Spooky Seance
October 17th, 2006 by Erin Pavlina
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A couple of weeks ago I attended the Las Vegas Paranormal Conference. This was my first such conference and I was excited to meet people in the ghost and paranormal industry. But it was a small conference, no more than 70 people or so. I attended the mixer and met some interesting people while sipping on my pineapple juice.
The Las Vegas Paranormal Investigator team was there and we had a great chat about ghost hunting and my experience filming an episode of the Criss Angel show. I told them I wanted to go on a ghost hunt with them the next time they went out. We’ll see what happens.
Later that evening, Chris Fleming was scheduled to do a seance. I hadn’t been to a seance in about 15 years so I was anxious and excited to go to another one. I wondered if I would pick up on any of the spirits present. I introduced myself to Chris during the party and I asked him all sorts of questions about his process and how he connects with the deceased. He was a little vague and I thought his answers were a little odd. They didn’t make any sense to me. Once I told him I was a medium myself I noticed he got anxious and actually started backing away from me. Chris has his own weekly television show on the Biography channel called Dead Famous. I wasn’t sure what to make of Chris but I decided to see how the seance went before I drew any conclusions about this young man.
When it came time to do the seance the room was set up with three concentric circles so that everyone could participate and see. Chris asked me to sit right behind him to buttress his energy while he did the seance. He asked two other mediums to sit to his right and left to balance the energy of the people around him. There was one young child in the room and Chris put him next to me so that I could protect him. I took that job very seriously and put most of my energy into protecting him. Children are more susceptible to psychic energy and Chris told me that untoward things have happened to children during his seances.
Chris set up a voice recorder so that later he could see if it picked up any spirit voices. The members of the paranormal investigator team were positioned to take video and photographs throughout the seance. Chris cleared the area with sage and got to work.
The first thing that happened to Chris was that he seemed to get possessed by a spirit. I’ve never witnessed anything like that and honestly I didn’t believe he was possessed. But what do I know? He blurted out a message but no one claimed it. Next he mentioned names of deceased people and asked if anyone in the room knew who they were. Well, once someone claimed the deceased person, Chris was unable to get any more information that made any sense to the living person. Either he was having a really off night or he just wasn’t any good. He mentioned probably 15-20 names of deceased people but got little to no information beyond that.
He asked if any of the other mediums in the room were picking up on anything. I wasn’t, but I will say that my energy was focused elsewhere and when I tried to tune in I found I couldn’t tune in to anything, which was really weird for me. It was like someone had blindfolded me and put ear plugs in my ears. It’s hard to explain but it felt like my radio had been muted.
Chris got “taken over” by spirits a few more times. It was all very dramatic but I don’t think it was real. He admitted at the end of the evening that he didn’t seem to be performing very well and he seemed annoyed with himself. I don’t think Chris is a phony, but I don’t think he’s as good as he should be for someone who has a weekly tv show. And there was something just a tiny bit shifty about him.
So when I say it was a spooky seance, I mean it was spooky because I expected some real results from someone of his stature and saw nothing to convince me that anything paranormal was going on. I’ve never tried doing a seance myself so I don’t really know what’s involved. Still, it was an interesting experience and I’m glad I went. Hopefully I’ll get the opportunity to attend something similar in the future, with different results.
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October 17th, 2006 at 2:56 pm
Pineapple juice? Um . . . congrats? Ah . . . maybe?
Why are children more susceptable to psychic energy? Does it have something to do with Ruldolf Steiner and his notion that children are not fully incarnated into their bodies and exist partially in a spiritual realm until a certain age? Is this why children are more likely to see ghosts?
October 18th, 2006 at 12:40 pm
That sounds like a definite let down Erin. Weird. I’m sure there’s still something to learn from it though.
It doesn’t sound to me like seances are very different from normal channeling sessions. I wonder why you couldn’t tune into anything while you were there. It’s kind of ominious in a way. Has that ever happened to you before? How long after was it before you were able to start tuning in again? The whole situation reminds me of a “mute” spell being cast like in the game Final Fantasy.
It also reminds me of your post about “fear based guides,” when your caller was being blocked. I wonder if you weren’t on the receiving end this time around?
Dan
October 18th, 2006 at 1:26 pm
Dan: Yeah, I expected to be able to tune in to all kinds of deceased entities there, but it was really strange that I couldn’t pick up on anything. It was like dead air. Exactly like a mute spell. lol
J: Children are more open than adults, yes. They haven’t closed themselves off completely to the ethereal world, but they also don’t know how to protect themselves.
October 18th, 2006 at 8:19 pm
Hi Erin,
I really enjoy reading your blog. I’m learning to develop my psychic abilities but a good friend of mine has been psychic most of her life. She has a weekly radio show on a major commercial station here where people can call in for an on-the-air reading. She is so good it’s eerie.
Anyway, she was away recently and the radio station had a guest psychic on that was visiting from interstate (despite the fact that this was against a written agreement she had with the station) and he was taking calls from listeners. Strangely, not one thing he said made any sense to any of the callers he read for. I don’t know if he was just having an off day or what, but it makes you wonder about some people that profess to be psychics.
Keep up the great blogs.
Regards,
Steve (a different one)
October 20th, 2006 at 5:56 am
I don’t pretend to even know anything about psychics or seances, but with people like that it’s no wonder that very few people actually take it seriously. I’ve demonstrated psychic abilities in the past but I would never call myself psychic.
Just a random theory on why you couldn’t sense anything Erin, whether I’ve read this, heard this, or just felt this through intuition, Psychic energy is adversely affected by electrical energy. I could be completely wrong but if there was a high level of electrical energy in the room from camera’s, mobiles, recording equipment etc, then maybe that was causing the block?!
October 20th, 2006 at 6:19 am
Erin,
I’m a little suspicious of this Chris fellow based on your experience.
1. He put you directly behind him and gave you a focus that was on a child so that you were not watching him.
2. The other 2 mediums he placed on either side and tasked with balancing the energies to their sides which took their focus off of him as well.
This suggests to me that he wanted those with experience specifically tasked to something other than watching his technique. Now as you say he could have just been having an off night, but I think more likely he is a blatent self-promoter who has learned some tricks to fool ordinary folks.
I’ve seen this often in the martial arts world. Self-promoter types who purport to being able to do special techniques and then make use of a little slight of hand and suggestion. Whereas those with real technique and skill are often quiet almost to a fault.
Have you consulted your guides about him? I would think they would be able to verify your thoughts about the experience. It might even be that they wanted you to see a hustler in action.
Keep up the blogging, your path is inspirational.
Kevin
October 20th, 2006 at 7:00 am
Amit: Electromagnetic energy can definitely affect psychic ability, but in this case I don’t think there was enough. When I filmed the Criss Angel show we had all the investigators equipment going plus the cameras and microphones of the crewmen and I was doing really well. I have been considering why I was blocked. It could have been that I was putting so much of my available energy into protection. It could be that my guides were protecting me from receiving information from lower beings. I’m not totally sure but it was definitely weird.
Kevin: Interesting thoughts. He did spend a ton of time moving people around to different seats and I was sort of disappointed that being behind him meant I couldn’t see his face. But then again, if he were a total huckster he wouldn’t have bombed. He would have had people in the audience shilling for him, know what I mean? I don’t think he’s a phony. I think he was either having an off night or just isn’t very good at seances. I have to imagine that whoever is producing his show would have checked out his psychic abilities before putting him on television. I don’t know, maybe I’m naive.
October 23rd, 2006 at 10:27 pm
Try this little experiment: ask the “spirits” (politely) to leave your life permanently. Keep doing this consistently and observe their reaction over time. If their reaction scares you - good.
Be afraid. Be very afraid.
From someone who knows