J;oshua; is a reformed con man. He's a graduate in psychology and good at reading and manipulating people. The last, longest and most successful con was posing as a spiritualist/medium/counsellor - part of his degree in psychology (his dissertation maybe) was on how people coped with death. People who had experienced the death of a loved one and used mediums to contact them on the "other side", interviewing people who had had near death experiences and people who used hypnotism to examine their "past lives" amongst others. This lead on to looking at people's various spiritual beliefs to do with the "afterworld". And as far as he concluded it's all bollox right?! - There is no afterlife. A lack of oxygen to the brain causes lights, tunnel vision and floating sensations, people in a relaxed hypnotic state are susceptible to suggestions from the examiner – otherwise how could so many people have once been Joan of Arc? Desperate people will jump at vague references and make them personnel. The other thing he concluded was that there is a lot of money to be made from desperate/dupable people.
He set up a small but successful practice offering services as a medium, spiritual counsellor and hypnotist. He had no spiritual belief whatsoever, his whole practice is based around manipulation, theatrics (although not to over the top, therefore more plausible) and suggestion. This ticked over as a nice earner for a few years but things were about to change....
Whilst on the way home from an evening out with friends he is mugged by a group of local hoodlums, he tries to talk them round and ends up getting stabbed for his trouble collapsing in an alleyway just off the main street. Slipping in and out of consciousness, he's overwhelmed by a lonely empty feelling. By this time he has been discovered and some one has called for an ambulance. He gets shoved in the back and taken to hospital. In the back of the ambulance he feels he has regained consciousness again. The deep sense of loneliness is worse, empty space and nothingness closes in around him, vast but claustrophobic at the same time. Fear and Panic twists and churns in the pit of his stomach.
He wakes in hospital several days later and is informed he's very lucky to be alive. His heart stopped twice, once at the scene where he was revived by the same passers by who called for an ambulance and the second time in the back of the ambulance where the crew revived him.
Of all the people he talked to before about near death experiences none had described this, it always had seemed peaceful and calm - a tunnel of light to a better place, no-one mentioned an eternity of nothing and an overwhelming sense of panic. The only conclusion he can draw is that he was wrong there is a heaven and hell and by the way he's treated people and conducted his life he's going down.
After getting out of hospital he seeks solace and forgiveness from the church and almost overnight turns over nearly all of his ill-gotten gains (as he now sees it) to the church. He removes himself from his circle of (mainly) acquaintances and (few) friends (most of whom believed in him, only those very close to him knew him as a fake).
He has isolated himself from his past because of the huge amount of guilt he now feels from taking advantage of the desperate and vulnerable. In fact he has talked to very few people about his past, really in any detail only to Father Shaw. He is however still quite a sociable person and is able to direct questioning away from himself. He has also found that over the years he has become quite good at listening to people and giving advice - only now he doesn't have to pretend it comes from beyond the grave.