Communicating with those from the spirit world is a remarkable event that takes place across the world thousands of times every day by mediums. But even after several hundreds of years of this incredible phenomenon happening, the majority of people remain unconvinced that it is the real thing.
As a medium myself, I have shared with many people incredible pieces of evidence that their loved and lost ones live on. Gold nugget, as I call it, evidence that I could not have otherwise known that proves beyond reasonable doubt that some invisible force shared with the sitter, through me.
The method of mediumship I use, as do the biggest majority of mediums around the world today, is known as mental mediumship. The evidence is somehow passed into our mind where we become aware of it and relay it forward in the act of being a vessel, or channel.
It’s the same process I also use to transcribe messages from the other side in my spirit-inspired writing. Relying on what it is I ‘hear’ in my mind whilst I’m attuned to that state of mind most suited for the process to happen.
Many mediums go one stage more with their mediumship in a process known as trance mediumship. The medium sits in an altered state of awareness and allows a speaker from the other side to speak through them, often altering the natural voice of the medium.
These processes rely heavily on the mind of the medium to be used as the platform for the communication to occur. The biggest challenge for the medium is in keeping their mind out of the process as much as possible. But everyone’s mind remains active to some extent and that is where filtering, alterations, and interpretations occur to the original message. It happens, and cannot be avoided most of the time, though the deeper the altered state of mind becomes, the freer and purer the messages can flow.
One of the most remarkable types of mediumship is where something happens in the room that is witnessed by everyone present and is beyond the control of the medium for the bigger part. This mediumship is known as physical. In our modern world today, this is rare, and I’ll explain why later.
The most documented physical mediumship occurred in Hydesville during the 1840s when the Fox sisters learned to communicate with a person in spirit through the process written up as ‘The Knockings’. Everyone present at the time was able to ask the person in spirit questions and received the answers through a series of knocks heard coming from the walls of the small home. These events became considered the birth of modern spiritualism.
From those early events, people started to investigate the world of spirit, often sitting in circles in their homes in the hope of a spirit person communicating with them. This progressed further with mediums learning to sit for longer in an energy they created (the power) allowing the spirit people to manipulate their minds and bodies.
Let it be known that the spirit world is a hugely intelligent force. Working outside of the limitations of our laws of science and physics the experts that side can make what we might consider as miracles happen. Séances became commonplace and some of the greatest minds alive at the time, including scientists and leading politicians became hugely involved with the great mediums of the day.
Some mediums were able to be levitated by the spirit world, in front of witnesses. Items were often apported to the room from nowhere, or things moved without earth-bound individuals being around. Parlour sittings often included table-tipping sessions, ouija-board demonstrations, and other methods that the spirit world people wanted to use to communicate with us.
Places, such as The Royal Albert Hall were often filled with people gathered to watch psychic surgery happen where often the hands and arms of the surgeon in the spirit world were clearly visible to everyone present. Even in the homes where circles were held, adults and children from the spirit world often came in and physically tickled or touched the sitters, or played with toys laid out for them. These events were commonplace.
One would justifiably be correct to believe we should have therefore advanced further than we have today. We’re not though. Physical mediumship is rarer than ever in the past, with only a handful of real physical mediums following this path nowadays. What has gone wrong and why does it appear that fewer people than ever are interested in physical mediumship?
THE WANT-IT-ALL-NOW CULTURE
There are more mediums around nowadays than ever before. Our spiritualist churches often hold weekend workshops to encourage newbies to come and learn mediumship. At the same time, what is considered evidence of a continuing life is diluted, and vague communications are accepted as ‘proof’.
In a matter of weeks or months, new students are invited to demonstrate their newly acquired skills in front of the congregation, sometimes titled appallingly as ‘fledgling nights’. These new students are being introduced as mediums and the audience has hopes of something special from them. The lack of evidence introduced by the mediums is accepted as ‘normal’.
Though this is not always the case, many new mediums have had minimal training, limited understanding, and no real knowledge about what it is they represent and do. They are often attracted to the glamour and fame of standing in front of audiences where they are the centre of attention and dare I say, earning a fee from it.
DEDICATION & DEVOTION
Risking upsetting a few people, mental mediums are two a-penny nowadays, but fewer than ever are any good at it. They don’t have the time, patience, or inclination to devote their living life to truly understanding the craft of communicating with the spirit world.
In times gone by, people had fewer distractions in their daily lives, social media, Netflix and clubbing weren’t the dominating factors in their simpler lives. Home circles were held regularly with consistent people coming together at least weekly to sit together for spirit intervention. Circle leaders were knowledgeable and tough with the rules of the circle.
Several of our recent greater mediums, such as Gordon Higginson, were forced to sit in their circles in silence for many years before being invited to speak. Up to five years of just sitting in the power without being invited to offer a communication. Gordon’s circle leader was his mother, Fanny, who made sure he learned to understand the role of becoming a medium, way before he was allowed to display his abilities.
Many circle sitters were there only to add energy to the circle for the benefit of the medium or others. Imagine asking a student nowadays to sit in a circle every week for at least five years, just to assist the main medium in producing physical evidence.
That’s the problem with today’s mediums. Few are prepared to wait for results, to sit in the power and energy of the spirit world for months and even years to build a suitable climate with the right conditions for spectacular events to be able to happen. Perhaps this is all because of the fast lifestyles we live today. Perhaps this is because there is a lack of real education about this work. Perhaps is simply because nobody wants to anymore. Whatever the reasons, and there are probably many, good mediumship, particularly physical mediumship is now a rare commodity.
NOT FOR EVERYONE
Another important issue with physical mediumship is regarding the dangers and health implications involved. The people in the spirit world are aware of who is capable of becoming a physical medium, and that is most certainly not every medium. Great tolls are paid on the physical medium’s body. Allowing the chemists and experts in the spirit world to extract, mix and produce substances such as ectoplasm to seep out of a medium’s orifices has great risks involved.
Ectoplasm is a physical material produced by experts in the spirit world from chemicals and ingredients in the medium’s body. It is used to manifest specific people from the spirit world into a séance room where they can be seen, touched, and heard as if they were real living earth people.
Physical mediums take many years to evolve to this state. The rules of a séance room are extremely rigid and preparation for a séance can involve hours of preparation. Everyone lucky enough to be invited to a séance has to be carefully selected and educated as to what can and cannot be done during the séance.
One certain thing, anyone who has attended a séance is left with zero doubts about there being a life after this one. The evidence is physical and beyond any scepticism. I have attended three seances and they changed my core beliefs beyond any doubt.
PHYSICAL MEDIUMSHIP DOESN’T HAVE TO INVOLVE SEANCES
Many mediums will be able to share stories of incidences they’ve encountered where a physical event has happened during a normal mediumship demonstration. Although I have many such stories, I will share one in a few sentences to demonstrate how physical evidence is powerful.
The challenge with producing physical evidence is in how many people present witness the incident, and in how every possible alternative reason for the event occurring is ruled out.
The people in spirit want to communicate with us and will use whatever facilities they can do at that time to impress us. It’s not just us that so desire the evidence of a continuing life, the spirit people want to prove it to us too. This is why we should heighten our senses and attune ourselves to be able to accept often subtle evidence when we experience it.
When physical events occur during a reading or demonstration, they are always magical, miraculous, and utterly magnificent. It’s what mediumship is all about. The conclusive evidence is that life continues after this earthly existence.
As I’ve mentioned, I’ve limited experience with physical mediumship, but what I have has changed my approach to this wonderful ability. I have many stories I could share, but some would simply come across as unrealistic or unbelievable. So I have chosen a simple story to end this edition. It is, of course, true and proves how physical mediumship can and does change the whole dynamic of our work as mediums.
Let me set the scene. We had been living up in the north of England for a few months. In that short time our cat, Rebo, was taken ill and sadly passed away. In his last few months he had taken home in the reception area to my sanctuary, a converted double garage in our grounds and away from the house.
A lady I had never met was invited by Jane for a reading with me. I sat in the sanctuary and waited for Jane to bring the lady to the sanctuary when she arrived. During the reading, I mentioned to the lady that she too had recently lost a cat to the spirit world. I could not have known that, as I had never met the lady before and knew nothing about her.
When I mentioned the cat being with me, she shared tears of joy and probably grief. During that silent moment of her using a tissue, an almighty loud scuffle broke out in the reception area, to which the door was closed. It lasted about 30 seconds and sounded like two cats running and skidding on the wooden floors, banging into the doors and walls.
We were both frightened and shocked by the event. When the noise stopped, I braved up and suggested we take a look in the reception area to see what had happened. I opened the sanctuary room door carefully, the lady close behind me. Both the bathroom door and the main door were closed. There was no evidence of what might have made two cats enter the reception and kick-off.
When we sat back down moments later, we both concluded that it must only have been her cat’s spirit entering Rebo’s territory and his spirit defending it from this other cat in spirit. There is no other alternative answer. The doors were all closed and nothing came in or out. We both witnessed it and both agreed on what caused it.
