Dr. Julie Beischel Clearing Up Myths About Mediums |371|

Regarding the future of the research – At some point it must engage with the question of why a percentage of people have highly negative experiences with spirit communication and come away feeling like they've been interacting with deceptive spirits/demons.

Is there a parallel to abduction experiences here and people's varied interpretations of that? Certainly Christians think so and there's no end of conversion testimony videos now appearing on Youtube of people claiming Jesus saved them from incursions by these malevolent entities. Are people with a different cultural/religious context having different experiences of warding of these beings or transforming the experience?

Personally I'm all for the Continuing Bonds paradigm of the importance of maintaining a sense of connection with deceased loved ones – that's why I'm really keen to understand what's going on when people have negative experiences. Would appreciate anyone's insights...
great topic! seems to be coming up a lot lately. would you be willing to help me co-produce a skeptiko episode on this, Richard?
 
There are malevolent entities hanging around and folk are right to be concerned about them. The extent to which they are problematic is testified in a variety of sources - Baldwin's Spirit Releasement Therapy is very interesting and easily googled. Joe Fisher's The Siren Call of Hungry Ghosts is a classic cautionary tale. Jane Kent's The Goddess and the Shaman recounts therapeutic encounters with invading or attaching entities.

I think that Christianity tends to lump all discarnate entities in the general class of 'demons' to no good consequence.If we can understand that we are dealing with an ecology of complex and varied 'spirits' it is easier to comprehend there is a risk factor that in inherent simply in being - as with viruses for instance. Some folk get infected because of unhealthy or unsafe practices. Other folk get into strife by sheer misfortune.

The presence of spirits has been long considered a natural thing in some cultures, which then have practices and beliefs that reduce risk of harm - personal acts of 'spiritual hygiene' as well as rituals.

Richard Cox is quite right in saying that the risk element has to be researched. It is one thing to encourage more folk to be aware of the actuality of 'spirits' and quite another to convey information on safety. There ain't no point telling folks about snakes if you don't tell them how not to get bit.
I think you have to consider that the ultimate nature of inner voices remains a mystery and that our own consciousness has a lot to do with determining their quality
Take John Macks research with UFO abductees and how The experiencers experience would change over time often from malevolent to at least somewhat benevolent
 
I think you have to consider that the ultimate nature of inner voices remains a mystery and that our own consciousness has a lot to do with determining their quality
Take John Macks research with UFO abductees and how The experiencers experience would change over time often from malevolent to at least somewhat benevolent
I love this point!!!
the ultimate nature of inner voices remains a mystery
 
A spirit came to me to give a message in mediumship class, it wasn't my turn to speak so I didn't say anything, but a few seconds later another more advanced student who wasn't afraid to speak out of turn gave the same message from the same spirit. After I refused to give the message the spirit tried someone else. It shows the spirits have initiative, problem solving abilities, and independent existence apart from the medium.

I find this very convincing, Jim!

It reminds me of something I saw on local TV here in South Africa years ago: Gordon ' the psychic barber' Smith was doing medium-ship for people calling in on one of those general interest type talk shows. At one point he stops what he's doing and says that someone is trying to contact a young man who's currently working in the studio next door and has very recently lost his mother. A producer was duly dispatched and soon returned with a very confused looking sound guy who confirmed everything the 'psychic barber' had to say.

Ok, it doesn't rule out superPSY like your experience..... but I still like the story.

Cheers.
 
Just receive the first ever email from the WindBridge Research Center e-mail newsletter.

I didn't even know Skeptiko had a YouTube channel! :)

 
Thanks for your responses to my post, I fond them really helpful. I listened to a documentary on Joe Fisher's experience which left him feeling deceived by the entity (or entities) he was connecting with.

I also listened to some of the talks of Esther Hicks, famous for channelling a spirit called Abraham. She (or more accurately, he) is sometimes asked about malevolent or deceptive spirits and how to avoid them. He explains it in terms of the 'victim' having made a subtle invitation to the entity and being in resonance with it.

On the point about John Mack's research and how people's experience would change from negative to more positive over time – I know there is a school of thought within the Hearing Voices community that believes the voices are always ultimately positive, no matter malevolent they may at first appear. They change when their message is understood and integrated.

The question remains then, when people contact loved ones through mediums, how can they test/know that it's not the entity equivalent of a telephone scammer? Joe Fisher noted that the entity deceiving him gave highly accurate information about the person he claimed to have been, but got the most basic detail – his own name – wrong. He wondered if something prevented the entity from lying in entirety.
 
The question remains then, when people contact loved ones through mediums, how can they test/know that it's not the entity equivalent of a telephone scammer? Joe Fisher noted that the entity deceiving him gave highly accurate information about the person he claimed to have been, but got the most basic detail – his own name – wrong. He wondered if something prevented the entity from lying in entirety.

I guess you can’t ultimately. Perhaps the question is ‘how likely is it?’ given the particular circumstances, and to what end? As for Joe Fisher he didn’t personally know any of the purported communicator IIRC so had no way at all to validate them even if he could check all the facts. If the ‘wrong name’ refers to the character claiming to be a pilot, there is an explanation in the book as to why the wrong name may have been used deliberately.
 
Okay, with regard to where do the voices come from, are they benevolent/malevolent, do they change when engaged with... I interviewed Dr. Joachim Schnackenberg who practices a counselling method specifically for people who hear voices. His belief and experience is that voices always have an ultimately benevolent intention (no matter how evil they may at first appear) and that this benevolence reveals itself when they are dialogued with in a certain way.

At around the 17 minute mark he talks through 'Voice Dialogue' and gives an example of how an 'evil' voice can reveal it's true nature.


https://www.podbean.com/site/EpisodeDownload/PB8D5BD28BPNJ
 
I was interested in Julie's findings that a high proportion of mediums had been abused as children.
Could we assume from this perhaps that mediumistic talent is a kind of disability?
If there is purpose to life, maybe we are not meant to get feedback from the other side because we are here to learn lessons. not to be guided from afar?
I've also met a number of mediums who actually had a bang on the head or some kind of brain injury in childhood and I wondered whether that facilitated their ability.
So in an ideal world with no child abuse and no accidents to mediums - maybe they wouldn't exist and we could get on with living life with no interference from the nether world.
Written tongue in cheek but maybe slightly seriously......
 
I was interested in Julie's findings that a high proportion of mediums had been abused as children.
Could we assume from this perhaps that mediumistic talent is a kind of disability?
If there is purpose to life, maybe we are not meant to get feedback from the other side because we are here to learn lessons. not to be guided from afar?
I've also met a number of mediums who actually had a bang on the head or some kind of brain injury in childhood and I wondered whether that facilitated their ability.
So in an ideal world with no child abuse and no accidents to mediums - maybe they wouldn't exist and we could get on with living life with no interference from the nether world.
Written tongue in cheek but maybe slightly seriously......

From studying the phenomenon of hauntings or "demonology" quite a bit for several years, one unmistakable conclusion of the data is that those who were subjected to physical and emotional trauma experience negative spirits and torment WAY more frequently than the average person. Its a basic rule/central tenant of the subjective. That's why I was taken back when I heard Julies claim about abused children developing psychic powers. There is an unmistakable link.
 
His belief and experience is that voices always have an ultimately benevolent intention (no matter how evil they may at first appear)
Wow.

No offense to you David, but Dr. Schnackenberg seems absurd.

Voice: "You are worthless piece of shit and should kill yourself".

Dr. Schnackenberg: "Ah, so you like me and want me to be happy".

Only very highly-educated minds with years of conditioning are able to perform this type of irrational acrobatics.
 
I interviewed Dr. Joachim Schnackenberg who practices a counselling method specifically for people who hear voices. His belief and experience is that voices always have an ultimately benevolent intention (no matter how evil they may at first appear) and that this benevolence reveals itself when they are dialogued with in a certain way.

Hi Richard. Thanks for this. I can see how it might be helpful from a therapeutic perspective for Dr. Schnackenberg to maintain an agnostic perspective on the ultimate origin or nature of "voices", but for me as a "voice" hearer that's not very satisfying: I want to know their nature and intent, why I have become susceptible to them, and why they are interested in interfering with me and my sense of reality.

My perspective is that some of these beings are genuinely evil (so I am sympathetic with Charlie's comment above), although one might be able to learn some things from them insofar as one can learn from any criticism which has a point - when the messages are mixed, though, then the possibility of learning becomes more questionable.
 
Hi Richard. Thanks for this. I can see how it might be helpful from a therapeutic perspective for Dr. Schnackenberg to maintain an agnostic perspective on the ultimate origin or nature of "voices", but for me as a "voice" hearer that's not very satisfying: I want to know their nature and intent, why I have become susceptible to them, and why they are interested in interfering with me and my sense of reality.

My perspective is that some of these beings are genuinely evil (so I am sympathetic with Charlie's comment above), although one might be able to learn some things from them insofar as one can learn from any criticism which has a point - when the messages are mixed, though, then the possibility of learning becomes more questionable.

I thought I would share part of a rough draft of an essay I wrote decades ago which may shed some light on the nature of inner voices

Related to this, I've experience in my own life "the symbolic image acting as releaser and transformer" as Edinger describes. This came up in dealing with a difficult relationship with a woman. I had been working on this relationship with a therapist who practices "Archetypal Psychology", a contemporary form of Jungian-based psychotherapy that uses the imagination and mythological imagery for healing. I described how I began to feel controlled and shamed by my partner as we became more intmate. She had been wanting a deeper level of commitment from me and a shared vision of a life together. I claimed to want this as well, yet when we talked about it, I felt overwhelmed by feelings shame and guilt. The more she asked for commitment, the more I felt paralyzed and incapable of giving it.
My therapist did a hypnotic induction with me, having me close my eyes and relax into a light trance state. In this highly suggestible state one can more readily access buried memories as well as archetypal images from the collective unconscious. The light trance state also allows to one to interact and have full recollection of the events that occur .
He then asked me where I felt the shame and guilt in my body and to notice the qualities of the feelings( the size, shape, texture, etc.) as well as any images that were present. I saw an image of a dark force entering through my solar plexus, then spreading throughout my body, entering every cell. He suggested I recall another time in my life when I had felt this way. Memories and images of my mother began to flood into my awareness. In one memory, she was castigating me for playing with neighborhood kids she considered to be "common" and beneath our moral stature as good Catholics. She launched into a diatribe about how these common people were a corrupting influence: "vulgar, immoral and not our kind of people."
I began experiencing the shame and guilt as coming from my mother. My therapist, then had me enter into an imagined dialogue with her. In this Jungian technique called "active imagination", I was to play both parts, alternating between myself and my mother, letting her voice speak through me.
In the dialogue I imagined my mother standing across from where I was sitting. I began to speak to her asking what she wanted from me. She answered that she didn't like the company I kept and that I had become just like them. I became angry and told her to get out of my life; that I didn't need her bullshit morality and to leave me the fuck alone. I began feeling her moral outrage building inside me; she was livid with moral indignation. She launched into a tirade, telling me that no decent person talks to their mother that way and that I was no better than the "niggers" and "wops"across the street. I continued to demand that she get out of my life and she continued to berate me from her moral high ground.
The image of my mother began to shift from her human figure to an image of a dark parasitic with tendrils that wrapped around my spinal column. I was no longer speaking with her voice but hearing a demonic voice in my mind. The parasite proclaimed that it had total control over me and that I couldn't fight it. It knew all my weak points, all my deepest fears and guilts. When I protested,it attacked me, using as ammunition all my repressed memories that harbored guilt and shame. I felt helpless to defend myself.
My therapist asked me to bring in my "allies", that is imaginary figures or archetypal tools used to defeat an "inner enemy". This could be any life-affirming symbol or figure in one's life. My inner allies were images of the Buddha and the Great Mother Goddess. But I was in a state of psychic pain, bound and paralysed by the parasitic force. It made me feel that I really was an evil person and that I deserved to suffer. The best I could do was admit that I needed help.
Then I became aware of another presence in myself. I experienced it as a white energy that seemed to float above my head. It had a feminine quality that was quite different from the dark energy that possessed me. There was a benevolence and generativity about it that began to loosen the grip of the parasite. I began to refer to it as the light mother. I experienced the communication from the light mother as a feeling of unconditional love and acceptance. It was as if my conscious "I" stood between two polar opposite forces and was able to translate their feelings into words.
The parasite, or dark mother, as I began to refer to it, kept reminding me of all the experiences in my life that I felt ashamed or guilty about-- all the times I had felt like a failure, all the times I felt I had harmed others or "sinned". As this information came through from the dark side, the light mother would dispel each of her accusations. Every reason the dark mother gave for my being a bad person and deserving to suffer, the light mother would expose as a lie. The dark mother used lies or gross exaggeration to conclude I was evil to the core.
This was the main lie. It wasn't as if the light mother thought I was perfect. One of the interesting features of the light mother was her intelligent way of putting things in perspective. If the dark mother would show an experience when I had been selfish or caused harm to someone, the light mother would expose the exaggeration of the claim and show a way I could make atonement or reparations to anyone if I needed to.
Through this process the tendrils of the dark mother began to fall away. Exposed to the light of awareness and compassion her hold on me evaporated and like the wicked witch she melted away.
My therapist then had me fully allow this generative feminine presence to move into my body, imagining it entering every cell and cleansing it of the dark parasitic energy.
Through this experience my aversion to commitment and intimacy dramatically shifted. I became more in touch with my own true heartfelt desires and less burdened by the psychological baggage from my childhood.
This isn't to say that all my problems related to intimacy and commitment vanished permanently. The net value I got from this experience was in learning to access an archetypal dimension behind my symptoms of self hatred and fear of intimacy. By seeing the mother symbolically I accessed the archetypal mother in her both her light and dark side. Behind the memory of my mother was an image of the dark goddess, the destroyer. This archetype is found in many world myths. In the Hindu religion it is represented as Kali the destroyer. "In India for example the goddess Kali was worshipped as the bringer of death and destruction"(Pearson. pg 137.). This is very different than the Christian idea of the Devil, who is to be resisted rather than revered. It was the dark goddess who pointed out to me all the memories, traumas and false beliefs that were buried. I had been acting out these negative beliefs, about myself in my relationship. These negative beliefs that I was evil to core and that I deserved to suffer, needed to be revealed so they could be released and transformed. "The Destroyer begins to becomes our ally when we recognize the need to change or give something up without denying the pain or grief involved"(Pearson pg. 143). "Jung developed the idea of the dual mother archetype that transcends the individual image of the mother. He also explored the profound implications of the Dual Mother Goddess who dwells in our unconscious minds as both Life and Death"(Woolger pg.432).
Once the dark mother had done her work in revealing what needed to be destroyed and transcended, the light mother's compassion and wisdom became available for healing and transformation. In experiencing this transformative process through this mythic dimension of the psyche I feel I have accessed an incredible resource which gives my life meaning and an intimate connection with the experiences of all people.



To conclude this essay I will leave the reader with this quote form Dr. Carl Jung describing his experience of this transformative healing dimension of the psyche with his patients.


To the patient it is nothing less than a revelation when something altogather strange arises up to confront him from the hidden depths of the psyche--something that is not his ego and is therefore beyond the reach of his pesonal will. He has regained access to the source of psychic life, and this marks the begining of the cure. . . As a religious minded person would say: guidance has come from God"(Whitmont. pg. 86.) or the Goddess..
 
Okay, with regard to where do the voices come from, are they benevolent/malevolent, do they change when engaged with... I interviewed Dr. Joachim Schnackenberg who practices a counselling method specifically for people who hear voices. His belief and experience is that voices always have an ultimately benevolent intention (no matter how evil they may at first appear) and that this benevolence reveals itself when they are dialogued with in a certain way.

Having some familiarity with the topic, that sounds like perhaps a combination of wishful thinking and perhaps beneficial power of suggestion through placebo. Of course I don't have his experience with what he does as he does, but Ive learned a lot about "negative" spirits (call them demons or what you will etc), and that assertion seems incredible to me.
 
Thank you all for your comments, here are a few thoughts...

Psiclops & Wormwood
- Joachim says in the interview that a high proportion of the people he meets who hear voices have trauma in their pasts. In many ways this is completely understandable, people develop in all sorts of often more extreme ways due to trauma. It still remains difficult to say exactly why it would lead to the ability to talk to the dean though.

Charlie Primero – It makes perfect sense to me. For example, I do meditative self inquiry sessions with people. Earlier this week I did one where a lady wanted to look at her chronic inability to accept compliments. A voice in her head pushes them away and says words to the effect of 'you're not worth that, they're only saying it to make you feel good, it's a lie.' Now she identifies this voice as a part of herself, the way we all have critical inner talk. She wants to tell that part of herself to fuck off and stop preventing her from thinking anything positive about herself. It seems like a bad part to be gotten rid of. However when we engaged with it and asked it why it was being that was, we found it was afraid. It recalled childhood experiences of being led on with false compliments, then let down. So it's trying to protect her from feeling the pain of that again. When this is seen it starts to let go it's fear and integrate.

As I said, she doesn't perceive this as an external voice, but just a part of her own mine. The principle to me seems the same though.

Ultimately what would define any approach as absurd or profound would not be how it sounds, but how effective it is in helping people live more happy, integrated and fulfilling lives. If exorcism or psychiatry – casting the voices out – does that then great. Joachim however is part of a substantial community that is reporting greater results when these voices are listened to and integrated.

Laird - Thanks for that – I'm curious to know what approaches have you tried with the voices? Did you ever try a process to rid yourself of them or integrate them or anything?

I'm very open to the possibility that some of them could be evil external entities. Just in the way that when phone scammers call and offer to help fix your computer, it's hard to see that they ultimately have your best intentions at heart. I'm also not opposed to the idea of 'casting them out.' If a person is in an abusive relationship then it's of course best to get away from it, same thing here, I don't think it's good to accept abuse from the voices.

At the same time though, if I find myself on the receiving end of abuse, either from another person or from within my own mind, I find it intensely valuable to self examine to see if I feel I invited that energy in in some way. Is there such a thing as an uninvited guest, or just a guest that we don't know how we invited? (I'm quoting Abraham of Esther Hicks here). I don't have a definitive answer to that question, but I can see how I've been in resonance with he experiences that have arisen in my life, good and bad.

Larry – That's amazing! Have you done much writing on these kind of processes?
 
Having some familiarity with the topic, that sounds like perhaps a combination of wishful thinking and perhaps beneficial power of suggestion through placebo. Of course I don't have his experience with what he does as he does, but Ive learned a lot about "negative" spirits (call them demons or what you will etc), and that assertion seems incredible to me.
Just a note on this – I've not reported 100% accurately, Joachim actually said that is the voice is truly malevolent then the process of engaging with it still works in helping a person find resolution. This would tally with the idea that demons (call them what you will) latch on to the negative self perceptions latent within us and seek to exploit them. They then offer also the potential for healing by drawing these unconscious perceptions into our awareness. Please note everything after the first sentence here are my thoughts and not Joachim's.
 
Just a note on this – I've not reported 100% accurately, Joachim actually said that is the voice is truly malevolent then the process of engaging with it still works in helping a person find resolution. This would tally with the idea that demons (call them what you will) latch on to the negative self perceptions latent within us and seek to exploit them. They then offer also the potential for healing by drawing these unconscious perceptions into our awareness. Please note everything after the first sentence here are my thoughts and not Joachim's.

Thanks for your interest! I use to study a lot of Jung and his contemporaries and have occasionally written an essay. The excerpt above was from one I called The Myth of Reality(or the reality of myth). The most powerful material I came across with regards to the Daimonic was from the late Dr Robert Moore who wrote a popular book in the 90's King Warrior Magician Lover. He did a course out of the C G Jung institute of Chicago called Angels Demons and Spirit possession which you can find online. He looks at the phenomenon through the lens of psychopathology, mythology, theology, shamanism. . . It seems to me that any one approach by itself is inadequate the grasp the depth of the phenomenon.
 
Thanks for your interest! I use to study a lot of Jung and his contemporaries and have occasionally written an essay. The excerpt above was from one I called The Myth of Reality(or the reality of myth). The most powerful material I came across with regards to the Daimonic was from the late Dr Robert Moore who wrote a popular book in the 90's King Warrior Magician Lover. He did a course out of the C G Jung institute of Chicago called Angels Demons and Spirit possession which you can find online. He looks at the phenomenon through the lens of psychopathology, mythology, theology, shamanism. . . It seems to me that any one approach by itself is inadequate the grasp the depth of the phenomenon.

Thank you for that Larry, I have looked at Robert Moore's work and he's always someone I'd planned to return to in more depth. Thanks for the link to the audio courses, what a wonderful resource! I have much more time to listen to things than to read.

I've been very interested (or rather compelled to) explore the two faces of the mother archetype within myself, and to look at how it manifests in my relationships. Do I take from what you are saying that the 'dark mother' was a necessary part of your healing process?
 
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