Forrest Hills Cemetery October 24th, 2021
I saw what I believe was the spirit of Dr. Joseph Warren in full, vibrant color and heard him speak of the battle he died in. At the time, I did not know of his impossible-seeming connection to Forrest Hills, so I enjoyed my connection with him without any expectation of validation. What made this encounter extra special was the fact that my wife Rachel was there to listen to my account and, through later research, was able to make sense of what happened.
If you haven’t read Part 1 of this encounter, I recommend starting here.
As Rachel and I walked through the roads looping deep into the cemetery, we started to descend a small hill. We noticed two hawks in the trees above and began to follow them. The hawks appeared to be fighting over their prey, and Rachel began moving closer to them, trying to catch their antics on her iPhone.
I began following Rachel and the hawks, but my eye caught on something else. At the bottom of the hill, I saw a mist forming, which was unusual for a sunny day. The effect left this ethereal cloud hanging in the cemetery, and when I pointed to it and asked Rachel if she saw anything, she said no, just sun rays and a little fog. Within the fog, I sensed this concentration of energy. I began to see movement, like steam rising, and the air was visually vibrating. My heart raced, and I began walking toward the energy.
This scene was drawing me in, and I sensed that a very thin screen separated two worlds in this space. As I entered, I felt as if I was being welcomed through a portal.
My eyes were tearing up slightly, my vision relaxed and blurred, and I began to see only shapes moving through the light. These objective visions were some of the most vivid and surreal of my life so far. I knew I was in the presence of something loving and beyond my understanding.
I felt with my entire being that something was happening that would expand my awareness of the spirit world, and I lost all awareness of the physical world, including my own body. I stood with my eyes closed, feeling as though I was floating, and started to see clairvoyantly a young man who carried a boy who did not have the use of his legs. The man I saw was dressed in Revolutionary War-era dark leather shoes with buckles, knee breaches, and trousers. I knew that the Battle of Bunker Hill was important to him. I knew that he had several sons and that he was a healer.
When I work with mediumship, it’s common for information to come to me like this through “just knowing it.” In mediumship, this is called claircognizance, and it was hard for me to accept at first. Claircognizance is when the spirit world blends with your mind closely, and you begin to know what they know. The information is not being passed through your physical senses; it just is in your mind. I saw the men, but besides this, the rest of the information I received was simply placed in my mind without any sights, sounds, or smells to back it up.
When Rachel finished filming the Hawks, I told her what had happened. Although we had known each other for almost a year at this point and were engaged to be married, I still felt shy about sharing this information with her.
She took out her phone and started researching what I had shared, and I started to regret telling her. Then, she told me that the type of clothing I’d seen didn't make sense for anyone who was buried in the cemetery we were in.
Forrest Hills Cemetery was founded in 1848, seventy-three years after the Battle of Bunker Hill, so it was unlikely that anyone I saw would be connected to this cemetery. They would have to be old enough to have fought in 1775, survived the battle, and lived past 1848, which felt unlikely. Even if someone as young as 14 fought at Bunker Hill, they would have to live to be 87 years old.
As Rachel started to look in the surrounding area for anyone who might fit this criteria, I started to question why I had ever experienced this at all.
I knew what I saw, but, at the same time, the mist was gone, and I felt somehow vulnerable about my experience being researched. I thought, why would a spirit person appear to me with such clarity if there was no connection and the information could not be validated?
As a medium, I am often judged on the evidence I receive. Some people will take a lack of evidence as an indication that mediums are fraudulent, which brings up a lot of insecurities. I myself believe that professional mediums should be judged on the quality of their evidence, and I continued to question why any of this had occurred.
Rachel had no experience with mediumship before meeting me, but she’d seen me work, and I’d done readings for her. I knew that she had started to believe in the existence of The Spirit World and mediumship because of what she’d seen with my work. We left the cemetery, and I felt like I had failed somehow.
Now that I know her better, I can see that Rachel was not fact-checking me or questioning the evidence of what I saw. She believed in me so completely that she was not going to shy away from finding the truth in it. Since this first encounter, I’ve seen many spirit people in cemeteries and received messages from them. When I do, I can share the facts with Rachel and be assured that she will validate each piece of evidence. I don't have the patience or need to validate my personal encounters with spirit, but I love that Rachel does. Each time feels like a gift.
A few days later, Rachel came to me with some exciting news. She believed the spirit person I saw was Dr Joseph Warren, a surgeon who had died at the Battle of Bunker Hill. Of course he was not originally buried in Forrest Hills because it was not built during his lifetime. Warren's body was exhumed again ten months after his death by his brothers and Paul Revere, who identified the remains by an artificial tooth Warren had installed in his jaw. His body was interred in the Granary Burying Ground. Then, in 1825, he was exhumed again and reinterred in St. Paul's Church in Boston before being moved one final time in 1855 to his family's vault in Forest Hills Cemetery.
Rachel was excited to tell me that the spot where we saw the hawks that day was on video. She had the street names and knew that a monument dedicated to Dr. Warren was close by.
We had missed it that day but were able to find it when we returned the following weekend. We walked to the spot we had been that day in the mist and walked about 100 feet to the left.
There he stood, a figure transcending space and time. Looking down at us, I sensed that he was enjoying this game. That it was him I had seen objectively at Copps Hill watching me from afar and that he had been at Granary Burying Ground, somehow influenced us to return to Forrest Hills and, with the help of two fighting hawks, brought me to the site when I could see him in all his heroic glory.
A Personal Connection Worth Noting
Since researching this article, I have learned that the statue we visited at his gravesite at the Forest Hills Cemetery was dedicated in a ceremony by the Grand Master of Masons in Massachusetts on October 22, 2016. This is remarkable to me for two reasons.
First, the dedication happened one day after the anniversary of the first time I saw Dr Warren in his apparition at Copps Hill, and second, I will never forget this date because it’s the anniversary of my near-death experience, October 22, 2004.
Synchronicity reminds us that nothing is unimportant. As I continue to pull on the threads of evidence surrounding this story, it weaves a message of connectedness, and the message I take from it is to trust—both in myself and the spirit world.
With love,
Sheryl
wow, this was a great read! I love all the deatils of seeing the mist
Thank you for sharing this story. It’s fascinating and so good to read of your own worries and how Rachel found more evidence for validation. It was very moving to read of the further synchronicities as well. 🌟