Mediumship is Fortune-Telling
or Talking to the Dead

This is probably the greatest misconception about mediumship. Mediumship is a spiritual path that is focused on the present moment, and the revelation of its cause and effect. The untangling of karma, the understanding of emotional behavioral patterns and is rooted firmly in the attempt to understand one’s Divine Plan. Discovering the reason our spirit has chosen to incarnate in this life, in this form, and for a very specific reason. The connection to the astral and the spirit realms is not meant to give us answers, but to help us further our curiosity and inspire us to make better choices in this life. 

Though connection to a beloved who has passed is possible, it is not the focus or goal of this path. In the study of Spiritism, for example, we understand the importance of the reason why we have no recollection of past experiences and the reason we have chosen to forget and disconnect from the spirit realms for the duration of life here in the material form. Having access to loved ones just to have them “answer questions” would not be beneficial for our choices and free will, in the here and now. However, this type of contact can offer comfort, ease our pain, and support us with moving onwards. 

In summary, the essence of mediumship lies in inner spiritual growth, rather than merely communicating with spirits. Any form of spiritual connection with the astral is meant as spiritual guidance and not as prediction.

Spirits do not come to guess the future, but to help us build a better present.
   — Chico Xavier

Mediumship Is Inherently
Dangerous or Demonic

This false idea is rooted in religious dogma and fear-based narratives. It is often expressed within this religious context that mediumship opens the door to possession or evil. According to this belief, any interaction with the realm of spirit means opening a door to malevolent spirits and will always lead to darkness and sin. Supporting this claim are countless horror movies and fictional stories that have been prevalent in superficial media. While there are risks associated with unethically practicing or without proper training, mediumship itself is a natural human faculty. Like fire, or electricity, it must be approached with respect, wisdom, and care. 

If we understand that at the core of the mediumistic practice, we consider ourselves to be spirit engulfed in matter, any interaction we have with anyone else is, in some way or other, a form of spiritual connection. Though material and visible to the naked eye, some of our physical/material relationships have been dangerous and detrimental to our growth and health.  The fact that relationships can be harmful does not mean we should avoid all contact altogether. In the exact same way, connection to the realms of spirit is not good, bad, or even evil. It does require centeredness, sovereignty, and understanding, the same exact qualities that we cultivate in our healthy relationships.

Since connection to spirit is more complex, it does require a deeper dedication to study. Without proper training, we won’t be able to identify the spirit we connect to, interpret the messages we receive, and have the know-how of how to integrate this information.

Mediumship is a natural ability and, like all human faculties, it can be used well or poorly.
   — Allan Kardec

Mediumship Is All Light and Love

To the opposite extreme of the previous misconception about mediumship leading to darkness comes the new-agey woo-woo, idealistic notion of “Love and Light”. While well-intentioned, this approach often reduces mediumship to a feel-good fantasy, avoiding the deeper, more rigorous aspects of spiritual development.

While the core principle of the study of mediumship is the elevation of our spirit, mind, and body, this elevation often comes through challenge, not around it. Authentic practice requires spiritual maturity – the willingness to confront pain or grief, doing internal shadow work, as well as facing unresolved wounding and unconscious fears. Dedication to mediumship as a spiritual path often requires intense emotional work, confrontation with limiting beliefs, past trauma, unhealthy relationships, lack of boundaries, and so much more. If the guidance you seem to receive only revolves around love and light, you are either stuck in spiritual bypassing, excited imagination, or interacting with trickster spirits who offer nothing but the echo of your own expectations. 

True spiritual guides and mentors, whether incarnate or in spirit, don’t always tell us what we want to hear. They challenge us, provoke insight, and call us into accountability. Authentic mediumship requires courage, integrity, and a willingness to transform, not just to be comforted.

Authentically working with a mentor or spiritual guide is very demanding, and requires your utmost authenticity and sincere dedication to inner work and transformation.  There certainly is love and light in this work, but it is a love that is fierce and confronting, and a light that reveals even the faintest shadow. The sweetness of the practice emerges not from avoiding discomfort, but from transmuting it into wisdom, compassion, and spiritual clarity.

True light does not blind us with illusions; it allows us to see the shadows we still need to transform.
   — Divaldo Franco

You Can Learn Mediumship
Without Inner Work

One of the most dangerous modern misconceptions is thinking that mediumship is purely technique. In truth, it demands deep spiritual discipline, emotional maturity, and purification of motives. It is not about skill, but about cultivating character and purifying the heart. 

The practice of mediumship, especially within any form of entheogenic communion of plant medicine, leads to and requires a deep process of inner work. The visions, messages, motion and movements, the shaking of the body, are all but signals, paving the path for a deeper sense of connection to our mentors and the calling for transformation. 

To relate to mediumship as an external display of ability is profoundly misguided and will eventually lead to egoic inflation and even psychic vulnerability. Mediumship without guidance and study can lead to a sense of grandeur, entrapment by obsessor spirits, and spiritual bypassing. As the greatest Brazilian medium, Chico Xavier, explains, mediumship without proper inner transformation is nothing but excited imagination.

The practice of mediumship without integration, self-reflection, actualization, and humility will not help you develop or grow. It will lead to furthering you from your center and the eventual loss of perspective. It is not about accumulating spiritual experiences; it is about becoming the kind of person, and the kind of heart, who can hold, interpret, and serve through those experiences with integrity. Without this form of grounding, mediumship can lead not to awakening, but to delusion and fragmentation.

Mediumship, when not accompanied by the effort of inner renewal, easily turns into imbalance and fantasy.
   — Chico Xavier

Only "Gifted" People Can Be Mediums

It’s commonly believed that mediumship is a rare or supernatural gift. In truth, it’s more like a muscle or language. While some individuals may have natural sensitivity or early abilities, most people can develop their mediumistic potential through disciplined practice, intention, and humility. It is methodical, logical, and can be learned and developed. As expressed before, it is a spiritual path, not a skill or ability. If the intention is to have superpowers, visions, or hear the voice of ascended masters… it will most likely fail. 

If the intention is to understand your own spirit and your own journey as a consciousness within a human form, any step you make on this path will take you further toward that end. The development in mediumship only occurs in relation to your own soul’s evolution, your own divine mission, and spiritual growth. It cannot be compared to that of others and cannot be evaluated in relation to anyone other than yourself. The path is deeply individual. It is not about what you perceive or channel; it is about who you become in the process.

Though we consider certain mediums as great inspiration and teachers on this path, such as Maẽ Baixinha, Allan Kardec, Chico Xavier, Divaldo Franco, and many others, but not because they were “gifted” in the way we often romanticize but because of their willingness to “do the work”, listen to their guides and follow through in their commitments in walking their vocation and Divine Mission in this life. Their greatness came not from talent alone, but from purity of heart, moral refinement, and unwavering service.

Whether you are a natural medium or you develop your mediumship through practice is not truly important. However, what is crucial is the commitment you have within to purifying your heart and transforming yourself in the process.

The mediumistic capacity is granted for doing good, not for anything else.
   — Allan Kardec

Mediumship Only Happens in a Trance

Mediumship is an overarching term that describes a complex, multi-faceted spiritual path. Far from being a singular or uniform experience, it encompasses dozens of distinct expressions—with some traditions recognizing over seventy categories of mediumistic phenomena. While trance mediumship is one form (where the medium enters an altered state or is partially unconscious), many mediums work consciously and remain fully aware throughout the experience. 

Mediumistic communication can occur in a wide range of modalities: inspiration, clairvoyance, clairaudience, clairsentience, direct knowing, healing, psychography (automatic writing), and more. Some expressions are physical; others are entirely mental or intuitive. Each medium’s gifts tend to unfold uniquely, depending on their spiritual constitution, divine mission, and level of development. 

Contrary to popular belief, the medium does not need to be in trance or “possessed” to access the spiritual realm. As their relationship with the astral matures, the connection becomes clearer, more direct, and more stable. However, even in advanced practitioners, the mediumistic channel is not meant to remain open all the time. A vital part of the path is learning to close the channel at will—not out of fear, but out of sovereignty and energetic hygiene.

In the early stages, this ability to “close” may be inconsistent and even challenging. Many new mediums experience overwhelm, energetic depletion, or difficulty discerning what is truly from spirit versus their own subconscious, wounding, or projections. Without proper grounding, this can open the door to obsessive spirits, pride, and egoic inflation, especially when the medium is seduced by the sense of “specialness” or their own need for attention.

These are part of the growing pains of mediumship, and they underline the necessity of proper training, mentorship, and community. Guidance must come not only from spiritual guides in the astral realm but also from experienced practitioners who have studied this path for years. Discernment, like any spiritual muscle, takes time and trial to develop. It includes learning how to balance your own energy, integrate what you receive, and recognize when to pause, reflect, or seek support.

Ultimately, mediumship is not about being constantly open; it is about being conscious and sovereign in your connection, capable of managing your experience with maturity, humility, and harmony with your surroundings.

The medium has free will and must use their judgment. They must not blindly surrender to everything they receive.
   — Allan Kardec

Mediums Are Always Accurate

There is a common belief that the medium receives and offers their guidance with perfect clarity and absolute accuracy. It is of utmost importance to understand that mediumship is a translation of subtle energy through the filter of the human mind and heart. And like all translations, it is subject to distortion, misunderstanding, projection, or symbolic interpretation. We cannot remove the human factor from the equation. Any experience of mediumship has to go through the filter of the medium’s own perception, senses, and ability to decipher the information or guidance that they receive.

Many of the forms of mediumship start with the prefix “Clair” as in clairvoyance (clear seeing), clairaudience (clear hearing), and claircognizance (clear knowing), etc. The word “clair” implies – clear, unfiltered. However, although the message might be received unfiltered, when processed through human faculties, the interpretation is rarely truly clear. The signal may come through, but the “speaker”—the medium’s body, psyche, and nervous system—might be clouded, reactive, or still developing.

A good example would be a radio that receives the radio signal clearly, but has an old and rusty speaker. The music and sound would not come out – as intended. 

A medium’s growth depends in part on accepting this limitation, not as a flaw, but as an invitation to humility, sincerity, and constant refinement. Remembering first, that any and all mediumistic instructions come first and foremost toward them, and asked to be integrated and explored internally.

When delivering messages to others, it is crucial for the medium to acknowledge the interpretive nature of their role, speak from a place of personal responsibility, and avoid presenting messages as absolute truths, as if their messages are 100% accurate and should be followed precisely as it has been delivered. 

It is essential for practicing mediums to exercise humility and express that what they offer is their own experience, their own beliefs, and their own interpretation, and not an unequivocal or unquestionable truth. Choosing to speak in absolutes will weaken the medium and eventually invite pride, arrogance, and even obsessive spirits.

Humility, which is nothing other than knowing one’s place within the divine plan, is crucial to a healthy developing medium. A humble medium knows they are not the source—they are a vessel, an instrument, a translator, and a student.

It is important to strive not to add or subtract from the instructions received. Aspiring to offer a centered, humble, and objective message while not allowing the mind to interfere. This is a significant aspect of why mentoring with experienced mediums is essential, as it provides the proper guidance for interpreting and refining the guidance received.

The more a medium understands the limits of their perception, the more accurate they become.
   — Allan Kardec

Spirits Always Want to Communicate

There is a common perspective of the world of spirit, as if all spirits are eager to communicate with the material plane, as if they have nothing else to do but wait for us to make a call. This is a very self-centered point of view, placing us and our journey of evolution at the center of the universe, whether material or spiritual. In reality, not all spirits are available, willing, or able to communicate, and some communications are better left unopened for karmic or evolutionary reasons.

In truth, many evolved spirits are engaged in important tasks within the spirit realms; mentoring, healing, or fulfilling their own paths of growth. Some simply have no karmic connection or reason to communicate with us. Others may communicate only when necessary for our spiritual or mediumistic development, not for curiosity or comfort. The more we evolve, the more we understand that spirit communication is not owed to us; it is offered when it serves a greater purpose and often a greater good. It is not a hotline for validation, but a sacred and rare convergence of readiness, merit, and purpose.

The practice and study of mediumship does not center on or rely on communication with spirits. It revolves around the implications of the truths revealed when walking this journey with curiosity and sincerity. The path does not require you to have your questions answered by spirit, but to have the discovery of your own subjective truth revealed to you by direct experience. Whether you hear the messages of your spirit mentor or not is not essential for your evolution; your ability to understand and question yourself, your patterns, and motives is. 

Your capacity to listen to the whisper of your heart is of far greater importance than directly channeling an angel or shaking with the presence of spirit. Those will become but symptoms of a greater capacity to listen to the silent vibration of your soul. It is more important to question our need for answers from spirit than the answers themselves. We have to learn how to listen to the presence of spirit, how to develop “spiritual ears” and “spiritual eyes”. Hearing the voice of spirit is not about volume; it is about resonance. It is not about increasing psychic noise, but about having more space for silence. Our task is not to demand answers from the spirit world, but to become worthy listeners, empty of expectation and full of presence.

To develop this sort of skill, what is required is a dedication to purifying the filtering mechanism, the mind itself. The more still the water, the more clearly it reflects. We apply ourselves to the spiritual path of awakening, studying with intention and the willingness to change, shift, and transform.

Higher spirits do not come to answer foolish questions. They come to teach us how to grow.
   — Chico Xavier

A Medium Should Always Share
Everything They Receive

There’s a misconception that mediums must relay every message they receive in its fullness. That is incorrect. Mediums have to follow their ethical responsibility and exercise discernment. They have to consider the timing, receptivity, and whether the message serves as healing or merely satisfies curiosity.

Not every message is meant to be delivered in its raw form. Some messages are symbolic, incomplete, or meant to be processed privately by the medium first. Others may be invitations for the medium to deepen their understanding of the person in front of them, not to deliver a monologue, but to cultivate empathy and presence. True service is not always in the speaking, but in the holding, listening, and attunement to what is truly needed in the moment.

Particularly in the context of entheogenic or deep spiritual work, messages may be archetypal, multidimensional, or distorted by the heightened emotional or energetic state. Sharing prematurely may create confusion, spiritual dependency, or trigger trauma, even when the medium’s intention is loving. It is often wiser to let a message ripen within the heart and be shared later, if at all, with clarity, humility, and permission.

Especially when the receiver of the medium’s message is themselves in a suggested state, whether under the influence of an entheogenic sacrament or in an emotionally unstable state, it is the responsibility of the medium to consider if more time is needed before conveying the message, or perhaps they need to approach the situation with greater care and presence.
When sharing personal experiences of mediumship, such as visions, guidance, and communication with spirits, the medium must consider the reasons for sharing. Do they share out of a need to be seen as special? Are they exaggerating their experience? Are they sharing out of need or out of wonder and awe? 

The impulse to share everything we receive often comes from a desire to be validated, to feel significant, or to offer something meaningful. This is part of the learning curve. With time, the maturing medium learns that silence is often more powerful medicine. The more refined the practitioner becomes, the more they understand that true power lies not in how much is said, but in how aligned, necessary, and compassionate the message is when it is shared.

To be entrusted with messages from the spiritual realms is a sacred responsibility, not a spotlight. Before sharing any message, the medium must ask: Does this serve a healing purpose? Is this the right time? Have I integrated it myself? Am I the right person to deliver this message? 

Not everything that is seen should be said; not everything that is heard is meant to be repeated.
   — Chico Xavier

Mediumship Has All the Answers

As with any authentic spiritual path, the path does not provide us with answers. It is a map for the seeker to have the courage to ask more questions. Mediumship is a process of un-understanding, the journey of surrendering to the unknowable. Experiencing, directly, how mysterious life truly is, how magical it is to experience being a part of a greater, mysterious whole.

When we believe that contacting spirits will fix all of our grief, confusion, or life problems, we turn the finger outwards, to some external savior. We abandon our responsibility and forget that we have the privilege of being co-creators with the process of life. We lose our center and thus walk away from the essential intention of this path, to find ourselves, accept, and find the I AM Presence that dwells within.

Clinging to answers can easily become another form of spiritual bypassing, a subtle way to avoid the discomfort of living with open questions, or to resist the slow unfolding of inner transformation. It takes maturity to embrace that guidance may not arrive when we want it, and that sometimes, silence is the answer that calls us inward.

There is something deeply transformative about not knowing. It softens the ego, awakens humility, and allows for greater receptivity. In this sense, mediumship is not about control; it is about entering into an intimate relationship with the Mystery, allowing our soul to be reshaped by what it cannot grasp.

Albert Einstein once said, “Nature does not reveal its secrets; it only responds to a process of questioning.” The medium always asks… always wonders… utilizing a healthy dose of doubt to continuously discover the limitless expression of infinity that awakens within.  

While it can bring healing and clarity, mediumship is not a replacement for emotional processing, therapy, or spiritual growth; it complements, not replaces. It inspires further inquiry, awakening the courage of spirit to wonder, what else within me can I find? What other layers of myself can I explore?

Mediumship doesn’t just give us a map, it helps us become the compass. It teaches us to feel our way through life with curiosity, presence, and reverence, knowing that what matters most is not what we know, but how deeply we are willing to listen, trust, and transform.

Mediumship is not a shortcut to truth, nor does it have all the answers. It is a path of presence, refinement, and deep listening, one that invites us to soften, sit with mystery, and purify the lens through which we perceive the world.

It teaches us to ask better questions. It reminds us that we are not the center of the universe, but sacred participants in its unfolding. It is not about becoming special, but about becoming authentic and sincere. Not about hearing more voices, but about listening more deeply; to life, to silence, and to the quiet whisper of the soul within.

To walk the path of mediumship is to surrender to the process of transformation. To be humbled, to discern, to live in service. And ultimately, to return, again and again, to the sacred center, the I AM Presence, where spirit speaks, not in loud thunders, but in a whispering stillness.

May we walk this path not with entitlement, but with humility.
Not with pride, but with presence.
Not with the desire to be seen, but with the willingness to truly see.