Medium

[Sam Albion]

I have visited mediums who do platform work in spiritualist churches, and I have also been a guest at various moots and psychic events where people state they communicate with the dead.

I have found that yes, while some are using good salemen techniques; playing the odds, telling people what they want to hear, starting off with generalities and closing down the crowd to pick individual subjects, and while some people are deluded and as psychic as a sack of potatoes, however earnest their demeanour, I do believe some platform workers DO have some psychic ability; I have occasionally seen their ghosts with my own eyes (and quite rare it is, for me, to see), but I think usually, when it does happen, there isn't an actual "connection to the dead"; they're "reading the congregation" and picking up information from the congregants, rather than any dead people. There's a difference, I think, between telepathic comunication with the living, and with the dead.

And yes, I am aware that "telepathy" seems just as fallacious as "mediumship"...

I have, in my time, also comunicated with the dead, and the dying, but I have not been a platform worker, and nor have I ever held myself up as a great psychic guru. I'm an average type of psychic; I get... maybe five or six verifiable experiences a year. They're not all about "dead people", and even when I have dead people experiences, I don't actualy see dead people; I very rarely "see" anything; for me, it's about.... connecting to "something", feeling an energy transfer, a tingling in the body, a sense of derealisation, and then... images in my mind, or I "think words" -- sentences appear in my consciousness, not like... hearing voices, as such, but more a... thinking of shapes... I feel like I am hearing/having conversation, but I am not hearing/speaking in the ... mouth/voice/ears kind of way. More of a ... sensing ... of thought.

...a fair few people in my family believe in a person's ability to see and communicate with the dead, and several people in my family relate experiences of their communications with people who are "on the other side". They are usually personal, and involve other family members. This "ability" of "ours" seems pronounced when people are due to die, and during wakes, where the dead ... invade... the living... and pass on messages, and say final words. We even report tales of faces changing, people exclaiming "and Tracy looked just like Johnny, and we couldn't believe how she was calling us all arsholes, just like Johhny did when he was alive"... I have done this at a wake too -- passed on messages, told tales, drank like a fish and... "became" a dead person. I, myself, became... lost. Gone. Have no recollection of the incident. Perhaps it is just beer and grief, but... maybe it isn't.

I always try to investigate these experiences, and sometimes, my investigations come to nothing, I find no evidence to support my theories, and I find that sometimes I "see" things that are later revealed to be untrue. I can accept that. I also learn from it. Hopefully.

Culturally, it's acceptable for me to have these delusions, and they do not effect my quality of life.

I believe that some people have the ability to... do things the average Joe and Jane can't. I believe in "psychic powers", and I believe I have them myself. For me, it's not the centre of my world, I don't strive to develop it, and I allow it to rise and fall where it needs to. I don't force it, and I don't tell "real" people about it.

You should also know, I suppose, that I was told I was a witch as small child, and hated for it, and no doubt my life since then is coloured by that. I was also told that I was the devil, by priests, and mistrusted and maligned by my peers for passing on messages, given to me in dreams and by ghosts.

It is quite possible that I am deluded, of course.

My most recent experience of ... dead people... involves a family wedding. I was outside, smoking on the patio. And I felt like I was being watched, by... people. But not anyone at the party. I was standing under a large patio burner and became... worried about things catching fire. I felt that the hotel I was in was a holy place, and somehow I was doing wrong by dancing and drinking in it. I began to think about God, and monks. A monk, who belonged there, but who I could not see, laughed at me when I told him I too wanted to be a monk. He laughed that I was a woman. I told him... a buddhist monk. He said... what's a buddhist?" I found that amusing -- who the hell doesn't know what a buddhist is? I went inside, actively looking for the psychic person I was connected to and who was taking the mickey out of me, but... no cigar. I couldn't connect with anyone in the room.

I went home, endured my hangover, flipped open my laptop and researched the hotel. I found that, in the 1300's, the site had been a monastery devoted to a female saint who I had never heard of. The monastery had burnt down. Odd.

I feel that, here, I was ... communicating with the dead. I had no reason to... connect here. There was no message, no personal connection. But... I investigated, and I found out my fantasy/delusion had some basis in reality. I had never been to this hotel before, and neither had anyone I know. I had to do a lot of searching before I came up with any gold- it wasn't as if this saint had a million pages on the internet and I didn't even have their name. I had no connection with the monks, their church, or the saint, but, somehow, my delusion became reality, something based on hard evidence.

And that's how it is, for me. Its not like... TV, or film; big, dramatic, happens every few minutes... but, for me, it does happen...

 

[greymare]

Wow, Sam, thats incredible.
I think If i was like that, Id end up a very confused greymare!!

recently I have had encounters with ghosts, but not dramatic, but good enough for me....... I was walking just near our house, (its in the woods), (middle of the day), and I heard a horse sniffing (you know the sound) me.... I mean so close, that I spun around, expecting to see a horse looking over my shoulder!! But, of course, there was nothing there. We, that live down on the river here, have had lots of little things like that, nothing dramatic, or manavolent, just .... oh...... hey..... how are ya? lol

 

[enlightenment]

I have, in my time, also comunicated with the dead, and the dying...

Really?

Do you mind if I ask some questions.

1) Have you ever asked any of them a huge question, like, is God real, or do you wish you were alive again, anything of that nature?

2) Why do these spirits even need a medium and all these special conditions, in order to make contact with the person? I would have thought them able to communicate with someone at will, or are they somewhat restricted in their abilities, on the 'other side'..?

3) How can you be sure that you are not perhaps undergoing some sort of delusion, which causes you to believe that what is happening is somehow supernatural?

4) Do you think that what you do would be frowned on by most religions?

5) What do the spirits almost never bother to describe, in detail, what it is like where they are?

6) Do you think it would be just as hard or easy to contact a world known name who had died, than it would be a little known, ordinary citizen?


Thanks

 

[Sam Albion]

1) Have I ever asked any of them a huge question, like, is God real, or do you wish you were alive again, anything of that nature?

-- no. I don't think dying/being a ghost equals "meeting-with-god". And just because they're dead doesn't mean they have any more answers about "the big stuff" than they did when they were alive. Most people are clueless, dead or not-dead. In my opinion. Of course, I could be wrong.

2) Why do these spirits even need a medium and all these special conditions, in order to make contact with the person? You would have thought them able to communicate with someone at will, or are they somewhat restricted in their abilities, on the 'other side'..?

--For me, and in my belief system, spirits don't need mediums -- mediums need spirits. But no, spirits don't need special conditions, more that the process is often too subtle for "normal folk" to experience -- average Joe probably wouldn't accept the "feelings" as anything other than "feelings". Average Joe might think of monks while he's in the hotel, but he wouldn't give monks much thought afterwards, he might not remember the next day, he might not go home and do research on something. It probably wouldn't mean anything to him. Unless average Joe is.. aware already, or has done some training/investigation for himself; if he has "the gift", such as it is.

3) How can you be sure that you are not perhaps undergoing some sort of delusion, which causes you to believe that what is happening is somehow supernatural?

--I cannot be sure, except that, as in my recent monk incident, there often seems to be some factual basis for my delusions, if delusions are what they are. Sometimes, there is no information, and sometimes, I experience something, check the information, and find I am really wrong. I don't count the experiences when I'm wrong, or when I am information-less. I am happy to discount 2/3rds of my "psychic" experiences for that reason. That still leaves a third, though, that, to me, has some verifiable, factual basis.

4) Do you think that what you do would be frowned on by most religions?

Yes, and no. No, because I don't take money for telling fortunes or casting spells, and most religions accept prophesy and "dream-prophesy" as valid ways of communciating with God or seeing into the future, and many religions speak of ghosts, and describe a transmigration of the soul as an end-point for all humans/lifeforms. But also yes because I know that some religious people would consider me evil and a witch, and I would be burnt at the stake. Potentially.

5) What do the spirits almost never bother to describe, in detail, what it is like where they are?

-- I think because where they are is "here". Kind of... dimensions of existence don't interact -- a person/their consciousness slips between states, the state of being "between states" is fragile, or unstable, but.. one-dimensional, if that makes sense. It's just a theory, though.

6) Do you think it would be just as hard or easy to contact a world known name who had died, than it would be a little known, ordinary citizen?

--I think connections depend on something tangible; location, familial connection, etc. I feel there should be some... validity... to the connection; some purpose. I think, for "accidental tourists" like me, encounters are not forced. I think that, for serious mediums, they could, potentially... connect, with a famous person, but... what would be the point, barring curiosity?

 

[iBrian]

Good comments, Sam - I've had a couple of minor experiences as well, but these have been rare.

I think what stands out is a sense not of "touching the dead" but of touching an "essence" from when they were living. Hard to explain - much of what we claim defines "us" as a human being is really "personality" which I'd claim is an adaptation to the environment, rather than an expression of the soul. And that "essence" is not in Heaven or "the other side" though it will claim to be, but instead, like a discarded shell unable to described what has gone on after, but aware that the part it was attached to has moved on.

We're all light wrapped up in monkey suits. The light does not require a personality when it is free and transcended.

....

 

[quirky]

I have been to a medium who was amazing, and one who was not. I think that they perform a service to those who want to believe in something beyond this life, but who do not want to investigate more themselves. It gives them reassurance that this is not all there is, but there is so much more beyond this point, the connections they can make are (to be honest) not that interesting.

imho,

Q

 

[vizenos]

Have you ever been to a medium?

If so, in your experience...

A) They are providing a good comforting service to the other person, but there is nothing supernatural or other wordly in what they are doing.

B) They are fraudsters, praying on the minds of the vulnerable, by selling them false hopes.

C) Some really are probably in contact with the spirit that has passed on.

D) Mediums, imo, are connecting with some sort of spirits, however, they are likely not what they appear to be, and will lie, and mimick the person who has died, in order to deceive...

E) Most really believe they have this special gift, but they are either deluded or self deluded.

I vote F) None of the above really works for me.

Regards,
vizenos