World of Psychics, Mediums and Spirits (eBook)

CHAPTER 3

THE WORLD OF MEDIUMS CONCEPTS AND TERMINOLOGY

Like psychics, mediums are human beings on our earth with special abilities. They are psychics and most have many of the psychic abilities discussed in Chapter 2. However, mediums can communicate with people who have died and passed over into the spirit world. Linda Lee is one of them. Her remarkable ability will be fully elaborated on in later chapters within the context of the immediately following paragraphs.

Upon conception human beings are said have a soul which is part of them for their lifetimes. Religious faiths have varying definitions of the human soul. No attempt will be made here to discuss them all. Rather, a consensus of various definitions and concepts is presented here.

The soul defines your life as a human and your characteristics as a human on your path through life. It may be a moral or religious spiritual compass, but humans are all endowed with the freedom of choice and may be led or convinced to follow less moral, immoral, or socially unacceptable lives. The soul is said to be immortal and a separate aspect of the human and survives death. It is the essence of life. All animate living things are also said to have souls. It is not a bodily organ and is without form or dimension. The soul is a repository for all the experiences of the body it occupies for its entire lifetime. The soul has some predetermined paths leading the human to encounter and experience physical and emotional situations intermittently, if not for a lifetime, for the betterment of the soul. This last concept will be discussed in detail in following chapters.

Traditionally, in contemporary religions, but not all, the soul survives death and mourners pray for the soul of the deceased to be graciously or favorably received. The body, being only a vessel for the soul is embalmed for temporary preservation and buried below ground with an appropriate identifying marker.

This necessarily contemplates the existence of some form of afterlife. In some religious biblical concepts, the afterlife might include experiencing heaven, purgatory or hell. In even earlier times, in Egypt, the Pharaohs, Queens and other highly placed personages were buried in tombs with their size befitting their rank or status. They were mummified and often entombed with all the accouterments thought to be needed in their afterlife along with some of their bodily organs placed in separate jars or urns. The “Boy Pharaoh” Tutankhamun’s tomb was found by archaeologists, un-plundered by grave robbers, crammed with jewels and gold items including a full-sized gold leafed chariot. “King Tut” became a pharaoh at age nine and died at age nineteen. According to most historians his reign was, to a great extent, unremarkable.

References to an afterlife can be found in the documentation or transcribed oral chronicles of most religions or faiths as we know them today including Buddhist, Hindu, Christian, and Muslim. In centuries old China, the country’s first emperor, Gin Shi Huang, who ruled from 246 B.C.to 210 B.C. was entombed in an area of approximately twenty square miles. Included with him were 8,000 life-sized terracotta soldiers and clay horses to accompany him in the afterlife.

The afterlife entities are, therefore, considered souls of people who upon death have passed over into the spirit world. Left behind on earth are the corporeal bodies or vessels which the souls formerly occupied. It is with these passed over entities that mediums can communicate.

To avoid any later confusion in terminology used in this book, and many other publications, the reader may encounter, the words soul and spirit are conceptually the same after death when the soul enters the spirit world. For the most part, I will use the word spirit when the human soul enters the afterlife of the spirit world following the death of its corporeal body or vessel.

A brief reference should be made here about the many reports of persons having “near-death” experiences, that is to say, at some point in their lives from all outward appearances they appeared dead, or, in fact, may have been declared clinically dead. At a later moment in time, however, they resumed all aspects of a living being both actually and clinically. Many books have been written compiling these reports and commenting on all aspects of this phenomenon. There appear to be some broad factual similarities in descriptions given by those having experienced near-death. These include the fact that it was without pain; there was a bright light toward which the person was moving, either at the end of something like a tunnel or in the distance; the experience was pleasurable; and there was no compelling urge or desire to turn back.

Regarding a person’s soul, since the near-death episode was not actual death, the soul had not left the body or vessel in which it was an integral part and the soul had not reached the afterlife. These near-death reports are not to be taken lightly. The souls and their vessels may have been temporarily transported to another dimension for their appreciation or understanding of the approaches to the afterlife of the spirit world.

Mediums have been around for a long time, and the abilities ascribed to them over time have resulted in several names being given to them. Historically, there is sometimes a confusion between names depending upon the commentator and the abilities of any medium being referenced.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930), author of the Sherlock Holmes stories, had a deep interest in spirits and spiritualism. He wrote a two-volume work in 1926 titled The History of Spiritualism. In the text of this history Doyle refers specifically to: (a) Public Mediums-those performing outside of a private setting in the presence of an audience, presumably for a fee; (b) Clairvoyant Mediums those with the ability to predict or see the future; (c) Materializing Mediums those producing images or apparent forms of persons or body parts, and (d) Slate Writing Mediums those producing writings on slates without physical contact with them (known as psychography). This book by Doyle contains many researched historic episodes of psychic phenomenon associated with persons identified as mediums over the course of the years from 1848 to just before his death in 1930. Details are related concerning the events and the persons present who observed them in the United States, England and parts of Europe.

Doyle also provides information regarding investigations to verify or discredit the mediums’ veracity in producing the reported psychic phenomenon. Doyle’s work is a good, enjoyable, and informative read. It has been criticized to some extent on the apparent bias or willingness on the part of Doyle, who was not a medium, to accept as factual much of what his research has revealed. This may be attributed to the Doyle’s involvement with the developing Spiritualist movement and the fact that his wife, Jean, became a medium.

Not to be overlooked is a book authored by Raymond Buckland (1934-2017) titled The Spirit Book – The Encyclopedia of Clairvoyance, Channeling and Spirit Communication. Buckland was an English/American and prolific author on many subjects. In addition to the above titled book, the content of which is almost explanatory by its title, Buckland wrote many other books on subjects including, but not limited to, Witches and Witchcraft, Occult Worlds, Wicca Religion, Gypsies and Psychometry. However, for the purpose of explaining the historic generic names and attributes given to mediums, the title first mentioned above by Buckland is informative and will be referred to now, and in later chapters of this book. It will be cited, hereafter, as Buckland’s Encyclopedia. After his Introduction at the front of the book, there are 444 pages of well researched text in the format of an alphabetized encyclopedia. The text includes short biographies of personalities related to spirits, clairvoyance, spirit channeling and ancillary topics, together with some illustrations. Also referenced are word definitions associated with the subject matters of the book. Following the textual material are 28 pages listing Buckland’s print and online supporting sources.

[AUTHOR”S NOTE, By way of editorial transparency, it should be noted here that the Mrs. Gwendolyn Kelley Hack, mentioned on page 407 of the Buckland’s Encyclopedia, is no relative of this author or Linda Lee Hack. By way of additional information, The Fraudulent Mediums Act of 1951 in Great Britain referred to on page 154 of Buckland’s Encyclopedia was effectively replaced by adoption of extensive legislation titled The Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008.]

In addition to the names given to mediums in Doyle’s book, Buckland’s Encyclopedia adds Apport Mediums, those able to move objects from place to place, and Spiritual Mediums who contact and communicate with spirits. The latter identification applies specifically to the mediumship of Linda Lee as will be seen in later chapters of this book.

In separate paragraphs in his book Buckland refers to mental mediumship and physical mediumship. The former, mental mediumship, identifying psychics exhibiting abilities referred to in Chapter 2 of this book, and others associated with the abilities of precognition and retrocognition. Buckland identifies separately physical mediumships, encompassing phenomenon such as materializations, levitation of objects or people without gravitational...