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Man, Welcome back to Coast to Coast, George Nori with you. Phil Webster is an author. His book is called Letting Glow. He's an actor, spiritual seeker, and after living abroad and traveling the world for twenty years, he returned to his native England back in twenty seventeen and embarked on an acting career. At the tail end of the COVID nineteen pandemic, an unexplained event coupled with a devastating loss sent him down a completely different path forever. We'll talk about that.
His debut book, Letting Glow, documents his journey into the mystical and helps us connect with our highest states of intuition, realigning the connection between our thoughts, consciousness and authentic selves, and ultimately searching for proof that we survive physical death. Phil, Welcome to the program. How are things out there in London?
George? Thank you very much. Pleasure to be here. Yeah, we'll get here in the middle of a great sum of what.
Was this tragedy that occurred after COVID, Well, so we went.
Through the pandemic. I guess we don't really need to elaborate on that. We've all heard enough about that. So I've been based in London for the last few years, as you mentioned, and my mom lived on a place called the Isle of Wight, which is an island of the south of the UK, and we've been through all the lockdowns, and you know, I was following the government guidelines and keeping away and then I would go and
see her when it would get lifted. But essentially she was pretty much on her own for the most part of the year. And she was seventy six years old and reasonably good health. You know, she had a few age related health problems, like her high blood pressure and a few heart issues, but I expected to her to
be around for a while. So I hadn't seen her at this point for a couple of months and due to again through lockdowns and stuff like that, and we went through Christmas of twenty twenty and it looked like there was a light at the end of the tunnel in terms of COVID and all that stuff, and anyway
I spoke to her. I would speak to her a couple of times a day FaceTime, called stuff things like that, and on this particular day, I called her quite late at night, it was like nine thirty, ten pm something, and I must mention as well that this place where she lived was very rual. We didn't have any other family there, and I kind of knew everyone that was in her media, you know, in her vicinity, like natives
and stuff like that. So I called her this particular night, and actually after the call actually leaned into the screen I saw a man leaning again on the other side of the screen, which kind of, you know, shocked me because again we were in a lockdown. So I was thinking, well, who's this guy? And I saw him long enough thought I could describe him. He had thinning, gray hair, glasses, kind of gaune looking face, probably in his late sixties,
I would say. And then as she kind of moved away, he went out of shop and I said, well, I said, well, who's that and she replied who's what? And I was like, okay, well, I just saw someone, you know, who's the guy? And she said, no, no, that there hasn't been anyone here all day. And it just threw me off, you know, because I mean I saw the guy and at the time, my mind wasn't really going to the supernatural around for my bad. I hadn't really there hadn't really been my
interest for many years. I was living a very sort of practical life and I saw them interrupted her and I said, but mom, okay, I just saw someone, so you know, who was it? And she's like, no, no, there's no one here, and she kind of just sort of started telling me about her day. And another thing I could always tell when there was someone with her,
because her whole demeanor would change. She would just speak a lot more politely, and she would kind of put on his airs and graces, you know, and they used to kind of drive me nuts. You couldn't get a straight conversation out of her. And then I just thought, well, okay, I guess I was mistaken. And we spoke for another forty five minutes or so, and I thought, okay, well that was odd, but it didn't make sense. And then the next morning I got a call that she passed away.
So the whole thing, I mean just took on a different meaning for me. And you know, obviously, through the initial sort of stages of grief, it wasn't my go to concern, but it was kind of sitting at the back of my mind for some time, and after a couple of months I kind of started exploring the possibilities and definitely started learning more about spiritual practices.
I'm sure you went through that, but it opened up the door for a lot of other things, didn't it.
Yeah, definitely. It's a very strange one, you know, because obviously I'd rather my mom was still here, but my life has just taken a completely different direction now, and and it's almost as though a parting gift from her in a way.
What kind of acting have you done?
Oh so ill? He's the word acting very lightly when I when I was flat on myself. So this was something I've lived aboard for a long time. And I came back to the UK and I thought, all right, what would I really love to do if I could sort of tap into my old itself or something like that, you know what, what would he be proud of me doing? And and I've always been obsessed with movies, so acting seemed like a logical way to get into that industry. It wasn't really out of a need to perform or
be seen or anything like that. But I went to drama school in my early forties and then very quickly got a few roles. You know, I would kind of walk on and deliver a line and then walk off again, and then that scene would get cut and then But you know, that's kind of the fast couple of years. But but it's been fun. I've had a lot of great experiences and met and worked with some amazing actors like Stallone and you know, Beneedictum about things like that.
So it's been, it's been, it's been. It's paid the bills. But I must admit the last couple of years now my direction is sort of is very much leaning away from that, and you know, towards kind of the whole thing that I've wrote about.
What got you to write in Letting Glow?
What What? What prompted? It was essentially that experience with my mum. You know, after a couple of months, I was actually working on a movie. At the time. I was working on one of these big Marvels superhero things. Doctor Strange Too was the movie. Yeah, And I was kind of oblivious to her, to be honest, you know, I was. I pretty much started on a movie like two days after my mom passed, and I've been waiting
for this for a long time. There was a good stretch of work, and you know, work had been pretty quiet through the whole pandemic. So I was like, Okay, I'm going to do it and it will keep me busy and and and I pretty much didn't speak to anyone for two months on the set, and then one day I told her. I told a young lady the story that I just told you, and she said, well, obviously that was a spirit guide or you know, your guide, or your mum's guide, or somebody letting you know that
she was about to pass. So that and she she suggested that I asked the sign. So I did ask for a sign, and they started coming kind of thick and fast, and very quickly. One thing led to another, which seemed like coincidences, but in hindsight, I looked as though it was some sort of I don't know, there was some symmetry to it. And then I started learning about mediumship, and yeah, I just thought, I'm going to
document this journey and see where it ends up. So the book is kind of my personal journey through grief and then opening up to spiritual practices, and then the theory of the reader could take the journey with me.
Is the title Letting Glow sort of a takeoff of Letting Go.
Yeah, absolutely, you know, I you know, it starts with my mom passing with the story that I just told you, and then by the end of it, I learned so much and the help so much as well, particularly around mediumship. So yeah, that's kind of a play on that.
What have you learned about the other side at this point, Phil.
I've always I've always kind of used to be on the fence with it. When I was a kid, I was very much you know, as a lot of us are into into ghosts and this and that, you know, and then as I got older, I kind of got are more practice call, you know, sort of daily life took over and I sort of put those things to the side. But since writing this book and then learning about medium medium ship myself, and initially watching mediums work and getting messages, then it it's been undoubtedly, you know,
I'm like, Okay, this is real. You know, there's there's no sort of question in my mind from some of the messages that I've received myself on mediums and then watching them work with other people also, and then learning about being one myself and actually given people evidence also, I mean I'm very much of the early stages of my development. I'm not officially given readings or asking for anyone anyone for any money or anything like that. But
the initial you know, readings that I've been given. Again, these things come out of the blue. I don't know what I'm giving to a person, and I've had confirmation out to confirmation, so there seems to be something to it.
You have ignored a lot of spiritual signs your entire life, talk a little.
Bit about Yeah, definitely, So that's that was it again, And I sort of I keep going back to the original story. But but as I opened up to this idea, that really prompted me to look at other things that had happened throughout my life. And it seemed that every few years there would be something like this that would come up and I would ignore it. You know, I think, okay, well that was odd.
You know.
I feel that when a lot of us have these experiences that they're they're there, you know, and you know it happened, but sort of the again, your logical brain takes over and the next day you're thinking, well, what was that or did that really happen or you know, and we sort of question it, and and that's what I've done for years. But it was seemed that every five years or so something would pop up. I mean, when I was a kid, there was a lot of
paranormal activity around the house. And again as I got older, I thought, did that really happen? You know? And then also as a teenager, I experienced astral projection, which I purposely invoked at the time. And then again years went by and I kind of questioned it, and then I sort of started piecing all these together, and it seemed like again every few years, something was kind of tapping
me on the shoulder. And then it almost seems as though I was, without sounding too grandiose, somewhat destined to go on this journey.
The subtitle to your book, phill is A Guide to Intuition, Spirituality, and Living Consciously. Tell me about the intuition portion of that.
Yeah, I think that, you know, we all have these moments of intuition, right, so you know, you talk to people, We have instances where you can walk into a room and say you can cut the air with a knife, or you get a gut feeling, or we can't quite put our finger on it, and we all have these these terms. But as soon as you start using words like clear sentience or clay audience and then people kind of look at you like enough for those same people would agree that, you know, they've got a gut feeling
about something. So I think, is it just a question of semantics. We're essentially talking about the same thing, and I think when we tune into it, and then life
definitely becomes richer. Through learning about mediumship, I'm beginning to realize that you're kind of gone with the first thing that comes well than over questioning everything, you know, with all the force that come in, I believe that, Yeah, when we sort of tap into our intuition and become comfortable with it, things seem to flow a lot more comfortably.
Was there ever a time in your life where you doubted where you are today?
Yeah? Definitely. I think through my late twenties, pretty much off in my thirties, I kind of developed a very cynical attitude towards life, and there were definitely periods of time where I was thinking, Okay, there's nothing to any of that. You know, we're just this lucky accident that you know, as a just as biological thing that's walking around and we live and we die and I and I, Yeah, I sort of developed that attitude through probably the environment
that I was in. I was running bars and miccups for a while, and that whole thing comes with a bunch of cynicism, I think. But gradually, as I as I, as we came to where we are now, I've sort of started somewhat slowly opening up to it again. And yeah, I have no doubt now that it's absolutely more to this than what we see.
And you confuse doctors because originally they diagnosed you with psychosis, didn't they.
Yeah, well, so this is a whole other thing. And again just going back to ignoring things. So a few years ago, around that period of time that I just mentioned in my thirties, I was living in Helsinki in Finland in northern Europe, and I woke up one morning and around this time, I was again running by the clubs. I was probably partying a little bit too much. I'm probably a little bit too old to be doing that as well. That's that point. But I woke up one
morning and it wasn't any particular special morning. I wasn't really I wasn't hungover or anything like that despite all the stuff going on around me. I remember having this thought of time being nonlinear, and I'm sure we've all had this thought, and I'm definitely not the first person to talk about it. But all of a sudden, something
something switched. It was as though people talk about connecting with the moment of now, and it was just something just shifted in my consciousness and as though I was suddenly outside of myself observing my thoughts, and it was I can't emphasize how overwhelming it was, to the point of being almost terrifying. It was suddenly now, you know, And it was like now, now, now, all the time, I couldn't just suddenly switch off and think what I was going to do later that day or what I've
done the night before. And it was as though I was suddenly trapped in this moment of now, and I thought, okay, well, this was it was too much, and I remember thinking it would go off, I could walk it off. But it continued, and it continued for a few days, and I just couldn't, you know, just drift off and sort of go into autopilot, and and it was making my work suffer. I was trying to explain the fans what I was going through, and they rightly looked at me
like I was possibly nuts. And eventually I went to see a doctor and I said, okay, I truly feel like I'm kind of losing my grip on reality. And they use the word psychosis, which just amplified the terror. And this kept going on. So it was going on for months. I went to see another doc. Survey started. He met anti anxiety pills just didn't touch its sleeping pills.
And eventually, and probably towards I would say, the six month mark, and not to take this down the dark path, but I was thinking, well, if this is the way that my brain's working now, then I just I'm not this doesn't work for me anymore, you know. And I ended up going to see a psychiatrist, and thankfully he was the one person that seemed fully equipped to deal with whatever it was I was going through. And he said, no, no, no, So this.
Is he picked up on that, didn't he?
Yeah? Immediately he said, he said, you're you're having an awakening and I was like, okay, well, well what's that? And he started talking about things like traumatic sickness and sort of rights of passes. Back in the day and he started using and he called me a mystic, which I felt very uncomfortable with at the time, and I was like, ok.
Now it's a compliment.
Film well, yeah, absolutely, But at the time, again, my head wasn't in this as now and I was like, all right, we'll just make this stop. And he gave me a few meditations, very sort of basic grounding meditations, and that really brought me back very quickly, and I would say over the rest of the year, I sort of slowly sort of got back to normal, you know, and rejoined the herd, got on with my work, and
I sort of put it behind me. But it was a really powerful experience, and again I didn't really connect it with any sort of spirituality until recently.
You know, would you say this, this mystical journey has made you a changed person, a better person.
Yeah, definitely that that experience in itself really smashed my ego to pate to pieces.
You know.
At the time, I was kind of like living this very shallow, self absorbed life, I would say, and I felt that the ego was the first casualty. You know. I was genuinely worried for my mental health at the time, and I came out of that kind of thinking, not swelling the small stuff anymore, you know, like work and
everything sort of took a backseat. And that was around the time where I came to the UK and I thought, Okay, what would I really want to do work wise and looked into acting and it did definitely did seem to sort of brush all of the you know, less important worris aside and make me appreciate that you know.
All that God is now your second chapter you devote to the Ouiji board. Tell me about that, all right.
So when I was a kid, I would say sixteen seventeen, I grew up on this place called the Isle of Wight, that where my mom lived. And it was the nineties, so we didn't really have that much to do. We didn't have any Internet or anything like that at the time. And yeah, I think a few of us dabbled with a Wigi board and a friend that myself kind of really got into it and we would carry on doing
it and we definitely connected with something. And once again, this is one of those things that as time went on, I thought, well, what was that, you know, But in hindsight, yeah, I think we definitely tapped into something, but I also believe that we weren't prepared for it in any way. Since learning about mediumship, I believe that intention is really everything, and what you bring to the table is what you're
going to experience, you know. And I think in those days, as fragile egos and you know, angstuly teenagers that we were, we probably weren't in the best environment to start messing around with something like that. So yeah, we definitely connected with something and it was a very interesting experience, a very scary experience at the time. But yeah, I think
my views on that have changed now. I haven't touched a week aboard since, but I'd be kind of interested to maybe look into that from from this new perspective.
Now, I think weg boards and the wrong hands can be pretty dangerous to people, aren't you.
Yeah, I mean that was my experience. I didn't know what was happening at the time, and it there was something, something happened and it was out of my control, and that was very scary in itself, and I didn't know how to shut it down or making stuff and it wasn't it wasn't you know. When I'm not talking Hollywood movie kind of events or anything like that. But something was around. Yeah, but something was around, like undoubtedly to
me at the time. With this knowledge, well, from what I've learned now, I would say again, I've spoken to mediums that are you know, that have been doing this for years, who were actually fine with them. You know, they're they're really about bringing the intention to it, and if you're going with with with good intentions and protection, then they can be from what I've heard, can be a positive experience. But that being said, I wouldn't advise anyone to just go messing around to them.
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