Testing, 1-2-3 … Testing …

I got to thinking about tests of mediumship. “Tests” could mean scientifically controlled environments where mediums are restricted in some way, or maybe the “What card do I have in my hand?” trick that science used to use (and maybe still does, for all I know) as a test. Perhaps it’s pictures or videos of orbs or spirit people and the like. Maybe it includes stories that people tell, or messages, or readings. On the other hand, it might be an analysis of material received via physical mediumship such as Ouija board or table tipping.

The criteria of “proof” is usually a little different for each one, but I would say that most of them miss the mark. My view is that the criteria of “proof” of mediumship should be along two dimensions. First, that there is evidence of an intelligence or intelligent presence that is not likely to have been derived from the medium’s or bystanders’ typical, everyday capabilities as a normal human being. Second, that there is information that is not likely to have been derived from the medium’s or bystanders’ typical, everyday capabilities as a normal human being. In essence, we’re talking about things that the average person doesn’t know, wouldn’t know, isn’t likely to know, or a display of intelligence that is clearly not theirs on a normal waking basis.

Either criterion can be used as valid proof, let alone together. If you apply them, it makes things look a bit different than it otherwise would. First, pictures and video pretty-much fall by the wayside. They rarely show a clear presence of an intelligence other than the medium. Orbs become meaningless. My view (pun intended!) is that pictures and video have been faked and faked and faked, over and over and over again, over many years by many people, that it’s to the point where I want little to do with them as a means of proof. I think it’s better to say that a picture or video of one or more people is not a display of intelligence that would constitute proof. As convincing as visuals like pictures and video could be to people, when valid, it rarely passes the intelligence test. Doesn’t mean it couldn’t happen, and I believe it’s possible, but don’t hold your breath.

What I’m about to say next is a little too crude and is technically inaccurate, but it has a certain amount of meaning. “A picture of a conversation is not a conversation in an of itself”. I’d rather have an actual conversation with someone rather than be shown a picture of what might look like two people talking and being told “see, it works”. I think intelligence can be conveyed better through means other than pictures and video. You might say that shows like Ghost Hunters would be useful for this, but I’d disagree. I imagine that they do encounter spiritual phenomena, but when we’re talking about trying to use a show like that as a means of “proof”, it does little to convince me. If a person on such a show were in a location and did a good reading from a spirit who was in that location, it might help, but to my limited knowledge, those shows don’t do anything like that.

“What card do I have in my hand?” is a pretty mediocre thing in my opinion, but when the hit rate is enough above the random guess percentage, it becomes an indicator of something beyond the normal individual’s capabilities, and thereby would meet the criteria. Readings and message work stay largely the same, because they offer plenty of opportunity to meet the criteria.

Ouija, table tipping and the like fall into the same category as readings and message work. When the test is intelligence or information not likely to be from the medium(s), the argument that the phenomena is caused by subconscious movements holds a lot less weight. If one person were to direct the whole session, even on a conscious level, it doesn’t matter, because the criteria for “proof” is based on intelligence or information that’s not from the medium anyway.

Something interesting to think about, isn’t it?

Evidential Evidence

Verification is important, wonderful stuff. It’s the secret sauce that makes mediumship work. There’s nothing better than to encounter something that rings true to you, and shows you that we are spirits who exist beyond what we call death, and are capable of coming back and communicating with the Earth plane world. A couple years ago, I wrote a blog article about verification. It was in the context of a reading and the seeker providing verification afterward. But not all verification comes this way. Here is an interesting little article about a medium in the UK who passed on, then provided evidence via a medium on the Earth plane. No one (on the Earth plane) was seeking it out, it just came on its own. It’s really nice when that happens, and in some ways, makes it even more evidential.

Not quite dinner and a movie

If you’re in the New York City area, you might visit a restaurant where you can have dinner and a reading, or dinner and message work. There are several places in Long Island that you can go.

I’m not sure how I feel about it. It makes it look more like entertainment than I would prefer, but if it benefits someone in a genuinely positive way, it’s good. In any event, it’s better than a bar.

No cheese for me, please

A friend sent me this interesting article about “fortune tellers”/psychics/etc. being regulated in Warren, Michigan. They’ll need to be fingerprinted and pay a $150 fee every year. Sounds pretty harsh, but on the other hand, it does help separate the ethical from the unethical, and gives police some leverage against the unethical.

The term “fortune teller” is very cheesy. I’m well beyond being outraged by it, hating it, or even being angry about it. That’s probably because I’ve never felt that it fit me in the first place. The only response I have to hearing it is disappointment. It reminds me of other treatments of spiritual things done by people who have no understanding, and if you pay attention long enough to their treatment of the subject, their ignorance becomes evident.

Be that as it may, I would say that if what you’re doing is unethical, you deserve to be called a fortune teller. Actually, I would say you deserve far worse than to be called nasty names, but that’s for the Law of Cause and Effect to take care of, and it will, in it’s own good time.

Seeking the spiritual golden snitch

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

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.

Doctor, heal thyself

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.

Mediumship and quality of content

In my previous post about the goodness of the medium, I said that the quality of the content (of messages or readings) was an interrelationship of many things.  Without inventing a whole new branch of metaphysics, let’s ask Phaedrus’ perennial question, “What is quality?”

With mediumship, things are rarely black and white, so it’s better to put them on a continuum, with black at one end and white on the other.  Here are a few important continuua to think about when it comes to quality of content, and to some extent, quality of mediumship.

Positive to negative
Positive content is always good, but negative content is not always bad.  For example, you can get a real ass-kicking in a reading or message.  This is true, and I’ll vouch for it, because it’s happened to me.  My life was botched up, and the spirits gave me the kick in the ass that I needed to get me going in the right direction.  And it is not an open license for a message or reading to mean, disparaging, condescending, or contemptuous.  Basically, a good-old-fashioned kick in the ass is still good, as unpleasant as it may be to get it when you need one.

Wisdom to gossip
Content that provides wisdom and guides you in your life is good stuff.  Gossip is exactly what it is, gossip.  It’s junk.  Spirits don’t have time to gossip.  Neither should you.  You shouldn’t be looking for gossip in the first place, let alone from the spirits.  Wisdom is on one end of the continuum, and gossip on the other.  Things that fall closer to the wisdom end are better than the ones that don’t.

Evidence to fakery
An evidential message or reading is one in which there’s clear evidence of the continuity of life, that is, you know who the spirit is that’s communicating from the other side.  Not all messages are highly evidential, nor do they have to be.  But generally speaking, the closer it falls to the evidence side of the contiuum, the better it is.

The source, spirits to the medium
Messages from the spirits are what seekers want, most of the time.  It’s better than a message that comes from the medium personally, which is sometimes called a head message.  My experience is that head messages usually aren’t very good, but I allow the possibility that the content of one could be the same thing the spirits would have said anyway.  Determining a head message from a spirit message is whole discussion in and of itself, and is anything but black and white.

Ethical to unethical
This continuum is more black and white than most, but still has some gray area.  Telling a seeker that they have demons or devils.  Holding back content as a mean of demanding more money for a message or reading.  Manipulating the content for secondary gains, such as sex with the seeker.  Mean, disparaging, condescending, or contemptuous content.

Form, good to poor
This is more about how the content is delivered than the content itself.  But it’s related, because the delivery affects the perception by the seeker.  For example, many of the things that cynics pick on mediums about is simply poor form.  A quality message or reading should not be delivered in a way that makes people think you’re doing cold readings and the like.

My personal pet peeve is when a medium doesn’t know where the message is supposed to go, starts polling the audience to see who responds, finds the right one, and then goes from there.  Even if the message eventually lands in the right place and has good content, it’s very poor form.  It also gives cynics the soap box they need to stand on.  If I had my way, I’d outlaw it.  If the spirits can’t find the right person to deliver the message to and communicate it clearly to the medium, then the message shouldn’t be given.  Period.  You can bet I won’t stand for it with my guides.  I’d rather shut my mouth instead.  No message is better than one with poor form.

The medium as a person, good to bad
A good person is more credible than a bad one.  Even if the message is one hundred percent true (“the sun will rise in the morning”), I’d rather hear it from a good person as opposed to a bad one.  This continuum can also affect the quality of the content, through the Law of Attraction, i.e. bad spirits can provide bad messages.

The medium as a spirit communicator, good to bad
This is the capability of the medium to clearly receive and clearly convey content from the spirits.  While the idea of mediumship is as simple as handing a message from one person to another, who then hands it to the recipient, the reality is more multifaceted.  There are various things that impact the message as it goes from the spirits to the seeker.  And just like it is with our languages, things can get lost in the translation as well.

About Medical Advice

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.

Lessons learned from fake message work

Here is a video about message work.  Derren Brown, a popular skeptic in the UK, says that the message work he’s about to do is fake, then proceeds to give messages to members of the audience. During the messages, the seekers acknowledge that a number of items provided by the “medium” are accurate, and one seeker cries.  At the end, the seeker who cried says he was astounding.

I tend to think that the whole thing is contrived/faked.  Perhaps he researched the seekers beforehand or otherwise got information about them prior to the session.  Or they’re actors performing a script.  I suppose the very-remote possibility that he happened to do some legitimate message work despite his claims that he’s fake exists, but I’m not holding my breath.

I find it a little strange that the seekers were happy to have the video published. If I were one of them, I’d be mad as hell about being taken advantage of, perplexed about how the “medium” got the information, since he’s professing to not-be a medium in the first place, and then wonder if any of it was still valuable anyway, despite it being contrived/faked.  I’d also be embarrassed, and probably not want it published.

For mediumship to take place, a genuine connection to things-spiritual needs to be present.  Saying the same things a medium might say (without that connection) does not make you a medium.

The existence of fake mediumship does not invalidate all mediumship, no more than counterfeit money invalidates all money.  And the ability to produce a counterfeit, whether it’s mediumship, money, or anything else, really doesn’t mean much, other than it’s something to be aware of and avoid.

A good medium’s motivations for doing message work and readings is (or should be!) more noble than than faking people out or otherwise taking advantage of them.  If your intentions are not noble and good, and your ethics are not equally noble and good, you should not be practicing mediumship.  Stop right now, before you hurt people.  The money you can make isn’t worth the pain you can cause, and that pain will come back to you courtesy of the Law of Cause and Effect.