Classic Mysteries by Brent Raynes

Visits with Bill: A Psychic Astral Traveler in Maine

Back in 1972, during my senior year in high school, a year in which I embarked on some of my first paranormal investigations, I met an interesting older (retired?) gentleman who lived in Winthrop, Maine. I visited him a number of times. Bill claimed to have had out-of-body experiences. On the evening of February 22nd, I sat down with Bill and we did a taped interview.

“It is rather difficult to give good evidence of an out-of-body experience if you’re not aware of where you are at the time it occurs,” Bill declared. “The rocks, the grass, and the trees are all familiar, but unless you see a sign, unless you see some visible evidence, you’re not quite sure whether you are earth-bound or dimension bound.”

I then asked Bill what had been his most impressive experience. “About a year after my grandfather passed away I took an out-of-body trip,” he told me. “Several, as a matter of fact, into what I can only surmise was the astral realm since I met him there. He showed me around the place that he was living in, which was a house very similar to what he had on earth. He was also with my grandmother, who had also passed away. And we used to have long conversations. I used to wake up in the morning, before going to work, with the phrase ringing in my head that my grandfather was not dead. “He’s not dead. He’s still alive. He’s still alive.” And these visitations went on over a considerable period of time, until I was thoroughly convinced in my mind that I had visited wherever it is you go when you die.”

“Was there any special technique you used for doing this?” I asked Bill. “No,” he replied, “As a matter of fact, it was more or less automatic. When I became aware of the experiences that I was having and sought to control them so that I could go where I wanted to go and when I wanted to go, and began a serious study and began a serious study of techniques, I had more difficulty than ever. Perhaps if I hadn’t started to study I’d still be going, but the attempt to make it an act of will cut down my experiences. I have no explanation why.”

“In my youth,” Bill continued, “prior to going into the service, I was a little bit more psychic-oriented than I am now, and as extraordinary as it seems, though I can produce witnesses, reliable witnesses, I either had an ESP ability that permitted me to know when rain fall was going to stop, which I could predict within 5 or 10 minutes accurately, or I had the ability to stop the rain. I was never sure which, but quite often if I intensely wanted to go somewhere I would concentrate on a rainfall and in my immediate area it would stop raining until I got where I wanted to go, as incredible as that sounds. But it had to be an absolute selfish desire. It was never for the benefit of somebody else. I had to have the desire that I simply did not want to get wet. That I refused to get wet.”

“I was coming home on a bicycle during a rainstorm. I rode from the top of the hill in the other direction that you have arrived in to the house next door, where I used to live, in a rainstorm, and there was not a drop of water on me. I have no explanation for it except that it happened a number of times and it happened until I started to worry about my ability to do it and then it stopped.”