is it just me?

I'm retired anyway with time on my hands to do whatever I choose but the l-o-n-g lockdown in the UK has seen me getting re-acquainted with Spiritualism - well the Spiritualism I find going around nowadays after my being away for some time doing my own thing!  

I've started to look at what's being posted on Facebook special interest pages concerning Spiritualism and additionally the Zoom platform has allowed me to meet church groups I would otherwise never have met.  Some have impressed me greatly, others not so much.  What I've found and disliked is the 'throw it out and wait for a taker' approach.  

Had I not been lucky with my choices I might have concluded that approach had become the norm but no, one group's leader insisted that the way for his development group members was for each to approach a specific individual AND THEN build further the link.  Now THAT is what I understand as mediumship.  On my most recent Zoom divine service attendance I excused myself early, appalled at the standard of supposed mediumship. I'm mentally debating if I should make any further visits anywhere.

Separately to that I've been wandering the Facebook world and finding adverts for '20 minute private readings' and the like - even though I thought I was in Spiritualism territory.  I've often been accused of pedantry but for me a 'reading' is what a psychic gives - psychic reading.  Sadly I hear folk talking about 'giving a reading' in the Spiritualist scene too and it leaves me uneasy over what's meant.  Maybe I'm just an old fart purist but if someone goes to see an evidential medium they should get a sitting in which the medium may briefly link with them on a psychic level but then provide evidence of the identity of a spirit communicator and ideally pass on a personally meaningful message.  

Maybe it's me getting ever older and crustier but I'm increasingly irked by nominally Spiritualist mediums, in Spiritualistic church settings, working at psychic levels and talking about giving readings when they should be providing evidential mediumship and/or healing.

No Mac its not just you. mark you having done mediumship on Zoom it is very hard you seem to work on the tiniest margins and you just have to use what you get. Even so I always gave a little info and went direct to the person, Lis and I worked yesterday and did exactly what you ask. I have the video from the live meeting because we do have people joining us on Zoom.

For a variety of personal privacy reasons I am not issuing that part of any meeting publicly, which given that, on teh whole the messages given off our platform are good whoever is on is a bit of a downer.

However all our Talks and meditations are going up and people seem to enjoy them. I will post the text from Sundays talk and the You tube video on here soon.

Maybe it's me getting ever older and crustier but I'm increasingly irked by nominally Spiritualist mediums, in Spiritualistic church settings, working at psychic levels and talking about giving readings when they should be providing evidential mediumship and/or healing. wrote:

Yup talks not inspiring challenging and psychism irks me to

I would be perfectly happy - and would totally respect the medium - if she were to say "It's no good - I can't deliver good mediumship in a virtual meeting room."  

I would much sooner she did that than waffle on with a delivery that's not providing what evidential mediumship should provide - meaningful evidence of survival and identity.  

Worse still was hearing a succession of questions put to the recipients rather than the medium giving what she was picking up about, and from, her contact.

What totally did for me most recently was that most of the small number of sitters were known to the mediums.  What is the point of the same mediums going to the same recipients with messages from the same spirit communicators?

As a Spiritualist novice in the mid 80s I soon stopped attending mediumship demonstrations in my hometown church when I saw it was the regular few in the congregation that mediums were spending most time with. In a very short time I had seen the same depressingly familiar scene repeated.  I couldn't then, and can't now, figure why folk who are plainly regulars need to keep going for messages once they have received evidence aplenty of the survival of their loved ones.

Perhaps I should have continued going long enough to see more mediums and perhaps then I would have seen a different overall picture.  Now after 30 years away from church - and excited by the prospect of easy viewing and interaction via the Zoom platform - I'm as despondent about what I've experienced as I was all those decades ago.

Having said all that I accept it was down to my recent experience in a small, local church group.  Elsewhere, with much larger groups who were clearly not just the regulars, I saw other mediumship of a much higher standard.  Even then, however, it was clear that certain recipients were used to hearing from the same spirit communicators.  

Why DO these individuals feel they need to keep seeking messages I often wonder?  Evidence of survival they simply no longer need.

We have the same problem of regular people. However, I have one Spirit that rises to the challenge every time giving me some new piece of proof I did not know. However, I love it when there is fresh blood in the room. On Sunday we had 8 new people there who all received messages. Interesting I had one recently where I actually told the person I had a message  from her father, to my consternation she said he was not dead, luckily for me, to stop me from digging a hole for myself by upsetting her, her brother was and took over the message. She went home and checked to find the Father had died and she did not know.

To work on Zoom you really have to trust yourself and commit to who the message is for, the person who wishes to communicate knows who they want to go to so Ask Them.

Isn't the last account, Jim, some of the most compelling mediumship when the death of a communicator wasn't known to the recipient?  But also the most demanding upon the medium....

As with most matters in life the more one does something the better one becomes at doing it.  That surely must apply to trans-dimensional communication similarly.  Discarnates who perhaps are always close to the physical, close to their loved ones, 'watching' their everyday lives.  Discarnates who learn how to 'barge their way through' to a medium to pass on the customary message to expectant loved ones used to having them do it.  The individuals perhaps most needing reassurance of survival may not get to hear from loved ones who don't know how best to make contact.

Maybe I'm unduly cynical but it's what seems to be happening at least some of the time.  It's reassuring to hear that a medium finds the same issue concerning the regulars but without new visitors I suppose there's little can be done to vary the format of demonstrations.

In some respects we try breaking it up at times by the use of the dreaded flowers but not through psychometrysing them. Lis and I ask someone in Spirit to claim the flower and then treat it as a proof of survival message. We pick up that flower and give all the evidence of the person, then link with the flowers owner as we give the message. Its a tad testing on the medium. At times as you get there you know who it is for so you connect to them before the flower is claimed.

I agree the more often you do mediumship the stronger it gets, provided you learn to keep improving also by learning from your lesser moments. However, too many private readings, while helping by strengthening links, can bring bad habits. Messages that go on to long and are to detailed for a platform demonstration. I also doubt any medium stays 100% in mediumship on all messages over a 45 minute to one hour reading (I give myself a chance by refusing to do any readings where a psychic message like should I leave my husband is sought). Indeed with the detached retina and cataracts I have not done a private reading for several years, Lis has never done them.

This weekend after a 2 month break Lis and I felt rusty but the messages were good. I think Lis with 50+ years experience and me with 20 years means we could probably shift to messages in most situations.

When - eventually - lockdown restrictions are fully lifted I'm expecting UK Spiritualist churches will return to their customary weekly schedules.  Online mediumship will return to the usual paid-for sessions with mediums who routinely provide such personal sittings.  And I will return to life away from mediumship but considering how best to help seekers I 'meet' online find someone to link them to their loved ones.

My recent research into Zoom church meetings has confirmed what I've suggested previously to those looking for help is essentially sound.  Visit a church to see demonstrations of mediumship but maybe seek out a personal sitting if a public one doesn't bring personal evidence.

On the Zoom front it's made me realise how difficult it can be for a medium to go directly to an individual when they may not be able to see more than a small number of those watching.  

Yesterday evening I quickly ducked out of one meeting when the medium immediately went into 'throw-it-out-see-who-takes-it' mode.  It felt impolite to leave abruptly but I know what I want from mediumship and it's not that.  I'd done similar in another meeting a few days earlier when the demonstration was more psychic reading than evidential.  In other meetings I'd seen other viewers disappear from the screen and now I wonder if they felt similar.  Would I leave a real church that way?  Well, yes I expect I now would.

 As I had another meeting's Zoom code for the same evening I quickly joined it and apologised for my late arrival.  I was immediately struck by the warmth of the medium who was talking to a sitter.  He impressed me from the off and chat comments showed the other 'audience' members were being equally impressed.

Before going on to his next contact he said how he hated just throwing stuff out for takers but making the point Zoom slowed him because he was having to search the screen images to find who he was being drawn to.  He could see only a few of the sitters and it was taking his time scrolling the pages to find the right person.  He said he was very aware how boring it can be for sitters and he was trying to keep moving as quickly as possible.  It gave me a useful insight into difficulties I hadn't appreciated.  

On the plus side he said after the meeting he had found since lockdown that mediumship works well even through cyber space.  He told us how he had had great connections with folk up in Canada and down in New Zealand, our friends in spirit completely unfazed - of course - by physical distance.

As probably a final comment on this subject, I attended a Zoom church meeting streaming from New Jersey in which the medium had 145 onlookers. I assume she couldn't view them all no matter how large a screen she had! It made me realise that going to someone directly under such circumstances must be very difficult if not impossible.

That issue of 145 people, there are a variety of video conferencing systems one  of which allowed people to watch on Facebook but the medium could not even see them. I worked on one of these which, even more disturbingly seemed to randomly change the people you can see. So start a message and the person disappears, you have to just keep going and after the requisite 4-5 pieces of info the question does it make sense to you just yes or no. and a disembodied voice goes yes...so you keep going.

Realistically with maybe 30 on Facebook looking in who you do not know are there all you could do is give 5 really good pieces of evidence and throw it out.

Admin wrote:That issue of 145 people, there are a variety of video conferencing systems one  of which allowed people to watch on Facebook but the medium could not even see them. I worked on one of these which, even more disturbingly seemed to randomly change the people you can see. So start a message and the person disappears, you have to just keep going and after the requisite 4-5 pieces of info the question does it make sense to you just yes or no. and a disembodied voice goes yes...so you keep going.

Realistically with maybe 30 on Facebook looking in who you do not know are there all you could do is give 5 really good pieces of evidence and throw it out.

My guess is that the medium that day wasn't looking at the group but I couldn't tell if the focus switched to the recipient and speaker when she spoke, the way that Zoom does.  The apparent random way that Zoom re-orders the viewers was explained in a piece in my computer magazine.

In the same was as for yourself, Jim, I've often heard the medium saying to their recipient that their image had moved around on the screen and that's down to the way Zoom refreshes and re-presents the faces.  It's tricky for the other sitters also.  Virtual platform mediumship is better than closed-down churches but far from perfect.  What it does provide, for anyone interested, is a way to sit virtually with other congregations and/or in development groups.

Even though I am not a practitioner I have found sitting with development groups the most rewarding way to take part in what's happening.