Totally Eric. Mediums and channellers are often [a] delusional and induced to convey bullshit messages from low level entities. Do please read The Siren Call of Hungry Ghosts. Its the best cautionary tale you will come across.
Real communicators are another matter. I have encountered 3 - 2 I had readings with and the 3rd was my partner. We engaged with a sophisticated high level entity. I made recordings of our sessions and transcribed some. And, no, they are not available for public consumption. You can argue that you therefore do not believe me. I get that. I am unmoved. A lot of the content was personal, and that which was not included stuff that was confidential. I make my claims as they are - with no evidence to support them. Do what you will with that.
Michael,
I have read it and I agree that everyone interested in this stuff should read it as well.
The medium that not only impressed me and made a believer out of my highly skeptical wife (at the time) + previously the very serious person I respect who recommended her, has suffered severe health issues in recent years. She was probably in her late 30s and no more than 40 when we sat with her (circa 2012 and 2014). By 2016 she had brain surgery to remove tumors. Her health never recovered. I think she may have died in past year. She lived about 160 miles from me and we saw her in person at her home, though she used to do séances over the phone as well.
As an aside, part of disguising my identity was to not give her a phone number. We even took the train to her town and hiked about 2 miles from the station to her house because I didn't want her to be able to trace a license plate - not that I think she did those things, but at the time I didn't know and wanted to rule out all normal means of knowing anything about me no matter how unlikely. I scheduled the event online using a computer at a library in a different town from which I live (using a fake name of course). Also, having a session at her house did not require securing the appointment with a credit card (another potential source of gathering information that could be used in the séance by a fraud). Rather, I paid her after the séance with cash.
Anyhow, after the sittings, my wife and her began friendly communications. My wife became very concerned with her health. She told my wife that mediums of her caliber often suffer health consequences, but that she would continue her work as long as possible regardless. The brave and wonderful woman paid the price.
Another aside, she seemed to have been a hybrid between psychic medium and the other types. When she was doing the séance with us, her entire demeanor, tone of voice and body language changed and matched that of the deceased who was communicating. There was none of this "I'm getting an impression that...". Instead it was direct statements being made by the spirit. At times it was as if the spirit had taken over her. At other times she was herself passing along the thoughts of the spirit (who she said was standing right in front of her and was "up in her face" - this was the spirit of a highly aggressive, intelligent, but sarcastic person in life), a big contrast to the warm loving nature of medium herself. reflecting more on the seance, when the topic was very emotional, the spirit took her over. When the topic was more factual, the medium passed along the thoughts of the spirit.
I digress again...
....IMO, not much is to be gained by talking to the dead other than confirming there is life after death and there is a definite risk if one continues to delve into it after the initial confirmation.
IMO, spirits don't know much more about the hows and whys than living people do. An asshole in life is still and asshole after death and can - and will -deploy the same tactics against you that they did when alive, but now (after death) you can't see them and they can be very sneaky about impacting your mind and health.
IMO, NDEs and new age religious training make people believe that everything is light and love after death + enlightenment. Maybe it is for some people, but certainly not for all by any means.