Inula Austin Soul Growth

The very fact that every human has inate intuition (psychic or soul senses) on some level would suggest to most people that underlying everything is a First Cause of some kind.

Now, whether or not you choose to name that ‘God’, ‘Great Spirit’, ‘Divine Infinite’, ‘Absolute’, etc, makes no difference to me.

Being raised in a Christian household and growing up with an image of a patriarchal and often angry Abrahamic God, was a setback for me. It has taken me a lifetime to unravel all of the knots that that created in my own psyche: the periods of agnosticosm, the periods of atheism, pagan dabbling and more besides.

It is only recently that I have begun using the word ‘God’ again more freely, and that is due to the work I have personally undertaken to free myself from the constrictions of Christian dogma and organised religious beliefs. I also use the term ‘Great Spirit’, ‘Divine Consciousness’, and other terms interchangeably because I understand that others hear the word ‘God’ and recoil because of their own religious wounding, saying ‘God’ for me saves time but italso means that my definition of That goes unexpressed (and is therefore open to misinterpretation).

My belief in an Absolute has no religious connotation and does not rely on any dictat nor definition from any organisation that may consider itself a gatekeeper of Universal Wisdom. My God is universal, loving, understanding, transcendent yet imminent, personal, and infinite. My God is at back of all that is manifest and unmanifest, the reflection of which is inherent in all things and without whom we would not have the animate life that sustains our form.

As I said, it has taken me a long road to reach this peace with that which I understand as God and not a small amount of inner healing. Most importantly, though, have been the personal experiences or revelations when Great Spirit has revealed their Self to me (though it is more a remembrance of ‘I Am That’). In those exquisite moments, I have been so immersed in the reality of That Which Is as to never have any doubt again to its existence. 

It is thanks to my awakening, spiritual journey, and in no small part, my mediumship development, that I have been afforded multiple opportunities to gradually understand my place in life and the Power behind and within all things. With awakening and any pathway of self development comes the purification and relinquishing of many old behaviors and habits. Within these are the beliefs that we carry due to our conditioning, either via our own, personal experiences, or those messages received from others.

Developing mediumship gave me the impetus to gain a deeper understanding of my own spirit origin, then through years of reconnecting members of the public with their loved ones in the Next World, I was party to more and more evidence to support my new and burgeoning understanding, that there was an intelligent consciousness beyond everything.

The ‘Spirit’ that we speak of in terms of mediumship is that animating force or spark that gives life. We are ‘created in the image of God’ due to our having the breath of life (‘ruach’ in ancient hebrew) within us.

It is this reflection of ‘Spirit’ aka ‘the Holy Spirit’ aka ‘The Power’, which is a stepping down of the God Force, like electricity flowing through a transformer, into a household appliance, it is that which gives all life.

When, at so-called physical death, the sheath of physical matter has become degenerated beyond repair (due to accident, age, dis-ease, or a combination) it falls away leaving the etheric or astral counterpart/vibration of an individual, still very much alive but only able to be registered beyond the physical senses (ie through the use of clairvoyance, clairaudience or clairsentience). The spirit is still the animating force in the individual, and it is this that we have come to refer to in mediumship.

This example of the God-Force at work, specifically in the human being, would lead me to conclude, therefore, that God (Great Spirit, The Absolute etc etc) cannot be separated out from our work as mediums.

However, that is not what some mediums think.

I have worked with more than a few mediums who claim no belief in a higher power whatsoever.

Remember, these are individuals working to reconnect people with their loved ones in the Next World.  They claim to work with ‘spirit’. One can only assume that they do not have an understanding of what that ‘Spirit’ actually is, either that or they have replaced the facts of the matter with their own erroneous beliefs and misunderstanding.

Equally, the aforementioned mediums will also acknowledge that they work with spirit guides, yet what is a spirit guide if they are not spirit, i.e. God created and sustained individuals?

In this modern era, we have fallen prey to the vagaries of reductionist scientific theory. Science, which seems largely populated by those who believe that they are God, all busy in their laboratories, boiling everything down to particles and atoms, hollowing out life until it is an empty, stale husk, and no closer to discovering their own origins. They look without when everything is found within.

The animating force and creative consciousness that has brought (and continues) to bring order out of chaos is limply labeled as ‘energy’ (an easy soubriquet also adopted by the New Age Movement). This has led to the Divine behind all things being sidelined. Whilst our being is built and maintained by energetic vibration and frequency, labeling it simply as ‘energy’ alone, it is easy to forget about the intelligence, love, and personal essence behind and within everything.

Mediums develop and hone their mediumship attunement (that is, their ability to sense and perceive the finer vibrations of the world of the spirit) by sitting regularly in a development circle. This is where we sit in what is known as ‘The Power’. Now, it is known as that in the 21st century, but when spiritualism became prevalent in the west back in the 19th and 20th centuries, this intelligent, creative and transformative energy was called by it’s correct title: ‘The Power of The Spirit’ or more often than not, ‘The Power of The Holy Spirit’.

Many modern mediums might be surprised to learn that the energy in which they sit week after week is actually none other than that of the creative and transformative God-Force.

Mediumship, in its most practical sense, was a tool devised by Great Spirit and the hierarchies of the world of the spirit in order to try to spiritualise the earth and humanity. Structure and organisation was sought to instruct, educate, and prepare mediums to go out into their communities and deliver incontravertable evidence of the continuance of life beyond so-called physical death. In that way, it was hoped beyond hope that individuals who witnessed these demonstrations of survival would seek to understand themselves and their origins better and more completely. It was (and still is) believed that individuals working on themselves and developing their own inner worlds would become a catalyst that would eventually create a heaven upon the earth.

Mediums who are well read, grounded in facts and evidence, and who understand the provenance of their own abilities know that when they deliver mediumship they are working in service of God and the people in the Next World.

There are, of course, the added benefits of being able to comfort and uplift the recipient of a message or spirit contact, but these are not the primary reasons that mediumship is allowed (by God, no less) to exist. 

Mediumship should always carry at its heart the understanding of the importance of the spiritualisation of those in attendance. Mediums serve God, the spirit people serve the human individuals present at a demonstration. It is because of a lack of understanding in the most basic mechanics of mediumship and the distorted and erroneous beliefs and attitudes of some mediums that individuals who serve the Great Spirit are able to say, straight faced: ‘I dont believe in God.’ It’s only a good job that He doesn’t require your belief.

Then I ask you, why be a medium? Or perhaps how are you a medium? Who do you believe you are serving? The recipient or perhaps yourself?

Whether we call this intelligent power by any one of its multiple names, the fact that mediumship exists (along with all of creation) is testimony to God’s own existence.

Of course, one doesn’t have to have a belief in anything if one is not ready, willing, or able to understand a concept or idea. I would simply suggest that if you are a working medium, or someone who is developing mediumship that you at least give serious thought to your beliefs.

For starters, are they simply beliefs, or are they based in your own experience? Did you formulate your own ideas, or were they handed down to you by another? Are your beliefs a rebellion or pushback against a system that you find inherently unkind or abusive? Are your beliefs based on a wholly negative experience of religion in your formative years? Your answers may be revealing.

I really don’t mind what anybody calls God (although I have struggled in the past with people calling It ‘the universe’, which to me makes it seem finite and not absolute), it is your belief that matters particularly if you are a medium! Remember, YOU sit in the reflected Power of the Great Spirit to develop your abilities, which are inate in you because you are created in His/Her image. When YOU say that you ‘serve spirit’, it is not some abstract, fluffy ‘other’ which you serve. It is actually the Divine/God that you speak of.  

Whether you wish to believe in a Higher Power or remain on the fence, I am assured of one thing, the Divine Infinite knows YOU.

So, can we extract the ‘spirit’ from mediumship?

Some mediums will always try, but mainly because of a lack of basic training, good, common sense, reading, and knowledge. Some because they are those dear souls who wish to be seen as a little ‘alt’, special or different and others because they are just plain arrogant and materialist in their view of the world ‘if you can’t see it, it can’t be real.’

(Though how you can be a medium and think like this is beyond me!)

My own experience tells me that you can not extract the sacred essence from that which is inherently sacred without making it hollow and husklike, as dry, and as misguided as the religion of my childhood.

(As I said at the beginning of this piece, it took me many decades to separate out the God I knew and experienced, from the dross and hot air provided by the church and organised religion. I have worked with many people who have suffered serious physical and sexual abuse at the hands of clergy, so I fully appreciate that there are those of you for whom God and religion is simply a no-go. I wish you only peace and healing.

I know that those who have committed abuse against others will have to pay for it eventually. There is no escaping karmic law, no matter who you think you are.)