Are You A Medium?

A common phrase heard at many spiritist sessions is, "Everyone is a Medium".  Of course we could also say, "Everyone is a Singer," because anyone can sing, but not everyone is always a highly skilled singer.  Being a medium is very similar.  There are many different types of mediums and many different skill sets.  Singers might specialize in opera, rap or ballads; and mediums may also have a speciality.  Just as there are hip-hop artists who can also sing the blues, there are mediums who have more than one type of mediumship ability.

 

Types of Mediums (From Kardec’s The Book of Mediums):

 

Kardec identified several different types of mediums, and they are as various as the different types of phenomena that the spirits can produce. And like the spirits, some mediums are able to sense more than one type of phenomenon. Kardec identified the most common types of mediums as:

- Physical Mediums
- Psychics

- Seers
- Hearing Mediums
- Psychographer (Automatic Writing Mediums)
- Sensitive Mediums
- Incorporative (Talkative Mediums)
- Sleeping Mediums (Somnambulic Mediums)
- Healing Mediums
- Intuitive

 

1)  Physical mediums (Kardec called them “Physical Effect Mediums“)In physical mediumship, the spirits use an abundance of etheric energy and matter in order to produce the various manifestations. They release this energy-matter from the physical medium's body and use it to communicate.

 

Often, although not always, the medium is in a trance state. This helps place the medium's mind on the sideline, allowing the spirit to work through them to use the energy.

 

Physical mediums often feel the sensations from the spirits in their own body (physically) and mind (emotionally). A spirit might make the medium feel sad if they are trying to convey a message of depression. Or they might make the medium’s lungs feel obstructed if they are trying to convey the message that a spirit had pneumonia or lung cancer.

 

2) Psychics  We all have intuition (a right brain process that taps into subconscious information in order to provide guidance about everyday life). Being intuitive does not mean that we are psychic.

 

Being psychic, also known as being clairvoyant, means that we can perceive information that cannot be interpreted through the normal senses.  Psychics claim to use extrasensory perception (ESP) to identify information hidden from the usual five senses.  All mediums are psychics, but not all psychics are mediums.

 

The major difference between a psychic and a medium is that the interaction is not a two-way conversation.  An example: A mother and her baby are in two separate rooms with a baby monitor in each room. In this situation, the mother has the ability or “extra sense” of what is happening in the baby’s room.  The mother is like a psychic, sensing the baby and possibly understanding the needs.  But like a psychic, the mother is unable to send any messages through the baby monitor that will allow the baby to respond back to the mother.  Both the psychic and the mother are only able to receive messages and infer the intent.

 

3) Seers

A "seer" is someone who is able to "see" beyond the capabilities of the physical eye. A seer may receive information in the form of visions or dreams, and they are best described as a sub-type of psychic. Not all seers call themselves psychics, as the powers associated with a seer are limited to messages received via sight through physical visions or dreams. 

 

4) Hearing Mediums
Some mediums can only hear the spirits. With this method, the spirits talk to the medium verbally, or they make noises to attract attention. The medium may hear the communication in their mind (as a silent, unspoken thought), or they may hear the spirit in the same way they would hear anyone who was speaking to them.

 

Some spirits are not the best communicators, and what the medium actually hears may sound more like a faint radio station than a clear phone signal. This is why hearing mediums may be able to pass detailed and accurate spirit information in one situation, while the next transmission may be hazy and unclear.

 

5) Psychographer (Automatic Writing Mediums)
Experienced psychographers often report little or no awareness of what they were writing.  Less expert psychographers often report feeling inspired and writing phrases dictated to them in their minds from a spirit source.

 

When scientists analyzed the writings created by psychographers, they found that the psychographic writing was more complex compared with normal writing.  The words were longer, more words were used per sentence, and psychographic writers used a more descriptive vocabulary.

 

6) Sensitive
This type of person has the ability to detect spirit energy with more awareness than the average person through some (or all) of their senses.  There is the ability or impression that a spirit wants to communicate, or the ability to feel the sensations instilled by a spirit.

 

7)  Incorporative (Talkative Mediums)
This type of medium senses something (a vision, a smell, a sound, etc.) but the spirit has not yet revealed the connection to a living person in the room.  The medium may need to ask general questions to determine how the spirit was once related to someone.

 

Mediumship depends upon the atmosphere and the conditions present when communication takes place.  It is a telepathic, mind to mind communication between personalities in the spirit world and the medium. This delicate process often requires an energetic harmony between all parties involved in the process - which is why a living person in the room may need to speak up and provide some additional information before the spirit will sit. If there is enthusiasm and positive energy from the participant, the conditions will be favorable. Any type of antagonism or negativity results in less than satisfactory conditions for communication.

 

The spirit is already on the same mental wave length as the medium, but they still need to connect with the person they came to see (and it must be a spirit to spirit connection).

 

8) Somnambulic Mediums (Kardec called them Sleepwalking Mediums)
-From The Mediums Book: The sleepwalker acts under the influence of his own spirit; it is his own soul which, in moments of emancipation, sees, hears and perceives beyond the limit of the senses…His knowledge is more extended because his soul is free.” 

 

An example from The Mediums' Book (#173):  "A friend of ours had a somnambulic subject, a lad of about fourteen years of age, of very limited intelligence, and very imperfectly educated. But, in the somnambulic state, he gave proofs of extraordinary lucidity. He excelled especially in the treatment of disease, and cured a great number of persons who had  been regarded as incurable.”  In this example, the Somnambulic Medium was not only on shown a disease while sleeping, but he was also shown possible remedies in his sleep. He also might have been shown only the disease, or only the potential cure.

 

9) Healing Mediums
A healer has the ability to “see” the person as a whole greater then the sum of their parts. The healer’s job is to help remove the things blocking the growth of an individual.  Think of an automobile.  If one part is not functioning properly, it may affect the entire car.

 

Kardec taught that, "Mediumship is a sacred thing that should be practiced holy, religiously.  And if there is a kind of mediumship that requires this condition be even more absolute, is the healing mediumship.”  In spiritism, passes are often used as a transference of energy to restore vital fluids and balance.

 

Kardec also wrote in Genesis: "The ability to heal through fluidic interaction is very common and can be developed through exercise, but the instant cure via imposition of the hands is much more rare and its appearance in the maximum degree should be considered exceptional.” 

 

10) Intuitive

Intuition is something most people experience all the time. We get ideas, creative inspiration, feelings of apprehension, etc. and then we decide how to act on them.  Intuitive Mediums get a flash of insight that needs no translation or interpretation.  This insight tends to 'hit' mediums from out of the blue. (Similar to some of the mediums shown on television.)

 

The Intuitive Medium uses their intuition to read your energy (also referred to as your aura) and they receive intuitive impressions about what is going on in your physical body.  Here is an example: A medium might ask someone, “Are you seeing a doctor?“  This type of medium knows that you may have seen a doctor, or that you need to see a doctor, because they were hit with an intuitive flash, or it was sensed in the energy around your body.  They may even be able to tell you if there is an underlying emotional issue that is causing you to feel physically ill.

 

When we are on the spirit side and ready to reincarnate, many people make a pact to be a medium in the material world.  Once we are human, we often forget our promise.  As with any human trait (eye color, height, etc.) we are born with talents or abilities that we might embrace or ignore.  Mediumship is an ability, and similar to an opera singer, some individuals are born with that skill, while some individuals need to nurture and train their ability.  For most of us, we have material world issues that must be cleansed and removed before we are ever able to work as a medium.

 

So, are you a medium? 

 

Resources for the above:

Kardec, Allan, The Mediums Book (2008 translation)
Choi, Charles Q., Scientific Journal PloS ONE, November 27, 2012
Zambrano, Lynn, http://lynnzambrano.com/ Difference in Empath, Intuitive, Psychic, Medium and Healer
OM Times Online Magazine http://omtimes.com/author/omtimes/
Kardec, Allan, Genesis - Miracles and Predictions According to Spiritism (2011 translation)