I happened across an article about a new book that just came out, called You are in this World, but Not of it , by Rev. Richard Gebers. It's a non-fiction work, and contains a lot of material from the spirits that Rev. Gebers has had contact with. I have not read it, but am seriously thinking about it. There appears to be a lot of goodness in it, but what caught my eye was that it isn't afraid to talk about the dark side. The dark side of mediumship is pretty-much what you think it is - people who are any of many negative things, including being "evil" in the classic sense. I've experienced people and things from the dark side, and dealing with them is not a simple matter. It should be obvious from my blog that I am not of the dark side, nor do I have a morbid curiousity about it. But as someone who's dealt with it before, I'm curious as to what he's run into in the course of his experiences. It may be an opportunity for me to compare notes and learn something. On the book's web site (see the above link), there's a statement just after a description of the experience with the dark side, as follows:
Many of these unfortunates (GHOSTS) were not even aware they died and actually had lived inside human bodies for years, often creating sickness and physical damage to their host's bodies. You will also learn how to avoid these experiences and how to protect yourself from them.My initial reaction to this was "That's crazy! No way!" But mediumship and the spirit world is so big and so vast that people can have very different experiences, even contradictory ones, and it's still "accurate". Imagine someone with no preconceived knowledge or experience of the earth is suddenly dropped down into the middle of the business district of a very large and bustling city. They will observe certain things, draw inferences based on them, and write a book about it. Another equally unbiased and inexperienced person is dropped into the middle of a barn that fifty cows visit, twice daily. They will also observe certain things, draw inferences based on them, and write a book about it. Both books will be vastly different from each other, and if each proclaims that their experience is the only "way it is" on the Earth, they will be deemed contradictory to each other, even if each is perfectly accurate in their own right. How to reconcile this? Well, it's easy for us, because we know better - the reality is that the Earth is a huge place, and business districts and farms are not a contradiction at all. But when it comes to mediumship and the spirit world, we don't know better, and we often come away with a limited understanding, unbeknownst to us. I think there's a huge failing here that few people are aware of, let alone take a perspective that they can see it from. With the awareness that I might be on the farm and reading about the business district (or vice versa), I try to accept whatever my initial reaction is, put it aside long enough to observe certain things and draw inferences on my own, and then determine "what's what". If you're honest with yourself, it works pretty well, and you can learn a lot this way. That's exactly what I plan to do with this book. If you end up reading it, I'd like to hear what you think.