Word Gems: Afterlife: Real psychic message vs telepathic scanning

I decided to ask several leading afterlife researchers for their input. My question went like this:

How can we know if a message is authentically from the other side, from a purported sender, and not just a telepathic probing of the mind by the psychic, not just words in an echo chamber?

Most messages do not lend themselves to third-party or some other external verification. I’ve had readings where the psychic knew what was inside my briefcase, and another reading where I mentally disagreed with the preliminary prayer she was offering, and she suddenly knew this, stopped the session, and apologized to me for meddling.

Incidents such as these could easily be a telepathic scanning of the mind. This is an important issue and calls into question the veridical quality of messages. Is there an answer to this?

At our current level of scientific understanding, we can't know, at least not objectively. The rare, highly experienced psychic might be able to know because they can on occasion sense the source of information. Best wishes, Dean

Dear Wayne, There has been a debate among psychic researchers for more than a century about whether psychics are genuinely getting messages from the other side or scanning the minds of living people. There is no definitive answer, so I'm sorry I can't illuminate this for you. Best wishes, Rupert Sheldrake

There is a difference between telepathic, mediumustic, and psychic messages. The situations you described were not mediumistic. When messages are truly from the other side you will have verification and a feeling it is correct. You can sense the feeling of spirit, [further,] many people now are also doing remote viewing, which is not spiritual [ie, mediumistic].

(I then asked if either the sitter or the message-giver will have verification, or both?) The sitter should be able to verify the information being presented by the medium. Sometimes they don't know. Later they may find out the medium was correct.

Hi Wayne, It's a little complicated, so I let your email simmer for a while, hopefully to get a little more clarity. It's not a perfect answer, but I hope it's pointed in the right direction......

I've come to believe that the cosmic standard for communication is the (silent, symbol-free) sharing of thoughts among resonant minds. Telepathy seems to be a birthright of being alive and tapped-in to the source and its life-energy or consciousness. It's the way spirits and most ETs apparently communicate.

Here on Earth, across the millennia, we humans have apparently developed a sort of sensory shell over our innate mind-to-mind receptivity. We call that shell our "conscious" mind, and I suspect it consists of the brain and whatever "normal" programming is involved biologically (and probably spiritually too) to align the brain to the impressions it receives from the five senses. The much more powerful and more natural (cosmically speaking) telepathic aspect of our self is sometimes called our subconscious or subliminal or intuitive or dormant mind.

So, I believe that mediumistic communication is more natural in the cosmic sense, and as a rule there's no deception in that type of communication. Thoughts are purely sent and received among resonant minds. The information might be inaccurate or of limited intelligence, but it is sent and received with sincerity. (An exception to that would include lower or denser spirits who are close (vibrationally) to Earth and get caught up in earthy thinking that often includes some deception.) But throughout the finer cosmos, I believe, communication is a smooth, honest flow of pure information among resonant minds.

So I think it's only on Earth (and in similar worlds, if there are any) where deception and uncertainty become an issue. Everywhere else I suspect that sincerity and honesty are taken for granted.

That's my reply. It probably has some holes in it that will become apparent later, but at least I hope that it moves the issue in the right direction with a possibility of expansion and fine-tuning.

Hi Wayne, Well, that's been one of the primary areas of debate in the field of parapsychology and psychical research for more than 140 years.

I can offer my personal opinion, as well as share an article on the topic from someone who has researched mediums under controlled conditions and has attempted to unravel this particular question.

First, from my perspective, there is a qualitative piece to the puzzle. That is whether the medium offered information that I wasn't thinking about, that I'd forgotten about, or didn't even know about, pertaining to my loved one who passed, which proved accurate. That is, some piece or pieces of information that a remote viewer could not share.

Next, there is an emotional component, where the medium has a deep sense of connection that can sometimes be overwhelming. In my experience, this is in stark contrast to providing a simple piece of information that could be ascertained through remote viewing or telepathy with the sitter.

The first time I ever met Fara Gibson, a gifted Arizona medium, I wasn't even there to discuss anything related to mediumship, but rather to have dinner with a mutual friend. But the minute I explained to her that my son Brandon, who passed at the age of 18, had been a bass player, she said, "Okay, he's interrupting our dinner. He says that his newest bass had an extra string." This was a stunning, unexpected validation that was not in my conscious thoughts at the time. Further, there is no information about this available through any social media platform, or search engine.

Indeed, just three months before Brandon passed, we gave him a 5-string bass for his birthday, replacing the 4-string bass that he'd been playing for years.

As for the article I mentioned, here's the link: https://w.windbridge.org/papers/TPR13RockBeischelCott2009.pdf - Mark Ireland

The last few paragraphs of Chapter 17 [of 'The Risen'], Tim Rises, offers the idea of the experience, "emotional recognition" - being able to recognize someone with very limited sensory data - i.e., you can detect someone's smile even though you can't see or hear it.

For all kinds of reasons, when someone in Spirit is making contact, the only thing we can rely on is the internal GPS system we know as feelings or intuition. Very often, the Risen Person (RP) can't remember what their own voice sounded like on earth when you last heard it - since they most likely don't use language and speech the way we do. They utilize what I can only call "a signature" (or info-sphere as noted in the books).

So often -- initially, of course, the communication sounds like the medium's voice -- even what's known as "independent voice" will at first sound like the medium's voice, but with practice and acclimation over time, the RP might be able to duplicate their voice's tone - although already, their cadence, eccentricities, slang, etc. will be pretty obvious and reliable.

All that being said - I'm from the "old school" - not many of us around anymore, sadly - which says that the RP must provide the proof that they're who they say they are. You have already answered yourself, in that you must require validation. Mediums and clients must have some kind of protocol that provides and requires those standards of proof they have determined as the best reliable evidence.

To me this means a "healthy skepticism" necessary. You test the communicator by challenging them immediately - "before we go any further, can you provide me some kind of proof now or later, which only I would and could recognize and validate - that you are who you say you are?"

If they're not who they say they are, they will often get snarky and try to make you feel guilty or stupid or ungrateful: "well I can only speak for a minute, and if you can't appreciate how hard it was for me to get here and say this much, I am very disappointed in you" etc. etc. Or they'll go completely silent, leaving the medium in a somewhat embarrassing position - indicating a trickster or "diakka" (see Andrew Jackson's book on the subject).

So sometimes you will feel, and then know right away by the vibes - or how your body reacts, that they are indeed who they say they are.

It's not an exact science, at least on our side, where our limitations so often impede and interfere with theirs. They may use the astral dream world as an easier entry, or send a bird or butterfly - which, if that happens, because these creatures are natural messengers and love to do it, always send a message back, even if you don't know who it's from - "Message received, I send love and light to you, thank you) or something like that.

There is a lot of "scanning" that goes on, especially from particularly gifted empaths who are consciously or not so consciously misusing their abilities as so much smoke and mirrors to provide the appearance of something numinous going on - all kinds of micro-muscular facial and body language, sub-sonic vocal sounds, etc., nothing to do with RPs, just Ps.

(I asked August if he had heard of the "Rickenbacker message," sent and received by ones still in this world.) I have heard of it, and it seems exceedingly rare. But it would make sense for those who understand "sense" how someone who hasn't transitioned but is astral traveling may be picked up on some radar - more like an "unconscious leak" than a conscious portal kind of achievement.

This would have been one of those cases where you could have insisted on evidential proof of some kind. Often the medium believes they are communicating with someone in spirit, but they're not - such mediums are ripe picking for low-level trickster spirits.

John Edwards, too, in a video interview was asked a similar question:

Interviewer: How can you determine that it [ie, the message] is genuinely something you are feeling or something that’s coming to you from somewhere else, is it really clear?

Edwards: Yes, it’s really, really clear because it’s something that’s coming at you [like a force]…

It seems that the scientific method cannot definitively affirm that messages received are not the product of telepathic scanning.

But, as more than one of the reporters indicated, one’s intuitive guidance system can offer assurance.

This reminds me, in principle, of what the great scientists have said about their quest for the truth in the natural world. It's all about intuition and right-brain perception:

Richard Feynman: "You can recognize truth by its beauty and simplicity. When you get it right, it is obvious that it is right."

Werner Heisenberg: Beauty “in exact science, no less than in the arts … is the most important source of illumination and clarity.”

Erwin Schrodinger: “Einstein’s marvelous theory of gravitation … could only be discovered by a genius with a strong feeling for the simplicity and beauty of ideas.”

Feynman and Gell-Mann: Beauty even challenges what appear to be facts. In 1958 these two researchers, proposing a new theory of weak interaction, did so even though it contradicted the findings of a number of experiments. It’s main attraction was its beauty: “It’s universal, it’s symmetric … it is the simplest possibility,” and this “indicates that these [previously conducted] experiments are wrong.” Gell-Mann further comments: “Frequently a theorist will throw out a lot of data on the grounds that if they don’t fit an elegant scheme, they’re wrong. That’s happened to me many times. The theory of weak interactions: there were nine experiments that contradicted it – all wrong. Every one. When you have something simple that agrees with all the rest of what’s going on, a few experimental data against it are no objection whatever. Almost certain to be wrong.”

See this page for dozens of similar assertions. These great scientists speak more like artists or musicians than rule-bound lab workers.

I think the answer we seek will access more art than science, more intuition than lab work.

This issue of authenticity comes into play, most poignantly, if – purportedly -- we’ve received a message from someone we love.

We really want to believe that the message is real. We crave this. But we’re dogged by doubts, “Maybe the psychic just read my mind and told me what I wanted to hear.”

Some sort of external verification would be desirable but this is not always possible. And when it's not, then you'll have to "fly the Enterprise with just manual controls" and your wits.

I think there’s a difference between the force of a message based upon wishful thinking versus the outsized emotional impact of a missive reflecting the yearning soul-energies of the absent one.

Is it a mere passing pleasant thought, just a whimsical fancy, that you might have received a message from a loved one? or, as John Edwards said, does it “come at you,” in a “really, really clear” way, like a great force to be reckoned with?

No one can settle this but you. We can play games in our heads which engender good feelings or repress doubts, but what do you really feel about this?

Is there a “deep sense of connection” which is “overwhelming”? Can you “sense the feeling of Spirit” overshadowing your person?

Editor’s note: August Goforth tells us that the universe is always saying yes to every good thing we want:

Power is in my thought and not my reaction to life. Pay less attention to what is and more attention to who I really am, which is really What Is.

Editor’s note: How often we’ve heard, “it is what it is.” I’ve never liked this fatalism, and now I know why. What the man on the street calls “what is,” mere life circumstance, is not the primary “what is,” because who and what we are on the deep inside is the grand reality, the real “what is.”

I am a center in God’s Being. It is the pulse of Life in all there is to me… Everything I need today will come to me…

Neither change nor problem rob my peace. This is simply so because I have ceased looking for help and solution outside of myself. I turn within and let God’s Mind reveal what is already known to It beforehand…

An interval ... is preparation for the good to come [but] which sometimes is negatively thought of as a delay.