Trance Mediumship – aka My Time At Hogwarts

Yes, I went to the closest thing to Hogwarts you can imagine, the Arthur Findlay College for the Advancement of Spiritualism and Psychic Sciences. Located about an hour outside of London, England, this school is the real deal. It is an immersive environment where you eat, sleep and learn within a majestic English estate surrounded by breathtaking countryside. At the Arthur Findlay College you can study things like mediumship, psychic development, shamanism and all things surrounding spiritualism.

I had never heard of the Arthur Findlay College until a friend of mine introduced me to it by saying, “there’s this course I’m taking, we should go and take it together!” And before my left brain had a chance to come up with a million excuses why it wouldn’t be a practical or prudent decision, my right brain had already booked the flight and the class. So I guess I was going to England. And I am so glad I did.

The intense seven-day course we signed up for was Trance Mediumship. It’s a form of mediumship where you allow spirit to come close and speak through you. I went primarily to improve my mediumship abilities but walked away with so much more.

Trance is a spiritualist term for channeling. Channeling is a much more common term here in the States but also is a bit broader in scope than trance. For instance, you can channel Reiki, Earth energy, chi, etc. With trance you go into different states of consciousness to allow spirit to speak through you. Spirit can be passed loved ones or your spirit team (same as spirit guides but they’d prefer to be thought of as colleagues more so than guides).

Trance mediumship allows the sitter (or person being read) the opportunity to talk with their passed loved one. I witnessed and was party to full conversations being had where the passed loved one was answering questions only they would know with astonishing detail and accuracy. You can imagine the impact that would have on the sitter, truly powerful and incredibly healing.

 

Image by mdherren from Pixabay

Trance is like a Star Trek mind-meld where the consciousness of spirit merges with my consciousness. I’m still in control, I’m still aware of what’s going on and what’s being said. My body isn’t convulsing and my head doesn’t spin around 360 degrees.

I know what you’re thinking because it was the first thing I thought, “how do you know if it’s safe?” The thought of opening up and allowing a spirit to speak through you sounds like a form of possession. I should know, I was raised Catholic! The first day, the first meditation my spirit team came through and reassured me with a perfect metaphor, a car. First, think of your physical body like a car and your soul as the driver. As the driver of the car you are not the car. You can replace your car and still remain the same driver. It doesn’t change who you are. Your consciousness is tied to your car, but not always. Now, think about turning over the car keys to someone. You wouldn’t give the keys to just anyone. You would only let someone close to you, someone you know and trust drive your car. Your spirit team makes an agreement with you out of love and great respect. They simply borrow your car and you can move over to the passenger seat or you don’t have to even be in the car if you don’t want to. Then when they’re done, they simply give you back the keys.

The Law of Attraction also plays a big role. We worked all week to sit in trance and raise our vibration so that spirit could work with us. There’s no way anything of a lower frequency could try to inhabit our space because we were at vibrating at such a high frequency. It’s like being on the 13th floor of a building and the lower energies being stuck in the basement with no elevator and no means or desire to climb the floors.

In addition to mediumship, we also learned trance philosophy, trance art and trance healing. Trance philosophy is where your spirit team speaks through you on a number of topics and help provide clarity and answers to many of life’s big questions. This was the bit that felt more like what we think of as channeling. The words and insight that came through were so powerful, intelligent and articulate that I knew it wasn’t coming from me. I mean, I know I’m awesome, but the wisdom that they poured out was just awe-inspiring. And you could really feel the presence of something greater when we all went into trance philosophy.

In trance healing, we simply went into trance and allowed our spirit team to come through and work with the individual in front of us. As the person going into trance, all we had to do was sit in the trance state. There was no laying on of hands, no action on our part, just sitting silently. When I was the receiver of this healing, I felt a lot of powerful energy moving through my system and felt surrounded by gentle, loving and supportive beings. If I had to compare it to Reiki, I would say that trance healing felt more spiritual and less physical which meant it was less tangible. As a result, I think I was able to open up my psychic awareness more after the session. Since I’ve been back, I’ve tried combining this with Reiki and can feel my team stepping out through me and surrounding my client around the table. The first time I tried this, my client, who didn’t know about trance healing, said that she could feel presence of many of my guides around her throughout the session – she had never felt that before!

For trance art, we learned from a phenomenal teacher, Lynn Cottrell who could draw an image of someone’s loved one or their spirit guide with both hands simultaneously, with her EYES CLOSED! I have never seen anything like that in my life. She taught us how we could go into trance and draw pictures and images that would be relevant to the sitter. In one exercise, she had us channel passed artists like Rodin, Monet and Manet. There were some in the group with zero art experience that could draw a picture as if they were one of these great masters. I just don’t have words to describe seeing this first hand. If you ever get a chance to see Lynn in person, please do yourself a favor and go!

Throughout the week and through our many exercises and experiences, I learned that different members of my spirit team would step forward for healing vs. philosophy vs. mediumship. For instance, I had a spirit team for healing, a spirit team for philosophy and a spirit team to help with mediumship and art. So certain members of my team would step forward depending on what was needed at the time. Am I aware of all the members of my team? Honestly, no. But I can feel their energy, their love and support and that is enough for me.

Trance is a tool. It is a tool to help us connect more deeply with ourselves and more deeply with spirit. It can take a medium up to five years of practice in order for them to become a full channel for their spirit team. And it’s a two-way street. Spirit is learning how to work with us, just as we are learning to work with them.

I am excited to offer this new tool to those that are grieving, those that need some encouragement and reassurance in their life, those that feel lost and those that want to reconnect with their own, spirit within. I’m not sure where this journey will take me but I am enjoying the ride and trusting the process and I feel much love and support along the way.

Sending much love and light and spirit blessings to you!

Francie