Single Male Looking For A Self-Study Into Mediumship Development

I like quotes, if you don't already know. Recently on Twitter, I came across a Danish proverb: "the road to a friend's house is never long." What a wonderful line, and how true it is! I'd travel a great distance to share company with a good friend (after all, I've seen me do it), and would not treat the journey to greet them as a chore, but as being escorted by nature.

Such thoughts have caused me to wonder how long the road really is between us and our friends in the afterlife. After all, who would know better about the spiritual realm than those in it? Furthermore, we can argue over third-party accounts of the paranormal until the Rapture, but a firsthand experience would carve a tremendous chasm between the two that only those who'd gone through the same could cross.

So I've decided to develop my mediumship abilities, not for monetary gain (to hell with that), but for my own sake, to seek for answers on my own, and I'd like your help. I'm making three very big assumptions in this endeavor: 1) there is an afterlife, 2) everyone here has psychic abilities which can be strengthened, and 3) there are people in the afterlife who can and want to communicate with me. The biggest catch is that I can't afford to spend very much, so access to whatever resources to which I'm directed should be in the range of cheap to free (emphasis on free).

Now then, would any of you be so kind as to offer advice?
 
Now then, would any of you be so kind as to offer advice?
If you're serious about doing I'd think that, rather than posting here, discussion on a forum focused on those abilities and/or corresponding with those who are practicing mediums would be the way to go. Maybe work out an inexpensive way to take some intensives at a place like the Monroe Institute . ..

You are correct that actual experience is ultimately key. But, given that you post certain core aspects as "assumptions" even in the spirituality section, I wonder if you're serious about this.
 
I wrote about my experiences taking classes in mediumship here:
http://sites.google.com/site/chs4o8pt/psi_experience
and here
http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2012/10/what-is-it-like-to-communicate-with.html

You can often find inexpensive classes at a Spiritualist church, it takes many years to become a working medium but you might have veridical perceptions that will astound you during the first class or after only a few weeks/months. You also might be able to find classes through a new age book store or gift shop.

There is a huge difference between having spontaneous psychic experiences and being able to work as a medium. John Edward had many spontaneous communications as a child but he spent many years training before he would give readings to other people reliably.

If you feel you have some psychic sensitivity you might be able to develop on your own, otherwise classes are best.
I describe various techniques for communicating with spirits here:
http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2013/02/how-to-communicate-with-spirits.html

The simplest method is to meditate to quiet your mind, then ask questions of your guides and see if you notice any mental impressions. If you don't want to pay for classes at a spiritualist church, it might help, if there is one in your area, to go to the services and before or after the service try to practice communicating on your own. There will be a lot of spirits hanging around who are good at communicating and you might pick up a guide whom you have an affinity with.

One of the most effective questions is, "Please show me how to ...... ". I used to use this at work when I was stuck on a problem and it worked extremely well.

Have a look at this too:
http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2013/07/psychic-development.html

There are a lot of mediums on this facebook group
https://www.facebook.com/groups/evidenceforafterlife/
so asking this question there would be a good idea too.
 
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I.

There is a huge difference between having spontaneous psychic experiences and being able to work as a medium.
I know, right? Sucks. Lol. My spontaneous experiences are many, varied and wonderful. But calling such experiences up on cue is so far still seemingly iffy.
 
@Types With Fingers

One or two quite famous mediums were never completely convinced by their own mediumship. I think Eileen Garrett was one such. Also, consider what type of mediumship you're interested in developing.

I think you're right to identify the assumptions you're making but perhaps be prepared to accept them as true, for the purposes of your potential development. Too analytical an approach my be obstructive, at least initially.

What will you conclude if such abilities do not manifest themselves?
 
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@Types With Fingers
Too analytical an approach my be obstructive, at least initially.
Yes,


http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2013/07/psychic-development.html
The main method of psychic development is meditation. It calms the mind, particularly the logical analytical mind and makes your more aware of intuitive mental activity and psychic impressions.
...
Unbalanced Rationality

One obstacle to developing psychic abilities that some people experience is that due to education or career they are so habituated to analytical thinking that they cannot stop thinking analytically. Psychic impressions come from a different part of the mind so if you can't stop thinking analytically, you may have difficulty perceiving psychic impressions. If you think this might be a problem for you, it might help to try to suspend your logical and reasoning attitudes toward being psychic. This does not mean you should embrace irrationality, it means you should try to withhold judgment and be open to observation rather than relying on analysis and thinking. Try to be an observer rather than an analyzer or an explainer. There is nothing wrong with having strong powers of analysis and logic. However those modes are not the only way to be conscious. What is ideal is to be good at all modes of consciousness and know when to use each one rather than being unbalanced or uniformly weak.

more at the link
 
I like quotes, if you don't already know. Recently on Twitter, I came across a Danish proverb: "the road to a friend's house is never long." What a wonderful line, and how true it is! I'd travel a great distance to share company with a good friend (after all, I've seen me do it), and would not treat the journey to greet them as a chore, but as being escorted by nature.

Such thoughts have caused me to wonder how long the road really is between us and our friends in the afterlife. After all, who would know better about the spiritual realm than those in it? Furthermore, we can argue over third-party accounts of the paranormal until the Rapture, but a firsthand experience would carve a tremendous chasm between the two that only those who'd gone through the same could cross.

So I've decided to develop my mediumship abilities, not for monetary gain (to hell with that), but for my own sake, to seek for answers on my own, and I'd like your help. I'm making three very big assumptions in this endeavor: 1) there is an afterlife, 2) everyone here has psychic abilities which can be strengthened, and 3) there are people in the afterlife who can and want to communicate with me. The biggest catch is that I can't afford to spend very much, so access to whatever resources to which I'm directed should be in the range of cheap to free (emphasis on free).

Now then, would any of you be so kind as to offer advice?

Why? Again, what a complete waste of time. Just live a life for chissakes. What do you care about the afterlife for anyway?

No dead people are going to communicate with you. What you'll find is that you're simply communicating with yourself, which is not too dissimilar from what you're already doing here at the forum. So stop being dumb. There are no dead people to communicate with. What does that even mean anyway?
 
If you're serious about doing I'd think that, rather than posting here, discussion on a forum focused on those abilities and/or corresponding with those who are practicing mediums would be the way to go. Maybe work out an inexpensive way to take some intensives at a place like the Monroe Institute . ..

You are correct that actual experience is ultimately key. But, given that you post certain core aspects as "assumptions" even in the spirituality section, I wonder if you're serious about this.

I understand you, and in fact I wrote those items as assumptions because that's what they are to me. That's the point of all this. I love the idea of the afterlife and the validity of paranormal phenomena, but I'm a nuts-and-bolts kind of guy, so no matter how many books I read about other people's NDE experiences, no matter how many videos I watch about psi being tested by other people, at the end of the day someone else had these firsthand experiences, and not me. In my mind that is an unsustainable position, but one which can be changed, regardless of how intimidating and arduous the process seems. After all, there's something much bigger at stake here than my stomach's constitution.

Now, you mentioned other forums that could be of help, and I like that idea. Would you know any?
 
I wrote about my experiences taking classes in mediumship here:
http://sites.google.com/site/chs4o8pt/psi_experience
and here
http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2012/10/what-is-it-like-to-communicate-with.html

You can often find inexpensive classes at a Spiritualist church, it takes many years to become a working medium but you might have veridical perceptions that will astound you during the first class or after only a few weeks/months. You also might be able to find classes through a new age book store or gift shop.

There is a huge difference between having spontaneous psychic experiences and being able to work as a medium. John Edward had many spontaneous communications as a child but he spent many years training before he would give readings to other people reliably.

If you feel you have some psychic sensitivity you might be able to develop on your own, otherwise classes are best.
I describe various techniques for communicating with spirits here:
http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2013/02/how-to-communicate-with-spirits.html

The simplest method is to meditate to quiet your mind, then ask questions of your guides and see if you notice any mental impressions. If you don't want to pay for classes at a spiritualist church, it might help, if there is one in your area, to go to the services and before or after the service try to practice communicating on your own. There will be a lot of spirits hanging around who are good at communicating and you might pick up a guide whom you have an affinity with.

One of the most effective questions is, "Please show me how to ...... ". I used to use this at work when I was stuck on a problem and it worked extremely well.

Have a look at this too:
http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2013/07/psychic-development.html

There are a lot of mediums on this facebook group
https://www.facebook.com/groups/evidenceforafterlife/
so asking this question there would be a good idea too.

Jim, thank you, I already love what you wrote, and I'll start going through your links tonight. Can I PM you on here I I have questions? Any books you might recommend, or will I find some on those sites?
 
@Types With Fingers

One or two quite famous mediums were never completely convinced by their own mediumship. I think Eileen Garrett was one such. Also, consider what type of mediumship you're interested in developing.

I think you're right to identify the assumptions you're making but perhaps be prepared to accept them as true, for the purposes of your potential development. Too analytical an approach my be obstructive, at least initially.

What will you conclude if such abilities do not manifest themselves?

Yes, you're quite right, I may shoot myself in the foot with double-guessing and other forms of self-sabotage. Letting go of my tendency to overanalyze will be a challenge.

I guess Im even less versed in the field than I thought, there are different types of mediumship? As far as what I would do if I fail to talk with the dead? I suppose what I've been doing for the last six months on my quest, tell myself I'm doing it wrong and find a better way.
 

Yeah, I think Bob Olson's a great guy and a really interesting and engaging investigator, but I have a few big issues with James van Praagh and some of the other bigwigs at Hay House which stop me from taking their advice. Mainly, I don't like the idea of their card decks (oracle cards, angel cards, etc.) at all. If they were cards based on ancient mystical tablets, or blessed by a priest, or there was data from even one scientific study to suggest they had validity (because unlike dogmatic pseudoskeptics, I accept one study as a "shred of evidence"), then I might be able to follow along with them. But those are cards they drew up in the modern era, authorized by neither spirit nor science, as far as I've heard. This separates them from Zener cards, and so when they say things like in that video, I become extremely hesitant to trust them.
 
, there are different types of mediumship?

Oh my goodness yes. They seem to split broadly into two types; mental and physical.

My understanding is that the main types of mental mediumship would include (but probably aren't limited to): clairvoyance (visual), clairaudience (auditory), clairsentience (sensing), psychometry and some types of trance.

Physical might include: materialisation (in various levels of light),the independent direct voice, transfiguration, production of phenomena such as moving objects, production of apports, knocking and rapping.

Then there are different types of healing mediumship too, it seems.

I am sure this list isn't exhaustive but will give you a flavour. Mental mediumship seems to me to be broadly subjective - i.e. you are relying on the medium's interpretation of what is purported to be communicated usually (with the exception of trance to an extent - of which there seem to be varying degrees) and physical mediumship seems to me to involve producing objective phenomena which can be experienced by all observers. Often for physical mediumship the medium is in trance too.

Some mediums appear to be able to switch between physical and mental mediumship and to demonstrate some or all of the elements of each type. The appear to be able to choose to sit for mental mediumship or physical.

For those with an interest I acknowledge the above is perhaps a somewhat simplistic summary however it is how it seems to me based on the information I have garnered from my studies of the subject.

There are people who have set out to develop mediumship with no indication that they have any ability and seem to have been successful but it has often taken a very long time and a lot of effort to develop. Some with a natural talent seem to exhibit skills spontaneously and then develop them as Jim mentioned above.

You might find it useful to read about some of the proponents of each type of mediumship to get an idea of what each form claims to be capable of delivering.
 
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Yeah, I think Bob Olson's a great guy and a really interesting and engaging investigator, but I have a few big issues with James van Praagh and some of the other bigwigs at Hay House which stop me from taking their advice. Mainly, I don't like the idea of their card decks (oracle cards, angel cards, etc.) at all. If they were cards based on ancient mystical tablets, or blessed by a priest, or there was data from even one scientific study to suggest they had validity (because unlike dogmatic pseudoskeptics, I accept one study as a "shred of evidence"), then I might be able to follow along with them. But those are cards they drew up in the modern era, authorized by neither spirit nor science, as far as I've heard. This separates them from Zener cards, and so when they say things like in that video, I become extremely hesitant to trust them.

I may be wrong here but I get the impression that the use of cards/tea leaves etc are considered more of a focus for psychic phenomena (prediction, character analysis etc) than an actual mechanical method of communication with 'spirits'. What I mean is that they may used by the medium to change their mental state/ concentration or as a mechanism for inspiration. Happy to be corrected. The mediums I have seen using cards have all attempted to make predictions or observations about my life/situation rather than to pass evidence of survival.
 
Jim, thank you, I already love what you wrote, and I'll start going through your links tonight. Can I PM you on here I I have questions? Any books you might recommend, or will I find some on those sites?
Yes you can pm me. I'm not aware of any books I would particularly recommend on how to develop mental mediumship, but it couldn't hurt to read the biographies of mediums like John Edward and George Anderson. If you are interested in general background and somewhat related books there are many free-on line. Links to libraries of such can be found here:
http://sites.google.com/site/chs4o8pt/elibs

In particular I recommend,
http://www.spiritwritings.com/library.html
The History of Spiritualism vols 1 & 2 by Arthur Conan Doyle
Books by Elsa Barker
The Betty Book and other books by Stuart White
Our Unseen Guest

There are some more suggestions on the home page to my web site:
https://sites.google.com/site/chs4o8pt/home
 
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Thank you, Jim, your sites are incredible. I set up a Facebook account to join that group you recommended. Funny, I never thought I'd be setting up an account. Every time I try to get out, they pull me back in!
 
Yeah, I think Bob Olson's a great guy and a really interesting and engaging investigator, but I have a few big issues with James van Praagh and some of the other bigwigs at Hay House which stop me from taking their advice. Mainly, I don't like the idea of their card decks (oracle cards, angel cards, etc.) at all. If they were cards based on ancient mystical tablets, or blessed by a priest, or there was data from even one scientific study to suggest they had validity (because unlike dogmatic pseudoskeptics, I accept one study as a "shred of evidence"), then I might be able to follow along with them. But those are cards they drew up in the modern era, authorized by neither spirit nor science, as far as I've heard. This separates them from Zener cards, and so when they say things like in that video, I become extremely hesitant to trust them.

Is this a joke?
 
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