Contacting the spirit realm is a fascinating and delicate matter. It also requires confidence and cultivation.  

The first question you should ask yourself is do you have a gift for Mediumship? Not everyone does. If you don't, you can still develop mediumship skills, but you have to take a different approach.

If you have a gift for spirit communication, you probably already know it and the question is moot. How do you know? Spirits tend to manifest to those who can see or hear them, and often natural mediums begin seeing spirits at a very young age.  

My first experience with spirit visitation occurred when I was four years old. I was having trouble falling asleep due to a stomach ache. My grandfather came in, sat on the bed next to me, and rubbed my belly and sang to me until I drifted into sleep. When I told my mom and aunt at breakfast about my grandfather's nighttime visit, they exchanged a troubled glance. My mom told me I must have dreamed the episode, because my Grandfather had died during the night. I didn't understand the meaning of this until his funeral, when I realized that his ghost must have come to say goodbye to me.  

That nighttime appearance by my grandfather was my first experience with the idea that there is a part of us that survives the death of the body, and that this part -- this spirit -- can still care about and interact with the living. What this spiritual part of us is, I do not know -- nor does anyone, in my opinion -- but it exists, and some people can sense its existence.  

If you're not a natural medium, don't despair. The knack can be developed, although it isn't easy. Sometimes it's best to start with more solid materials before trying to work with the ethereal planes. Mediumship can also take another form, that of telepathic communication with other -- living -- people. Through clairvoyant means, you can sense another person's mind and glean insights into that person's life.

This isn't, in the strictest sense, mind-reading. You usually can't ask someone to think of a number from 1-100, look into your crystal ball, and guess the number. Although I'll say here that I've attended intense crystal ball sessions where the participants succeeded in tests similar to this, where  someone would visualize an object or location, and the other participants would gaze into their crystals and try to guess the target thought. In some of these sessions, the success rate rate was startling.  

Telepathic communication through crystal gazing is not usually that direct, but is more of a feeling, mental impression or sense of knowing. For example, you may start by concentrating on a specific person who is in the next room or several miles away, and picture this person vividly in your mind. Gazing into your crystal, you project your concentration outward, searching for this person. At some point, you might feel a strong sense of contact with the person.  

Concentrating further, you might sense this person's emotional state, whether their feelings toward you are honest or unreliable, whether or not they can be trusted, is the person safe or in danger. If you refine this ability to its highest point of sensitivity, you might even be able to see through their eyes.  

How does this help you connect to spirits? The strange and wonderful aspect of this technique is that it isn't limited to living beings. Mind or consciousness is a mysterious process, not fully understood, and it seems simplistic to assume that consciousness arises solely from the inert matter of the brain. Survival of consciousness after the death of the body doesn't prevent communication between the living and the dead. It just introduces complications. So once you've developed the knack of connecting mind-to-mind with another person, try connecting with the spirit of a loved one who has passed on to the spirit realm.

It might help at first to use a photo for focus. Concentrate on the picture and imagine the person as they were in life. Try to remember their smell, sound of their voice, their laugh.  Now, just as you did with the living person, project your mind out and search for them. Don't be discouraged if your first attempts don't succeed. Spirits exist on a much more subtle plane than we do, and it takes a great deal of practice to learn to "tune in" on the proper frequency. Keep working at it, and I'm sure you'll succeed.

Mediumship is one of the most difficult and most fruitful of the Four Branches of Crystal Gazing taught by Mr. Claude Conlin. Practice diligently,  and let us know how you're progressing!