Spirit communication that originate from the medium’s mind is termed ‘mental’ mediumship – of the mind. The delivery of those communications however, can be through the normal ways we communicate. They could be spoken or written by the recipient. The meaningfulness, on the other hand, varies from one communication to another and from one medium to another.
Recently, I watched trance medium Mark Stone, doing a rare online demonstration of his trance mediumship. Viewers of this type of demonstration are often expecting some kind of superpowers from the medium. I know that to be true because I was one of those people. But we must understand that trance is not something that’s limited to the few ‘gifted’ people, it’s possible for anyone, medium or not. The term ‘trance’ suggests a mystical power is present when all that it means is being in an ‘altered state’ of mind.
Every one of us switches into an altered state of mind several times a day, without being aware of even doing so. Altered simply refers to a state of thinking that is not of a normal state, such as when we are lost in a daydream, or we drive automatically to work and suddenly realise we can’t remember certain parts of the journey because our mind was busy reliving or planning something else.
I’ve known Mark Stone as a close friend for over twenty years and he has been a mentor to me in my progress in the past. But I have always had sceptical reservations about his trance demonstrations. I’ve seen him demonstrate on several occasions in my time knowing him. But as a naive medium, looking to learn and explore my potential, I’ve doubted the depth of his trance communications for a couple of reasons. One, he made it look all too easy. Two, the communications always appeared to be of stuff that made no sense in the modern world. After all these years, I can now declare I was wrong in my beliefs.
It is thanks to my project of inspired writing that I started doing regularly in March 2022 and have since written approaching one hundred examples and shared most with the reading community. Being the biggest critic of my work means that I scrutinise everything I write after it’s written of course. I believe I can be the best judge of the sincerity of my writing because, after all, I wrote the words and therefore should know where they came from better than anyone else.
During this experimental period, I have transcribed into a digital format some communications that have left me shocked by the content. Often, I know beyond any reasonable and personal doubt that the words on the notepad are truly inspired by some other force than my mind. This varies from piece to piece. Some examples are way beyond my normal abilities, whereas others are of my flavouring. I can tell which are which and most of the time declare so to the readers.
The one important aspect of my inspired writing I have learnt from and therefore become educated about is the subtleness of the influence. I would describe this with this analogy.
Imagine a container catching water flowing gently from a tap. The water is clear. The container represents the person receiving the communication, you reading this for example. The tap represents my mind and the water represents my normal communication – the words I am speaking. Imagine that during that purposeful time of sitting for inspired words, I sit with the intent to allow those in the spirit world to communicate with me, I give them the flowing water as somewhere to place their words. Let’s consider their words as being of a different colour, for example, blue.
When their words mix with mine in varying amounts, the colour of the water changes from clear to that with a tint of blue – not pure blue, just a dilution, a tint if you like. It is the strength of that connection that affects the amount of blue being added to the flow. Sometimes it’s stronger than others.
That is a good analogy that should help you understand the process that is going on. Whether the words are being written, as I go through the inspired writing experiments, or whether they are spoken by the medium does not change where the words are being sourced from.
When I watched Mark’s trance demonstration recently, I was more ‘educated’ than I was years ago when I last saw him work. This education that I’ve gained, through study and practice, has broadened my understanding and acceptance of what is and isn’t happening during such a demonstration.
During Mark’s demonstration, I started to realise that what he was doing was no different than what I do when I write the words down, except with the delivery vehicle. My pen instead of my lips. I watched and listened intently to the message Mark was delivering and finally realised that he was connected to the spirit world and that, although some of the words were from his own ‘flow’, many of the words were from that connection he had achieved.
I titled this episode as ‘ More Than Just Words’ because of that deeper understanding I now have. Unlike years past, I could now watch any other medium demonstrate their trance with a more objective opinion. In other words, I can now recognise, to some extent, the colour being added to the flow – the words coming from their spirit-based source.
A small part of me wishes I’d had this newly found understanding many years ago when I was always so critical of other’s trance demonstrations. If I had understood the subtleties of this delicate and difficult-to-define connection, I might have been less critical and dismissive of trance in mediumship. Also, I now understand, more than ever before, that to understand any aspect of mediumship, we must continue to educate ourselves because some elements cannot be understood or taught until the student’s education level is ready for it.
I have plans now in my schedule to sit in my cabinet at home, with a notepad and a voice recorder and speak aloud what I would normally write. I suspect the flow from the tap will be stronger (not having to physically write the words) and less mind interrogation will be used worrying about spelling and grammatical correctness.
Let it be a lesson to us all. Just because we don’t understand something, doesn’t mean it’s not real. Accept that we have some learning to do and make that our journey ahead – to continue educating ourselves to understand it’s more than just words.
