Contrary to popular opinion, having psychic or mediumistic abilities is no indicator of spiritual advancement; in fact, it can actually be a hindrance to spiritual development. What many do not realise is that psychic and clairvoyant experiences take place at a level which is well below the plane of Self-realisation; therefore at best they can be nothing more than an illusion; just another game in the play of life. Most people who know me will be aware that I have worked as a platform medium for many years, and so may find that statement very difficult to comprehend; a medium saying that mediumship is nothing more than an illusion! What next? I’ve been aware of this truth for several years now and I realise that all I’m doing is going through the motions for the sake of appeasing the logical minds of those who wrongly believe they have “lost” loved ones. I suppose I’d better explain my thinking…

Firstly, I’m going to use an analogy my good friend, Michael Walters, coined a few years back. Michael says that life is like an onion; consisting of many layers. As we evolve, every now and then, one of those layers peels away and reveals a truth that was always there, it’s just that we couldn’t see it. As truth reveals itself, old, stale mindsets and beliefs simply dissolve away. They dissolve away because they are illusory and not true. They never were true; we simply made them our reality because we believed it to be so. With this in mind it’s fair to say that the onion, which is my life, has been peeling away layers in the last few years at an unbelievable speed.

So, what is clairvoyance? It is a series of temporary experiences that occur in the mind. This tells us that in order to experience clairvoyance we have to engage the mind. The mind is the ego, which falsely identifies with the body therefore what we experience is an illusion; it is transient and not true. If you have a clairvoyant experience there must be an object (your clairvoyant vision). If there is an object, there must also be a subject (the one having the vision). This is separateness (duality), which is an illusion. In infinite consciousness the object and the subject are one and the same; in ultimate truth nothing exists except infinite consciousness, which is One.

We also need to understand that in order to have a clairvoyant experience, the experiencer must be in communication with the astral planes. The astral planes are a vast, kind of extension, to the physical plane and are subject to the same natural laws. This means that the astral planes are subject to relativity, which in turn means that your experience of clairvoyance may be negative as well as positive. Similar conditions apply with regard to mediumship. You have a messenger, the one receiving the message and the message itself; this is another example of duality; in infinite consciousness the messenger, the receiver and the message are one and the same; there is no separateness.

As for psychic powers, they simply relate to the karmic pathway and like clairvoyance and mediumship, they will only exist when the mind falsely identifies with the body. Of course, it is true to say that if you are reading this and you have experienced any kind of psychic phenomenon, it is an indicator that you are starting to wake up to the reality of who you really are. Problems occur however, when people start to have these experiences and wrongly believe that they are the be-all-and-end-all. They develop attachments to the experiences and want them continuously, oblivious to the fact that such experiences are only ever going to be a stepping stone to Self-realisation. When we develop such attachments, and remain in the psychic and clairvoyant planes, it forms a barrier and keeps us in ignorance of our true nature.

Is it not a no-brainer? Why would you want to settle for a lettuce leaf when you can have a whole salad?