Mediums

So, nipsmum, the people on here who have described their very positive experiences with mediums who have taken little or no money are all liars are they? Not in my book.

I had a room mate who definitely had some gift. She was raised strict Mormon and got in a lot of trouble as a child before she learned to button up what she saw and heard. I never believed in this stuff until living with her changed that. It didn't appear like much of a gift to have these messages thrust upon a person and interrupting daily life. She attracted a stalker boyfriend with a dangerous background and was relocated by the Mormon church - her parents had clout. I still miss her exceptionally sweet personality.

They are zCharlatans and prey on mostly bereaved people. Money grabbers too.

Once and once only did I see someone who I believed to be genuine. She did not want money but told me such abstract things that I believed her.
Many years later I was in my office recounting my story. We were making outgoing calls. When I looked at my new list, first call was her. Unfortunately she passed away many years ago.

The only thing which astonished me when I last saw a medium is how wrong she was, on absolutely everything she said.
She actually really offended me.

My aunt was a medium. She certainly believed in her gift and so did others, although my dad (her brother) was a sceptic. She was attached to a spiritualist church and wasn't paid for her work. She believed that it was her duty to act as a channel between the spiritual and the material world.

The question of money always arises when spiritualism is mentioned. Obviously, if someone is a leech and latches onto a bereaved person with the intention of bleeding them dry, that's contemptible. However, if modest sums are involved, is it any different to giving money to the established religions? After all, they also claim to meet people's spiritual needs.

I went to two funerals, a couple of years ago. One was Christian, for my next door neighbour. It was obvious that the minister knew nothing about him and just waffled about him being "a lovely gentleman." (He wasn't.) We had two prayers and two mumbled hymns, and I found it hard to believe that his widow found much comfort in the whole thing. The buffet and the chat in the local pub, after the service, probably did her more good. The minister, of course, would have been paid.

The second was Hindu, for my FIL. The priests have got the whole thing off to a fine art. There's a lengthy funeral ceremony, a ceremony to release the soul, a ceremony to dispose of the ashes and an anniversary ceremony a year later. Of course, there's a fee for the priest every time. Part of the funeral was in Sanskrit, which nobody except the priest understood, and he gave a rambling talk about life and death which he seemed to be making up as he went along. Any comfort that my in-laws felt was clearly derived from knowing that they had correctly performed the ceremonies which the priesthood had invented in the first place.

In both cases, the religious leader was paid for providing a spiritual service. There was not much comfort beyond a vague hope of meeting again in heaven or in another incarnation. I am not surprised that people are prepared to pay for a message that their loved one is okay. And if they go to a spiritualist church they have a good chance of getting a message for no more than a contribution to the collection.

It might be made up but that applies to all religion.

I recently saw Bernie Scott locally and was astonished at the things she said that could only apply to me and my late husband. Very personal things about his illness that only he and I knew. I was completely amazed and felt very comforted. My SIL has this gift too, though not taking to spirits but he sees things. He told me recently that he was frightened of it and refused to “see” what is shown. He was on a train recently when someone came up to him and said she was so sorry to bother him but she could see someone with him and went on to describe his father and how he had died and that he was always with him. He said he did not respond but that the woman had been very accurate. She didn’t know him from Adam. We do not know half of what is possible in this world or the next.

I'm a sceptic but have had two experiences that put my sceptimism to the test.

Group of women I worked with were seeing a medium, they had booked the evening and one dropped out so they persuaded me to go. It was all the usual generic stuff and then she said I was going to be a bridesmaid. I said yes, not that unusual for a woman in her early 20s. She said it won't happen. I asked if she meant the wedding, she said no the wedding would happen but it would be overseas and I wouldn't be there. I laughed and said it was all booked, only weeks away. Well BIL2b was from another country and a war started. In the end my sister had to go to him and the wedding was indeed overseas and I wasn't there. I can't explain it.

She also told me a tall dark man was in love with me and we would marry. Well I was married with 2 young children and couldn't think of a dark dark man I knew let along one who was in love with me. Well ten years go by and I'm divorced and in a new job. I ended up marrying another member of staff, I didn't know him but he said he'd fallen in love with me years before (10?) when I lived nextdoor to his aunt. He said he felt the lightning bolt the first time he saw me. Maybe easier to explain than the wedding but still seemed strange.

I'm still a sceptic but a puzzled one.

There are some excellent spiritual mediums on this earth and obviously there are charlatans that make money from people’s sadness.
I have had some fantastic readings that have absolute blown me away and have been present at a spiritual meeting where the readings for others could have applied to anyone in the room. When names, dates & scenarios are described in detail and you know it happened in your life, maybe recently or thirty years ago- you know that they are the real deal. I have gasped in amazement at the accuracy at times. I never ever pooh pooh anyone’s beliefs and I have taken huge comfort from messages from loved ones through a medium for about 16 years.

I remember reading an article in the paper a few years back from a reformed ex ‘medium’ who explained in the article just how the con works.

The medium arrives early at the venue and wanders around anonymously among the crowd, carefully looking and listening to conversations, and making careful mental notes.
He said that inevitably the talk is all about who folk hope to ‘hear’
from with names and often lots of other details.

Therefore the medium knows that the woman in the red jumper hopes to hear about her husband Jim, the small dark haired woman is desperate to be in touch with her son who died in a motorcycle accident, and so on.He said he could remember dozens of them.

He did admit that the only skill he has is that he had done a memory course to enable him to recall who said what when he is up on the stage.

It appears it really is as simple as that.
Shameful that these charlatans are deceiving people and taking their money.

It’s easy to condemn what you don’t believe or don’t understand. Like in every walk of life there are charlatans or bad people. If you go to see a medium you should go to someone who has been recommended and also I believe have a reason for going. I’m sure there is much more to life than we understand. I have had several readings during my lifetime and have been given information that could not possibly have been ‘looked up’ or researched. I think it’s lovely to have hope that there is something more than just this existence. I enjoy life immensely and cannot possibly imagine that this is all there is.

I do believe in the afterlife. From time to time I get vertigo. I’d been confined to bed with it for a couple of days. I’d said a prayer to “please let me feel better tomorrow” one night. During the night I woke up and saw my grandads face with lots of other faces behind him. I could only make out my grandma amongst them. He was from a large family so it could be ones I never knew. When I got up the next day I was feeling a lot better. I can only surmise they are looking out for me.
Also as regards to having a hunch about something a few years back I worked in an office and was on my way in on the bus. It suddenly came into my head from nowhere that a particular girl would come in to announce she was pregnant. I was amazed when she actually did. I had no idea as she’d always been a career girl. Strange!

In the early 1990s I used to regularly visit a local medium. From my first visit he mentioned I had two sisters, I said no, I was an only child. Every visit thereafter, he said the same thing and I'd give the same answer. He said a couple of times that maybe my Mum had had miscarriages and that it wasn't often talked of. Imagine my shock when a cousin rang me out of the blue long after both of my parents had passed away and said she thought I should know that I had two half sisters born to my Mum before she met my Dad and went on to give me details along with a birth certificate and photograph of the eldest of the two. When I reported back to the medium he said "Spirit are never wrong!" Undoubtedly there are charlatans out there but there are also a lot of decent people with a genuine gift. I don't have a problem paying those ones, we all have to pay our bills and put food on the table.

There was a notorious case during WW2 when a medium was giving a reading to a woman and she told her that her brother had died in the battleship Barham which had been torpedoed then exploded. The poor woman was horrified as the medium had no prior information about her brother. She contacted the Admiralty to find out if this was true as no information re the Barham had been announced. The Admiralty had known but kept it quiet and there was no way the medium could have found out. In fact the medium was arrested and threatened with imprisonment unless she divulged her source. Eventually, as I recall, the case was dropped. But there's no doubt about it, she knew.

I knew someone who had inherited 'the gift', but she didn't want it as it scared her. I find this intriguing, but have been advised not to 'dabble' as there may be evil forces at work. Getting comfort from mediums is not the same as getting comfort from belief in God, as an earlier poster claims.

I have a strange gift that I rarely use,
One day I said to my mum that her brother would be visiting and driving a black car.
When he arrived, the car was blue. My Mum said that I thought the car would be black, and he said it had just had a re-spray from black.

There are many that prey on the vulnerability of others. There are some that do have a gift though. I think it is wrong to take money if you have such a gift anyway. I sometimes know things that there is no way I could know. I have read the tarot in the past...complete strangers have told me how right I was. I never charged though....

Some of us believe in an afterlife Buttonjugs. And some posts on here do talk of people with genuine gifts who have received communications from or about the dead somehow. Of course there are charlatans too but don’t be so quick to dismiss the experiences and beliefs of others.

In this day and age surely we all know that once someone is dead, they’re dead? When someone is in a coma, they cannot communicate because their brain isn’t working properly. When you die, your brain dies too so you literally cannot communicate. Medium’s prey on people who struggle to accept the death of a loved one. It’s disgusting and should be illegal.

I was overjoyed at getting a ticket to see a famous lady medium at our local theatre. Until I saw her husband inside the door asking people to put notes in a box if they had been recently bereaved. I presumed their names had been added. The medium then read from pieces of paper throughout the show. She asked for certain names from the notes she had and obviously someone answered. But on her comments most answered no, they couldn't recall anything she was obviously guessing at. I walked out half way through. Bored to tears. I've never believed there was anything in it since that day.

I went to a small session run by Susan penally in Barnstaple on how to see if you could have skills as a medium. There were about 5 women there who I'd never seen below. I was passed someone's ring, just an ordinary cheap ring 'that ring has been in a fire,' I said. I don't know how or why I said that, I just knew it. The ring owner said I was absolutely right, but there was no clue on the ring, it was just ordinary, no signs of charring etc. I got someone else's bangle, 'that has had a snake on it,' I said, again I don't know how or why I said that, but the owner confirmed her partner keeps snakes and one had been on it, but the bangle was plain, not in the style of snakes or anything. I do think some people have this gift but I'm not sure how easy it is to turn on and off for an audience, but I think our brains are so busy most of the time its hard to 'hear' especially when we're working in a largely disbelieving world.

That was lovely to read Cornwallandgin.
Thank you for sharing.

My opinion of a medium?
Too small. I prefer Extra Large

Hi, I am new to Gransnet but I am on mumsnet.
I wanted to comment on this thread as I believe due to going along years ago to see a Psychic.
I lost my baby boy and was absolutely heart broken and devastated. I felt helpless but knew I had to carry on because I was very lucky to have my little girl who was 2 at the time. I needed to be there for her and carry on being a mum.
My friend recommend this lady and she didn't charge much at all. I was a bit sceptical but decided to go along as I needed some peace. The Psychic was lovely and she said to me, she didn't want to know anything about why I had come along. I sat for nearly two hours and she described absolutely everything we had gone through. From our son's Death, family, the way we were feeling. She even told me I was pregnant which i was adamant she was wrong. I was in the very early stages but wouldn't of known. She told me I was going to have another son in August. I did have another little boy in August. She told me we could of done nothing to prevent our son from passing away and he was happy. I just remembered crying because it gave me peace knowing he was ok. I haven't gone since but she really helped me when I was at my lowest. I always think back to her and wonder how she knew so much about my life. My friend would never of spoken about me to her. I know some people are false but she was definitely genuine.

I once had something really disturbing happen to me. I don’t really want to go into it other than my grandfather appeared to a family friend. She was genuine enough. But I think most are a con.