Using Mediums or Psychics

Hello Everyone,

Having read about the use of mediums a lot in Hanz Holzers book Ghosts, has anybody had any hands on experience with one, or find them credible?

I have such a hard time believing in them, as so many phony's have been uncovered, but thats not to say its possible that there is some credibilty to it.

I just want to know if anybody has had any hands on investigation with them, or is one themselves, and if so can explain a little more about it. I find the mediums documented in Holzers book to be interesting but I am not 100% sold on the idea. I am also 100% NOT a medium or have any special abilities so it could also be natural human nature to not be able to fathom the possibilty of 'seeing' into the other real, when all I can do is speculate.

I think too much.

Hiya Brennzky

I have a few friends that r mediums, there definately from my experince some good mediums out there but you have to be very carefel in pickin one for a reading as there are alot of charlotans out there, unfortunately the very good ones r hard to find.....if u r determined to have a reading or make contact with a loved one who has passed over i would recommend one which is recommened by a spiritulist church, which they r more than happy to help put....

obviously the 0800 or 0906 numbers from friends experinces r not good...

unfortunately there r too may "practising mediums" who r more than happy to take a vunerable persons money.....

i sat in private circle for 2 yrs nearly every monday eve to help develop my mediumistic ability n the results were amazing, n as with life, even with a good medium one has to meditate, practise n learn.... as they say, knowledge is power.....

A reading which i had in past (n there have been a few) have proved to have been incredible, they have given me descriptions and names of people and loved one past over, she even told me that i was decorating and what colours i was using in certain rooms, that i had a certain photo she described (i later found) of myself n a member of family when i was a little un....when i was pregnant with my second child she described what she would look like to a tee, so many things.......

So in my opinion YES there r some very good mediums around, but just very few n far between.

brennsky welcome firstly. i have not had personal investigative experience of meduims on a visit but do feel they make a valuable contribution to our work. i can take what you say about charletons but you cannot tar everyone with the same brush because of a few frauds. i have had however good readings from meduims and just because we cant understand things doesnt mean it is false. it means that maybe some ppl are closed to the ideas and in some cases scared of the fact that actually there is something to it.whilst im not suggesting you are one such person for a moment, but however for example 50yrs ago we thought the world was flat but it isnt as we now know. so see you cant always judge things cos you dont get understand it.
so i would say be open to the idea that millions of ppl around the world see,hear,believe in stuff we cant scientifically prove yet, but may do in the future, we may just not have the right equipment or other tools to do the job.

Wow great replies!

I have read deeper into Holzers brick of a book Ghosts, and the ones he uses seem to be pretty credible. He does a good job in describing the situation, and the info he gets from the mediums are pretty valid!

Plus you have Holzer himself, and very smart parapsychologist, who spent his whole life investigating with these few mediums. For them to gain his trust, and interest must signify some credibilty.

I guess I should open my mind up more and try to tap into my hiddin skill!!!!

Quote :

Well I am both a spiritualist medium and a skeptic. I spend a great deal of my time researching metapsychical phenomena and sit in an experimental scientific circle. I also facilitate the development of mediumship in others.

Every individual should examine the evidence and make up their own mind. Always remember though
FACT is STRANGER than FICTION

Hi Bongo!

A sceptical Medium, I'm very curious! When you say that you are a sceptic do you mean it in the sense that you approach experiences and evidence with a predisposition to explain the abnormal with the normal
or that you are actually sceptical of your own abilities?

Please don't think that I'm being rude, I'm just very interested!

Regards,

Robb

Well put Robb...

I think you are right in that Bongo does approach things in that way...She is great for the team as her curiosity drives her to understand more and more.

Isn't it brilliant to get some open and interesting discussion on this

When I pick up on or am given information, I know by a certain feeling in the lower part of my spine whether it is "real" or not. To help explain this I need to tell you that my father trained me to dowse when I was a small child. He would send me off with two little rods made of wire coat hangers and I would spend hours divining either water courses or little articles he had hidden for me. When we moved to Cornwall I used this skill to find the underground pipework so we didnt do damage as we dug to make foundations, and I also located the spot to drill our borehole for water.

Anyway in 1993 I was living in the trees on a protest camp in East London, Leytonstone to be exact. The energy lines in the ground were buzzing so strongly there that you could feel them pulsing when sitting around the fire. (Incidentally the day after we were all evicted by force and the trees felled I revisited the site and all energy lines were totally silent). A friend wanted to learn to dowse so I made him some rods and we set off walking and I noticed that at the point where he was getting readings with the rods I was feeling a certain sensation in the bottom part of my spine. We tested this thoroughly and I realised I no longer needed to use the rods but could rely on this sensation to tell me what I needed to know.

I now call this my "I Know" place and it indicates the credibility of info I receive. Interestingly it also works as a lie detector too

BUT, what is the point of all this if I cannot provide the evidence. I certainly dont expect anybody to just trust my word, I wouldnt want them to. If I feel a presence but the K2 doesnt back me me up then it has to be dismissed. I believe that by seeking the strongest evidence we will be able to put together a dossier of proof that stands up to any scientific assessment. I want to prove beyond the shadow of a doubt that this is real. I know what is real for me but I am duty bound to work to bring scientific proof to support that.

Happy New Year to you all and lets raise our glasses to great investigations and evidence to come in 2009 !

Hi Bongo,

That's a great attitude to have; it's not often you find a medium with such an open, even enthusiastic, approach toward science. In my experience most psychics view the scientific community with a tint of exasperation (which is actually often justified by the complete unwillingness of scientists in general to consider anything that may disrupt the often fine balance of scientific theory) but despite what the personalities of individuals may incite (men like Dawkins can do my head in), Science itself is the only road to proof and recognition.

Good stuff!

So you used to be a tree-top protester?! I'm currently making a documentary about a group of protesters down here in Weymouth! Maybe you know a few of them...

Regards,

Robb

Hey thats cool I know quite a lot about the Weymouth protest as I did a lot of initial research. Looking forwards to seeing the finished film

Avoid mediums that charge a fee, folk like this want to send you home happy, thinking it was well worth the money!
Some mediums are nothing more than mind readers, and in the final analysis have told you nothing more than you knew already. They read your mind then perhaps use a one on one conversation you had with your relative, them embellish what they glean with something like, your mother says you were right, she's so proud of you. And you think to yourself, oh it must be my mother coming through because no one else knew what we discussed....!
I had something similar done on me, but I knew it was a crock right away.

Mediums who operate with a familiar spirit have to take what they hear largely on trust, they have no way of verifying that the spirit who comes through is who they say they are, they, the spirits, have the capability of harvesting your memories and mimic those who have passed over with a convincing performance in much the same manner as the first example. There is nothing certain or absolute about what your are told, no matter how convincing or comforting the message may be. There is no psychic medium on the planet able to put their hand on their heart and say they can absolutely guarantee that the message being conveyed is from a genuine source.
I'm not trying to say that genuine messages never happen, they do, but people need to be aware of the mischievous intentions of some spirits are very real and downright deceitful.

In conclusion, remember, your own wishful thinking can be used to deceive you.

Michael.

I've participated in part of a forensic psychology course and my brother is currently undergoing a BSc in this. They teach you the 'tricks of the trade' at how to 'read people'.

I sat and watched my tutor read a friend of one of the students (she had asked if a couple of us could bring in a friend to one class). She read this person like a book, in fact she only got 1 reading wrong out of 5 people. She managed to go as far back as someone's great-great grandparents. Told them what they did for work, their fav colour, music, place to visit, the names of parents and rightly came up with a few dead relatives. After this, it started to make me think about the whole medium/psychic aspect in general.

My brother had the same thing on his course, he is now pretty good at reading people, which has started to become annoying

So yes, I'd avoid those that charge a fee to come on an investigation, I'd also still be skeptical about any one claiming to be a medium fullstop. They may well be a good person, not arguing that but when you've delved into something in depth, it does make you stop and think x

hey

i do a bit of mediumship and when you say about people reading people as in dry reading you can find alot of info out about people but they have gone and learnt how to do that and there are so many fakes out there but you come across some that you think hang on a min. i remeber in my circle the 3rd time i went thinking ooooook whats going on i looked at a lady and i just said needles and just thought of a shop next door to my work what does embroidery and i said thats what she does and guess what its exactly what she done where it come from i do not know but like bongo and rob said you need that evidence to back it up. i know that there is something psychic going on. and i do not intent to get money out of people for doing mediumship stuff as its for my own benefit and i have friends saying give me a reading and i say know because i know them and i proberbly work it all out and alot of the way my brain works i work out whats going on but then i do weirdly get information from somewhere. but in todays world we need that evidence. my auntie and i (she is a medium and the stuff she comes out with is 100% spot on and stuff she says and then a few days later it happens and shes 100% again). so what we are going to do is set a few experiments up to challenge these abilities.

I am not a medium myself, although I seem to get more and more sensitive with every investigation I do.

I think, that there is a clear line between reading people and real mediumship.

When I was still working in catering I used to play a little game with my colleagues. Whenever a new guest came in (not the regulars), we tried to guess what they would order. Quite often I was right.
I think a lot has to do with empathy. This is something we do every day, whenever we are dealing with other people. As soon as we were born we learned to read body language, expressions, gestures etc. The older we got the more precise this ability gets. Some people are more talented than others in reading others.
If one really tries hard, it is not as difficult as it might seem. try and read the lines of their faces... this way you might be able to see if they went through a lot in their lives, whether their life is full of stress, if they like their pint of lager.
Look at their hands. Hands can tell you a lot about a person. Are they well cared for with soft skin, or are they those of a hard working person with calluses and dry skin?
There are so many things that one can see by just looking at someone... also their personality.

But what you CAN'T see with empathy is what Matt saw, for example. That's something that goes deeper.

I used to be extremely skeptic when it came to mediumship, but the more I learned about the paranormal, the more confused I got, especially when I met Bongo the first time and was able to watch her at work. This is when I started doubting my beliefs.
After more than 4 years of investigating the paranormal I actually find myself believing in mediumship, I've reached the total turn when I found myself picking up on things, that were definitely beyond any form of empathy, observation or any other sort of "normal" or "natural" abilities. 2 1/2 years ago I was told, that everyone has psychic abilities of some sort. Now I know what it means.

But although I start picking up on presences, sometimes knowing if they are male or female, young or old, I am more than far away from calling myself a medium... I am not even sure whether I would actually want to be one LOL.

But there's the big flaw.... where does REAL mediumship start? There's definitely a lot more to it than empathy and observation and picking up on the odd presence of a spirit. This is why I am still skeptic when it comes to mediums in general. What they see is mostly some sort of interpretation, really strong mediums with a clear "vision" are quite rare.

What I found out is, that too many mediums bring in their own big ego. When you start checking their findings in the archives, there's usually not much "evidence" left.
I don't say they are lying, but they don't seem to double check and doubt themselves, they don't admit when they are not sure... and to me that's quite irritating. In a way it sheds a bad light on the few good mediums. I've met a few of those mediums and to me it was soon clear, that they were no match to someone like our Bongo for example.

As JoJoK said, mediums that take money for their services are more often than not a hoax.
Then you've got those psychic shows on TV... when I see those, my toe nails start to curl up. The mediums on that show might even be real... but as soon as they are on stage, they HAVE to deliver, no matter what... and what they deliver is most of the time incredibly random.

I, for my part, rather stick to the mediums I know and trust. I know they are good, experienced, credible and most of all skeptic about their own abilities. They always question their findings, research them, want to back them up with technical evidence and/or matches in censuses and other archive material. Plus: They would never charge money for their help!

Oh great... again I got carried away and wrote more that I actually intended to do.
Sorry

Hella