Thanksgiving is a great holiday to kick off the winter season, especially if you’re a big-time shopper. Tomorrow morning, there will be all kinds of people awake and moving about at ungodly hours to get the best deal on whatever they’re looking for.
More importantly, Thanksgiving is a time to give thanks. When it comes to giving thanks, one of the first things that comes to my mind is the spirit folks I work with. Being a medium has allowed me the privilege of working with them more closely than the average person. While I know some of them a bit and others less than I would like, I appreciate their presence and continuing influence in my life.
They describe my feelings about it as “an attitude of gratitude”. My perspective is that it is the best attitude to take when working with them, and you can go far with it. In other areas of life, it works pretty well too.
While browsing an article about ghost hunting, I found something interesting:
“Before you scoff, know this: About 3 in 4 Americans profess at least one paranormal belief, according to a 2005 Gallup survey. About 37 percent of Americans believe in haunted houses, and 32 percent believe spirits of dead people can come back in certain situations.”
If you take the last statement to mean a belief in mediumship, then we’re almost 1 in 3 …
I used to think that a Spiritualist was a person who believed in Spiritualism as described by the National Spiritualist Association of Churches (NSAC) in the US or possibly the Spiritualists National Union (SNU) in the UK. Nothing more.
But I now see the term cropping up in areas I wouldn’t expect. For example, in reference to a Sikh guru. Or a domestic and international Strategy Consultant. Or in an article about Yoga Spirituality, based in India.
“Spiritualist” doesn’t have the type of narrow and exclusive meaning like “Catholic” or “Muslim” have. Spiritualism never claimed exclusivity or copyright or what-have-you on it.
Perhaps the first type of Spiritualism should be called Classic Spiritualism, just to differentiate it from the other uses of the term. Classic Spiritualism seems to be more prevalent in the US, the UK, and Australia, than it is in other places. So if you’re in the context of these countries, “Spiritualist” it’s likely to be Classic Spiritualism. Any other country, all bets are off.
In this article, Dawn Carr describes what mediumship is like, from the medium’s point of view, facing towards the public. When it comes to telling people that you’re a medium, I describe it this way – “you never know how they’ll react until you’ve already told them”. And it seems to be accurate. Even if you know the person to some extent, you can never be entirely sure of what reaction you’ll get until you tell them. For example, I told someone I knew that I was a medium and referred him to my website. I thought it would be fine, and he told me he read it, but afterward I felt a cold shoulder type of vibration from him, although he never said anything further. This left me a little jilted, but there was little more I could do without being a pest and looking like I was trying to push it on him. So I let it go. Eventually, the cold shoulder went away, and things are now fine. Like I said, you never know.
A pedophile is now in jail, primarily due to a spirit who came through a medium and brought the issue to light. Patrick Hutchinson was the medium. Ethically speaking, he handled it well. He received the information during a public event and spoke with the individual afterward, privately. The medium who got herself thrown out of her church should take lessons from him!
This article discusses James Van Praagh’s experience on the talk show The View, where he gives Barbara Walters a message (off camera) that she should check on her white blood cell count. She checked it out and nothing was wrong, so she told her audience the day after that it was ridiculous and what he did “was dangerous”.
Barbara Walter’s white blood cells are fine right now, but it does not invalidate the message. Time is a funny thing, it could happen later, or it might be someone she knows, rather than herself – things like this can happen in the context of mediumship, and it’s not necessarily a reflection on the medium’s capabilities.
As a medium and/or healer, you have to be very careful to not appear to be diagnosing, as the medical community, the seeker, or audience members could get you in trouble, depending on the laws in your area. It seems that Van Praagh directed her to her doctor, which is what a medium should do with this kind of information, which neatly avoids the issue.
At the same time, I can relate to Barbara’s statement that it’s dangerous. The danger comes from mediums who are either unaware, or don’t care about the consequences. As a medium, there are (at least) three considerations to keep in mind. The law, as what you’re doing may be, or could be construed to be, illegal. Ethics, because mediums should have high ethical standards, and appearing to be something you’re not violates that. Unintended consequences, as the “advice” you have may actually hurt the seeker more than it helps.
By the way, the article also covers some background on Van Praagh that you might find interesting.
When it comes to message work and readings, mediums sometimes receive information that they should think twice about before letting it out. Here is an article about a medium in the UK who didn’t do that, and does not understand why she’s been ousted from her Spiritualist church.
Mediumship is about respect, confidentiality, and integrity, and not just blurting out whatever you’ve received as “the truth”, regardless of the consequences, especially in a public setting.
Mediumship has an ethical component to it, whether you are aware of it or not, and whether you acknowledge it or not. I would say that she’s not aware of it. Let’s hope she learns, before she hurts anyone else.
Sometimes, dreams are dreams, other times, they’re spiritual experiences. And maybe some other times, they’re both. While dreams are one of the easiest ways for the spirits to reach us, it’s not easy to know whether the “dream” you had was a normal dream or a spiritual experience. The way I think about it is to put “normal dream” on one side of a continuum, and “spiritual experience” on the other. This leaves lots of room for interpretation and gray area in the middle, which is good because it’s largely a matter of interpretation to begin with.
While there are no hard and fast rules, there are indicators. Here are some indicators that can help you determine which side of the continuum your “dream” is likely to be on. These are in no particular order. While more of them in one dream can be better, each can stand alone.
1. Independent conversation, that is, when someone is talking to you, or otherwise trying to tell you something.
2. Independent two-way conversation, i.e. when you’re talking back and forth with someone.
3. Unconventional physics. When something runs contradictory to normal Earth plane physics as we know it. The kind of stuff that leaves you puzzled, saying “how weird…”. A car that runs just off the ground, silently. (picture Luke Skywalker’s desert speeder). Or an airplane flying with a wing tip only inches away from a brick building, moving perfectly and without disturbing anything else. Do not conclude that this is only limited to such large and obvious things such as planes and cars. Basically, if it’s physical in nature but not the way things normally work on the Earth plane, it fits.
4. Unconventional biology. Animals and/or people who are different than typical Earth plane biology would indicate. For example, people with pipe-thin legs and visible muscle strands with no skin on them. Or fish that are only vaguely like Earth plane fish.
I expected the list to be longer, but it seems to cover things fairly well. Clarity did not make the list, and you may find that surprising. Clarity is nice to have, but it’s not a good indicator of a spiritual experience, in and of itself, most of the time. You usually need something more to slide it towards the spiritual experience side.
The important part is getting a feel for what the dream conveys, whether it has high clarity or not. I think clarity is overrated. But it’s a lot of fun. I’ve had dreams where I could walk, talk, and see just like day time. Neat stuff.
Both the speeder and the airplane example come from “dreams” I had. In the speeder experience, the vehicle was more like a World War II American half-track, but it moved quickly and silently about 5 feet off the ground, like Luke’s speeder. In the dream, one of my spirit folks came zipping up to me, and we got in the vehicle and went zipping around through some open lands with gently rolling slopes. In the airplane dream, one of my other spirit folks took me for a ride, and from the cockpit where I was, I could see the left wing as we were flying very close to a brick building. The building was like an apartment complex I used to live in, classic red brick. The wing was unusual in that it was more pointed and squared off than a conventional plane. The tip of the wing was literally inches from the brick, and we moved silently along the course of the brick wall then went flying into another area of open land that was kept like a lawn, with a little bit of snow on it such that you could see the green grass peeking through the white snow in most of the area.
I’ve had plenty of other spiritual experiences while dreaming. It’s fairly coincidental that the two I can recall both involve riding around, as most of them aren’t like that. As these experiences come up over time, I’ll share them.
