As a child, Jeanine Glynn would spend hours watching burials at the cemetery near her home.

She’d hide behind a headstone and stare, and wonder why people got so upset.

It’s something she still doesn’t really understand. The 74-year-old from Poole, Dorset believes the dead are always accessible to the living, through spirit mediums such as herself.

“There is no death other than the body,” she said. “We are souls living in a physical world but when we leave this world we will carry on living in the spirit world which is the real world.”

Mrs Glynn will speak at Thyme restaurant next week. The two-night affair, billed as being “for entertainment purposes only”, will include drinks and canapés.

Followers believe spirits move to a different realm after death, but can be reached through a medium. A spiritualist church in England provided Mrs Glynn’s introduction at age 18.

“I was raised in the American evangelist tradition,” she said. “As I grew older, it didn’t do it for me. I started to investigate spiritualism.”

The training process took 15 years. Along the way she earned a diploma in spiritualist philosophy and phenomena from the Spritualists’ National Union.

Mrs Glynn believes everyone has some psychic ability, some more than others. What she most enjoys about her job is helping people get rid of their sadness.

“Most clients just want to know that their loved ones are all right and still love them,” said the medium, who was invited to Bermuda by a former client. “All people [survive death] whether they believe or whether they are entrenched in some religion that thinks we should not talk to the dead. Spiritualism embraces all religions. It doesn’t matter what you believe. It is what is true.”

Christine Trott said she invited Mrs Glynn because she felt there were many people, like her, who questioned whether there was life after death.

“For those people, an experience with a medium who is able to communicate with spirits is a great source of joy,” she said. “It is really comforting to know our loved ones are still with us once they have passed over and still love and care for us.”

Mrs Glynn claims to have helped hundreds of people reconnect with loved ones over the years.

She recalled one grieving woman who came to her office hunched over and dejected. Unbeknown to the woman, there was a little boy beside her knee.

It turned out that the boy was her son, tragically killed on the first day of school. He was rushing across the road to tell his mother how his day had gone when he was struck by an oncoming car.

“I told her that he was all right and he still loved her,” said Mrs Glynn. “It was like a weight lifted off her back. She left a different woman. She had been devastated for a number of years.”

Most of the spirits she meets are friendly and known to her clients. That’s not always the case in dream state.

“Occasionally, at night when I am asleep I will encounter one or two who are not so nice,” she said. “I don’t have a problem with that, because I know my way around that.”

Some sceptics might wonder if she researches her clients lives beforehand so she can offer the correct cues.

“Most of my clients are complete strangers,” Mrs Glynn said. “In fact, it’s harder to work with people I know. I am a lady with her feet very firmly on the ground. I wouldn’t do this if I didn’t believe in it.

“It’s like everyone has the ability to play piano, but not everyone has the ability to be a concert pianist.”

Mrs Glynn will speak at Thyme in Paget at 7pm on Thursday and Friday. People must be at least 18 to attend.

Tickets, $75, are available at www.ptix.bm. Contact Mrs Trott on 300-0160 or cmt.ebp@logic.bm.