| Born Knowing The EDGE Interview with Medium John Holland "Mediumship is more than just delivering messages. It's about the confirmation that our 'spirit' lives on, once we leave our physical body. We are and always will be connected to each other. Love is everlasting, and neither death nor time can ever separate us." -- John Holland by Tim Miejan John Holland studied metaphysics all his life, spending more than two intensive years in England, training and working with some of the top mediums. He received confirmation of his special abilities after a near-fatal accident when he was 30 years old, when his unique skills were amplified and brought to the surface. Since then, he has provided the link for thousands of people to communicate with their loved ones, who have passed on. He not only helps people connect with their loved ones, but he also empowers those with whom he comes into contact to follow their own spiritual journey. Often losing a loved one causes people to question their own belief about life after death, and by helping them to recognize the signs and symbols associated with their deceased loved ones, John helps them to tap into their psychic intuitive abilities. John will join three other noted psychics -- Doreen Virtue, Sonia Choquette and Gordon Smith -- on stage in Minneapolis from 9 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Saturday, March 13, at the Minneapolis Convention Center, as part of Mystical Connectionsª 2004: A Day of Intuition, Angels, and Psychics, sponsored by Hay House. Call 1 (800) 654-5126 or visit www.mysticalconnections.org for tickets and more information. John Holland spoke with The EDGE about his mission and his gifts during a phone interview from his home in New Hampshire. You are a medium. Describe what that is for people who may not have heard of it. John Holland: What you should break it down to is a psychic medium. Every medium is psychic, but not every psychic is a medium. A psychic is someone who can sit with you and read from your energy, from your aura, something about your past, maybe how you got here into the present, and then share your POTENTIAL future. A medium is someone who links with those people who have passed on. I use my senses -- hearing, feeling or seeing -- and I will get messages and symbols. Nicknames can come through, images to relate to the person. It's different than just being psychic because there's a personality attached to it. If we're discussing something about someone who's passed, I usually can bring through the personality of the person so you know exactly who I'm talking with. There seems to be an explosion of interest in the field of mediumship like with John Edward and James Van Praagh and people like that. Why do you think that is? Holland: I think reputable mediums are now out there putting themselves on the line on national, public television. You have to be really good at what you do to put yourself in front of millions of people every single day. I think because of the reputable people out there -- John and James and George Anderson -- they have opened the door for other mediums. And I honestly think that people are ready for it now. Years ago I tried to stay out of the "woo-woo" category, you understand. But now, the ones who are out there are so good at what they're doing that it makes people look at mediumship or the psychic world in a different way, like, "This is real. This is tangible. Yes, I can see this right in front of me." I think people are ready for it now. It doesn't have to be in the closet anymore, or behind closed doors. See, to me this is a natural thing. The history of mediumship goes back a long ways. Holland: Absolutely. Mediumship actually started with the Fox sisters here in America [in 1848] and took off in England. There are still spiritualist churches here, but it really took off in England and flourished with a lot of research and science. They put themselves into research on mediumship and the psychic world. I look at it this way: It's all about energy. It's not about crystal balls, fortune telling or that type of thing. I'm from Boston, and I told myself that if I'm going to do this work, I wanted to make sure I do it right. So I ended up going to England in a strange kind of way and studying with the mediums over there for two straight years. And it was fascinating, having that opportunity. I sat with mediums in a process that's called the Circle. Every Tuesday night, you would just sit in meditation with an experienced teacher. We learned how to feel what it's like to have spirit come close to you, how to pick up the symbols, how to share the information. The ethics of this work are very highly regarded over there, because someone's life is in your hands when you're doing this work for them. So they taught you the responsibility of doing this work. When you were in the Circle, is it the case that everybody in the Circle could confirm what you were picking up? Holland: I was invited to two kinds of circles. There was an open circle, where anyone can sit in circle and just practice their mediumship -- and they can give a message to someone in the circle. We all were doing it for two years. The head medium or the head teacher, the tutor, the experienced medium, the leader of the group, would watch to see what was happening to me. If someone's trained enough, and they're an expert in doing this, they can see who's coming into your energy field and what you're trying share about it. They can watch it happen. While your eyes are closed, the teacher would watch it happen. If you give enough information, the teacher could help you through the message, to let you know whether it's your own mind or imagination giving off the information or if, in fact, you had a genuine link. In England, they taught Blending and Linking. Blending is blending with someone else's energy, like if I was with you, I would blend with your energy and those on the other side would step in using their energy. The link is when you start getting the evidence and you start sharing it. It's almost like I'm just an operator. When I'm with an audience of 2,000 people, like I've done all this year, you better be quite specific. It's not like you can raise your hand and say, "Does anybody know a John? Or has anyone passed from cancer in this room?" Because, of course, all the hands would go up. So you better be very clear with some actual evidence so maybe two or three people can understand it -- and then you can see who it belongs to with more evidence. On the surface it seems like there would be an awful lot of responsibility on your shoulders. Holland: Absolutely. There is a lot of responsibility. That's why I hold my mediumship in the highest regard. I'm constantly training, constantly bettering myself with this, because if I were to say I've learned everything I possibly could learn about mediumship, then I think I should step off and stop doing this. This is a constantly evolving thing with me. It's a life of service, really that literally involves giving, giving, giving. In terms of you learning more, what is that process like? How are you developing your skills better? Holland: By going out on a limb more while striving to still give the best evidence possible. That's what I'm known for. I'm known for just going out there and giving some evidence that may be so far out there. What would be an example of going out there? Holland: Because my waiting list is so long, sometimes I'll do small groups. I was sitting with this group and I came to this woman and I kept seeing dinosaur bones and excavation and archeology, and I couldn't understand what it meant. The woman didn't understand either, but we worked through it. It turns out that her mom owned a house. Before her mom bought it, the guy who lived there dug a hole in his backyard, a huge cavern, apparently, and he would bury everything: a car, engines, sinks, everything. It was not a hill, but he would just bury this stuff and then cover it over with dirt. So they had to excavate it just like an archeology dig and pull out the car, the sinks and everything. During the reading I didn't get buried cars or sinks, because in our own rational mind, that's never been anything we ever had to deal with. You understand? It was like he created a personal landfill back there. Holland: Yes. You and I do know about archeology and dinosaur bones, so that's what came up for me. There was another instance where I was in a message and I was just about to step on stage at this bookshop. Just before I stepped on stage, I heard in my head, "Ask them about the time I hit them with a frying pan." I told myself, "Oh, my God, that can't be." So, I went out there and I said, "Excuse me ladies and gentleman, before I start here, I'm just going to put this out here: Was anybody in this room ever hit in the head with a cast iron frying pan by someone on the mother's side?" I could feel it was on the mother's side of the family, not by their mother, but on the mother's side. And I waited and sure enough, within a few seconds, a woman raises her hand and she says, "John, when I was a child, my aunt, my mom's sister, kind of gave me a little tap in the back of the head with a cast iron frying pan." It didn't give her stitches or anything, but she was hit on the back of the head -- and she was named after the woman who hit her in the head with a frying pan. That's too specific! It's not like, "Who here has an aunt that's passed who was ill?" You know what I mean? And there's so many cases like that. Now, there are a lot of people who come to a big show of 2,000 people and a lot of them will not get a personal message, but they are there anyway. What do you think brings them to your event? Holland: Hoping to get a message. But, when I'm doing an event, I don't even care if it's an hour and a half, I will not go out there and just deliver messages. I will explain to them how I work, how they can communicate themselves, the signs to watch for, so if they don't get a message at least they leave with a little bit of education. Because the idea is that we can all connect. Holland: We can all connect. Our loved ones who passed may come through in smells, touch or dreams. I'm very interactive when I work with the audience. I'll say, "Who here had the dreams of their loved ones that passed away or who here has had this happen to them or this?" And many people raise their hands like, "Oh, my God, I thought it was just me. I thought I was nuts." And people see this, the large number of others who have had similar experiences. I tell them this is absolutely normal that your loved ones want to communicate with you, just as much as you want to communicate with them. People want confirmation that there is life after death. Holland: Absolutely. I cannot take away the pain of them being gone. This is not meant to be a cure for the bereavement process -- and I totally push that, that mediumship is only meant to help in the bereavement process. Some people will come to me after they lose somebody, but I don't think someone should run to a medium as soon as they've lost someone. They need to go through the stages of their grief before they can even accept hearing from someone. What steps can people do in their daily life to open themselves up for connection? Holland: This will be coming out in my next book. I will be teaching people that you are the equipment, that you don't need outside sources to have intuition or psychic abilities. Your body is meant to connect with your spirit side, through your chakras, through your aura. If people learn how their psychic mechanisms work -- chakras, auras, breath meditation -- it makes it easier for them to link with those who have passed on. A lot of people come into my workshops and immediately they want to go for the mediumship and want to talk to the dead. I always say, "No, you have to know how it works, how the channels in your body work, how you can pull in energy to protect yourself, how to open up your chakra system." So if someone learns how to use their psychic mechanism, you can almost meet those on the other side half way. A lot of people think that it's easy for those on the other side to come through. It's a lot of work, as much as the medium's. Really? Holland: Yes. It's because it's so dense here on Earth. They have to lower their energy and I raise mine so there's a blending of the two of us together. So there has to be a true intent on the other side to connect. Holland: Yes. Sometimes there's not even a huge message, Tim. Sometimes they come just to say, "I love you. I'm here." Other times, there is more. Someone may have lost her dad before she got married, and she has a baby, and she may be quite upset that her father never saw the marriage and will never know the grandchildren. People always come through confirming, "I was at the wedding" with evidence, such as, "I know you had the baby girl." Those who have passed are still a part of your life, just as if they were here physically they'd be part of your life. Just because they're out of the body doesn't mean that they're not -- and the people on the other side never miss a good party. I've confirmed, with their help, that they come to baby showers, events, weddings, usually with some evidence. They may describe the decoration on the table or an extra special toast, maybe with some words that they heard. In your first book, Born Knowing, which was released in March 2003, you share your experiences early on with psychic ability. What was your first connection with the other side? Holland: I was raised in a very tough part of Boston, basically the slums. When this started happening to me as a kid, I was different, out of the five kids in the family. I was one who always just knew things beforehand: who was coming over, who was ill, who was going to be pregnant. When I was a kid in my bedroom I used to see spirit people walking through the room. I'm thinking it's a dream, but as a kid I wasn't really frightened. A lot of people say, "Well, weren't you freaked out?" I couldn't be freaked out with something that I've always had. You know what I mean? It was always there, so I was never really frightened of it. I read metaphysical books as a child, an unbelievable amounts of books. Instead of playing baseball, I'm reading all these metaphysical, New Age books. So, I used to see these spirit people in my bedroom and, of course, when you tell your parents that, and your friends, they call you "freak," "weirdo," and say "It's your imagination," so I pushed it away. I pushed it down because I didn't want to be different any more. During my teenage years, people knew I could do psychic things and they'd say, "OK, do that thing that you do." And then I moved to Los Angeles and this was filmed. Unsolved Mysteries picked up the story and that's when I was in a car accident. I didn't die, I didn't go into the light, there was nobody there to say "Go back, it's not your time." But, the trauma of the accident opened me up to where I couldn't ignore it anymore. My abilities were turned up unbelievably, like 180 degrees turned up. I used to tend bar for a hotel during weddings and that type of thing. When people would step up to the bar, they would get a prediction or something about their life with their cocktail. I'd say if you stepped up to my bar, Tim, I'd say, "You're a writer?" And you'd say, "How did you know that?" And I'd say, "Uh, you look like one." Otherwise, people would get freaked out. So, not only would they get a drink, they would get something about their life. Then word started getting around the hotel about me, and then for two years people pushed me to do this work: "Oh, John, you have to do readings for people." And I said, "No." And my friends pushed and I kept fighting them, because I didn't want to go back to my childhood memories of "freak, there has to be something's wrong with you." Because it's a very skeptical world, and it's one of the most skeptical businesses to be in. So, I finally started doing readings, but I always held two jobs. Some people immediately become psychic and do this full time. I couldn't, or I didn't consider myself good enough. I did it for two years, doing readings and working a part-time job, still developing my training along the way here in the States. No matter when I was doing readings, people on the other side started coming through. Now, you may come to me to talk about your career, but I might get your dad -- or someone who has passed over. So, then I said, "OK, now what's happening? First I have to deal with being a psychic and all that goes with that, all that trauma, and now I'm talking to dead people." That's when I started reading books on mediumship. Two weeks into reading these books, which were all from the UK, I'm out at a function and I step on a person's foot who happens to be from England -- and I got invited over there. My job closed, I had a few hundred dollars in the bank so I went over there and rented a small room out of this guy's home. People saw that I had something special and they took me under their wing and took me into Scotland -- and I stayed over there for two years. Even when I came back, for nine years I still worked two jobs. I worked during the day and did some readings in the evening until finally, I couldn't take it anymore. I had to choose. Well, you know which one I had to go with. You always have a choice, but I know that if I can help someone and if I can give them a little healing or if they can see that we all go on or that we're more than just these physical bodies, then I feel I've done my job. Was it that sense of service and helping other people that finally allowed you to get over the fear and say, "This is who I am"? Holland: That and when I see how someone lost a child, those are the ones who always stroke my heart, parents who have lost a child. If I can give them some evidence that their child is OK or is with their grandparent on the other side, then that really touches me to keep doing this work. With my training and the encouragement of friends, I just said, "You know what? This is what I do." I try to be the best that I can be. I can never prove that there's life after death until we go there ourselves, but I can give you the best evidence possible to show you that the consciousness does go on. For more on John Holland, visit his website at www.johnholland.com Tim Miejan is editor of The EDGE. Contact him at (651) 578-8969, toll-free 1 (888) 776-7616 or by e-mail at editor@edgenews.com Copyright © 2004 Tim Miejan |
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