DEVELOPING MEDIUMSHIP Gordon Smith

Review
In Developing Mediumship, Gordon Smith teaches you how to discover and nurture your abilities as a medium, using simple, powerful meditations and exercises. Gordon also shares some of his most memorable and enlightening experiences. He shows how your spiritual development takes you through an intensive examination of your mind, self and emotions. He then teaches you how to develop your connection with the spirit world and form closer relationships and communication with the spirits. He discusses development circles, switching your link on and off, meeting your Guide and the progression to giving readings. With his familiar humour, warmth and skill, this is essential reading for anyone drawn to helping others with the aid of spirit.
256pp, 138mm x 212mm, Paperback, 2009

Extract
'Whatever you do or dream you can, begin it.
Boldness has power, genius and magic in it.'
Goethe

Have you ever thought, 'There's got to be more to life than this?' I think most people at some stage or other in their lives do so, and usually go on to more probing musings like, 'Why am I here?' or 'What is the purpose of my life?' and 'Is there life after death?' This is particularly true for those who feel they possess psychic or mediumistic ability.

Throughout history there have always been people who have shown unique gifts and special abilities for seership, healing, telepathy and even communicating with the so-called 'dead'. You may ask, 'Is all of this just pure coincidence?' Some people would dismiss it as such, but the succession of psychically gifted people recorded throughout time seems to suggest that there are abilities that cannot yet be fully explained, and moreover that there are people who possess these abilities.

I should say up front that I am not a person who believes in coincidence. And ever since I can remember, I have been aware of a sense of something strange happening around me - a feeling, if you like, of being different, a bit unusual, aware of energies that others didn't seem to see or feel. Many psychic and telepathic experiences occurred during my early life that no one close to me seemed able to explain.

When I was a young child, these happenings frightened my mother, causing her great alarm. I was distressed to be the cause of her upset, so I learned very quickly to keep them to myself. Then, in my early twenties, after the sudden death of a close friend's brother in a house fire and his early morning visitation to me to say goodbye as he passed over into spirit, I could no longer ignore the truth of what I could see, hear and feel. Spirit was asking me to wake up.

So I took it upon myself to investigate these mystical happenings. I felt compelled to learn more. It was something I felt I just had to do. It was as if a voice inside me kept calling and calling until I finally answered.

Soon after committing to exploring my abilities, I set out to join a Spiritualist development circle. I literally walked the length of West Prince's Street in Glasgow three times one Thursday night, trying to find my new spiritual classroom. On the third pass by, I decided to give up if I had no success in finding the right place.

Fortunately for me, Mrs Primrose, my new spiritual teacher-to-be, was somehow moved to look outside the door one more time before starting her circle. As circumstance would have it, I was passing that door for the third and final time at that very moment. She spotted me and looked searchingly into my eyes, right through to my soul. It was then that she invited me inside. And so it was that I began my true spiritual journey.

It is my firm belief that she was meant to look out at that moment and I was meant to be there that night. I don't believe that people who are meant to work for the spirit wourld can ever be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Spirit ensures that this simply does not happen. Remembering how close I was to going straight home that night, and in all probability never going back, I realize that spirit made sure I was not allowed to slip by.

Despite having experienced many psychic happenings during the course of my early life, joining this circle was to be just the beginning of my real training. Those early life events turned out to be no more than mere glimpses of what I could achieve as a medium if my abilities were properly developed.

A quick word of definition here: there is a very large difference between being psychic and being mediumistic. To be psychic and to have psychic ability is to tune into an object or person here on the earth plane and see their life. To be a medium, however, is to provide a bridge for those who have crossed. For an example, if a person saw the future and it happened, that would be a psychic event, but to bring a message through from a person in the spirit would to one still living here would be the work of a medium. All mediums are psychic, but not all psychics are mediums. That's because all mediums pick up information psychically from people as well as through the spirit world.

There are actually many thousands of people all around the world who have both psychic and mediumistic gifts. However, for whatever reason, only a few make concerted and committed attempts to develop them further. If you are one of those people who is aware they might have a gift and at the very least a desire to help others with the aid of spirit, then I am writing this especially for you. If inside you there is a voice, however small, calling to you, then go boldly forward. If you cannot help but follow that voice, then the quest to broaden your mental horizons and develop your spiritual mediumship, not to mention discover your own true self and spiritual nature, has already begun.

From Developing Mediumship, ?2009 by Gordon Smith, published by Hay House.