Part Three: General facts about mediumship

There are many types of mediumship. The types can be broadly divided into the more physical phenomena and the more subtle phenomena.

Physical types include:

• Materialization/dematerialization
• Direct Voice, where other people can hear a voice not coming from “the instrument”
• Materialization or movement of objects
• Levitation

With very rare exceptions, these physical experiences do not come from God’s divine spheres. This is because these experiences do not advance the primary objective of incarnating as a human being: We incarnate with the primary purpose of self-purification. Our incarnations are meticulously planned to provide us the environment, parents and events which will bring our faults, our soul dents, and the fractures in our consciousness into our awareness.

The entirety of God’s divine spirit worlds is oriented toward helping us choose to face directly into these difficult areas of our psyche. To God’s spiritual worlds, this is the only aim that truly matters for human life.

The crude physical phenomena listed above may generally help people realize that a larger reality exists. But these manifestations have little permanence because they do not address the underlying distortions in our psyche. And addressing the underlying distortions in our psyche is the all-important aim of self-purification.

The more subtle types of mediumship include:

• All forms of Extra-Sensory Perception (ESP), such as clairvoyance, clairaudience, clairsentience
• Automatic or inspirational writing
• Healing modalities
• Trance mediumship

These subtle modalities may, or may not, be a channel for help and guidance from God’s spiritual worlds. As will be discussed, this depends on a person’s inner state of consciousness, their commitment to self-purification, and their self-awareness. Very often the above subtle modalities overlap, and differentiating between them is not always easy or useful.

Degrees of separation

When a person receives a transmission through any of the above mediumship modalities, that person may be in one of a wide range of conscious states, ranging from deep trance to fully conscious presence. This is known as the “degree of separation”. Eva found that there exists as much confusion and either/or duality about this aspect of mediumship as in the transmission process itself.

On one side there are spiritual organizations that are against the practice of mediumship. This is frequently due to fear or fundamentalist beliefs about good and evil. In more advanced schools of thought, it is based on a reasoning that the focus of a spiritual path should be elsewhere. Instead of mediumship, the focus is on attaining total integration between the divine spirit worlds and the human personality.

On the other side are spiritual groups that hold mediumship proper as the central aim. Often the more a person is in a deep trance, the more authentic it appears. In this view, the greater the degree of separation between the conscious mind and the channeled message, the more this is proof of a reliable mediumship. This is predicated on protecting the messages from a person’s consciously or unconsciously held biases.

Essentially, one side of the duality discourages mediumship and instead puts the focus on attaining total integration of the personality with the inner divine realms. The other side of the duality encourages mediumship and places a premium on maintaining a high degree of separation of the conscious personality from the channel.

What is overlooked is that mediumship, as discussed here, is a stage that leads to total integration. Eva defined “mediumship proper” as the “manifestation of an inner opening to the realms beyond our own, but this opening is not yet integrated with the rest of our personality.” If it is cultivated toward God’s divine spiritual realms, as will be discussed shortly, this transient opening can bring help and guidance toward total conscious integration with God’s spirit worlds.

Clarifying our focus

Eva said that, at the beginning, she held the view that it was better to be in a deep, unconscious trance. However, she found that as her spiritual development and purification continued, the required depth of trance receded without impacting the clarity of the transmission. At a certain point, while giving individual helper sessions from the Pathwork Guide, her trance became unnecessary and obsolete in most cases.

It is essential to avoid becoming fascinated with mediumistic phenomena and details such as the degree of separation. In this fascination lies a very real danger of getting lost and avoiding the real work of a human incarnation. This is why all authorities on mediumship warn people not to practice alone, without a knowledgeable, well-grounded teacher.

The real work of being human always must be to face and remove the inner obstacles that stand in the way of total integration of the personality with the divine. Any mediumistic channel should be evaluated based on the clarity of the guidance received towards this aim.

Deeper aspects of mediumship

There is a direct relationship and connection between the medium’s psyche and the spirit being that can come through the channel. It is critical to understand that both the conscious and unconscious parts of the psyche are at work here. Aspects in the psyche that a person may have little or no self-awareness of play an enormous role in the quality of the channel.

Without adequate understanding of the role of unconscious negativity, an either/or duality arises around mediumship. On one side are people who deny mediumship in any form. Any manifestations are dismissed as the medium’s unconscious. On the other side are people who embrace mediumship communication but underestimate the corrupting effects of a person’s unconscious faults and distortions. Such people become defensive when this part is discussed.

A person may have a conscious intention and good will that they are completely dedicated to serving God. But any destructive traits and faults that are hidden behind inner walls and kept far from self-awareness stand in the way. Such a person may see no reason why a divine being from the highest spheres would not transmit a message through them. They are blind to their own inner distortions. In their blindness, they do not see how this makes a connection with divine worlds impossible.

Staying the course

When starting to develop mediumship, messages that come through are almost never from a consistent source. Messages come through from a vast range of sources and levels of consciousness—corresponding to all the various spiritual worlds inside the person. Further complicating matters, the source may change unexpectedly and in a way that is very difficult to discern, such as in the middle of a sentence.

The mix of messages Eva received starting out was quite broad. This ranged from clichés and rudimentary teachings to sensational predictions. The predictions were, at first glance, compelling because they involved facts she was completely unaware of. They included unlikely events that had yet to transpire or situations with people whom she had never known, or had not known of their existence.

These events do have limited value—they erase all doubts for a brief period—but also can subtly activate hidden inner places where vanity exists. And this affects healthy discernment. One must work through the temptation to remain stuck in sensationalism or flattery.

In between cliché and sensationalism Eva found a wide range of messages from mischievous spirits and the deceased. The range of mischievous intent and deceptive purposes also varied quite widely. Disincarnated spirits can lie to inflate their importance, just like some people do. And, just as with people, this can be subtle and difficult to discern.

It is a dangerous error to think that mediumship is like a telephone or some inanimate device. A person’s beliefs and attitudes, however well hidden, are magnetic. And like attracts like. A person with a hidden Lower Self fault of prideful superiority, for example, will strongly attract prideful spirits, allowing the same fault to come through their channel. This is divine law.

This phase can last many years. The length depends on the quality and rigor of a person’s path of spiritual development and, as discussed earlier, how effectively a person faces their faults and negativity. This last part is a prerequisite for transmissions from God’s divine spirit worlds. Only after many tests, purification and much struggle for discernment, does a message of truth and wisdom shine through.

Our best safeguard

Eva learned about these aspects of mediumship from many years of difficult self-purification work. There was no guidance on the topic of this blindness in Spiritualist Churches or any other mediumistic communities. She worked to find these connections herself.

Whether you work as the Pathwork Guide advises, or you follow another valid spiritual path, the difficult territory of finding and facing all our hidden faults and negativity, and feeling all of our hidden feelings, cannot be avoided. The difficult truth is that we are blind to most of it.

It is not true that a person must be “bad” or appear outwardly evil for a dark spirit to come through their mediumship channel. All human beings have pride, self-will and destructiveness in their Lower Self. These hidden power drives make a person susceptible to blindly following channeled advice that is far from divine truth.

The only safe path that leads, eventually, to healthy mediumship is one of ruthless self-honesty and complete self-facing. This requires a dedicated focus to bring all hidden negativity up into awareness and doing the humbling work of self-purification and self-transformation. This path must continue as long as the person lives. It is the only true safeguard against delusion and transmissions from dark spheres.

Part 4: Basic attitudes, laws and protection