Mediumship – Séance or Science?

Most mediums are pretty vague about what exactly they do. They use a type of psychic condition, be it light or deep, and receive through some method, a message. This comes from an intelligence who is not physically incarnate and who might be good, bad or, very often, indifferent.

Sometimes the communication will be delivered through the voice of the medium which requires them to enter trance. In nearly all cases, this will be what Dr George King describes as a negative trance. In this state, the channel negates their consciousness and allows themselves to be taken over by the communicating entity. Dr King stated that such a trance condition is extremely dangerous because the medium has little or no control over the state they are entering, and therefore could at some stage be easily possessed by a malevolent force. I strongly recommend Dr King’s brilliant lecture, “Trance – Its Various Types“.

I have to confess that when I first started to channel over 30 years ago in a very basic way, I allowed certain guides to speak through me. I discovered for myself that, although I was in a relatively light trance condition which I could stop at any time, it lessened my degree of control and led to mistakes being made. Fortunately, I was a student of Dr King, who was I believe, the greatest exponent of mediumship ever. He corrected me while at the same time encouraging me not to give up.

I have never practiced trance mediumship again and I would not advise most people to do so unless they are at the adept stage. Dr King taught that it requires at least ten years of yoga practice every day, by which he meant advanced techniques of mental and psychic development, before practicing trance mediumship. I would think that rules out almost every medium in the public domain, but I stand to be corrected. As is well known, he practiced such yoga disciplines for ten years for an average of eight hours a day.

There are other forms of channeling though, which are completely safe to practice. I am not suggesting – and certainly not recommending – that this is something that everyone should do. There is also the danger of mental delusion, and sometimes mental health issues, when people think they are “hearing voices” which are actually their own thoughts. Much more important to the world for most people would be to pray, heal and give other forms of effective spiritual service to humanity. It is something that I have been called to do, in addition to these other practices, and through it, I have gained a very small appreciation of just how extraordinary and exceptional is the mediumship of Dr King.

A few years ago I used to co-host a popular talk show on the well-known British radio station, LBC, with the late Mike Allen. It was called “The Phenomena Files” and took place every Saturday evening. We hosted dozens of mediums and psychics, some of whom demonstrated effectively, if at a rather basic level, their abilities. It was clear to me that they did not understand the exact mechanics of what they were doing. This does not matter providing it is safe and the results are positive, but it does illustrate again, the unique caliber of Dr King who understood it completely.

Channelling has been with us through the ages. Socrates, Saint Joan, and Sir Winston Churchill all claimed to receive guidance or messages from various sources. The German composer, Robert Schumann, claimed to have been visited from the afterlife by Franz Schubert, who gave him a wonderful melody. The 18th-century British artist and poet, William Blake, stated:

“13 years ago I lost a brother and with his spirit I converse daily and hourly in the Spirit and See him in my remembrance in the regions of my Imagination. I hear his advice and even now write from his Dictate.”

More recently the leading Theosophists, Madame Blavatsky and Alice Bailey, who were key to the hierarchical plan at that time, received teachings from certain Masters using various methods. Alice Bailey, in particular, frowned upon psychic and mediumistic practices which were prevalent in her day, describing her rapport with the Tibetan instead as a telepathic collaboration. Despite her reservations about psychic techniques though, she must have used them to some extent to achieve this. In fact, from my experience, clairaudience is extremely valuable because if you can psychically hear the voice of the intelligence who is communicating with you, it is much easier to discriminate between your own thoughts and those coming from outside of yourself.

The most scientific explanation I have come across from earlier centuries was given by the Swedish inventor, philosopher and mystic Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772). He claimed contacts with extraterrestrial beings from this solar system who, he said, visited him. In his words:

“Spirits from thence came to me, and applied themselves to my left temple, where they breathed their speech upon me, but I did not understand it …  It breathed first upon the left Temple and upon the upper part of the left ear; the breathing proceeded thence to the left eye, and by degrees to the right, and flowed down afterward, especially from the left eye, to the lips; and when at the lips it entered through the mouth, and through a way within the mouth, and, indeed, through the Eustachian tube, into the brain. When the breathing arrived there, I understood their speech, and was able to speak with them. When they spoke with me, I observed that my lips were moved, and my tongue also slightly, which was owing to the correspondence of interior with exterior speech.”

Although I do not consider his channeling to be completely accurate, nevertheless this is quite a precise description of the methodology he used, which bears a stamp of authenticity about it. He would not have had access to knowledge of the Kundalini, psychic centers and nadis found in eastern writings, and yet he seems to be describing the psychic nervous system which they allude to. It appears that some kind of energy was impressed upon him, which traveled through various channels within him and was then translated into intelligible thought and language by his brain.

However, even he does not come close to the scientific exactitude of Dr King’s description of the completely unique method he used to receive the Cosmic Transmissions. These are some of his words from an article “Why Trance?” published in Cosmic Voice Issue No. 7 of Cosmic Voice Volume No. 2:

The Interplanetary Communicators are able to transmit their thoughts upon a magnetic beam which acts as a carrier wave. This beam, or carrier wave, can be directed by their applied mental pressures with almost uncanny accuracy towards any human being, whether capable of conscious reception or not.

This very precise description would probably rule out most, if not all, of the guides on other realms below the very highest, who would wish to communicate through an earthly medium. They simply would not be able to direct a magnetic beam as a carrier wave with such accuracy towards their receiver. He continued:

The radiation is not limited to distance between transmitter and receiver, neither is it limited by differing vibratory octaves of existence. In other words, The Master Aetherius is capable of transmitting His thought waves in a predetermined pattern over great physical distances and from different planes of existence.

Un-ascended guides from the other realms, unless they are of the highest caliber, generally overshadow a trance medium by impressing upon them certain thoughts and feelings with varying degrees of control. If there is full control by the guide it could be fairly accurate, but also extremely dangerous for the medium as mentioned before. Less control will tend to bring a greater discoloration of the message by the thoughts and emotions of the channel. Either way though, it will not be the precise relay of an exact thought-form perfectly received and translated into sound, as demonstrated by Dr King through the samadhic condition he entered. As he put it:

The Yogic trance condition is employed by me in order to tune into, and receive, the mental stimuli directed by the Interplanetary Communicators. I have learned how to raise the psychic current (Kundalini) from the lower centers and lodge it in a certain higher chakra in order to activate that center to such a degree that prolonged concentration upon the actual carrier beam which conveys the thought transmission is possible. At the same time, I completely detach myself from the results of the sound translation to such an extent that my own pet likes, dislikes, and opinions of the conscious mind cannot discolor the actual message itself.

Have you ever heard a description as technical as that? Do you know of anyone capable of controlling Kundalini to that extent and then using it for mediumship? I doubt that any other medium could even identify exactly which psychic center or centers are being activated, or where the Kundalini is precisely lodged, while they are in the process of receiving a communication. If mediumship were a profession Dr King would be so much at the top of it, that he would have to be given a whole new job description.

In addition to the Cosmic Transmissions he received as a trance medium, he took hundreds of mental transmissions in which he still received with unerring accuracy the telepathic beam of consciousness transmitted to him. He explained:

It is, of course, possible to receive a series of telepathic impressions while still being fully conscious of one’s immediate surroundings. But to share an experience with others – at the same time – by translating the whole series into sound or speech, needs a positive type of Yogic trance condition. Perhaps the greatest lecture I have ever heard was given to me by The Master Aetherius while I was traveling on top of a bus! And this stream of illumination lasted for two whole hours. During the time I was detached from, yet dimly aware of, my immediate environment.

When taking a mental transmission – and some of us have been privileged to be with him as he did so – he would be totally focused on receiving it, but not in a yogic trance condition. He would either write the message down or dictate it in his own voice into a tape recorder.

According to Mars Sector 6 on July 21st, 1964:

Search as you will throughout the world we refer to as Terra, you will never find greater Teachings, more simply given, a greater Truth with less distortion than you find in and through Mental Channel Number One.

Here Mars Sector 6 makes the highest possible judgment of Dr King as Mental Channel Number One or Primary Terrestrial Mental Channel. Firstly, we will never find greater Teachings – a fact which, as far as I am concerned, becomes increasingly clear as the years go by. For me, even great spiritual works from the past pale next to “The Nine Freedoms“, “The Twelve Blessings” and certain of our other Teachings. Secondly, there is less distortion in our Teachings because of the brilliantly elevated exactitude of Dr King’s ability to receive them.

“The greatest medium on Earth in history” doesn’t even do him justice because he was really in a category of his own. More than a medium, he was virtually a receiver and transmitter of light without diffraction, diffusion or distortion. He was the master who demonstrated that the unstable and possibly dangerous terrain of the séance could become the firm, glorious cosmic landscape of science.

About the author
Richard Lawrence is the Executive Secretary of The Aetherius Society for Europe and a Bishop in The Aetherius Churches. He has devoted his life to the work of his Master and personal friend, Dr. George King (1919-1997), who founded the Society. He is also an international bestselling author of more than 10 books.