So why might this be? What are the reasons why a spirit guide might and might not be contactable?

Spirit guides of mediums

A spirit guide helps a spiritualist medium to tune into the spirit world and form a better contact with those who wish to communicate. Each medium apparently has more than one guide in the spirit world and different ones may come through from time to time in accordance with the situation that needs their help.

Genuine mediums are given their psychic gift in order to help the bereaved get over their loss and get on with life. By showing that death is not the end of human consciousness, and that future reunion might be possible, people whose hearts are breaking, can be helped to be healed. This seems to me to be an example of an appropriate motivation for trying to contact a spirit guide and for this reason I believe contacting a spirit guide is easier.

Motivation for seeking contact

In books about the history of modern spiritualism considerable space has been given to Emanuel Swedenborg because of his voluminous writings detailing his extraordinary experiences of spirits. He wrote about his contact with spirits as part of what some people today refer to as inducing an out-of-body experience. These days, methods for contacting spirit guides also are thought to include meditation and lucid dreaming.

Swedenborg points to hazards in open communication with spirits because some are actually malevolent, impersonating others so that they even deceive themselves that they are someone else and saying almost anything, fabricating things. However, he acknowledges that sometimes an enlightened individual does hear the speech of guiding spirits. The person is not told what to do, but merely given suggestions so that he or she is left to their own feelings and desires.

Swedenborg’s motivation for developing his psychic abilities to communicate with spirits was to write down and publish the spiritual insights he was gaining with the world so that others might also benefit. I have come to think that when people seek contact with a spirit with an appropriate motive then they are also protected by their guardian angels. If we open ourselves to the psychic realm in the right spirit of care and concern for others, then probably we’ll get the right spirit coming to us. Another example is seeking guidance for doing what is good and wise.

Examples of inappropriate motivation that are unlikely to result in contact are mere curiosity, wanting, but not needing, proof of immortal life, and desiring that someone take over our responsibility for what we do in life.

Unconscious contact.

Another reason why you cannot contact a spirit guide might be because no spirit wants to make conscious contact with you. Unconscious contact may be sufficient for your needs.

There are spirit helpers who may be unknown, who will aid us at certain times although it may not always be obvious this is happening. If we listen to our ‘gut feeling’ or recognise an uplifting or creative idea we may have been listening to our spirit guide.

Swedenborg wrote that thoughts and impulses of a spirit normally flow into each of us in a hidden way. Neither the spirit nor the person is conscious of the other’s presence. We are aware of the spirit’s ideas and desires and can choose whether or not to make them our own. These can be helpful or unhelpful, positive or negative for our personal life.

However, some spirits, the higher ones, can function as our guardian angels. When we receive guidance from our guardian angel, it is experienced as an inner impulse or idea rather than one coming from a particular spirit outside of us. Being sensitive to wise guidance is like getting to know yourself on a higher level. Swedenborg says two guardian angels are present with each of us.

He reports that guardian angels do not stir up material ideas or memories but remain in the background quietly inspiring our inner motives. Usually we cannot anticipate a disembodied voice to be heard. Spirit will speak to us in thought, in images and feelings. If we are in tune we will somehow fathom the meaning.

Although they watch over us and try to steer us in the right direction, it is not possible for them to see the person with whom they are. They are aware of what we are thinking and feeling inwardly but not what we are doing in the external plane of life. Our privacy is preserved. Guardian angels also guard us against any over-the-top affects of malign spirits.

Many of us will go through life totally unaware of the help we receive from our spirit guides.

My spirit guide

I am not a medium but I do have a spirit guide to help with my personal life. My spirit guide is Christ. I can be in contact with him during quiet reflection, as well as in prayer. I don’t experience any radically different altered state of consciousness like an out of body experience or a lucid dream. However, I do sense his presence — not as a disembodied sound of voice — but rather as his thoughts in my head. Sometimes these are a comfort, other times challenging. They give me useful way of dealing with what life is throwing at me. I must say that whenever I have genuinely wanted a conversation with Christ he always has been in contact!

Copyright 2011 Stephen Russell-Lacy