Archive for the ‘Medium’ Category

Seeking the spiritual golden snitch

Saturday, December 12th, 2009

Somewhat like the seeker in Harry Potter’s game of Quidditch, a seeker is any person who is looking for something from the spirits, most commonly in the form of a message or reading.  Here is a nice little article about how you as a seeker should approach a reading.   It refers to readings by phone, but it essentially applies to any type of reading.  Some of it applies to messages as well.

Medium’s Thanksgiving

Thursday, November 26th, 2009

From a mediumship perspective, here are some things I’m thankful for on Thanksgiving:

1. The presence of God in my life.  That presence that lets me know that life is a forward and uplifting progression towards goodness and spirituality, even when it does not feel that way in a particular moment.

2. The Very Important People (VIPs) in my life.  My wife, children, parents, family, friends.  Strictly speaking, they are largely unrelated to mediumship, but nonetheless, they are very important.  Experiences with them through time have taught me valuable lessons about life, love, and spirituality, which are important ingredients in mediumship.

3.  Assistance from my spirit folks.  They have provided guidance, assurance, and the butt-kicking (when necessary) to help me progress in life.

4. Communication with my spirit folks.  We work together to communicate better and better through mediumship.  I am thankful that they listen to what I have to say, and are willing to work with me.

5. The trust that I’ve developed with my spirit folks.  Building trust involves a lot of work, patience, and desire.  It requires a lot of investment from their side.  And it’s a choice on their part, not a given.  I am grateful that were willing, and appreciate the positive effects of it that show up in my mediumship and in my life.

6. The good works that I’ve been involved with via mediumship.  Healing.  Message work.  Readings.  Writing.  Channeling.  Spirit removal (Ghostbusting).  Guiding and teaching others.  All of these are rooted in goodness, are satisfying to be involved in, and are tightly integrated with the spirits – both my folks and others.

7. My dreamwork.  My dreams are very vivid, and the spirits often use my dream time to take me places, show me things, and teach me things.

8. That I live in a country where mediumship is no longer persecuted.  I am thankful that I do not live in fear of being burned at the stake.

9. That I am a medium.  While one can certainly get along in life without mediumship, I wouldn’t want to.  Mediumship has a mystery and beauty all its own, and I am thankful that it has a presence and a large role in my life.

10. For the people I have met and worked with along the way.  I have learned so many things from my peers in classes.  As time passes, some of them go different ways, and I probably won’t see them again while I’m still here on the Earth plane, but they will always have their special places in my heart.

11. For the future.  Despite what people say about psychics and mediums predicting the future, the future is, by and large, unwritten.  I rather like it that way.  Even without knowing what will happen next, I am sure that the future will involve goodness, spirituality, and mediumship, and for this, I am thankful.

John Edward in South Africa

Saturday, November 21st, 2009

I would say that this article is more about what John Edward is up to in South Africa, rather than whether he’s real or not.  But anyhow, you will get a slice of his experience as a public figure medium, and what it is like to deal with TV producers .

Bowling a curve ball

Saturday, October 24th, 2009

If you’re like me, and have some interest in mediums-as-people, as well as mediums-as-mediums, then you might like this interview with John Edward and Jonathan Louis on Bridge Street, which is a Syracuse, New York talk show.

It’s a 20-minute spot, but I think it’s worth your time.  John talks about how he got into the work, cold reading (1:01), and a nice description of what mediums do. He also answers some good questions from viewers, such as how people perceive spirits.

During a commercial break (11:15) John does a little message work, which carries back into the show.  He gives a good description of what the pull feels like when you’re drawn to someone that you are going to give a message to.  When he’s doing the message work, he’s pulled to an area and has to narrow it down, usually by asking questions.

My issue with locating the recipient of the message (the seeker) this way is that it can “look bad”, i.e. is good cynic-fodder.  In previous blog entries, I’ve called it bad form, and the cynics would say it’s just fishing and making up stories, or cold reading.  My view is that even though the cynics are unimportant, I still don’t want to feed them.  So I’m firm with my spirit folks about not working this way, and by and large, they abide by it.

I’ve had messages from mediums who work this way, and form and cynics aside, I think the accuracy and relevance of the message is pretty much unaffected.  If message work were bowling, and you bowl a strike, does it really matter that you threw a curving, hooking, spinning ball, rather than one that goes straight down the alley?   A strike is a strike, and it counts for ten points.

Understand that I’m not picking on John Edward, not at all.  I like him, think he’s a good and legitimate medium, and has done a lot for our subject matter.

Someone at the door

Sunday, August 30th, 2009

As a medium, you get used to certain things happening around you that are spiritual in nature.  This morning, I had the following “dream”:

There was this man who lived next door to a family, in a very country setting. I was with him while he went to their house (which was a country/farm house) and he was fixing things in it, trying to make things right.  His presence in the house had an Earth-bound feel to it, like he was coming back from the Spirit world in a way that Earth plane would be able to see him.  We were near the front door, and they had a doorbell that had two wires exposed but unconnected.  I said that he needed a switch to connect them together to make the door ring whenever you pushed the button, but he grabbed them with one hand and put them together, and I could hear the doorbell ring, which was the classic, rich-sounding ding-dong sound.  The people in the house were nearby, and I could feel them there and hear them to some extent, but nothing further.  They were towards the back of the house, and we were in front.  There was a dog in the house as well, who had pointer-like hair, was white with big brown spots, and was as big as a St. Bernard.  As the man and I were standing near the front door, the dog got up on his hind legs and put his paws on the man’s shoulders, from behind, like he were hugging the man or welcoming him.  At that point, the man’s grief was so heavy it weighed like stone on me, and I woke up gasping for breath.

As I tried to understand this experience, I got a number of other details around it.  The man died from an accident, like a random shot fired in the air.  I saw a woman standing in a field, heard the shot, and then I saw the shot come down and slice some skin off the right side of her face.  Picture a big raindrop falling down someone’s face but tearing skin off, and you get the idea.  From the family’s point of view, the man was like somebody’s uncle who lived next door.  The vibration was very close, like family, and everyone got along well, but the man had somehow been bad/mean in his life, hence his grief.  The girl had black hair that was parted in the center but fluffy/curly and thick around the ears and shoulders, with blue eyes, with a rounded full face – quite attractive.  The image of her in the field was black and white.  The first date I got was 1901-1902.  Then I got 1892, which indicated that the girl was ten years old. Something happened to her at that age which was part of his grief.  The first place I got was California, but I also got Santa Fe.  His last name was Whitman.  While he was on the Earth plane, he knew a Hopi indian who tried to help him with his problems, but he never listened to him.  The indian seemed to know that underneath the problems/issues, he wasn’t entirely a bad man.  After he went to the Spirit world, the indian still tried to help him, but he still didn’t listen.

I call these dream experiences.  I’ve had them before.  My role in this one was just to be the medium, a bystander, although in others, I’ve been in the role of one of the participants.  My impression is that in our current time, this person is ringing someone’s doorbell (in the physcal) and the occupants of the house are puzzled because no one is at the door.  They probably recognize this as some type of phenomena, but aren’t sure what to do with it.  I’m not clear about the connection between this man and the inhabitants of the house – it may be through the family, the location of the house, or both.

When it comes to message work, I’m a stickler about knowing where the message goes.  I don’t like giving messages and having someone from the audience step up and claim it as theirs, as it’s not good form.  Be that as it may, I was asked to put this out there.  I’m not sure that the purpose is to give a message to a specific person, but if it resonates with you, or you know who it belongs to, please email me.

Going public as a medium

Wednesday, July 22nd, 2009

One of the issues you face as a medium is whether to go public or not.  I remember when I first started becoming involved in mediumship and spiritual development.  I was somewhat reluctant to let people know that I was involved, because I didn’t know if they would accept it.  Mediumship is one of those things that everyone reacts to differently – that is, you don’t know how someone is going to take it until you’ve already told them.  I’ve had an experience or two where it wasn’t received well, which only goes to illustrate the point.

Over time, I became more comfortable with it.  Telling people still gives me a twinge of anxiety becuase of the misunderstandings people carry around in their heads about it, but that’s just part of how it goes for me.  My feelings about it at this point are that I don’t go out of my way to promote it, but on the other hand do not deny it.  So if you were to put “going public” on a scale from closed to moderate to wide open, I’m in the moderate camp.

I think one of my issues with going public is that I don’t feel like hearing cynicism from acquaintences and others I know.  It’s like getting criticism from unexpected places when you didn’t ask for it to begin with.  It’s that rule of irony that once enough people know about it, you’ll get someone in your face who has an agenda to shoot down your perspective.  And it’s not that I can’t “fight back” in a shooting match.  Actually, I have learned a good bit about it and can discuss it, which is a point of personal pride for me.  I’m more prepared than the average Spiritualist for such a discussion, and have helped other Spiritualists who get caught in shooting matches.  It’s more that I would like to avoid it.

I think the lesson for me to learn is to just say “So what, deal with it.  Let the chips fall where they may.”  This is hard for me because I don’t like the idea that (some of them) will run about with a distorted perception of me, based on their lack of understanding.  More accurately, these folks already have the distorted understanding and aren’t likely to want to correct it, and I don’t want to be an example of it in their head.

But Helen Thomas from down under says it rather well -  “I have let go of the fear of what people might think of me. I know that there are people who won’t get it and I know that there are people who will always be skeptics.”

I should look it at is being no different than letting the world know you’re a musician or artist, and besides, the famous mediums have all done it and survived…

It’s something to work on…..

Interview with John Edward

Thursday, June 25th, 2009

John Edward is a well-known medium who used to have a television show called Crossing Over, where he did message work for the audience.  He was interviewed on Fox News and he explains what mediumship is like, from the medium’s point of view. Take the time to read the article from start to finish.  He covers a lot of topics.

John Edward is one of my favorite mediums.  He’s got the right attitude.  And he’s got a new web site, InfiniteQuest.com.

Doctor, heal thyself

Thursday, March 12th, 2009

You might wonder, do mediums go for readings?   Why would they, especially when they talk to the spirits all the time?

Generally speaking, it’s rare for us to go for reading, but we do.  Remember that mediums are seekers too.  We can benefit from the services of another medium, even though we already talk to the spirits more often than most people.  Sometimes “hearing it from someone else” is good.

People think mediums (or psychics) know everything, or should know everything.  When people sneer at us for not knowing everything, including the winning lotto numbers, it makes me laugh a little inside. While they’re in the middle of sneering and looking down at us, what they’re actually doing is proving is that we’re human beings, (prettymuch) like everyone else.
Don’t they think that if mediums could consistently turn up the winning lotto numbers, that every one of us would be rich?  Sure we would, so why do they look at us like we’re foolish?  It’s not a failing of ours, it’s an unrealistic expectation of theirs, a failing of theirs to think we can do such things!  Usually, the most we say is that “it doesn’t work that way”, which is true, but doesn’t improve their understanding much at all.

Ok, time to climb down off the soap box.  Anyhow, truth be told, we don’t want to do lotto numbers.  If we could, all kinds of bad things might happen.  We would be hunted down and held at gunpoint to provide numbers.  If we made a mistake, we’d be killed.  There would be State, Federal, and police investigations to determine if we somehow got insider information and/or “fixed” the proceedings.  And if we did it consistently, there would be no more lottos, as people would scream that it’s cheating.  I think they’d scream louder than they are about Mr. Madoff’s $68 billion Ponzi scheme, as this type of swindling, as unethical and illegal as it is, is more commonplace.

Good thing that “it doesn’t work that way”, but if it ever did, I would hope that we would spend our mega-millions on making the world better, in some positive and spiritual way.  Too bad we don’t have the Madoff billions to do exactly that.

Spirit paintings from Augustin Lesage

Wednesday, January 14th, 2009

Augustin Lesage was a French miner who knew nothing about painting, but painted many pictures with direction from the spirits.  Paranormal Review has a short article about his work being on display back in June 2008, and the article includes one of his pictures.  Kieron Rhys Johnson’s site shows more of his work, and includes a wikipedia link that’s been translated from French.

Beg your pardon

Friday, January 9th, 2009

The OFFICIAL Helen Duncan Web SiteHelen Duncan was a medium in the UK during World War II who was put in jail for her mediumship, based on the UK’s Witchcraft Act.  During a seance, she said that a ship had sunk before it was public information.  Since then, the family has asked for a pardon in 2006 but it hasn’t been granted as of 2008.

Interesting reading, if you want to learn about the bad old days of mediumship.  The BBC article above mentions that people were burned alive in the street, most of which were women. Bad old days indeed.

The sad thing is that it could happen again today.  If you were to learn some type of government secret through mediumship and then opened your mouth about it, you’d be in big trouble.  While burning people alive is mostly out of vogue these days, you would get jail time and/or be killed as a spy or traitor anyway, depending on the country you’re in and the prevailing mood.  So if you ever get such information, you would be smart to keep it quiet and wait till it’s no longer sensitive before revealing it, which could be 100 years…