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SINGER Sinéad O’Connor, whose funeral service took place last month, sat with mediums and visited London’s College of Psychic Studies.
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SINÉAD O’CONNOR “I consider that I make healing records.”
(Photo Man Alive! on Flickr)
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The 56-year-old released ten studio albums. Her version of Nothing Compares 2 U was named the number one world single in 1990 by the Billboard Music Awards. The song was originally recorded by Prince, who wrote it.
Sinéad used her fame to be an outspoken activist on poverty, abuse and mental health issues.
In 1992, she ripped up a photo of Pope John Paul II live on American TV to draw attention to the abuse she said was being covered up by the Roman Catholic Church.
She was widely criticised, but proved right in 2008 when Pope Benedict XVI acknowledged the suffering of those who had been abused by Roman Catholic priests, opening the way for a series of investigations and apologies.
Sinéad, who married four times, looked for solace and answers in a variety of spiritual practices.
In 1999, she was ordained a priest in an independent Catholic church not in communion with Rome and took the name Mother Bernadette Marie.
Six years later, Sinéad released her album Throw Down Your Arms, which she described as “My way of expressing gratitude to the Rasta people because I am one of those human beings who would not be alive today if it was not for the teachings of Rastafari.”
The religion, which first developed in Jamaica in the 1930s, combines Protestant Christianity, mysticism and political consciousness.
Sinéad converted to Islam in 2018 and changed her name to Shuhada’ Sadaqat, although she continued to perform under the name Sinéad O’Connor.
“I’ve always been interested in music as healing,” she told journalist Amber Cowan, who interviewed her for the Body and Soul section of The Times.
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Sinéad visited the'College of Psychic Studies in
Queensberry Place, South Kensington, London
“on and off for years to find out what was going on.” |
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Of the tracks on Throw Down Your Arms, she said “These songs are pure spiritual upliftment “The best way I can describe them is like a rope bridge; they are very supportive.
“I hope that people will get the sense from listening to this record that there is more around us than we can see or hear.”
Raised in Dublin by “an abusive alcoholic mother,” at the age of seven, she was locked in a dark room for two days.
“I said this prayer,” said Sinéad. “Although I didn’t have any particular anticipation of an answer, this ‘thing’ came and sat with me.
“I communicated with it and cut a deal that when I was bigger, I would let people know it was there.”
Sinéad’s parent passed in a car crash when the singer was seventeen. After this, “very odd things began to happen.
“I would meet people and get images of the inside of their house – where they kept their private letters and what was in their bedside cabinet.
“I’d hear footsteps two minutes before they would come to the door. It freaked me out.”
Sinéad visited London’s College of Psychic Studies “on and off for years to find out what was going on.”
She said that at the college, mediums “teach you how to open it up and shut it down,” referring to the ability to tune in to the spirit world.
Sinéad admitted she had not contacted her mother “because psychologically it wouldn’t be a good idea. But I have talked to plenty of other people’s mothers.”
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Sinéad O’Connor performing in 2014
(Photo: Bryan Ledgard) |
She concluded the interview, saying “I consider that I make healing records. I suppose this is my mission in life.”
Sinéad is survived by three children. Her son, Shane, seventeen, took his life last year.
In her 2021 memoir Rememberings, she wrote that Shane “is an extremely special character, very, very psychic and very, very spiritualised.
“When he was three, he asked me one day, ‘Were you in an earthquake when I was inside your tummy’ At first I said ‘No’ because I forgot that I had been.
“When he was two weeks in my belly – I didn’t even know I was pregnant – I was on holiday in Malta and there was an earthquake. I never thought about it again and never mentioned it.
“I never told the child; I don’t think I even told anyone else. Yet this three-year-old was able to tell me I was in an earthquake. I don’t know how he knew this.”
After Shane’s body was found, Sinéad began “living as an undead night creature…
“He was the love of my life, the lamp of my soul. We were one soul in two halves.
“Shane was the only person who ever loved me unconditionally. I am lost in bardo without him.”
In some schools of Buddhism, bardo is an intermediate transitional state between death and rebirth.
Sinéad also sat with mediums Arthur Molinary and Ronald Hearn. At the time of her passing, she was working on a new album and planning to tour in the coming years.
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