The Ethics of Mediumship

By Eileen J. Garrett, Renowned Medium and Psychic Researcher

an extract from an article that first appeared in Magazine: Volume 8, Number 4, Autumn 1960.Tommorrow

"I am often asked what is the state of mind in which one is most able to function as a sensitive. I believe that the beginnings of this state lie in the development of an inner calm which is free from distraction or desire. The slightest effort to consciously produce evidence will inhibit this condition . . . In mediumship the goal is not only to be at one with oneself, but with all else in the universe."

When Prof. C. G. Jung lectured before the Society for Psychical Research in London on July 4, 1919, he chose as his subject "The Psychological Foundations of Belief in Spirits." During the more than four decades that have passed, Jung whom Aldous Huxley has called the "Sage of Zurich" has given much additional thought to the psychodynamics of spiritualism and mediumship. It was also the subject of a discussion that I was privileged to have with Prof. Jung at Ascona, a few years ago; it gave him the opportunity to check his impressions and ideas with someone whose lifework has centered around mediumship -- and it gave me a chance to put many, many questions to Jung, most of which proved as puzzling to him as they were to me.

Whereas most men seem to become more set in their ways, and more conservative in their views as the years go by, Jung has happily remained ever-searching, ever-questioning. Thus, while he told his London audience in 1919 that he considered psychic phenomena purely as "exteriorized effects of unconscious complexes," he is much less dogmatic today. In that early address to the S.P.R. Jung said that he saw "no proof whatever of the existence of real spirits, and until such proof is forthcoming I must regard this whole territory as an appendix to psychology." Today, however, as his London lecture is republished in The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche (New York: Pantheon Books. 1960) Jung adds the following comments:


"After collecting psychological experiences from many people and many countries for fifty years, I no longer feel as certain as I did in 1919, when I wrote this sentence. To put it bluntly, I doubt whether an exclusively psychological approach can do justice to the phenomena in question. Not only the findings of parapsychology, but my own theoretical reflections, outlined in "On the Nature of the Psyche," have led me to certain postulates which touch on the realm of nuclear physics and the conception of the space-time continuum. This opens up the whole question of the transpsychic reality immediately underlying the psyche."

Jung boldly states the dilemma of modern science as it confronts apparent evidence of paranormal happenings. In all the intervening years, the possibility of man's survival of bodily death has failed to arouse widespread scientific curiosity. A set of dogmatic materialistically oriented explanations of the human condition remains the bible of physical and psychological sciences. Whatever research takes place -- and the Parapsychology Foundation, Inc., of which I am the President, seeks to throw some light in this direction -- is of necessity on a scale that is exceedingly small, compared with the magnitude of studies devoted to missiles, and the machines of war and destruction.

Prof. Jung's intellectual evolution, from youthful skepticism to serene uncertainty, sets a worthwhile example for all of us. Glancing over my own earlier writings, I note that in the conclusion of "Adventures in the Supernormal," originally published about a quarter of a century ago, I wrote as follows: "If I say that I know that the dead survive, that communication with those who have gone beyond is possible and does occur, and that the human consciousness is capable of perception in other levels of experience, I know these things out of my own knowledge and experience." Would I state this concept in the same manner today? Well, not exactly. I have seen and heard a good deal since I first put these words on paper. I would now be inclined to say that I have "been in receipt of communications that would suggest human survival and mediumistic contact between the living and the dead."

My increased caution in speaking of life after death is directly linked with a heightened appreciation of the responsibility which a sensitive, like myself, has to all those who ponder the great question of survival. This responsibility is two-fold: it concerns those who are bereaved, and who seek refuge or sustenance in communication with those who have died; and those who are sincerely concerned with the significance of mediumistic phenomena as a key to a fuller understanding of man's mind and world, his philosophy, religion and science.

I am not one who assumes that the gift of mediumship necessarily brings with it greater insight into the phenomena of that mediumship. For some ten years, in the 1920's, I underwent rigorous training as a sensitive, under the guidance of Hewat McKenzie, who maintained the British College of Psychic Science. He was a strict disciplinarian and discouraged excessive curiosity on the part of mediums. McKenzie did not discourage social contact between mediums and sitters; he tried to screen out all information that might, through the medium's conscious or unconscious knowledge, seep into trance communications. I remember how McKenzie, as well as Sir Oliver Lodge, the Nobel Prize winning physicist and pioneer psychic researcher, cautioned me against devoting myself to any study of their writings. Although they were firmly convinced of the reality of the phenomena, as scientists they instinctively understood the danger to the medium whose "homework" might include the study of spiritualist concepts. Such a medium might well give back to the inquirer his own beliefs in an unconscious effort to be obliging. This is what psychologists now call "doctrinal compliance," when they refer to a patient's efforts to please the therapist by a too willing acceptance of specific psychological dogma. While I used to rebel on occasion, against McKenzie's restrictive regimen, I nevertheless recognized, even then, that mediumship requires special attitudes and codes of behavior