Mediumship Misconceptions

Dr. Julie Beischel is a scientist who has scientifically researched mediumship and life after death for over 15 years. Her goal with Windbridge Research Center is to ease suffering around dying, death, and what comes next. They do rigorous scientific research and share it with general public practitioners to spread the word. https://www.windbridge.org

This Skeptiko video interview with Dr. Beischel explains her mission with the research and discusses some myths about mediums. https://youtu.be/SqN9ECFmcDYrnShe didn’t know much about mediums until she experienced a reading with one after her mother died and realized how accurate and helpful they can be.
She also noticed there is a large percentage of people who don’t know anything about the subject of mediums, yet dismiss them as frauds.
Dr. Beischel decided to use her scientific background and apply the scientific method to help others understand the medium process, and show more people how it can ease the pain of losing a loved one.
More Common Than You Think
She said after death communication is very common, but people are used to hearing it’s weird, so they may not recognize when a loved one is trying to contact and comfort them. Understanding it when it happens can alleviate suffering and make the person more open to it next time.
“As a society we move forward with science and data,” Dr. Beischel said, and this is part of her goal with applying the scientific method to mediums. The data helps people, including doctors and nurses, and especially skeptics, realize mediumship is real.
In the past, most medical professionals would say someone was crazy for saying they encountered deceased loved ones. It still happens today, and some medical professionals even classify them as schizophrenic and give them medication. She hopes to help stop this.
Psychic and Medium Overlap

She found in her research that during psychic readings for the living, it’s common for psychics to have communication (whether they realize it or not) with random deceased people in the area not associated with the psychic or “sitter.” In other words, the lines between a psychic and medium overlap and are much blurrier than previously thought.
Mediumship Misconceptions

Our consciousness is actually more than just in our body. You only think “you” are in your body because you receive constant feedback that you are. Once you die you’re still “you,” just not in your body. Dr. Beischel said that mediumship is like a radio; the consciousness and communication from another person is not from it, but going through the medium.
She said that more people know what mediums are now because of TV shows about the subject, but they don’t always show the reality of the process.
For example, 30% of the mediums she surveyed don’t charge for readings.
Not all mediums are clairvoyant (seeing); some are clairaudient (hearing), some are clairsentient (feeling), some are claircognizant (knowing), and many are all of these at times.
Some mediums don’t understand how they receive insight.
Many mediums see themselves as oddballs and don’t feel like they can be open about their talent.
Other Findings
Dr. Beischel said many mediums have a higher rate of health problems, such as autoimmune disease. At first they wondered if mediumship can cause disease. Her organization drew blood before, during and after medium readings in a controlled study and did over 30 tests on the blood. They didn’t find any changes, which showed the medium readings were likely not causing the health problems.
Then they surveyed over 200 mediums in a childhood abuse survey and they scored off the charts. She said others have made the correlation between childhood abuse and psychic abilities. It might be because they had to learn to sense danger, or disassociate themselves from abuse when it happened, which made them more aware of or in touch with the Other Side. In short, she found mediumship doesn’t cause disease, but trauma can stimulate mediumship and disease.
Side note: Scott can determine with his comprehensive astrology and numerology work who might be more likely to be a natural channel or medium. For example, strong recurring patterns including the numbers 7, 11, and 22, in part, tend to symbolize innate psychic ability.
The Future

The host asked Dr. Beischel if she sees the future of technology helping with mediumship. She said consciousness is funneled through the brain. Meditation helps one be more psychic and act as a medium for consciousness. Technology may eventually help us with that state of mind so we can more easily be psychic, a medium, and have access to other realms.

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