by Deborah Lindsey

I woke up this morning and, for the first time in a long time, turned on the TV. It seems that Anderson Cooper has his own talk show now (he is good looking afterall). His guest this morning was a woman known as the “Long Island Medium.” I don’t know her name but it seemed that she has her own TV show and most of the people in the audience were familiar with her. I’ve even heard my mom speak of her show so she must be doing very well.

Considering that I just spent a month at Camp Etna, a Spiritualist camp in Maine where mediumship is commonplace, I was fascinated enough to take a few minutes and watch her work. Its no surprise that she is good. I’ve seen a LOT of mediums in my day so I feel that I have a fair perspective with with to judge her. And yeah, she was good though its TV and so it could have been edited or enhanced. We just don’t know for sure.

That being said, she seemed legitimate to me. She readily acknowledged that she sometimes gets it wrong. She also mentioned that she works with symbols that she then has to interpret. Also true. The one thing that doesn’t seem completely legit is that she is just standing in a store or something and she’ll get a hit and have to pass it on as if she has no choice. I don’t know any serious mediums who can’t turn “it” on and off as life dictates. If you never shut it down, you would be bombarded by spirits and have trouble maintaining sanity if you ask me. So that seemed a little construed, but otherwise, she comes across like the real deal to me.

So after a minute or two, Cooper allowed people to ask questions. The first woman, who was also a guest, started by saying that she was afraid of this and went on to ask her if she was religious. I personally was appalled by such a question but also understand that people have really been taught to be afraid of any REAL contact with the other side. Its something I’ve never really quite understood. I mean why is it that virtually every religion talks about life after death and yet when you actually PROVE that life exists after death, people freak out as if that will make God so mad that he/she/it will send you to a place where you burn to death for all of eternity? It just doesn’t make any sense to me.

When I ask people (Christians in particular) why they are so afraid, they say that the Bible says its wrong. It largely comes down to one passage where Leviticus says,”Do not turn to mediums or seek out spiritists, for you will be defiled by them.” Of course Leviticus also said you should never cut your hair or shave your beard, you shouldn’t eat or touch pork or eat shellfish. The Bible also says you can’t get a divorce under any conditions, that wearing gold to church is a defilement, tattoos are a one-way ticket to hell, that its okay to kill your children if they talk back to you, and that its not appropriate to “pull out” during sex. And yet, no one thinks twice about cutting their hair. So why is it that mediums get such a bad rap?

This is particularly notable to me because the Bible itself contains more than 1,300 instances of psychic experiences, prophecy, and mediumship. For instance, the birth of Jesus himself was wrought with prophecy. The three “wise” men saw an angel who talked to them. Hmm. Mediumship? How did Moses get the Ten Commandments? Did a voice speak to him? Did they just materialize? Oh, yeah, that too would be a form of mediumship. And what of the book of Revelation? In fact, the Bible itself is known to be the “word of God” and yet it was written by man. How can this be possible if it wasn’t a channeled document or given through automatic writing? It looks to me like people who can speak with spirit are the very core of Christianity. So why all the fear?

I think that perhaps what people are really saying is that they are afraid of death itself. They aren’t so much afraid of the process as they are afraid to learn that people actually continue after death. For me, mediumship did the opposite. The very first time I got a message that was obviously from my grandmother and it was obviously correct, my whole life changed. At first, I wanted to deny it, even discount it, looking for every possible avenue through which they could have known this information. Was it possible that they did some sort of background check on me before I got there (it was the days before the internet)? That of course was ridiculous but I just couldn’t wrap my mind around it. Fortunately, it blew my mind so completely that I went back for more. And I’m very glad that I did.

To this day, I can honestly say that I have no fear of death, only a child-like wonder about what it will be like. I’m not in a hurry to get there, but neither am I concerned. I’ve never actually met a person who is dead who went to hell or who is in pain so that sort of discounts the whole “burn in hell thing” for me. In fact, they all seem quite content and all seem to like it pretty well. To me, the real value in mediumship was that it removed the fear of death and even the fear of God and therefore allowed me to live life more fully. To me, that is one of the greatest gifts that anyone has ever given me.

I can only hope that the “Long Island Medium” is able to help many, many others experience the same thing. To me, it is a gift like no other and I applaud her in her work.

Learn more about the Intuitive Arts program at the International Metaphysical University.