Unfortunately that will probably mean less time posting on this blog - although finishing updating the blogiography is one of the tasks I need to do ... :)
Anyway, I have a few random thoughts to post, so here goes.
First off, could SETI, the "Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, be fundamentally flawed? This search is - to simplify quite considerably - for radio emissions that are tuned to frequencies that don't occur in nature. This is based on the assumption that intelligent civilisations would have developed a civilisation like ours, with lots of stray electromagnetic emissions. Well, what if they have learned to do everything we do, but without the stray emissions? This doesn't necessarily have to be out of any concern for possible health effects [1], it could be as simple as wanting a more natural state of the environment to live in ...
In many metaphysical traditions, there is a warning against charging. Could this really be for as simple a reason as it is difficult - almost impossible - to produce wonderful psychic readings on demand, 8 hours a day, 5 days a week? It is difficult enough for something like a Spiritualist Church to get a good demonstration medium every week (I think some should consider having proof of survival only every fortnight or month - have the service, but leave out the proof of survival part.)
On that, I read an interesting article here on "does religious faith make people healthier and happier?" (If only they'd consulted more with people who know more about the range of forms of faith and of the differences between religion and spirituality ... )
On reading, I've finally tracked down a copy of Karen Mutton's book "Lobsang Rampa: New Age Trailblazer" (pub 2006, TGS Publishers, ISBN 0-971-3166-0-0). I'm now in a position - or will be, when I finish reading it - to finish the review I was going to post about Lobsang Rampa; the only problem is, Karen Mutton has covered a fair bit of what I want to, and better - she has access to key people that I don't. I'll still publish my thoughts, but one of the thoughts which came to mind as I read of Rampa's concerns that the world would be taken over by a "form of communism" which is - in my words - less extreme than that which used to be in Russia (possibly socialism, I think Karen Mutton is suggesting), and his view about the invasiveness of "the Press" [2], is that there is a lot going on at the moment that is invasive of privacy. I have a profound dislike of gossips, and won't join Facebook for a whole range of reasons - mostly around concerns about privacy, but also partly in reaction to social pressure on me to join up "because it is the done thing" (it used to be "the done thing" to join the National Socialist or Nazi party in Germany, too), so maybe, I thought, in my slightly heat-struck, very exhausted state in the motel after several days of travel, walking around sites in 40 degree heat and running rather intense workshops, could Mark Zuckerberg be the anti-Christ that people like Nostradamus have predicted? In about the next millisecond I thought "no" (he's just a businessperson, in my view), although I continue to disagree with his "radical [lack of] privacy" type ideas and continue to refuse to join Facebook for the reasons I've outlined.
On Rampa, and his bitterness and dislike of the Press, I think the constant attacks on Rampa's claimed identity possibly were similar in some ways to the attacks on identity that trans people experience - a denial of a fundamental aspect of who one is, so I can actually empathise with his bitterness, and understand the effect it had on him (I'll discuss the topic of whether or not Rampa was genuine or not in my coming post on the topic).
My next speculation is on the topic of noise - specifically, talking. Now, there is unquestionably some social bonding that comes out of what could be construed by social grumps like me to be perhaps somewhat pointless talking (you know, the chit-chat sort of stuff at cocktail parties), but I also do consider that come of the talking (and especially a good deal of the chit-chat sort of stuff at cocktail parties) is really just a fear of silence or aloneness, and people may be better of occasionally stopping their lips from flapping and letting their BPF Guides - or even their own Higher Self! - get a word in edgeways. I actually quite like some of the friendships I have where we can simply be, and don't have to fill in the silence - we can enjoy the world about us, as well as our company, without pointless, fear-driven drivel.
A few more thoughts and links:
- never mistake "going with the crowd" for "going with the flow";
- it is sad when people seek oblivion - whether through drinks, drugs or sex ... see here;
- I've come across a pagan version of the serenity prayer from several sources, now - here is one from http://moonpathcuups.org/recovery/serenity.htm (search and you may well find others);
- http://www.uk-paranormal.co.uk/Earth_Energies_and_LeyLines.htm.
I consider that these changes and consideration of tactics and straegy are useful for anyone who is doing serious psychic clearing work:
- remember that you have to develop those in your team both individually, and as a team (which is part of strategy - think carefully and clearly about what it is you want your team to be able to do);
- evolve - all things change, and the intelligences opposing the evolution of this planet towards being a better place will actively seek to change and adapt to your tactics (see here for an example from football of the need for change);
- don't let your opposition adapt, especially when you are clearing uncooperatives - they are intelligent, and capable of working together if allowed to learn from what they consider the misfortune of others who have been cleared: whatever their motivation is for being uncooperative (desire for revenge, anger, resentment, etc), remember that it is probably well developed and ingrained, they see it as being acceptable and in fact desirable, so will seek to fight you as cleverly, cunningly, underhandedly and effectively as they can.
Now ... terminology. Wikipedia is not a bad starting point for looking things up, although Gavin Andrews comments on an apparent inadvertent bias against pagans as a result of a recent editorial change at Wikipedia in "Paganism and Christianity" (pub. 2011, Smashwords - see here). Some time ago I looked up http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mediumship#Psychic_senses, and came up with some interesting material, but it needs expanding in some cases, so, here goes ...
The Wikipedia listing begins with this paragraph:
In Spiritualism, psychic senses used by mental mediums are sometimes defined differently than in other paranormal fields. The term clairvoyance, for instance, may be used by Spiritualists to include seeing spirits and visions instilled by spirits. The Parapsychological Association defines "clairvoyance" as information derived directly from an external physical source.
Not a bad point to keep in mind - words have different meanings to different people. Now, the actual forms of psychic sensing (I've shown the Wikpedia wording in green, which unfortunately does not show the hyperlinks for you):
- Clairvoyance or "Clear Seeing", is the ability to see anything that is not physically present, such as objects, animals or people. This sight occurs "in the mind’s eye". Some mediums say that this is their normal vision state. Others say that they must train their minds with such practices as meditation in order to achieve this ability, and that assistance from spiritual helpers is often necessary. Some clairvoyant mediums can see a spirit as though the spirit has a physical body. They see the bodily form as if it were physically present. Other mediums see the spirit in their mind's eye, or it appears as a movie or a television programme or a still picture like a photograph in their mind.
The key addition I wish to make here is that the second last sentence is referring to what is termed "objective" clairvoyance, and the last sentence to "subjective" clairvoyance.
- Clairaudience or "Clear Hearing", is usually defined as the ability to hear the voices or thoughts of spirits. Some Mediums hear as though they are listening to a person talking to them on the outside of their head, as though the Spirit is next to or near to the medium, and other mediums hear the voices in their minds as a verbal thought.
Again, hearing outside the head is termed "objective" clairvaudience, and inside the head is termed "subjective" clairaudience. There was a "guide" I read of that objective clairaudience could be indicative of mental illness. This is a dangerous guide, as mental illness could be indicated by a wide range of things, and mental health professionals are the people to consult on that!
- Clairsentience or "Clear Sensing", is the ability to have an impression of what a spirit wants to communicate, or to feel sensations instilled by a spirit.
Not bad.
- Clairsentinence or "Clear Feeling" is a condition in which the medium takes on the ailments of a spirit, feeling the same physical problem which the spirit person had before death.
I have not come across this term previously - my experience is that the term "taking on the ... of a spirit" is used.
- Clairalience or "Clear Smelling" is the ability to smell a spirit. For example, a medium may smell the pipe tobacco of a person who smoked during life.
This is a sadly neglected part of psychic sensing, one I spend some time on trying to develop in my students.
- Clairgustance or "Clear Tasting" is the ability to receive taste impressions from a spirit. This also is a sadly neglected part of psychic sensing, one I also spend some time on trying to develop in my students.
- Claircognizance or "Clear Knowing", is the ability to know something without receiving it through normal or psychic senses. It is a feeling of "just knowing". Often, a medium will claim to have the feeling that a message or situation is "right" or "wrong."
This is what I would describe as "intuition".
Spirit operatorA spirit who uses a medium to manipulate energy or energy systems.
I've come across this term, but it isn't normally used in Australia.- Spirit guide (Main article: Spirit guide)
Some mediums claim a spirit guide is a highly evolved spirit with the sole purpose of helping the medium develop and use personal skills. The mediums claim the spirits assist in the person's following a spiritual path. Other mediums claim a spirit guide is one who brings other spirits to a medium's attention or carries communications between a medium and the spirits of the dead. Many mediums claim to have specific guides who regularly work with them and "bring in" spirits of the dead. Some mediums claim that spirits of the dead will communicate with them directly without the use of a spirit guide. The relationship between the medium and the guide may be providential, or it may be based on family ties.
I've posted on this previously in various places (e.g., see here, here, here, here and here): the key is to make sure you are working with BPF Guides - who may actually be incarnate - who are people who are more evolved than you, but if you're not all that evolved they may not be very evolved. Use of family members can be very limiting, and you should aim to get better BPF guides than just dead family members. This may require you to beome comfortable working with people who are not family, which is a key art of attaining spiritual maturity. Mental mediumship (Main article: Seance)
"Mental mediumship" is communication of spirits with a medium by telepathy. The medium mentally "hears" (clairaudience), "sees" (clairvoyance), and/or feels (clairsentience) messages from spirits. Directly or with the help of a spirit guide, the medium passes the information on to the message's recipient(s). When a medium is doing a "reading" for a particular person, that person is known as the "sitter."
This is an OK definition.Trance mediumship
In the 1860s and 1870s, trance mediums were very popular. Spiritualism generally attracted female adherents, many who had strong interests in social justice. Many trance mediums delivered passionate speeches on abolitionism, temperance, and women's suffrage. Scholars have described Leonora Piper as one of the most famous trance mediums in the history of Spiritualism.
"Trance mediumship" is often seen as a form of mental mediumship.
All trance mediums remain conscious during a communication period, wherein a spirit uses the medium's mind to communicate. The spirit or spirits using the medium's mind influences the mind with the thoughts being conveyed. The medium allows the ego to step aside for the message to be delivered. At the same time, one has awareness of the thoughts coming through and may even influence the message with one's own bias. Such a trance is not to be confused with sleepwalking, as the patterns are entirely different. Castillo (1995) states,
"Trance phenomena result from the behavior of intense focusing of attention, which is the key psychological mechanism of trance induction. Adaptive responses, including institutionalized forms of trance, are 'tuned' into neural networks in the brain."
In the typical deep trance, the medium may not have clear recall of all the messages conveyed while in an altered state; such people generally work with an assistant. That person selectively wrote down or otherwise recorded the medium's words. Rarely did the assistant record the responding words of the sitter and other attendants. An example of this kind of relationship can be found in the early 20th century collaboration between the trance medium Mrs. Cecil M. Cook of the William T. Stead Memorial Center in Chicago (a religious body incorporated under the statutes of the State of Illinois) and the journalist Lloyd Kenyon Jones. The latter was a non-medium Spiritualist who transcribed Cook's messages in shorthand. He edited them for publication in book and pamphlet form.
OK, where do I begin with on this one!
First off, trance mediumship is an umbrella term. Next, not all mediums are conscious - if the medium is conscious, then they are not a deep trance medium. It is the astral that steps out, not the go, for adeep trance.
Pretty poor attempt at a definition, actually.Physical mediumship (Main article: seance)
"Physical mediumship" is defined as manipulation of energies and energy systems by spirits.Physical mediumship may involve perceptible manifestations, such as loud raps and noises, voices, materialized objects, apports, materialized spirit bodies, or body parts such as hands, and levitation. The medium is used as a source of power for such spirit manifestations. By some accounts, this was achieved by using the energy or ectoplasm released by a medium, see Spirit Photography.[11][12] The last physical medium to be tested by a committee from Scientific American was Mina Crandon in 1924.Most physical mediumship is presented in a darkened or dimly lit room. Most physical mediums make use of a traditional array of tools and appurtenances, including spirit trumpets, spirit cabinets, and levitation tables.The term "physical mediumship", should not be construed as implying that any induced apport is confined to the physical plane. The apport ("ectoplasm", or whatever) may be composed of "etheric", "astral", "mental", or "causal" substance (i.e., a substance naturally residing on one of those planes and only temporarily transported into the physical plane). Instead, the term "physical mediumship" is employed to imply an effect manifested upon [objects naturally existing on] the physical plane, by means of interaction (merely physical, not chemical) with substance transported out (temporarily) of another plane of existence.
This is not a bad attempt at a definition, but the definition I was taught was that physical mediumship produces physical effects upon the physical world. It is also an umbrella term, with things like "direct voice" and apports being sub-sets of this category.Direct Voice Main article: Direct voice
Direct voice communication involves spirits extracting ectoplasm from living persons (not limited to the medium) to create a spirit voice-box, which enables the spirits to communicate with the living during seances. This form included the medium Leslie Flint
This is OK - although I haven't looked at the main link.Channeling
In the latter half of the 20th century, Western mediumship developed two different ways. One type involves psychics or sensitives who claim to speak to spirits and then relay what they hear to their clients. Clairvoyant Danielle Egnew is known for her alleged communication with angelic entities.The other incarnation of non-physical mediumship is a form of channeling in which the channeler goes into a trance, or "leaves their body". He or she becomes “possessed” by a specific spirit, who then talks through them. In the trance, the medium enters a cataleptic state marked by extreme rigidity. As the control spirit takes over, the medium's voice may change completely. The spirit answers the questions of those in its presence or giving spiritual knowledge. A widely known channeler of this variety is J. Z. Knight, who claims to channel the spirit of Ramtha, a 30 thousand-year-old man. Others claim to channel spirits from "future dimensional", ascended masters, or ,in the case of the trance mediums of the Brahma Kumaris, God.Jane Roberts for Seth, Esther Hicks for Abraham, Margaret McElroy for Maitreya, Serge J. Grandbois for Kris, and Lee Caroll for Kryon
I think this term is a nonsense word: what these people are talking about is trance, pure and simple. I suspect their egos may be too large to allow acknowledgement of what others have done with trance, perhaps ... but then again, I know Jane Roberts was a very good deep trance medium.
The comments about "well known" are based on US experience: in Australia, some of the people mentioned are far from well known (and are possibly not known at all). Keep that in mind when looking at the following.Notable mediums From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mediumship#Notable_mediums
Notable deceased mediums include: Clifford Bias, Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, Emma Hardinge Britten, Edgar Cayce, George Chapman, Andrew Jackson Davis, Jeane Dixon, Arthur Ford, the Fox sisters, Elizabeth "Betty" Grant, Daniel Dunglas Home, Richard Ireland, M. Lamar Keene, Dada Lekhraj, Ruth Montgomery, Eusapia Palladino, Leonora Piper, Paschal Beverly Randolph, Jane Roberts, Doris Stokes, Paul Solomon, Stanisława Tomczyk and Chico Xavier.
Notable living mediums include: Derek Acorah, Rosemary Altea, Marisa Anderson, Sylvia Browne, Allison DuBois, John Edward, Danielle Egnew, Divaldo Pereira Franco, Colin Fry, Esther Hicks, J. Z. Knight, James Van Praagh, Gary Spivey, Tony Stockwell, Neale Donald Walsch, David Wells and Lisa Williams.
See also the following:
- Automatic drawing
- Cold reading
- List of channelled texts
- Spiritualist Church
- The Spirits Book
- The Book on Mediums
- eLibrary of ancient books on the subject of spiritualism, séances, trance channelling, development of mediumship in the Western and Oriental Traditions.
- The National Spiritualist Association of Churches phenomena web site
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mediumship#Research.
Love, light, hugs and blessings
Gnwmythr
(pronounced "new-MYTH-ear")
Notes:
- See here, here and here, for instance. I once discussed this with an electrical engineer, and he talked about things like opposing phases to reduce emissions - which no doubt do work, but do they work to 100% efficiency, or even come close to the efficiency that is required to prevent health effects?
- I think the events around the phone hacking scandal that brought down a tabloid paper in the UK shows the worst of the Press, the sort of behaviour that Rampa was subjected to and suffered as a result of. However, I saw, later that night, the film "The Insider", which shows what the press can do for good as well (although it also showed some media people being .. less than shining lights) - and, on doing good, I think "the Arab Spring" is an example of what can be achieve for good by social media ... but I'm still not joining Facebook :)
Tags: ET/UFO/UAP, attitudes, discrimination, emotions, environment, gossip, guides, Lobsang Rampa, noise, psychism, SETI, society, strategy, tactics, terminoogy, trance, transgender/transsexual/bigender.
First published: Laugadagr, 7th January, 2012
Last edited: Saturday, 7th January, 2012
