Trance Mediumship

Spirits Speaking from the Heart at Tranquil Spirit

Channeling Spirit Communication through Trance Mediumship

Trance mediumship and Channeling and Developing to Become a Trance Medium / Channeler

Over the years we have had a number of emails and phone calls seeking more information about trance mediumship / channeling and in particular about how to develop as a trance medium / channeler. We have discussed some of the key characteristics of trance mediumship /channeling on another page devoted to an Overview of Forms / Types / Methods of Mediumship. On this page we will consider some further characteristics of trance mediumship / channeling and in particular consider issues around their development. I wish to first point out though that much of what I write here is based upon my own particular individual experience of development and what our spirit guides have explained to us about the principles and processes involved in trance mediumship / channeling and their development. Other people's experience of trance development may be different. Also, while there may be common elements at least in some aspects of people's development, at the end of the day there are also likely to be unique aspects to our individual path as we develop to become a trance medium / channeler.

Sitting for Development of Trance

If you wish to sit to develop to become a trance medium generally you must be prepared for a long haul. It is helpful of course to have had some indication either from another medium or perhaps through some inner experience that you have the potential for trance mediumship and that development can therefore come about in time. You may find it helpful to attend a development class specifically set up for the development of trance mediumship if you can find one nearby. However, unless you are already well on the way to developing trance you are unlikely to develop it to the point of being an effective trance medium during the duration of such classes. These classes of necessity to be time limited. Of course you may be lucky enough to come across a class that has been set up with the long haul in mind. Even the short classes can be useful in providing guidance, advice and reassurance. In most cases though the real work will have to be done by yourself in many hours of patient, regular sitting. Once I started to experience energies Eileen and I sat for about as often as five times a week for an hour at a time for about eighteen months. Hai's first halting words did not come until the end of this period.

It is highly desirable to have someone to sit with you when you sit for development privately. This serves a number of purposes. The person is able to monitor you and give you feedback. They are able to contibute their loving energy to your development and offer moral support. They can also participate in communication at such time as a spirit attempts to speak through you. I do not recommend sitting on your own.

You obviously need to sit in a room where you feel comfortable and where you will not be disturbed for the duration of the time you have decided to sit. Switch off phones if you can. An upright comfortable chair is desirable, one in which you can feel relaxed but not so relaxed that you might fall asleep. It is probably not a good idea to sit if you are already tired or after a heavy meal.

Mediumship and Protection

We have spoken about the idea of protection on some of the site's other pages. When we first sat we often did start by imagining a dome of white light surrounding us as well as reaching for the "best and highest". Hai has often spoken to us about this protection issue and he has assured us that it is our intent that is our protection, ie: it was our reaching for the "best and highest" that was our protection, and that everything else is unnecessary. However, he has also said that if it helps people to imagine a white light or some other image or to say a prayer for instance there is no harm in it. He does become concerned however about people becoming too caught up in rituals and ensnared by the resulting superstition. Essentially the golden rule of "like attracts like" applies here. If you seek the highest good, that is what you are likely to connect with.

Obstacles to the Development of Trance Mediumship

The two biggest obstacles to trance mediumship in the early stages of development are probably fear and discouragement. No matter how enthusiastic and willing you are to be a vehicle for trance communication the experience of having another being/energy working through you is an unknown until it happens. Even if you think you are ok about the idea, there may be a part of your mind which isn't so sure and holds back a little. The part of your mind which has the closest connection with your nervous system and physical body may in particular start to feel unsure as it senses "alien" energies. Trust and confidence in the spirit energies and in the processes involved is therefore crucial to success. Sometimes you may have had other forms of awareness of the spirits who are trying to work through you in trance eg: a clairvoyant image and this may have provided reassurance. In any event the spirits generally will work with you in a gradual way so you can become slowly acquainted with each other over a period of time.

This gradual process assists familiarisation and will help you to become more confident and assured regarding both your spirit friends and the processes taking place. This gradual process of course can also be a long one and there may be times during which you feel that little is happening or you are stuck on a plateau. Discouragement may creep in. At these times other mediums, a development class, or your friend who sits with you can be invaluable sources of support.

Focusing on the Energies During the Development of Trance

If your development as a medium started in the form of clairvoyance or indeed with any other form of mediumship it is perhaps worth making the following point. While I did get clairvoyant images and clairaudient words when I first started to sit for mediumship, as soon as I sat for trance mediumship my focus shifted to a more general awareness of energies making contact with me, more a feeling of energies entering my body (which of course may have been my aura). This is not the same as clairsentience where we may be filled with an emotion but it does have some similarities. There is a definite feeling awareness of energies and a presence. Thus the developing trance medium may need to shift the focus of awareness to the body and to feeling and away from other foci of awareness. Clairvoyant images, etc may come but they should not be directly sought as awareness needs to be focussed at the feeling level, even at the level of internal physical sensation. The energies in the early stages may be more vague and may be focussed on particular parts of the body eg: in my own case they first focussed on my arms and neck also causing involuntary movement of them at times and later on my chest and trunk. Eventually the energy seemed to concentrate in my head and throat eventually causing movement in the throat muscles and after a much longer period, speech. This pattern reflects the gradual process of familiarity mentioned above. The spirits are experimenting and becoming aquainted with the medium's mind and physical body. They are discovering the best way of working together, finding an effective way to blend their energies with those of the medium, and experimenting with manipulating the medium's physical body.

In the later stages of development if you have been feeling energies in the throat for some time and the spirits have attempted to vocalise sounds without success you can try the following technique which Mavis Pittilla first mentioned to me. When you feel the energies close you can start to speak with your own voice saying the first thing that comes into your head, perhaps what you think is some philosophy coming from your own mind. The spirit communicator will then sometimes take over from your starting point. You may then find that the vocalisation becomes a lot more fluent and the communication will seem to go off in an independent direction which sometimes can be quite different to your starting point. This can be a helpful device but I would tend to suggest that you use it in the later stages to assist in overcoming a final block

When Trance Communication Begins

Discouragement may set in at times during the long development phase alternating with an eagerness for communication to begin. Thoughts and feelings may shift in a different direction once communication does start. Doubts may creep in as to the real source of the voices/communication. A person who is less analytical and questioning may not experience such doubts, though as long as not taken to excess I think they are generally an inevitable and healthy part of the process of developing as a medium.

As far as possible it is best to try to just go with the flow of the communication and not question at the time that it is coming through. We all have our own values, beliefs, and pre-conceptions and there is an inherent potential difficulty of these getting in the way of the communication or at least "flavouring" it in some way. The communication may therefore be influenced or at worst actually distorted. There is no cast iron safeguard against this. The communication process is a partnership between the spirit and the medium. The spirit communicator has to use the trance medium's mind and physical processes and these will inevitably influence the communication to a greater or lesser degree. Depth of trance may help but even if the medium is "unconscious" the spirit communicator still has to use the medium's mind and physical processes and therefore there is still the potential for influence. Hai has always told us that the best way to minimise this influence is for the trance medium to put aside their own pre-conceptions as far as is possible to enable them to act as a free channel.

The above has attempted to answer some of the key questions that we have been asked about trance mediumship and its development. We have included some more detail and guidance in our book "Unfolding the Lotus".