Mediums, telepathy and what is being contacted....an enquiry

Blueanchor wrote:

mac wrote:

Blueanchor wrote:

mac wrote:

Blueanchor wrote:Mac, I've talked to spiritualists that believe that evidential mediumship is proof and that's ok, except when it leads to the interpretation of other peoples experiences as being something less than.  

Many people have exp.o boast about or to show off my (non-existent!) abilities to impress people. I respect your right to say as little about your 40 years as you choose and I would not expect you to tel..............

You are confident about your approach and I'm confident about my own.  That's how it should be given we've both been 'at this stuff' for several decades each.

There hasn't been any implication about how you should see your beliefs, if you want to believe they are true and other teachings are less reliable, than that is your choice. I stated very clearly, that I see your beliefs as being beliefs.

But I also see the way that you respond to other peoples beliefs.

In that last sentence I sense a note of reproval.... 

Earlier you went to pains to explain you had many years: ".... of a very special and meaningful relationship, of guidance, understanding and learning through spiritual communication."  and how you "... speak of my personal experiences as being beliefs and put them on an equal level as all other beliefs, because I understand people and I respect people."  All that's just fine by me but then you continued to speak at length about my beliefs when I have declared that I don't class what underpins my approach as 'my beliefs'.  Forgive me but I sense you're determined to make the point that because you class your 40 years of learning etc. as 'your beliefs' then you are going to class others' learning in the same way.  That sounds a little dismissive, even disrespectful.

As for your years "...of a very special and meaningful relationship" (etc)  I suppose I should claim similar for myself (other than being able to muster only 32 years ) but I would feel it might look like one-upmanship.

In posting #23 you wrote: "But I don't believe that what you cite as being 'evidence' is really enough to prove that personalities go off and live in a spirit world. So whilst I respect your belief, I do view it as a belief, no more or less than any other."  Again you appear to seek to demote what I say to being my beliefs and that they are not.  I responded to the effect I couldn't recall having cited anything and asked if you could point out what you had seen.  You didn't respond.

You claim that: "I understand people and I respect people." but from where I'm standing it feels like you haven't actually understood me and by continuing pointedly to refer to "my beliefs" you are not respecting me.  Perhaps I'm not people?

But now we're massively off topic and I apologise for the disruption to ameliorate and anyone else wanting to progress the subject of this discussion thread.

The reason I explained that after 40 years of experience, I still refer to my own understanding as 'belief', was an attempt to let you understand that calling something a belief doesn't demote or de-value our experiences at all. Instead, it opens the door to further spiritual understanding.

If you didn't understand that, then I have explained it again here.

ameliorate wrote:

Blueanchor wrote:The reason I explained that after 40 years of experience, I still refer to my own understanding as 'belief', was an attempt to let you understand that calling something a belief doesn't demote or de-value our experiences at all. Instead, it opens the door to further spiritual understanding.

If you didn't understand that, then I have explained it again here.

I know this is a debate you are having with mac but it highlights the confusion over using certain words, e.g. like belief in what we associate with it.

A belief is said to be an acceptance that something exists or is true, especially one without proof.

Hence when a belief is the outcome of direct experience (or has been confirmed by it), perhaps a different word could more beneficially be used, e.g. "it has become my understanding"  To still label an experience as a belief feels like rendering into a more hazy notion, i.e. be seen to be on a less sure footing.  It is like calling a gateau a mere sponge!

Blueanchor wrote:

ameliorate wrote:

Blueanchor wrote:The reason I explained that after 40 years of experience, I still refer to my own understanding as 'belief', was an attempt to let you understand that calling something a belief doesn't demote or de-value our experiences at all. Instead, it opens the door to further spiritual understanding.

If you didn't understand that, then I have explained it again here.

I know this is a debate you are having with mac but it highlights the confusion over using certain words, e.g. like belief in what we associate with it.

A belief is said to be an acceptance that something exists or is true, especially one without proof.

Hence when a belief is the outcome of direct experience (or has been confirmed by it), perhaps a different word could more beneficially be used, e.g. "it has become my understanding"  To still label an experience as a belief feels like rendering into a more hazy notion, i.e. be seen to be on a less sure footing.  It is like calling a gateau a mere sponge!

An experience is experienced and I wouldn't call the experience itself a belief. It is how we explain the experience that I call a belief.



I have felt something touch my arms and felt the pressure of that touch as it lifted me. It was a very real and wonderful experience. But when I say that an angel put it's wings beneath my arms and lifted me, I am telling you what I believe the experience was.  

The experience =  I have felt something touch my arms and felt the pressure of that touch as it lifted me - that is 100% known.

The belief = an angel put it's wings beneath my arms and lifted me - how do I know it was an angel? that's a valid question because I don't know that for sure, it's just the way it felt at the time and I associate what I was feeling with angelic energies, so I say it was an angel.

But I'm aware that there are other explanations and that another with the very same experience might interpret it differently and I respect other peoples views as equally valid to my own.

Blueanchor wrote:Mac, you may well dislike my view and you may disagree with my view. But you are responding by trying to tell me not to have my view.  

As you say, your evidence isn't like mathematical proof, but it is proof enough for you to think that what you know is true without a shadow of a doubt. However, there is not proof enough for me to hold the same view as you and I'm maintaining my right to have this different point of view.    

If you know the truth without a shadow of doubt, then what is it about my views that makes you so uncomfortable?

I will correct you on one point - I don't view your experience as belief at all. I view the knowledge you say you have taken from that experience as your belief about the eperience.

mac wrote:

Blueanchor wrote:Mac, you may well dislike my view and you may disagree with my view. But you are responding by trying to tell me not to have my view.  

As you say, your evidence isn't like mathematical proof, but it is proof enough for you to think that what you know is true without a shadow of a doubt. However, there is not proof enough for me to hold the same view as you and I'm maintaining my right to have this different point of view.    

If you know the truth without a shadow of doubt, then what is it about my views that makes you so uncomfortable?

I will correct you on one point - I don't view your experience as belief at all. I view the knowledge you say you have taken from that experience as your belief about the eperience.

  I'll put things as simply as I can.

I neither like nor dislike whatever views you hold.

I may agree with some of your views and disagree with others.  Does that matter to you?

I have not told you, and am not telling you, that you shouldn't have your view. 

In the first sentence of your second paragraph you misrepresented what I wrote and suggested a position I have never presented. 

The second sentence of that same paragraph is perfectly fair.  I have no desire to change your point of view at all so the material that influenced me is irrelevant anyway.

I'm not uncomfortable with your views.  The few I know about are not important to me.

I don't know whatever "the truth" is or means.  Where did I suggest I did? 

Your last paragraph hasn't corrected me on any point but I'm happy to leave you believing you have.  I really don't care.

Blueanchor wrote:

mac wrote:

Blueanchor wrote:Mac, you may well dislike my view and you may disagree with my view. But you are responding by trying to tell me not to have my view.  

As you say, your evidence isn't like mathematical proof, but it is proof enough for you to think that what you know is true without a shadow of a doubt. However, there is not proof enough for me to hold the same view as you and I'm maintaining my right to have this different point of view.    

If you know the truth without a shadow of doubt, then what is it about my views that makes you so uncomfortable?

I will correct you on one point - I don't view your experience as belief at all. I view the knowledge you say you have taken from that experience as your belief about the eperience.

  I'll put things as simply as I can.

I neither like nor dislike whatever views you hold.

I may agree with some of your views and disagree with others.  Does that matter to you?

I have not told you, and am not telling you, that you shouldn't have your view. 

In the first sentence of your second paragraph you misrepresented what I wrote and suggested a position I have never presented. 

The second sentence of that same paragraph is perfectly fair.  I have no desire to change your point of view at all so the material that influenced me is irrelevant anyway.

I'm not uncomfortable with your views.  The few I know about are not important to me.

I don't know whatever "the truth" is or means.  Where did I suggest I did? 

Your last paragraph hasn't corrected me on any point but I'm happy to leave you believing you have.  I really don't care.

To know or to have knowledge is to say that something is true Mac. You have said that you don't believe, you know. I credit you with enough intelligence to know how knowing the truth is meant in that context. Or is your knowledge not true? Or is it that your knowledge is not without a shadow of doubt? In which case, it would be belief.

You have said that you're not comfortable with my view of what you think of as knowledge, as being belief. You have also said that by calling what you consider to be knowledge, belief, I am... dismissive, disrespectful, not understanding you, not respecting you and that you are not comfortable with me classing your knowledge in this way.     

Now, having said directly that you're 'not comfortable' with me classing (aka my view) your knowledge and experience as belief - you're now contradicting that completely by saying that you aren't uncomfortable with my views. Well that is my view, and you have said that youre not comfortable with it. Which am I to believe? What you said in your earlier post or the complete opposite that you're saying in the latest one?

Similarly, you stated that you are not comfortable with me classing your 'experience and knowledge' as belief, and that is wrong because I don't class experience as belief at all. But, despite using the word experience in that sentence, you really can't see the correction to be made? 

I think if I said you had a nose right now, you'd deny ever having had a nose

Blueanchor wrote:
When you say that residual energy wouldn't comfort the living, if the sitter doesn't feel the energy for themselves, but listens to the medium and hears the comfort that the mediums tone and words give them, that could surely offer comfort?

From communicating with other spirit, I can relate to it feeling different than our own voices and intuition. So that makes sense to me. Thanks for sharing your experiences.

Blueanchor wrote:Skye, I hadn't thought of it in the unethical way, I was thinking more about people that believe that they are picking up on spirit and have a genuine heart and desire to comfort the sitter... but perhaps don't have the experience to discern between a discarnate and the other energies that may be around the sitter.

I am perhaps too trusting, but I would imagine that, of the mediums that perhaps aren't able to speak with discarnates, most are unknowingly doing so, rather than deliberately misleading people.

ameliorate wrote:So, having read the posts here, I am still somewhat unclear.  It would seem that reading residual energy may be more common than actually making any current contact with the soul of one that has departed.  Is this the case?   Are most mediums operating on this kind of psychic reading?

ameliorate wrote:So, having read the posts here, I am still somewhat unclear.  It would seem that reading residual energy may be more common than actually making any current contact with the soul of one that has departed.  Is this the case?   Are most mediums operating on this kind of psychic reading?

Blueanchor wrote:

ameliorate wrote:So, having read the posts here, I am still somewhat unclear.  It would seem that reading residual energy may be more common than actually making any current contact with the soul of one that has departed.  Is this the case?   Are most mediums operating on this kind of psychic reading?

It's one of those questions where we would have to meet most mediums to be able to answer.

However, from people I've met over many years, I feel that part of the problem is that many people with an interest in spirituality learn in the initial stages from SNU churches and groups, so even those that don't stay with or train through SNU groups, tend to hold the definitions that that religion gives to mediumship as well as to psychic ability. Yet the purpose of mediumship in the SNU "is to provide the evidence which supports [SNU] philosophy". With this agenda, there occurs a natural bias in what is defined as mediumship and what messages mediums should be giving. The shadow side of this is a bias against what should be judged to not be mediumship at all, as well as a bias (and poor teaching) about the full extent of psychic abilities and what they can connect to.

As a consequence, and in connection with your question: if most people calling themselves mediums are operating psychically and/or through undefined connections, and that is benefitting peoples healing in some small way, then perhaps it should be loved for the evidence of its spiritual benefit to people.

Blueanchor wrote:But doesn't that just take us back to the conversation that led on to this one, and that questionability of what is the energy of the soul - is it the personality? Is it that single cell spark of existence? Is it a higher consciousness or the culmination of everything experienced throughout a multitude of lives, of personalities or even of dimensions.

If mediumship is communication between spirit and the mind of the medium, then to define what is mediumship, we'd have to define what is spirit.

There seems no real argument to say that picking up on recently deceased relatives that may prove existence, isn't a valid aspect of spirit. But there seems an equal argument for there being more than one aspect of spirit and mediums that communicate with other aspects of spirit.

Blueanchor wrote:i agree with you, that they are likely picking up on the memories of the sitters and the connection the sitter had to the relative.

Part of me feels that they're not deliberately misleading people and they are succeeding in giving comfort to grieving people - for that grieving person, the psychic has brought their loved one back for a moment and given them the chance to say goodbye in the knowledge that they are not really gone. That psychic (and this os the label we are using here) is doing good in this world, through their belief that they are connecting to spirit.

Perhaps sometimes, the intent of proving life after death through mediumship can diminish the role of comfort, hope and compassion that mediumship and psychic connections can offer.

ameliorate wrote:e

Blueanchor wrote:But doesn't that just take us back to the conversation that led on to this one, and that questionability of what is the energy of the soul - is it the personality? Is it that single cell spark of existence? Is it a higher consciousness or the culmination of everything experienced throughout a multitude of lives, of personalities or even of dimensions.

If mediumship is communication between spirit and the mind of the medium, then to define what is mediumship, we'd have to define what is spirit.

There seems no real argument to say that picking up on recently deceased relatives that may prove existence, isn't a valid aspect of spirit. But there seems an equal argument for there being more than one aspect of spirit and mediums that communicate with other aspects of spirit.

What those who have lost a loved one wish to contact is not the soul but the personality that has gone, i.e. the ego/worldly ID.  This was why I started this thread i.e. to see if this survived death and, from all the subsequent posts, the supporting response on this seems (at best) somewhat hazy and less likely than with other forms of contact, e.g. residual energy (which is not to do with what survives death but rather the energy residing from what now is).

I disagree that we have to define what mediumship is.  I accept that it is not just one thing but, of the various aspects that come under this umbrella, I am interested in just one, specific ability (that I have outlined). 

I am not trying to undermine what can be picked up psychically (I realise it is a great comfort to those in need) but, as mentioned, my interest is much more specific namely, can genuine, ongoing energy from the deceased be contacted. 

skye wrote:

Blueanchor wrote:i agree with you, that they are likely picking up on the memories of the sitters and the connection the sitter had to the relative.

Part of me feels that they're not deliberately misleading people and they are succeeding in giving comfort to grieving people - for that grieving person, the psychic has brought their loved one back for a moment and given them the chance to say goodbye in the knowledge that they are not really gone. That psychic (and this os the label we are using here) is doing good in this world, through their belief that they are connecting to spirit.

Perhaps sometimes, the intent of proving life after death through mediumship can diminish the role of comfort, hope and compassion that mediumship and psychic connections can offer.

I don't believe psychics can bring back any one person from the world of spirit, if they are tuning into a playback of residual energy, or the exchange of information is coming from the aura of a sitter or, an inanimate object.  It demonstrates a psychic is using their sense of intuition to retrieve information from the surrounding atmosphere.  Interpretation of this alone could well mislead (deliberately or not) some sitter's into believing a psychic is in direct contact with their loved one, when in fact they could be anything but. Therefore under these circumstances it is likely the bereaved could find comfort from the session. 

I disagree with your last comment,The purpose of mediumship is to provide evidence of our continued survival. It is hoped the transfer of information can be acknowledged and validated by a recipient. In my experience, mental mediumship (the topic of the thread) is a 2 way mind to mind linking of spiritual energies. Any transference of thought usually goes from spirit, through spirit, to spirit. Thereby, surely the role of a medium is to relay the direct thoughts of the spirit person to bring comfort to their loved ones?    

Blueanchor wrote:But doesn't that just take us back to the conversation that led on to this one, and that questionability of what is the energy of the soul - is it the personality? Is it that single cell spark of existence? Is it a higher consciousness or the culmination of everything experienced throughout a multitude of lives, of personalities or even of dimensions.

If mediumship is communication between spirit and the mind of the medium, then to define what is mediumship, we'd have to define what is spirit.

There seems no real argument to say that picking up on recently deceased relatives that may prove existence, isn't a valid aspect of spirit. But there seems an equal argument for there being more than one aspect of spirit and mediums that communicate with other aspects of spirit.

Blueanchor wrote:Mac Sometimes there is more learning to be found in looking outside the boxes of definition and questioning them.