Individual Variation — Why Trance Comes More Easily to Some
People do not encounter trance from the same human starting point. Some mediums adjust readily to reduced self-direction, changes in bodily experience and a less deliberate relationship with speech, while others remain closely involved with what is occurring for much longer. This chapter examines the human differences that can make trance feel comparatively accessible or unfamiliar without turning those differences into signs of spiritual ability. Ease of entering a changed condition is one factor within trance; it is not a measurement of the mediumistic relationship that may ultimately develop.
Book Five: Trance Mediumship
A Common Question
Why do some people enter trance more easily than others?
Answer
Some people adjust more readily to the changes in personal involvement that accompany trance.
They may feel comfortable when deliberate direction becomes less prominent, while others need more time before that condition feels familiar enough to allow without interference.
These differences concern the human conditions through which trance is encountered. They do not determine the strength or quality of the mediumistic relationship that may develop.
Someone may enter an altered condition very easily without establishing substantial trance work.
Another person may require considerably more time and eventually establish a strong working relationship with Spirit.
Introduction
Two students can undertake trance under similar conditions and encounter very different beginnings.
One may settle readily into a change in personal involvement.
Speech, bodily activity or the prominence of deliberate thought may begin to feel different without creating much concern.
The other may remain closely engaged with everything that happens.
They notice each thought.
They wonder whether they should be doing something differently.
They become conscious of every bodily adjustment.
If speech begins to arise with less preparation, the unfamiliarity itself may bring ordinary self-direction immediately back into prominence.
It can be tempting to interpret this difference spiritually.
Perhaps the first person is gifted.
Perhaps the second is less capable of trance.
Perhaps ease indicates a stronger Spirit connection.
None of those conclusions is warranted.
Trance may be mediumistic, but it is still expressed through the conditions of an individual human being.
People differ in how readily they become absorbed, how closely they monitor their own behavior, how comfortable they are when an action does not feel completely self-directed, and how strongly they respond to unfamiliar internal changes.
These are human variations.
They are not spiritual grades.
Nor do they indicate that one person possesses a spiritual capacity unavailable to another.
What differs is the human route through which trance becomes workable.
Temperament differs.
Attentional habits differ.
Bodily responsiveness differs.
Comfort with changing self-direction differs.
Previous experience differs.
And the Spirit relationship itself will not take identical form through every medium.
Ease should therefore not be confused with capacity.
A person who changes condition quickly may be told they have unusual trance potential.
Someone who remains highly conscious may conclude that trance is unavailable to them.
Physical responsiveness may be mistaken for mediumistic sensitivity.
A vivid imaginative life may be interpreted as evidence that Spirit can work especially easily through the person.
Each conclusion moves too quickly.
How altered someone becomes does not establish the quality of trance.
The same principle applies when comparing people.
Ease tells us something about how readily the person accommodates certain changes.
It does not tell us whether a Spirit communicator is involved.
It does not tell us whether a stable relationship will form.
And it does not tell us what quality of communication may eventually become possible.
There is no single trance temperament.
The more useful question is why people accommodate the conditions associated with trance differently before we decide what those differences mean mediumistically.