Past Lives and Mediumship

Matthew VanFossan/ October 4, 2024/ Spirituality

My first experience with a medium was when my brother was consulting one because he had a crush on a young woman who wasn’t reciprocating. I was fascinated by the idea that this very personable woman living in Atlanta could, over the phone, connect to my brother’s Spirit guides and give him information that would help him in his life.

I had a session with the medium later, and she connected to various guides that she saw working with me, including a kindly grandmother spirit and an intense Middle-Eastern guy. I later concluded that the Middle-Eastern guy must have been Jesus.

My brother spent months consulting a number of mediums trying to get things to line up with his crush, but, in the end, it didn’t happen. The two never got together romantically.

But, in one of those sessions, the medium mentioned without my brother ever asking her, that there was a school in Southern California his brother, I, should really go to. I was at the time of that session debating whether or not to study spiritual psychology at the University of Santa Monica, in California, and the medium dropping this little tidbit gave me a healthy nudge in the right direction. I did eventually go to the school and complete a masters there which was life-transforming, to say the least, and I’m very grateful I made the decision to go.

What I see now is that mediums can and do tap into guides a person is working with. But whether this will actually be beneficial for the person can vary. I liken it to going to a doctor. Some doctors can put a cast on a broken bone, which can be helpful. Some doctors will talk about aspects of health that are not really that important in the overall picture of a person’s well-being. For example, a doctor might tell you your blood sugar is low and you need to eat more iron. But, if you’ve been getting by on four hours of sleep a night and feeling anxious, this advice isn’t going to be at the crux of what will help you.

The same is true with past lives. While studying at the University of Santa Monica I had an experience of a past life in which I was a captain on a ship trafficking and pirating. I felt the intensity of my personality then and how I had placed outer goals over inner growth and disregarded the dignity of human life. It was interesting to have that experience, but more important than reliving myself as a sea captain was the heart of the matter, that this lifetime I am being guided to grow from the inside out, connecting to my true self and living the qualities of unconditional love and by choosing grace in my life.

Knowledge of spirit guides and past lives can be exciting for people just waking up to these aspects of life. But at best these are only guideposts along the way. The road we are ultimately walking starts with accepting where we are, in this lifetime, in this moment, connecting to our inherent loving and trust, and serving with joy and an attitude of gratitude.

For me if there is one key to receiving good guidance, it’s not by consulting spirit guides or past lives, it’s by establishing a daily practice of meditation and seeking to uplift ourselves and those around us. If you need to see a past life in order to progress, it’ll be shown to you, though it might happen during the night when your conscious mind doesn’t remember it or chalks it up as a dream.

We are ultimately the ones who will live with the choices we make. It’s good to consult with others, but the greatest source of strength is one’s own inner wisdom, and the greatest compass is the spiritual heart.