Dear Soul Arcanum:
I am concerned about my son, Travis. Ever since he was little, he has seen and talked to spirits. I have always told him this is a good thing, that this is a gift from God, and that he could help a lot of people with it. He is 12 years old, and until now, the spirits have never scared him. Then he had a spirit come to him and he said that this one scared him because he couldn’t see his face. Does Travis have reason to suddenly be afraid? Will he always have this gift and be able to help other people with it? Thanks!
– Tammy
Dear Tammy:
I want to commend you on the graceful, positive way you’ve supported Travis. It sounds like you yourself are not a medium, yet you have truly accepted his gift. With this sort of early encouragement, Travis’ abilities will probably evolve in wonderful ways throughout his life.
Your open approach is very rare in the Western world, where most people have either been socialized to view everything psychic as somehow evil, or are simply afraid of things that are strange or unfamiliar to them. People here tend to thoughtlessly react to subjects like spirit communication in a way that shuts others down. As a result, young natural mediums quickly learn to hide their spiritual experiences in order to prevent upset, rejection and embarassment, which means they must sort out their psychic experiences on their own.
What your son is going through is pretty common for natural mediums his age, for lots of big changes occur on all levels during adolescence. Physical changes are perhaps the most obvious, but we also go through lots of emotional, psychological and spiritual changes as well.
Most younger children naturally have a high spiritual vibration. They have wonderful qualities that adults tend to lose over time, and may try to regain through spiritual practices. For example, children tend to live in the now; they don’t worry about much of anything; they are very open to life and every experience that comes their way; they trust everyone they meet; they embrace everything new with a sense of wonder; they are hopeful and idealistic; they are free of addictions and other bad habits, etc. This creates a high vibration, which manifests otherworldly experiences of a positive nature.
During adolescence and all the angst that goes with it, however, our vibration begins to swing all over the map. (Our mood is a good indicator of our vibration, so mood swings suggest wild variations in our vibration.) This would naturally open us up to a broader range of experiences on all levels.
In addition, adolescence is a time of intense energy. With the surge in hormones and other physical changes comes a surge in life force energy and creative power. This happens on all levels of our being, but the most obvious example is our new ability to create life itself.
So while adolescents are bursting with creative (sexual) energy, at the same time they’re under tremendous cultural pressure designed to repress that very energy. We pressure them to abstain from sex, to sit still, to pay attention and listen to teachers instead of talking, to focus on their homework instead of following their bliss, etc. Given all of this, the aura of your typical adolescent is bursting with the dramatic sort of energy earthbound spirits crave. Further, they’re new to this whole crazy scene, so they don’t yet know how to control their vibration in order to manifest the quality of psychic experience they desire.
There are even more reasons why your son may suddenly be scared by his encounters with spirits. We are all being bombarded with mass media messages that spirits and related subjects are terrifying stuff; in fact, teens and adolescents are the main target audience for horror movies. Since most parents don’t let little kids watch such things until they’re around 13, adolescence is when most kids are first exposed to the idea that there are invisible evil forces around us all the time.
So an adolescent medium who has been talking to spirits for as long as he can remember may suddenly “realize” that what he is doing totally freaks a lot of people out, and could be very dangerous. If this stirs up fear in him, that fear itself could attract or make him vulnerable to spirits in the lower astral.
We must remember that earthbound entities are seeking more than just negative energy to feed on. An ideal victim will be vulnerable due to a low vibration but also sensitive enough to perceive spirits on some level, and inexperienced enough to not know what to do in a stressful situation.
If all of these reasons aren’t enough, there are more. I believe that young children have extra divine protection around them in the form of guides and angels, just like in the physical we have all sorts of nannies, babysitters, teachers, older siblings, and social agencies that look after our children’s well-being.
When we get older, however, we have to learn how to navigate through life for ourselves. This doesn’t mean we’ve been abandoned or are defenseless, but just as it’s good for us to grow up in practical ways, it’s good for us to grow up in psychic ways. Adolescence is a natural time for us to begin to figure more things out for ourselves, to question the things we’ve been taught, to study our own experiences and learn what feels right and works best for us personally.
For natural born mediums, this involves wandering outside their own psychic back yards, where they may encounter a gatekeeper. This is a frightening experience that prevents them from going too far or getting in over their heads. When they learn not to fear the gatekeeper, and how to work with their own vibration in order to rise above dark experiences, they gain the freedom and power to pass into a bigger psychic world.
I’ve written extensively on how to maintain a high vibration in other articles, and don’t have room here to go into more detail. Beyond cultivating a high vibration, I recommend you encourage your son to learn more about the spirit world by reading enlightening teachings on the subject, and help him find a good mentor. You might begin with your closest Spiritualist church, for there he’ll not only find someone who can guide him, but also lots of kindred spirits, and it will comfort him more than you might think to simply know that he’s not alone in the world with his gift.
– Soul Arcanum