Report from Evening with John Holland

Thursday night was the second time we've seen psychic/medium John Holland in four months, which is pretty wild since five months ago I had no idea who he was. We first saw him back in March as part of a double bill with Dr.Brian Weiss - check out that report. He was so entertaining we decided to catch him again as he was nearby in Manchester, New Hampshire.

John doesn't do fortune telling or future reading, rather he connects with the spirits of people who have died (though he says nobody really dies, they just leave the physical form) and passes on messages. He sees images in his mind and translates them to communicate with us here and others on the "other side." He doesn't choose who to talk to, but rather spirits who want to communicate come to him.

We were in a hotel banquet room with a few hundred other people and John begins with a funny speech about his own history and experiences. He uses a lot of humor to raise the energy of the room.  Then he starts his readings. He calls out a name or a scene and says where in the room the energy is, then whoever thinks the message is for them stands up. In one case he had the spirit of a female who missed a wedding. A woman stood up whose mother had died and couldn't be at her wedding. The message from her mom was that she was indeed there, saw it all, and was proud of her daughter. Turns out the daughter wore her mom's dress.

Another one was the spirit of a gruff father who came forward to tell his son he loved him because he never said it when he was alive. The son was blown away. The spirit also congratulated him on being a dad, but the son said he didn't have any kids. Then the woman next to him shoves him and he recalls that his girlfriend is six months pregnant, d'oh!  The father's spirit joked to him that you know I'd never be caught dead at something like this, but here I am!

The spirits pass on little things to John, to prove he's really connected with them. Inside jokes or stories that only the family member can verify, which they usually verified via tears or laughter.  One of the wildest moments was when John was looking for someone who knew a Wilma, quite a rare name outside of The Flintstones. A woman stood and said Wilma was the name of her son's dog - her dead son's dog. When he was alive his mom joked that if you come back with a message you better mention Wilma so I know it's you. Whoa! Then John said he felt like the dog and her son were on top of each other somehow. She explained that the dogs ashes were put on top of her son's coffin and buried. The whole room gasped. That is the sort of wild drama that pulled me back to see John again. Regardless of what you might believe, the amount of jaw dropping emotion is worth the price of admission. I didn't go into this wanting to communicate with any spirits, but rather for the thrill of seeing it happen for others.

One more hilarious thing stood out. John was talking to the spirit of a father whose daughter was in the crowd. His final message was, "Tell your husband most people pay for their Christmas trees." The woman and her friends buckled over in laughter. John told them they had to fill us all in. Well, each year her husband goes out and cuts down a Christmas tree from wherever he sees a good one, never paying, just plucking them from the wild.

The spirits on the other side want you to know they are fine and most of all, they want us to be happy. So thanks, Spirits, I am happy.