BriarRose said:
I can't presume to know what Sylvia Browne's motives are at this point in her life, or any other psychic for that matter. I do know that she has suffered a lot of financial hardship, due to the dishonesty of other people. That might tend to make a person more "grasping" about money! Being "mature" myself, the fear of ending up a "bag lady" is rather strong, particularly if you have experienced financial hardship. I think what I like about her is that she readily admits to being "flawed", both as a human being, and a psychic. I have often wondered if all mediums are reading an individual, not a dead person. Ergo, the aura theory, Conroy, makes sense. No one believed that those girls were alive - it would be an act of cruelty to give someone in that situation false hope. That's often what people want from psychics - easy answers, and false hope. I think most psychics are right, part of the time! I think I have less belief in them than most users of this forum - I see psychics as "flawed" human beings, and empathize with them. Therefore, it is impossible for them to disappoint me.
First of all, my apologies for this long post. Sometimes when I start writing, I find it hard to stop
As someone who's training with a view to working both psychically and mediumistically in the future (albeit I'm not entirely sure in what specific way yet), I can say that there is a difference between the two.
I find one good way of identifying that you're dealing mediumistically and linking with spirit is if you're passing information that neither party is aware of going into the session, which can be verified at a later date, either by consulting other sources (family, etc) who are aware of it being correct, or by a situation developing down the line where the information then makes sense, when it didn't fit before.
There was an example of this a few weeks ago at our regular development circle. I went off into meditation and suddenly started feeling an intense, uncomfortable pain in my right shoulder. I've not had any problems with that area, or indeed pain of any level, so this was strange to me.
I've seen mediums being given physical aches and pains by spirit many times so that they can convey those to the relatives / friends for further recognition of the spirit communicator. Because of this, I became aware that this was actually a message that needed to be passed on, so I tuned in to the communicator and asked through my guide if this was for someone in the circle, which was confirmed through touches on my face (a system of confirmation I'm developing with my people in spirit). I had a hunch who it was for anyway, so asked if it was for that person, which was again confirmed in the same way. I then asked for the message and was told that the person should get this particular pain checked out, as there could be something underlying (although not serious) causing it, which hasn't been discovered yet. I then asked if there was anything else to pass on, and finally asked the communicator to write up his name for me, so I could pass that on too, which he did.
When the meditation was over and we were all reporting back what we'd experienced, I gave the circle member the message and who it was from, etc. To her recollection, she hadn't experienced any pain in her right shoulder, so I thought it might have been a bit of a mix up, as she did have recurring pain in her left shoulder, which I already knew about. Nevertheless, she thanked me for the message, which was from her brother.
I didn't think any more about it until last week, when we met again for circle and she reported that she had begun getting the same intense, uncomfortable pain in her right shoulder that I'd described weeks before during her message, and had an appointment to get it checked out later that week. I think this stands up as a good example of information being passed from spirit which cannot be taken at the time, but which later transpires to be correct and applicable. This later confirmation was my validation that this information had come through a mediumistic link and not through linking in psychically, as I questioned when the information I passed on could not be taken immediately.
There are several factors in this particular case which sceptics might attempt to use as part of their counter-argument, suggesting I was using previously acquired information to pass on a false message.
1. The message concerned a physical pain which I already knew about prior to that time.
Wrong. I was aware that the person concerned suffered with chronic pain in their LEFT shoulder. This was very distinctly on my right hand side, and I reported it as such.
Also, if I'd been linking in psychically, rather than mediumistically, I would have picked up the pain in the left shoulder, as I have done before when working psychically in workshops with that person. I had enough trust in what I was getting to not allow my knowledge of the pain in the other shoulder to influence my reporting of the message and I gave it exactly as given, thereby honouring the integrity of the work.
2. I knew the name of the recipient's brother through previous conversations at circle.
True, but the fact that he gave me something that neither the recipient or I were aware of being correct at the time validates him as a true spirit communicator for me. If I'd just been making it up based on previous information, inserting things I already knew to be accurate, the part about the new pain wouldn't have featured. And that information came from him, not me, so case closed on that one, as far as I'm concerned.
3. The pain I experienced and subsequent pain the message’s recipient experienced were purely coincidental and not connected in any way.
Through many experiences, I have come to the conclusion that there is no such thing as coincidence. We are all on a specific and planned path, deliberately intersecting with other people involved in our life-plan, at particular times and for a reason. I have seen so many examples of synchronicity at work, especially since starting to do this work, that I firmly believe this to be the case. How many times, for example, have you thought about someone you haven’t heard from in a while, only for you to see that person soon afterwards in a completely ‘random’, ‘chance’ meeting? That’s just one example. There are far too many things like that for anything in our lives to be ‘random’. I’m firmly of the belief that certain things are meant to happen to us at certain times, and the more intuitively connected people are, the more they can tune into that.
The fact, also, that my (considerable) pain disappeared immediately after the message was passed to me, and has not recurred in any way since, even in a minor way, also provides evidence for me that the two are connected.
Going back to the Sylvia Browne case, I mentioned earlier in this post about the integrity and ethics of work like this, which I feel are extremely important to uphold. For me, unless she linked in mediumistically with the deceased (or supposedly deceased in this case) person in spirit, and therefore gained absolutely stonewall, concrete evidence that the person was in spirit, she should not have reported this to the relatives. For someone who’s made a living from this work for so long, I cannot buy that she is unable to tell the difference between a psychic link and a mediumistic one. Therefore, I am of the impression that this was an ‘educated’ guess that the person would not be found alive, which has now backfired on her.
BriarRose, you mentioned in your post about it being cruel to give the family false hope. I would argue that telling someone that their missing relative has definitely passed to spirit, when there is no evidence to support this through a mediumistic link, is far worse and gives those of us truly working with the best intentions for spirit a bad name. A long-time, experienced ‘professional’ like Sylvia Browne should be setting a standard and example for aspiring workers to follow. I cannot help but feel that, much like certain members of the Most Haunted crew, she has allowed the protection of her reputation to compromise her integrity through guesswork and / or fabrication of non-truths for the sake of ‘compelling’ television.
Again, my apologies for the long post
