Tag Archives: Trance

Mediumship rules

There are three chief and most essential factors to be considered :
(1) Your mental and physical health must be quite up to the standard. If you are depleted, exhausted, or “run down” physically, if you are suffering from any disease, or if, on the other hand, you are full of fear, apprehension and doubts, or if anger and similar thoughts rage in your soul, you may anticipate a difficult time in your development and unpleasant experiences throughout that slow process.

(2) You should be careful to keep your self consciousness active and alert when entering trance. Do not give yourself up completely or allow the mind to become a blank at first. Give yourself up in every other way but this. You must always keep in the background of your mind the thought: “I am I … I am so-and-so (your name) … I will remain in my body. … I am strength and power … I will not be influenced against my will by forces other than good. … I can always return to myself when I want to.”
These and similar suggestions you must give to yourself, and hold them in your mind as a central point of force while entering trance, even when allowing yourself to become passive in every other way. If you do this, you will avoid a great deal of difficulty and danger.

(3) If you can in any way assure yourself that you have a band of spirits or controls “on the other side” who are ready and willing to help you, this would mean much. A good medium or clairvoyant could probably tell you whether this is the case, and the nature of the intelligences who are trying to influence and act upon you.

If these are described as evil, you had best postpone your development until this condition changes. If, on the contrary, they are described as good and helpful, you may proceed, subject to the above precautions and advice.

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Enter trance by yourself

In order to induce trance spontaneously in yourself you should proceed, more or less as follows:

Begin by gazing for some time at a bright object, such as a reflected light, coming from a mirror, crystal-ball, etc.

This will tend to tire the eyes and nerves slightly and bring about a dazed condition which is usually the beginning of trance. While looking at the bright object, breathe deeply and regularly through the nose and from the diaphragm. You must not let this distract your attention, however, as all the bodily processes should be unconscious. If you have already practiced deep breathing, as before explained, you should by this time be so far advanced that you can do so at will without consciously thinking of it.

While looking at the bright object, do not concentrate or think of anything in particular, beyond keeping yourself conscious and remembering all the time that you are “yourself,” that you are not leaving your body and that you are not going to become totally unconscious.

During this process the room should be as quiet as possible, though some monotonous sound such as the ticking of a large clock, might assist matters. Do not listen to this consciously, however abolish all feelings of fear and all anxiety, as such mental states will effectually prevent you from entering the trance condition. “Let yourself go” and develop as far as possible.

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Experiment with the trance

You may experiment with your own trance condition profitably in the following manner:
Sit with pencil in hand for Automatic-Writing, and induce one or more friends of yours to do the same thing at the same time. See whether there is any connection between your writings, when they are compared the next day. In many instances, where this has been tried, striking coincidental messages have been received, partly through one medium and partly through another. They thus tend to confirm each other and show that the same spirit intelligence is active and manifesting through both mediums at the same time, almost, or one directly after the other.

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Somnambulism and trance

The difference between somnambulism and the medium trance seems to be that, in the former, we remain en rapport with ourselves and in the latter we are in touch with the Spirit World. Many mediums who give inspirational messages or lectures from the platform are in a condition of light trance, and children have been known to pass into this condition and give a large amount of valuable information, unknown to their seniors, and which certainly could not have been known to themselves.
Properly managed, the trance condition is not harmful, though it may become so in the hands of blundering persons. “The Spiritualist’s Manual” gives four chief reasons why the trance state should not be harmful to those who enter it. These are:

(1) The intelligences acting upon them (the mediums) are almost invariably of a superior character and therefore must mould the organism by constant use for the expression of higher forms of thought.
(2) The relation of the medium to the manifesting intelligence is that of pupil to teacher, sometimes that of a child to a wise and loving parent, and sometimes both these relations combined with a subtle and ennobling spirituality.
(3) There is always a mutual spiritual relation, even though the medium is not humanly conscious of it ; and no one can be a medium for the perfect expression of spiritual messages or discourses who does not consent to the procedure and co-operate with the manifesting spirit.

(4) As the master musician improves the instrument he plays upon, so also a spirit controlling a human organism for the purpose of expressing wholesome thought, imparts a greater power both to the brain and spirit of the medium. It is often difficult for spirits to control a medium sufficiently to manifest in any way through him.

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Light and deep trance

There are all grades and degrees of trance, from the very light stage, in which there is but little difference from the ordinary waking consciousness, to that degree of deep trance where the medium is totally unconscious of everything that passes around him. Very deep trance of this character is rare, but many of the most famous mediums have got their best messages while in that condition. The famous Mrs. Piper of Boston had almost to die, to all outward appearances, before she could enter this deep trance, and at the end of two hours or so, during which the trance lasted, the only signs of life were slow respiration and heart beat. The only signs of consciousness were manifest in the right hand and arm which did the automatic-writing.
Many test-mediums and sensitives, on the other hand, pass into a stage of trance so light, that no one but an expert could detect any trance at all. Yet, in many such cases, no memory of the condition remains after the trance is finished. These light trances differ but slightly from cases of day-dreams, absent-mindedness, etc., when we say to a person, half in joke: “You are in a trance!” By shades and degrees this becomes deeper, as the state becomes more profound and lower and lower layers or strata of the subconscious mind are reached, Mrs. Piper had three distinct “layers” of this character. The first differed slightly from the waking state. In this condition she talked. The second condition was far deeper trance and in this stage spirits were seeu instead of human beings. In the third or deepest stage speech was usually absent and automatic writing occurred.

In trance, we may assume that there is a gradual and fluctuating control of the medium’s mind and body by the communicating spirit, and that, as one vacates or is driven out by the invading intelligence, the latter is able to control, more and more effectually, the medium. Just as “two solid bodies cannot be in the same place at the same time,” so two spirit intelligences cannot occupy and control the same body at the same moment.
When once the fact of spirit control is granted, the nature and character of this control remains to be solved. How does the spirit manipulate the brain and nervous mechanism of the medium, to bring about the desired results. What parts of the brain are used, and how? These and many similar questions remain to be answered; and it may take many years of scientific research before we are enabled to answer queries such as these with any degree of confidence.

Trance and Catalepsy

Trance is a condition into which certain mediums enter in order to receive messages and give them in the form of speaking or writing. No one knows, at the present time, what the medium-trance is, or for that matter, any other kind of trance ! Dr. George Moore says: “Trance is a state of body sometimes produced in man a condition utterly inexplicable by any principle taught in the schools.” Prof. William James stated his belief that the medium-trance was different from any other trance of which we have any knowledge, and this seems to be borne out by the fact that spirit-messages are given in this condition, as well as telepathic, clairvoyant and premonitory messages of all kinds.

Both trance and catalepsy occur spontaneously; both may also be induced artificially by hypnotism. Both are mistaken for death, and in many respects they are very similar. In catalepsy the body is rigid, whereas in trance this is very rarely the case this forming the chief mark of distinction (external indication) between the two states. What the internal differences are we do not know. Various attempts, however, have been made to define them. Dr. Franz Hartmann, e.g., thus distinguishes them: “There seems hardly any limit to the time during which a person may remain in a trance but catalepsy is due to some obstruction in the organic mechanism of the body on account of its exhausted nervous power. In the last case the activity of life begins again as soon as the impediment is removed or the nervous energy has recuperated its strength.
When a hypnotist places bis subject under hypnotic control, the subject remains en rapport with the operator. The influence comes from a living person. In the medium-trance it seems probable that the operator is not a living but a deceased person, and that it is a kind of telepathic influence from spirits which induces this state. In fact, it is brought about by influence from the “other side.”

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