THE DOOR IN THE WALL WALK at the MYSTIC ARTS FAIR OLYMPIA 13-14th May 2006

The six walks organised for the Mystic Arts Fair were a great success. The only problematic issue proved to be that the entrance to Olympia 2 was further down Kensington High Street than I had anticipated, and the Fair itself being on the 3rd Floor, with a limited lift service, meant the walks had to absorb a lot of dead time getting to my calculated starting point near Olympia station.. This combined with the slow pace of some of the walks, and other factors (such as the infrequency of tube trains back to Olympia), meant there was considerable overrun on most of the walks, most on average becoming an hour and half in fact, rather than the advertised hour, with little time to rest between them. However although personally exhausting for me there were few complaints and everyone seemed to greatly enjoy themselves. It was very fortunate that I had arranged different helpers for each of the six walks!

An odd factor I noticed on the walks was that that the time they took did not seem to correspond with delays or speed. An early walk delayed by a stalled lift or heavy traffic did not appear greatly longer than a later walk free of delays containing a spritely collection of walkers, in fact sometimes the reverse almost seemed true! Whether this was due to my increasing fatigue or bizarre distortions in time and space remains a mystery!

The walk itself explored the the extremely haunted Jacobean House (only a fraction of which now remains following the Blitz), in the middle of picturesque Holland Park, Campden Hill with its mysterious 'interdimensional' portal, and the three Royal ghosts of Kensington Palace, and much more besides. All contextualised within H G Well's story of a secret magical garden behind a ghostly door in a wall, that didn't 'really exist', said to signify both the human imagination and the 'other world'. More precisely the walk explored the mysterious relationship between the realm of the imagination and the psychic domain, without reducing one to the other. Demonstrating through historic and current 'hauntings' how psychic phenomena not only effects our imagination but is actually shaped by it and manifests through it.



During the walks I encouraged those who felt themselves psychically gifted to share with the group any impressions they received during our explorations. A suggestion that was often fruitful with reports of strong feelings at various locations, a possible 'psychic barrier' around the Holland Park area, and multiple reports of a previously unknown 'white lady' outside Holland House. A highlight of the walk for me were the reports from two highly sensitive psychics (whose anonymity I will respect) who not only 'visually' confirmed an Elizabethan 'white lady', and the 'headless Earl', himself at Holland House (along with many other ghosts in the grounds), but reported a strong emotional atmosphere in the vicinity of Olympia, and declared that on our approach to Holland Park we had been joined and 'followed', or perhaps 'escorted', by 66 black clad phantoms, led by a mysterious caped figure. Unfortunately the ghosts had not bought tickets for the walk and so had to leave us at Holland House, but thanked us for our 'work'.

The event was most rewarding on a variety of levels and having been invited into Holland House by our spectral escort a return trip and perhaps even a ghost vigil is assured.