Theos-Talk Archives (August 1998 Message tt00341)

Dear Jake,

If I seem to take issue with your statements more than anyone
else's, please don't take it as a personal thing.  Actually I
have come to like and respect you from seeing you on this list,
and wish others sharing your belief system were as polite about
exprerssing their views.

But in light of my knowledge of Cayce, I can't see your
mediator/medium distinction as having much validity.  You say
that "the mediator is fully self-conscious and in full control
and possession of their faculties" and make HPB an example of
this.  But we of course cannot know that this was true of her, as
an awful lot of her behavior seems to me *not* fully self-conscious
or in full control and possession of her faculties.  I mean by
this the personality traits that brought her into near-constant
conflict with people around her.  Whether this was a by-product
of spending so much time in the world of "phenomena" is
debatable.  But Cayce clearly did go into a trance state, not
even retaining memory.  Yet as a person, he displayed a lot more
equilibrium, lightheartedness, sweetness even, than she seems to
have done, and there is no one on record AFAIK complaining about
his treatment of people around him.  I know that these are not
the domains you had in mind when making the distinction, but they
are relevant to me in comparing the two types.  You say that the
"mediator is inspired by an adept or nirmanakaya possibly, or
Higher Self, while the medium is used by subhuman entities or
`black.'  The mediator is inspired, while the medium is `taken
over.'"  I can think of no evidence that Cayce was used by
subhuman or `black' entities, as what he "channeled" was in the
overwhelming majority of cases the *person who sought the
reading*.  Whether the sources inspiring someone are positive or
negative, evolved or regressed, etc. is IMO independent of the
means whereby they are contacted.

Yes, ideally it is better not to lose self-consciousness in order
to make contact with other realms and entities.  Cayce himself
says so, and that his need to go into deep trance reflected
previous lives in which he had squandered his gifts.  But you
cannot automatically assume that everyone who goes into deep
trance is channeling something negative, while everyone who
consciously "mediates" (isn't that what ECP claims to do?) is
channeling something higher and better.

Namaste,
Paul