Why Mediums Disagree About the Afterlife
"If mediums can really talk to spirits, then why do so many disagree about the afterlife?
Put a group of mediums into a room and ask them what they think happens when we die, and chances are an argument is going to break out. Eyes will roll. Voices will rise. Opinions about the afterlife are varied and vast, and mediums are no different from the rest of humanity when it comes to beliefs about the spirit realm and its inhabitants. Having an opinion about something, though, doesn’t make you right.
Opinions are based on experience, knowledge, belief, perception, and past conditioning. Two people can have an identical experience and have two entirely different interpretations of what happened.
Let’s say that a winged human-like being has flown into my bedroom. If I know about angels and believe that they are helpful creatures created by God to serve man, then I’m going to assume that that is what this being is and welcome it.
I might also know about angels, but everything that I’ve learned about them is from a television series that depicts them as terrifying, warlike creatures who would smite me as soon as look at me. I’m going to have a much different experience than someone who believes that they are here to help and not to send me to hell.
What if my definition of an angel is that they are an alien race that has come here to enslave me, or to educate me, or to help me evolve? What if I was raised as a child to take this on faith, and believe that the biblical or metaphysical ideas about what kind of being an angel is are ridiculous? An experience is always subjective and open to interpretation. Police officers know this well when they interview witnesses to a crime.
In the psychic world, how psychically sensitive a person is and how they filter the intuitive information that they receive are also factors in their opinion of the afterlife. A medium might only have the ability to intuit entities that are extremely dark or extremely light, which could create the perception that there are no entities in between. It could be black and white, or heaven and hell for them.
In no way am I saying that there aren’t mediums out there who sit down with spirits, have nice long conversations with them, and get everything 100% right, but I’ve never met one. Even the best mediums are wrong fairly often. The reason for this, is that we are grabbing non-local data and trying to interpret it. If I ask a spirit about the afterlife, their answer is going to be based on my understanding of reality up to a point. They explain things to me in a way that my little three dimensional brain will absorb.
Mix all of this stuff together, and you have a paradigm soup that is unique to each medium. Our perception of reality has everything to do with what we believe about the afterlife, no matter how educated we are, or how much experience we have with the spirit world.
I know many mediums who disagree with me about this. They are absolutely sure that their experience with the afterlife is the only one that is right, and anyone who says differently isn’t really a medium. Far be it from me to tell them that they are wrong. I do think that it’s a great idea to keep an open mind about it, though. If I make a decision about what’s right, I might miss the truth.
Barbara Buck is a Foundational Reconnective Healing Practitioner, writer, intuitive development coach, and medium. For more information, please visit her website at www.barbarabuck.org.