I really feel I should cover this in my next book. I certainly touched on it in "Diary of a Love Affair", but I feel many people feel its creepy or scary or touches on the dark side of the occult. Well to enlighten the ignorant, its about love and light and I can guarantee anyone who has visited a Spiritualist medium for a reading will come away the better for having done so.
Spiritualism, is very similiar in lots of ways to Christianity, we believe in God and we believe in the Higherarchy of Angels and indeed this alone is one of the seven Principals we follow and the foundation of our religion. Many of us have a favourite, mine is number six: "Retribution and compensation for all souls", which basically means, what you give out in life you will get back tenfold. We also believe as well as God, we believe in Spirit, for not only can we pray or ask God for advice, we can ask advice from Spirit Guides. These are souls, who are highly developed and lived many life times, who have evolved and become truer in spirit. They aim is to guide us, help us, follow our spiritual path, and show us how to become better people. Like Christianity we believe we live on after physical death, but we go on to seek proof of survival, evidence to prove to someone who has come for a reading, that their loved ones are still alive and well albeit not in the physical sense.
Medium's use a variety of means to connect with Spirit, and all of use have had this ability since birth. You cannot learn to become a Medium, it is a gift, it can be developed and tuned, but it is God given. Please do not confuse us with Psychics, for this is where we differ. All Mediums possess a psychic ability, but not all psychics are Mediums, we work on different planes. The Psychic works by connecting to the Auric field i.e. the electromagnetic energy field that surrounds all living things. This can give the psychic details of out past and present, future, well that is never written in stone, for we all have free will. The Medium will often begin a reading tapping into this to begin with as this often gives an indication of the nature as to why they were consulted and some will use a Mantic tool, such as Crystals, Tarot etc.
At some point and generally its near the begining of a reading with me, I will connect with Spirit. Now no Medium can summon a Spirit to order, it doesn't work that way, but generally when someone comes for a reading it's because they have something troubling them and their own Spirit guides (yes we all have them) will know what the problem is and may well bring someone who has passed away recently (if they have suffered a bereavement) or a relative, be it a father, mother etc. who wishes to pass on comfort or advice or simply pass on just love.
A reading is no way creepy or frightening what so ever, sometimes I see spirit in the physical sense but as I have developed my skills as a Medium, more often than not I see spirit in my minds eye, this is termed 'Mental Mediumship'. I have never known anyone to come away frightened but every person who has visited a genuine Medium, will seek to find evidence and tell the person who they are doing the reading for, some sort of proof, only they would know. This is very comforting to them to know their loved ones live on and are watching over them. All will go away uplifted. We don't sit in the dark, with candles lit, not do we wear big gold hooped earrings and colourful scarfs on our heads. We just look normal and we are, but we have this ability to be sensitive albeit like radio picks up sound waves, to pick up communication from beyond the grave.