Joe's Blog

Here’s a little article that nicely illustrates one way that spirits communicate with us. My view is that the writer’s mom wanted her to know that she was doing fine, and loved her just like she did while living on the Earth plane.

The article goes on to talk about the spirits’ relationship to food. From what the spirits tell me of it, you can eat if you want, but you don’t have to. That’s kinda interesting, when you think about it long enough.  You don’t have a corporeal body any more, so you won’t die of starvation if you don’t eat – technically speaking, you can’t. But if you can eat, what is it exactly that you’re eating? And later, do you then expel waste, as you would when you eat on the Earth plane??

They say that mind is the creator, and mind builds a body in the spirit world. Perhaps something like the Neo’s residual self in the first Matrix movie. The movie What Dreams May Come also talks about the issue of bodies.

I’m told that some minds build bodies that are very much replicas of the physical body, and others less so. And there are spirits whom the other spirits call The Formless. So a body is not required.

Body or not, spirits communicate with us by touching our hearts. And we don’t have to be a medium to be touched by them.

I was really sick the other day, had a cold-and-almost-flu thing that knocked me down flat from a Friday to a Tuesday. In between long bouts of sleep during that time, I caught a few episodes of  Long Island Medium. The show has been out for a while, and I knew of it, just never happened to run into it.

Theresa is one of those mediums who goes to up people that she’s never met and gives them messages, sometimes to the embarrassment of her family or other bystanders. I don’t think that would ever work for me. Oh, within the right context, I have no problem with giving messages and the like to people I’ve never met. It’s just that there has to be some context, like a spiritual service, gathering, conversation goes a certain way, etc. But while standing at the car wash or the gas pump just doing your thing – nope, not me. Crazy as that can sound, it works for her.

As a medium, she appears to be mostly clairsentient, with some clairaudience as well. I watched one epsiode where a spirit police officer came in very close to her during a reading for his wife, and Theresa broke down during the middle of it because it was so intense for her. It can happen to any medium, but it’s more likely for clairsentient mediums, because they are sooo-plugged into the feeling dimension.

In another episode, she was talking about having a sitting of some kind, and made a reference to a CEO (Chief Executive Officer) of the spirits. She told whoever was nearby (family, I think) that they could laugh at her all they want but not at the CEO. I don’t think either one should be laughed at, but she makes a good point. This reminds me of a little old lady that I knew, very spiritual, and probably in the spirit world today. She used to say “an attitude of gratitude”. I’ll bet she didn’t create that phrase, but I heard it from her first, so whenever I think of it, she comes to mind. When working with the spirits, I might add a little and say “an attitude of gratitude and respect”.

Overall, Theresa seems to be warm, very genuine, honest, and a good medium. As far as well-known mediums go, since John Edward left the small screen, we’ve needed someone to represent us on TV in a positive way (at least in the US). I hope Theresa continues to do well, and may the TV production people never contrive anything on her.

“Respect your elders” is a common saying, even though you don’t hear people say it much any more. It’s supposed to mean that you should acknowledge that they have been around much longer than you, they are probably (or should be) wiser because of it, and you should respect them for it.

There is an elder who has been around for 3,500 years. Think about how long that really is. Before King Tut. Before the Trojan Wars. Before the Roman Empire. Before the Buddha and Confucius. Before Jesus and Christianity were even a thought. Before the Aztec and the Incas. Before King Arthur and Genghis Khan.

Here is the story about that elder, who was alive and well and still going strong, right up until yesterday. Fifth oldest in the world.

Elders are elders, not all of which are human. It’s important to acknowledge that we share this planet with many other forms of life, and we are no more, nor less, important than they. We should have respect.

The story says that this person is a model. I would agree with that. She is a model of disrespect. A model of the foolishness of meth. Certainly not a model of beauty, even if you correct the blemishes and baggy eyes in her picture. The ugliness goes deeper than that.

And one should not be so proud to disrespect their elders.

When you live in an apartment, you coexist with your neighbors. And if any of them are loud, obnoxious, or otherwise troublesome, it’s uncomfortable. Here’s a family who’s living in an apartment in Glasgow, Scotland, and having trouble with one of the neighbors. The neighbor is scaring the kids, and the adults too. It appears that the neighbor has been there a long time, and scared the previous tenant as well.

Understand that people who are affected by these problems are rarely complaining because they want some type of benefit from doing so. They just want the problem to be removed.

We don’t tolerate this type of negative behavior on the Earth plane, and it shouldn’t be any different when the neighbor is a spirit. Of course, handing the spirit eviction papers is completely different than it would be on the Earth plane, but it’s still possible. Sending good thoughts to the family, the apartment, and the previous tenants who have been impacted by this spirit helps, because thoughts are things. When talking with folks who aren’t familiar with the sending of thoughts, it’s easier to tell them that you’re sending prayers, or using the power of prayer. They get it, and it avoids a lot of conversation.

So, I’ve sent my prayers out to the family, apartment, and previous tenants. I’ve also sent prayers to the spirit who is causing the problem. He or she needs help – lots of it.

Essentially, the rules are pretty simple. If you can’t live amongst the Earth plane people peacefully, you need to leave. Besides, you ought to want to leave, because there are much better and more fun things for spirits to do in the spirit world than to hang around the Earth plane and bother people.

I hope you send your prayers to all these folks as well. No one should be unhappy miserable, whether they’re on the Earth plane or in the spirit world.

((6 + 19 – 11 +5 – 4)/5)

((8*4) + 1))/11

((4 – 5) * 6) + 9

Look at these for a moment. There are parentheses, and several operations – addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. Each equation stands on its own, and is different and independent from each other. Yet they all mean the same thing.

In mediumship, there are different ways and means of doing things. And somewhat like the math above, each is an equation that stands on its own, is different from the others, yet means pretty much the same thing. Here is an equation on Shamanism. If you read it closely, you’ll see how it adds up to mediumship, even if the parentheses happen to be in different places.

Just before I fall asleep, I often scan the news on USA Today via my cell phone app. The other night, I came across this article, which talks about how there is a growing contingent of people who, when it comes to religion, are declaring themselves as “So what’s” or “None’s” or as being “spiritually apathetic”. There are a number of interesting viewpoints in the article. Here’s one:

“The only thing I’m pushy about is I don’t want to be pushed. I don’t want to change others and I don’t want to debate my view”

My view is that this viewpoint is likely the end of a cause-and-effect loop. Organized religion has been so institutionalized, so “shove it down your throat”, so corrupt and political, for so long, that it’s now getting its just deserved through a loss of membership and an increase of apathy towards the very issues that it’s so fervent about. These behaviors by such organizations stink like a skunk, and nobody wants to be near them. A skunk has about a 15 foot odor radius, so you don’t need to be right next to one in order to be impacted by its horrid spray of stink. I think these people perceive all organized religion as being within the radius, they don’t want to be sprayed, and they give it a wide berth. Of course, not all organized religion is skunky, but for these folks, knowing it’s anywhere nearby causes them to flee.

The Christian religions don’t help themselves very much in this area. They say some things that I think people perceive as skunky. Another example in the article:

“If you’re not worried about heaven, you won’t notice or care if Jesus is essential your salvation. You’re not thinking about any consequences”

Pee-yew. Worrying about heaven doesn’t help you. Vicarious atonement (i.e. salvation), through Jesus or otherwise, doesn’t help you. Thinking about consequences might help you, but not through something as juvenile and externalized as the fear of not-going to heaven or the fear of not-being saved by Jesus. I think statements like these are perceived to be on the very edge of the 15 foot stink-radius. Step in any closer, and you’ll get stronger versions of the same thing that stink a whole lot more. So people run away.

Based on the article, it sounds like the term “God” has picked up some of the same skunk odor that religion has. It is common for people to define God as an all-powerful authoritarian figure, typically male, who tells you what’s good and what’s not. I would say that this definition is a skunk for the “So what’s” and the “None’s”. Perhaps they believe in some form of God, but whatever it is, it’s not based on this common definition. So when asked, it’s easier to say they don’t believe in God.

I watched Eat Pray Love yesterday, and if you’ve seen it, you know about being in search of a word, and the importance of having a word. I think our culture is in search of a word. Two words, perhaps. One for God, another for religion. Both of which cannot and do not have any skunk odor attached to them, none whatsoever. But finding these words would mean that we have to to stop rummaging about in the West, turn ourselves around, and look East.

Making a business out of providing readings on a mass-produced level via a call center has met with many problems, the biggest of which is fakery. Years ago in the US, we had Miss Cleo. I remember not being able to watch tv without seeing her commercials popping up on nearly every channel, and then sometime later, heard that she was discovered to be fake, right down to the Jamaican accent. Undoubtedly, other countries have their share of deceptive/fake/deceitful “psychics” too.

In my conversations with the spirit folks over the years, I’ve learned that they especially detest those who use mediumship and/or psychic abilities to lie, cheat, deceive, hurt, or otherwise take advantage of people. During the conversation, they showed me something that conveyed “hunt down and kill” very succinctly. They never do stuff like that, so I know that yes-indeed, they’re very serious about it.

In Scotland, a medium who has had enough of people faking it and exploiting others for money is trying to build a legitimate call center business for  message work/readings. He puts candidates through a number of tests to be sure that they have a good connection to the spirits. So far, he has ten folks.

I’m not a fan of such endeavors, but I’d say he has a positive attitude, and based on that, I hope he succeeds. It would bring a candlelight of legitimacy to an area that has been pitch black with lies and deceit.

The cable tv we had at our old house was pretty basic, as we didn’t watch much. But I moved to a new house recently, and got more channels on my cable tv along with it. It took me about an hour (no exaggerating) to go through all the channels and mark the ones we might watch as favorites. I’m watching more often these days, and as I flip through the favorites, I am surprised to discover how many shows there are that relate to spiritual phenomena. There are shows about haunted houses, haunted places, orbs and photography, ghost hunters, other shows that have a psychic or spiritual component to them, and a new one that seems the closest to mediumship as a Spiritualist would see it, which is Long Island Medium. It seems that it has grown from the occasional show here-and-there to a valid genre of it’s own. Not as prominent as detective shows or sitcoms, but a genre nonetheless.

It’s the growth that surprises me. I’m not sure what to make of it. Perhaps it’s good because viewers are getting more and more opportunities to hear about spirit communication. Perhaps it’s not good, because the viewer’s opportunities may be featuring the scary and/or negative side as a means to draw an audience. And the opportunities may be coming via those who I would say are the blind leading the blind.

Nonetheless, it is what it is for now, and time will eventually show how it works out.

Speaking of time, it’s time to send my prayers out to all those who are the blind and are following the blind. Prayers that their exposure and learning about mediumship is a positive and beneficial experience, as opposed to a negative or “I like to be scared and here’s another way to be scared” experience.

I hope you send prayers out for them too.

Here’s a short article about Mary Hooper, who wrote a novel entitled Velvet. She set it in Victorian London during the “height of the spiritualist craze”, and one of her characters is a medium. Like most writers would do, she researched mediumship. Based on the article, it looks like she spent most of her time with ectoplasm. She said that she “saw a selection of rather ludicrous photographs showing something which purported to be it, coming from a medium’s nose or mouth.” There are indeed a number of photographs out there that are purported to show ectoplasm, and I agree, many/most of them are not ectoplasm at all.

Bad or fake photography does not prove that ectoplasm is fake. But it doesn’t matter, really. To be honest, I don’t think that ectoplasm is important at all. People get so obsessed with physical manifestations such as ectoplasm and the like. I think it’s because they have faith in the tangible and “solid”, something that they can show others, point to and say “see … here it is!”

I think displays of knowledge and intelligence, based on experience, are much more valuable and interesting. When a medium tells you something only you and the spirit person know of … now that’s interesting. When your loved ones in the spirit world give you a message that is unmistakably characteristic of their personality, and touches you in a profound way … that’s interesting. When you learn a life lesson from the spirit people, and grow because of it … that’s interesting too. Ectoplasm, orbs, and other physical manifestations may be “true” in some cases, but all of it pales in comparison to experience – that which touches the heart, the mind, the spirit!

When you’re looking for something in the wrong place, you won’t find it. Even if you’re looking for the right thing, when you’re in the wrong place, you won’t find it, because it’s not there … it’s the wrong place.

The last line of the article is particularly sad. She missed the boat. It sailed away and she never even knew it was there, because she was looking in the wrong place.

I try to avoid being prejudiced whenever possible. But there are times when it just doesn’t seem to be avoidable. And this is one of those times.

There is a new movie coming out, which is premiering today, called Cassadaga. Here is the synopsis of it, which is from the official trailer site:

Devastated by the death of her younger sister, Lily Morel seeks solace at the spiritualist community of Cassadaga. But instead of finding closure, she contacts something else — the vengeful ghost of a murdered young woman. With her life crumbling all-around her, Lily races to unravel the mysterious circumstances surrounding the woman’s death — a task that will bring her face-to-face with a sadistic serial killer known only as “Geppetto”.

If you’re not already aware, Lily Dale is the capital of Spiritualism in the United States, and is located in Cassadaga, NY. That factoid should clear up the references in the movie for you. If you haven’t been before, it’s one of the most peaceful places on the planet. Quite the contradiction for horror film folks.

From the point of view of mediumship and spirituality, I can’t help but be prejudiced about  it. I cannot see how a movie like this will do us any good. Yes-I-know, people get a visceral thrill out of being scared, especially around Halloween, but my view is that horror is not good for you to begin with, and a steady diet of it is harmful to your spiritual/emotional/mental functioning. The average person probably thinks I’m crazy, but my contention is that our psyches are much more sensitive than we are consciously aware of, and immersing ourselves in such things has negative effects on us, whether we’re consciously aware of them or not.

I wish it was a movie with a positive message around it like Ghost, Field of Dreams, What Dreams May Come, or a number of others. Be that as it may, freedom of expression (at least in the US) is pretty much a right. So movies like this are part of the landscape. I respect the rights of others to create such things, whether I like them or not.

There is one positive thing I’d like to say. I’d like to say thank-you to the director and writers of the movie for being respectful enough to avoid using  “Lily Dale” directly, and using character and location references instead. I really appreciate it.