Heather Bellamy spoke with Claire Hine

Claire Hine

Claire Hine was a medium by 10 years old. She had her own spirit guide and could read people's minds. Heather Bellamy spent time chatting with her about her past in the Occult, her search for love and a powerful encounter with Jesus that changed the course of her life.

Heather: Can you start at the beginning and tell me how you got into witchcraft and the occult? I believe you got into being a medium from about 10 years old.

Claire: Yes, that's right. Before then I always knew that there was something different about me because I seemed to know things that other people didn't seem to know; but I didn't get life. I didn't seem to get the rules of life. I remember at about five or six years old knowing what I would get for Christmas; being able to see things in people, their emotions and how they were feeling, but I didn't get some other things like being at school was very difficult.

Heather: So how did it all start? How did you get into being a medium? How did you start to become aware of the spiritual realm in that way?

Claire: From about five to 10 years old I knew there was something more than I could see. I was very interested in people's personalities and finding out who I was and why I was on the earth. At about 10 years old I came out of school and saw my Mum reading her horoscope in the newspaper and thought that perhaps this would give me an answer, because she said everyone had a birth sign. I had been looking for who I was. I was quite a shy little girl and used to hide behind Mum a lot. I thought that this might offer me a sense of identity. I loved it because it also showed me what other people were like, because I absolutely love people. It gave me insight into them. At about the same time my Dad introduced us to an Ouija board and I began to talk to the spirits on the Ouija board. At the same time as it would spell out messages I would have very strong feelings like there was a presence with me. I'd had that from about five as well. I felt very different. I knew that it made me stand out from other children in my school, but they became interested in what I could do as well.

Heather: How did you handle that; that's an awful lot for a small child to come to terms with?

Claire: I used to talk to my Mum about it and she was very broadminded. She was an agnostic. She believed in some kind of god, but was unsure whether there was one way to God. She thought that maybe all the religions of the world were a way, including spiritualism. I would have talks with her and I grew up in an environment where I was told that I could search down any avenue that I chose. It was actually my Mother who bought me books on tarot cards and palmistry and even tea leaf reading; everything you could think of in the occultist realm. She kind of encouraged me up until I was about 16 and by that time I was a fully fledged astrologer.

Heather: What does it mean to be a fully fledged astrologer?

Claire: I knew I could look up where the planets were in the heavens at the time of somebody's birth and work out what their outer appearance would be; what their personality would be; their unconscious personality; their mind and their love life. There's a whole set of planets and it would give you a description of a person that is absolutely unique. Lots of children at school would come to me and ask me to do their birth charts.

Heather: Did having this awareness of this spiritual realm trouble you at all?

Claire: Not at all. I wasn't aware of any kind of fear. It was natural. It had been in my family. My granny had read tea leaves and there was definitely divination going down through the family line. My distant Uncle, some of them were into the spiritualist church. It was something I just took for granted as being a gift from god. If there was a god then this was something I'd had from a child; why would I question it or be afraid?

Heather: So having had that from such a young age and it being in your family, how did you come to the point of turning your back on all of that?

Claire: Well from 16 years old my life took a very drastic change of events. My Mother died. My Dad, we believe today that he probably had Asperger syndrome, which is on the Autistic spectrum, but very high functioning. He was a genius, a very clever man, but had no empathy skills and of course being born in 1922 it would have remained undiagnosed. He was a very strange father. The death of my mother was such a shock that I just decided to leave home. I couldn't live with my Dad as he was so difficult to live with. I went to live with my Auntie who was a head teacher and I just pursued the occult in what I was doing. By the time I got to about 21 years old I was just doing what I wanted with my life. I was an artist training to be a book illustrator. I had come down to Cornwall because I was a Geordie. I absolutely loved it down here. Cornwall's rife in witchcraft although I really didn't like witchcraft because what I wanted to do was good. I wanted to heal and didn't realise that it's the same root; so thought I was doing good things. People would come to me to speak to Great Aunties who'd died and Mums and Dads. I just took it for granted that it was a good thing that I was doing, but then I began to ask lots of questions too because the more questions I asked, the more questions there seemed to be, to be asked and I never seemed to get any peace. My life was falling apart at the same time and I began to question if this really is right, why is life so difficult?

Heather: How did you first encounter Jesus?