The stages and lived experience of mediumship

There is no single beginning

In Andrew’s account of his own development, ability seemed to be present from the beginning, while knowledge, understanding and confidence still had to grow. He was willing to learn. That distinction between what someone appears able to do and what they understand about it has remained central to his teaching.

He also recalls a newcomer at church giving what he considered an accurate communication after a first meditation. For him, experiences such as this raise questions about why development can appear spontaneous in one person and gradual in another. They are personal accounts, not a promise that another person’s development will follow the same course.

The stages described here are therefore a way of discussing experience, rather than a fixed sequence everyone must pass through. Someone may recognise several at once, return to an earlier uncertainty, or describe their development quite differently.

From watching to participating

Andrew describes an early movement from wondering how a medium does it, to recognising a possibility in yourself, to having a go. The first apparent results can be striking. They can also raise practical questions: how did that impression arrive, what did I actually perceive, and how much did I add while trying to express it?

Confidence has a place here, but it need not mean certainty about every impression. A useful confidence allows a person to speak clearly about what they noticed, acknowledge what they did not, and learn from the response.

What impressions may feel like

In Andrew’s description, the experience can include a fleeting image, a clearer scene, words, an apparent sound, a smell, a taste, a touch, a change in atmosphere, an emotion, a bodily sensation, or a sense of knowing. Several may seem to arrive together.

Rather than starting with a specialist label, describe the quality. Did you seem to hear a sound as though it were in the room, or did a word occur inwardly? Did an image appear briefly in your mind, or did you feel as though you were looking into a scene? Was the sense of knowing accompanied by any image or words?

Those distinctions matter when discussing what happened. They do not, by themselves, establish where an impression came from. They help keep the experience separate from the explanation offered for it.

Learning what you add

There can be a distance between an impression and the words used to communicate it. A picture of a garden, for example, might prompt associations with a grandparent, a particular home or a period of life. In this invented example, those associations are possible interpretations of the picture, not additional details that were necessarily perceived.

Part of careful development is noticing that distance. What arrived first? What did you infer? What did the recipient actually recognise? If an interpretation is not recognised, there is no need to force a fit or persuade someone that they must have forgotten.

An uncertain response should be allowed to remain uncertain. A clear record of misses and ambiguities is more useful for learning than a retelling in which everything appears to have worked.

What ten years of training came to mean

Andrew’s teacher, Winifred Smart, taught that a minimum of around ten years’ training was appropriate. He later understood this less as a rigid rule about the calendar and more as a statement about dedication, practice, maturity and learning human psychology.

A person can have striking experiences while still lacking the steadiness or understanding to work thoughtfully with others. Time alone does not guarantee maturity either. The question is what someone learns through that time: how they listen, how they handle uncertainty, and how responsibly they use the confidence another person places in them.

The person receiving the words matters

Andrew stresses that recipients differ enormously. One may dismiss what a medium says. Another may give the words immense authority, treating them as a direct spiritual instruction. The speaker cannot assume that everyone will hold an impression lightly.

This is why responsibility belongs at the centre of the work. Speak calmly, respectfully and with care. Be clear about uncertainty. Leave the other person free to disagree. A medium’s interpretation should not become a demand that someone organise their life around it.

For Andrew, mature mediumship includes this human understanding. Whatever someone believes about the source of an impression, the effect of their words on another person deserves serious attention.