Hello from Argentina.

[Fernando Luis Cacciola Carballal]

I grew up in an Spiritist home. Since my grandfather, my family attended a church founded here in Argentina in 1917. I don't think of myself as a medium, but being in this church since I was around 5 or 6, I participated in thousands of mediumnistic practices, most of them as a medium (but I never thought I was really channeling any spirit; at most, relaying with my own thoughts what I figured they would say instead).
This church was supposed to develop a Spiritual Science. That never happened, but I was sold on the idea since I was a small kid, so I grew up to study Chemistry in high school and Biochemistry in College. Not with the idea of working as a "classic" scientist, but as a scientist working on the bridge between the physical and the ethereal. That also never happened, probably because I fell in love with computers along the way and became, professionally speaking, a programmer (I specialize in Computer Graphics, Image Processing and Computational Geometry).
Thorough my life I've made lots of attempts to find some bridge between science and spirituality, but I had always look at mediumship for that. About 5 years ago, I came across ITC and thought it was the holy grail. I guess I'm a theorist, or some such, because I never tried anything with ITC, but I read a lot, from all type of sources. Eventually I concluded that ITC is not as straightforward as I wanted. So, about 3 years ago, while trying to come up with some kind of improvement, I ended up with a sort of system, or idea, which combines conventional ITC with ordinary mental mediumship (not physical mediumship as it is used as a source of subtle energy in "conventional" ITC). I was in the process of writing a formal research paper presenting this idea when I came across Varanormal. So when I finish that paper, I will post it here (if that's OK with you all).

I work as a programmer full time, have two teenager kids, and my wife has some health problems which requires me to do all the housekeeping and most of the parental stuff like helping with homework, etc... so usually I have zero free time. However, I decided to make time for this (setting up a schedule). And even though there is this one idea I would like to work on, who knows what I might find in this forum and what do I end up helping with, or working on.

[Andres Ramos]

Bienvenido Fernando !! Glad to have such an experienced snd open minded soul here on Varanormal. Seems to me the spiritual seekers all have their burden to take. I care for my parents since 8 years. Now my mom is in s nursing home with Parkinson disease and my father is very slowly dying from bladder cancer. My free time also is almost zero.

[Fernando Luis Cacciola Carballal]

Hola Andrés!

Speaking of burdens to take, I thought about sharing something which normally wouldn't be shared here, but which has a synchronicity that makes it worth telling you about.
About a month after I came up with, and started working on, that system I mentioned before, I found myself unwillingly walking into what turned out to be a monumental emotional nightmare. It was so almost unbearably painful that I dropped the project (and almost everything else... it was the closest I've ever been to a depression). Fortunately, and surely as a result of all that pain, I've been transitioning a life changing (for the best) crisis. I'm almost out of there (in fact I've made what I hope are the final steps just last week). 
The thing is... if I had found this forum just a bit before now, it would have ended up as yet another bookmark of staff to look for in the future. I only now recovered the focus and energy to work on these things.

---

There is something ese which I think it's important and I should say it. 
It has always been my experience that mediumship is used, in the great majority of the cases, to communicate with deceased loved ones (typically on behalf of someone else). Even the mediumship development groups in Facebook that I know of, are fundamentally focused on the so called "readings".
However, in my church, the focus has been exclusively in helping us evolve. There are no reading-like seances. Instead, mediumship is used to let us take part in the ongoing spiritual process we call "redemption work", in which the spirits on the higher worlds try to confort, support and luckily guide spirits in the suffering worlds. We, through mediumship, and being sort of in the middle, help in that task providing a kind of intermediate safe environment for the two "sides" to meet in the middle.
Additionally, mediumship is used to receive wisdom and knowledge from the higher worlds. That is how this church developed, or channeled-in to be precise, a comprehensive and highly detailed "belief system", similar in content and method to the works of Allan Kardec.

Although I never seen an ITC session myself, from what I've been reading on the internet, it seems to me that the usual focus is similar to that of conventional mediumship readings... that is, to communicate with deceased loved ones.

I completely understand the emotional need to do that, but, any kind of communication with the spirit world can, and should, go far beyond that. My own interest in ITC (or mediumship for that matter), is to follow, or perhaps mimic, the steps of my church and use it as a way to let the higher worlds channel-in their wisdom and knowledge, in an efficient, reliable, dependable and above all, scientifically evidential way. 

Interestingly, I seem to have found (after I joined) that you all feel the same about that.
 

[Michael Lee]

Fernando, I agree that ITC, when the technology improves and becomes more of a mainstream tool, spiritual evolution will be its primary purpose. I almost wonder, though, if there isn't some spirit pushback from some factions to delay the development of this tech as its effect will be powerful - hopefully mostly good.

[Andres Ramos]

You had some very interesting thoughts,  Fernando. Actually  I feel very much the same as you. One thing we discovered in our group and what I learned so far from my own ITC experience  is that the techniques we are constantly  developing  are not the crucial  factor. After one year of very intense research we could draw the conclusion  that we got comparable results with all techniques. Even more I checked techniques with almost no technical stuff but strong involvement  of humans. In the end I found one of the most popular laws of spirituality,  you reach out for spiritual enlightening and you are encountering yourself!

To put it all in a more empirical context we could say that the techniques we use are the training and exercising  context we use to evolve our spiritual self.

I assume there will be a time when we do not need techniques anymore and can establish contacts just by applying our own mental force.  I myself am facing very subtile changes in my perceiving  processes. Speech patterns are occurring in various environmental sounds. I see it as the beginning of clairaudiance.

Another important message you conveyed is that spiritual evolvement is always bound  to processes of cleaning yourself from internal obstacles by going through severe pain. The pain you described could be the preparation  you needed to get ready for your next task. I went through 8 years of deepest pain, desperation and breakdowns by servicing my parents and my wifes father. They all are suffering since years from various serious diseases  but now this period seems to come to an end and I start to feel like I'm  renewed and cleansed.

Thats why I have problems with spiritual folks telling me permanently they are bright shining light, everywhere is love and you have to avoid every negative thought.

[Fernando Luis Cacciola Carballal]

I totally agree with you Andres.

And what you mentioned about the beginning of clairaudience is very interesting. What started to happen to me is that when I'm close to fall asleep, sometimes I hear in my mind very clear voices. And it is definitely not a thought but a voice, as I can even tell where it comes from, spatially speaking. It happens rarely, and only in that in-between state

And of course I agree about the sometimes necessary pain, since I just experienced it.  I realized in my therapy session this morning how much I'm not off the hook yet, but, it doesn't matter.  The time is now and I'm ready!

I suppose I should tell you that I'm sorry that you are also going through your own pain, but we just said that it's a necessary step! So, just hang in there 

I do believe in "permanent bright shinning light".... but that's God, and the really high spirits whom I hope to channel in with this work.  But we, humans, are just learning and evolving the best we can.  Yes, it's a great goal, but to get to any point it's fundamental to know where you are now, and we're not there.

 

[Fernando Luis Cacciola Carballal]

@Michael LeeI'm positively sure that there is some spirit pushback from some groups to prevent this work from ever happening. But, what does that really mean?

It means--in my humble opinion--that we all need to be very much aware of the critical importance of "resonating" with the "higher spirits" through our intentions and actions.  I know that this is much easier said then done, but it is a fact that our success is directly correlated with that.

The only really effective response to darkness is light. 

 

[Keith J. Clark]

Hi Fernando, so glad you came to join us! Yes, your writing was certainly timely. A month prior this forum was not even a thought! It was merely a shift of energy that swept me up, and clearly others as well. How many of us are tired of being told what to think by Facebook? I am, and rarely visit it anymore. 

We are glad to have you on board with your life experience to contribute towards the greater goals!

Keith

[Andres Ramos]

On 10/14/2020 at 2:06 AM, Fernando Luis Cacciola Carballal said:

I totally agree with you Andres.

And what you mentioned about the beginning of clairaudience is very interesting. What started to happen to me is that when I'm close to fall asleep, sometimes I hear in my mind very clear voices. And it is definitely not a thought but a voice, as I can even tell where it comes from, spatially speaking. It happens rarely, and only in that in-between state

And of course I agree about the sometimes necessary pain, since I just experienced it.  I realized in my therapy session this morning how much I'm not off the hook yet, but, it doesn't matter.  The time is now and I'm ready!

I suppose I should tell you that I'm sorry that you are also going through your own pain, but we just said that it's a necessary step! So, just hang in there 

I do believe in "permanent bright shinning light".... but that's God, and the really high spirits whom I hope to channel in with this work.  But we, humans, are just learning and evolving the best we can.  Yes, it's a great goal, but to get to any point it's fundamental to know where you are now, and we're not there.

 

You are showing  a spiritual  and simultaneously very  realistic worldview. I like this very much.  As I said that I don't  like people who see themselves and everything is bright shining light I meant that those are neglecting that anything else exists and pain is always an abnormal  state. I don't like pain but I know it is inevitable if you want to evolve.

What you say about voices in the intermediate state between being awake and sleep is really intriguing as I am encountering similar phenomena  since decades. But there are no acoustical voices i hear but very strong thoughts breaking into, almost like voices but so clear the even they are thoughts they have a voice like characteristic. Furthermore sometimes I can see flashes of images just for a fraction of a second often in a kind of wild camera movement.  I had some thoughts how to document this as these are unmeasurable  events in my mind. I had the idea to put a voice activated digital recorder next to my bed in order to describe in words what I experienced directly  after being conscious again.