Monday, March 2, 2015

Lot of Spirit At School for Psychics in England ! Mediums Welcome




Wall Street Journal, Monday, March 2, 2015, Front Page, Page A1:

Scroll down and take a look at the 3 comments I managed to include.  They're interesting to say the least, but they may upset some of you.?!



A-HED

There’s a Lot of Spirit At School for Psychics

In England,classes teach mediums ways to sharpen skills; bad advice from dead uncle

Steven Upton is an instructor at Arthur Findlay College in England, a school for psychics.ENLARGE
Steven Upton is an instructor at Arthur Findlay College in England, a school for psychics. PHOTO: MATTHEW DALTON/THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
By 
15 COMMENTS
STANSTED, England—In a stately Victorian mansion, Julie Grist is teaching the psychics of tomorrow how to speak to today’s dead for a living.
Ms. Grist, a 66-year-old who says she has been communicating with the deceased for decades, explained the goal of psychic “reading” to a dozen first-time students from Europe, Asia and North America. Psychics mustn’t depress or frighten, she said, with unsettling predictions from the spirit world.
“Your duty as a reader is to leave people feeling uplifted,” she said.
Ms. Grist is an instructor at Arthur Findlay College, which has been offering courses for practicing psychics and mediums—those who claim to communicate with spirits—for 50 years. Besides beginner sessions, the school offers a class for those seeking to communicate better with their pets, living and dead. Advanced courses answer more technical questions, such as: What is ectoplasm?
Once known as “Spook Hall” to the locals, the school is located on a rambling estate 40 miles from London. Its instructors believe the powers of a psychic aren’t just gifts from the gods.
“Mediumship is a skill that can be acquired like many skills,” says Steven Upton, an instructor and spokesman for the college. Over the years, he says courses have increasingly been taught by professional psychics, who help students cope with stresses of the job, such as fear of public speaking to the dead.
Instructors caution students that once the spirits get talking, they shouldn’t necessarily be heeded. “Your Uncle Jim who gives bad advice when he’s alive will still be your Uncle Jim who gives bad advice when he’s dead,” Mr. Upton says.
The school welcomes up to 5,000 students a year; weeklong classes cost £570, or about $880, including room and board. The wood-paneled mansion has a dining area and a library stocked with books such as “How to Make ESP Work For You.”
The college’s sunny ethos shows how much psychic practice has changed since the Oracle of Delphi, raving next to a noxious pit, delivered the dismaying news to Oedipus that he was fated to marry his mother and kill his father.
“That’s not uplifting though, is it?” Ms. Grist says. “And we know the Oracles were suffering from an infusion of gases.”
Nowadays, people can speak to psychics and mediums over the Internet from the comfort of their living rooms.
“Doing readings over Skype is amazing,” says Gina Murray, a psychic medium from Wales who came to the school to take a class on communicating with animals. She says she can see spirits over Skype, “which totally surprised me. I wasn’t expecting that.”
Even the Psychic Friends Network, whose commercials were ubiquitous on late-night television in the 1990s, has been resurrected by investors seeking to capitalize on delivering psychic advice over the Internet. But the company’s future isn’t clear, particularly if it can’t meet some coming financial obligations.
“The outcome of these matters cannot be predicted with any certainty at this time,” the company said in a regulatory filing in February.
Psychics report demand for their services has grown as people turn away from established religions and psychologists for counsel.
“Ultimately psychologists are going to listen to you more than give guidance,” says Tamara Trusseau, who has a television show and runs an online network of psychics. “A lot of people get really fed up with that.”
While the Internet has liberated psychics, the modern state has subjected them to restrictions. In the U.K., consumer-protection laws forbid psychics from claiming to predict the future without a warning, such as saying predictions are for entertainment only.
Arthur Findlay says its psychics believe in personal responsibility and free will, as well as complying with all relevant British regulations.
“The future is a series of probabilities,” Ms. Grist told her class—advice that might have been some comfort for Oedipus as he struggled to thwart the Oracle’s prophecy.
“Even if I get an awareness from the spirit world, ‘Well, tell them they need to do this,’ I won’t say,” Ms. Grist said later. “I will phrase it in a way, ‘You do know they support you, and whatever you decide to do, they’ll be with you.’ ”
The college, named for a businessman who donated the estate, is run by a religion called the Spiritualist movement, which says it has tens of thousands of members in the U.K. The religion’s fundamental tenet is that everyone’s spirit survives death.
“You can’t even die if you try,” Mr. Upton says.
Ms. Grist, whose other job is running a company that installs video systems, opened class with a piece of advice: Questions are key to a successful psychic reading.
“You cannot just give information without finding out if it’s right,” she said. “If you stop and ask, they begin to believe you.”
“Is that cheating?” asked Conny Manasse, a yoga teacher from the Netherlands.
No, Ms. Grist said, since you’re only asking yes or no questions.
Then she divided the class into pairs to practice psychic readings using cards with pictures on them.
Robert Lambert, an accountant from Los Angeles, stared at his partner’s card, a drawing of people on a train.
“I’m feeling you want to be of service to someone,” Mr. Lambert said. “You need an outlet. Does this resonate with you?”
His partner shook her head. Ms. Grist quickly intervened. With some assistance, he got onto the right track.
“You carry the weight in the family,” Mr. Lambert said, as his partner nodded.
Ms. Grist observed another student, Hitomi Yamada from Japan, holding a card that showed children waiting to go down a slide.
Ms. Yamada said to her partner: “I feel you will...”
“You can’t predict,” Ms. Grist interrupted. “We cannot tell the future.”
The school has repeat students, such as Lillian Yee-Stewart, a spirit artist from Toronto who came for the course on animal communication. This is the ninth or 10th time she has attended courses here, she said.
“It’s nice to be with like-minded people,” said Ms. Murray, the Welsh psychic. “You don’t feel so odd.”
Write to Matthew Dalton at Matthew.Dalton@wsj.com
There are 15 comments.

All comments will display your real name. Read our commenting rules.
NewestOldestReader Recommended
Robert Eisenhauer
The vast majority of this is fraud.  But some of this is real, and infinitely dangerous.

"Do not turn to mediums or seek out spiritists, for you will be defiled by them.  I am the LORD your God." (Leviticus 19:31, NIV)

"When someone tells you to consult mediums and spiritists, who whisper and mutter, should not a people inquire of their God? Why consult the dead on behalf of the living?"  (Isaiah 8:19, NIV)
Dirk Dreux
Walk around Gettysburg sometime.
60,000+ stress-laden casualties in just 3 days.
Even though its over 150 years ago, you'll get "emanations."
Just ask the locals.
Posted by at
Labels: , , , , , , , , , , ,

1 comment:

  1. psychichealersharmaMay 13, 2021 at 3:41 AM

    Its a very amazing blog !!! This valuable and very informative blog is going to help the people to a great extent. Thanks for sharing it here. Psychic in Mississauga | Psychic Reader in Mississauga | Palm Reader in Mississauga | Fortune Teller in Mississauga

    ReplyDelete

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)