps us imprisoned in our own story.
Or our body and health imprison us. Or the ego protects us a little too much.
What I saw in Wormwood Scrubs is how the ego copes with imprisonment. At no point did I find a free spirit, which was what I went in search of - someone with light behind the eyes. Someone with the glow of enlightenment, the ego and the body captive, but the spirit at liberty.
I felt overwhelmed with sorrow, for if you can find your spirit, then you are forever free and what made you the criminal in the first place can be transcended.
There isn’t time in prison to rehabilitate. Many people use the education open to them as a place to chat to friends and stay out of the cells. They are given £7.00 a week instead of £2.00 if they attend a class. Even the beautiful church is used by the inmates as a meeting ground to see friends in other wings. They chat throughout the boring sermon, arranging to meet again next Sunday.
If it was fear that made them commit crime, then fear is more than ever at home in prison.
I walked out leaving behind the bars, locked doors and gates, happy to be in the outside world. I asked a lady as she passed by if she could tell me the direction of the tube. She looked at me, and I saw the prison she lives in, without the bars.
Isn’t it time for us to unlock the doors, and live without fear?
Our society is geared towards it. Does crime create the fear, or does the fear create the crime?
That’s the one we can personally stop, and I hope it will prevent the other, when the vibration we send out is pure love.
© 2007 Becky Walsh