Where others fear to tread

ON an ordinary Sunday morning, Christine is tending to her plants. She weeds and waters, and stands back to admire them twinkling wet in the sunlight.

Then, almost imperceptibly at first, a sweet smell reaches her nostrils. To her, it is unmistakable, and she smiles in the knowledge that she is not alone. Her eyes fix on a small, white feather half concealed behind a leaf, and she feels a rush of contentment. Once again, she marvels at how obvious angels make themselves to those attuned to their existence.

While it may seem easy to dismiss Christine's evidence that we are surrounded by angels, to her it is irrefutable. Ever since she was a child she has held an inner certainty that they exist and now, as a 50-year-old woman, she has learned to interpret signs of their presence.

Feathers, she explains, are generally accepted among believers as angels' offerings and, for her at least, smells and changes in temperature communicate that they are near. Others have described actually seeing them but Christine believes that they only become incarnate under special circumstances, when they want to experience life from a human perspective.

Her views have been formulated over the past four years since her childhood interest in angels was reawakened through her studies of mind, body and spirit disciplines like reiki and aromatherapy. In that time, Christine, a mother and stepmother, from Newton Hall, Durham, has read countless books on the subject.

After taking early retirement from her regular office job, she made the decision to turn her interest in angels into a business. In April, she travelled to Bergerac, in France, for a certified angel and ascension teaching course, run by renowned angel exponent Diana Cooper.

Now, with the aim of sharing her knowledge and helping people to "find the light within and empower themselves", Christine is launching a series of introductory courses, starting in Durham on Sunday.

She believes that angels can play a role in every aspect of life. "They can help you in so many ways, from finding a parking space to finding the perfect partner," she says.

"If I go anywhere where I think I'm going to have problems parking, I ask them to provide me with a parking space. You can just talk to them, or if I want to send a thought, I just send it in my head to them. If there's no one around I will sit and talk to them."

As Christine and I sit opposite each other in her living room, the tenor of our conversation begins to strike me as odd. A candle burning on the coffee table and tinkling mood music add to the feeling of surrealism, and I feel slightly unnerved when a storm breaks outside.

When Christine relates her discovery of the feather, earlier that morning, she ushers me to the window to see it for myself. Sure enough, there is a small white feather nestling among the plants, but for me it bears no association, no prickle of recognition. I wonder how any rational human being could possibly credit this as evidence of angels' presence.

According to Christine, it takes time for most people to accept the signs of their existence. "Once you plant a seed in somebody's mind, the seed grows and turns to a thirst for knowledge about them," she says. "Angels live in the seventh dimension, so we have to raise our vibrations through meditation so we can connect with them. A lot of people are being awakened to this and their own vibrations are increasing. We are becoming light workers, which is helping people open up to who they really are and why they are here."

When I look baffled by this, Christine acknowledges that we are getting into the deeper theories of angel teachings, which she would not normally venture into with the uninitiated. She says her earliest ideas about angels stemmed from her Christian upbringing and that, as a child, she prayed to angels as an extension of God. But now, it seems, her philosophy is something of a hybrid, borrowing from different religious and spiritual sources. She says: "My own belief is that angels and angelic beings are messengers from God. I also believe in reincarnation, and that life is soul lessons from your Karma from previous lives."

Christine explains that by this she means that it is our destiny to live out different lives in the hope that we will learn from past mistakes by being put in a position to rectify them. She believes that to have a better life, people must acknowledge this.

I immediately wonder how the idea translates to suffering and if Christine attributes this to people's past mistakes. While admitting that it is a difficult subject she says that, for example, a woman whose husband beats her was perhaps a wife beater in a previous life, and is supposed to be "learning her lesson". She also alludes to disabled people, and a story she has read in which a cruel master comes back as a cripple, teaching him the value of compassion and mercy.

But it's fair to say that some people would find such views repugnant. Glen Hoddle lost his job as England manager for airing something similar, and I venture that they could cause extreme distress to someone affected by illness or disability, especially as Christine has told me she conducts "healing with angels". But she assures me that she would not impose her convictions on those she felt would not be receptive to them. Still, I cannot agree with her, nor imagine anyone gaining comfort from such beliefs. However, she puts a positive spin on them, encouraging people to derive strength from having "learned their lesson".

It is difficult to imagine the same angels that help some people overcome illness deigning to help others find a parking space, but Christine says there are different angels for different functions. At the top of the hierarchy are archangels like Michael and Gabriel, and presumably the parking angels are at the bottom. Then there are guardian angels which, in the best Hollywood tradition, rush to your aid in times of trouble. When I remark that Christine's idea of guardian angels is strikingly similar to that of scriptwriters, she simply takes this as adding credence to it.

As I leave the neat semi-detached home which belies the unorthodox views of its occupant, Christine remarks that she believes fate caused us to meet on this day under these circumstances. She invites me to attend her workshop, and I recognise that our conversation has aroused more curiosity in me than I would have credited.

As I get into my car I can't resist the temptation of checking to see if the feather is still there. It isn't, although I'm not sure whether this adds weight to the idea of angels or not.

* To book a place on the Introduction to Angels course at the Three Tuns Hotel, Durham, (Sunday 11am-4pm) ring 0191-386 7918.