influenced by preconceived opinions 

The following is from Excursions to the Spirit World by Frederick C. Sculthorp. In 1934 the author suffered the untimely death of his wife. Grieving his loss, and after chancing upon the famous scientist Sir Oliver Lodge’s book “Why I Believe in Personal Immortality,” he decided to try his luck with a psychic-medium to contact his lost love. The results astonished him. He was given information that only she and he knew about. Moreover, this initial success led to something even more marvelous. Sculthorp discovered, with the psychic’s encouragement, that he too possessed abilities to access the coming dimensions.  For the next decades, via “out-of-body” astral traveling during sleep, he would visit his wife in Summerland and, in the process, offered us much knowledge concerning life and society the next world.

From the introduction: "A difficulty arises in so far as spiritual experience may be either of a symbolical nature (similar to dreams of the same kind) or else be due to a spiritual reality.

"The symbolical experience is quite personal and individual; also it may be much influenced by preconceived opinions. From this point of view accounts from saintly persons of old or from mesmerized subjects suffer from being coloured by their own religious and dogmatic convictions.

"Even Swedenborg, an outstanding scientist and impressive personality was mainly concerned with religious implications and for that reason his descriptions must be studied with caution. Some of his statements are corroborated by modern observation but in many instances their symbolical character is obvious.

"That is why modern reports by people with inquisitive minds, not bound to any dogmatic ideas of any Church and interested in psychic science are more reliable from the start.

"In any case, all teachings received from the spirit world depend not only on the person receiving and reporting them, but naturally also upon the character of the spirit teacher."

Editor's last word:

Regarding the above title-reference of "rigid belief," a moment's consideration should indicate that it states the obvious.

Little shock to suggest that a belief-system will skew a medium's messages - a rigid belief-system skews all messages, for all of us, every day, concerning all news that we receive. Today, we call it "fake news," and we know what this means.

Bottom line: a medium that believes in "R" will not only attract to him/herself philosophically-sympathetic spirits, but will tend to distort even veridical information, as it censors and selectively chooses according to systemic prejudice.

the difference between a medium and a psychic

It’s been said that all mediums are psychics, but not all psychics are mediums.

• A medium serves as conduit, a bridge, midway between two entities, or acts with agency of another.
• A psychic enjoys abilities derived from the powers of the mind, the psyche, such as remote viewing, telepathy, or clairaudience.

like telegraph offices

Mediums are like short-wave radio transmitters, facilitating the sending and receiving of messages. Or, in another era (circa. 1900), afterlife researcher British Admiral Usborne Moore, in his “Glimpses Of The Next State,” concluded that “mediums are, after all, only telegraph offices,” and that the “gift of true mediumship, like that of poetry, art and invention, is entirely independent of character… many mediums [are] of good character, but some are rogues.”

One might be a good psychic-medium but not necessarily a good person. A telegraph office consists of amoral machinery not virtue.

Editor's note: A telegraph office does not filter messages, but it is also true that a medium's belief-system can distort messages. See more discussion here and here.

extended mind

Dr. Rupert Sheldrake has said that psychic abilities are not spiritually-based but merely an adjunct of one's animal nature. For example, animals, too, have telepathic qualities. Psychic powers manifest as part of our extended minds, analogous to a magnet's force-field and energy extending beyond itself.

Dr. William Barrett (below) pointed out that the messages of mediums and psychics have an external source. Here, “external” means “not of the soul”.

Barrett's distinction is valuable. It would be very difficult to express the higher, mystical, soul-based gifts without also being a good person; at least, a good person in process.

Editor's last word:

Sir William Barrett, “On The Threshold Of The Unseen” (1917):

None will find in automatic writing, or other spiritualistic phenomena, the channel for the "communion of saints," which is independent of material agency and attained only in stillness and serenity of soul. For the psychical order is not the spiritual order; it deals, as I have said elsewhere, only "with the external, though it be in an unseen world; and its chief value lies in the fulfillment of its work whereby it reveals to us the inadequacy of the external, either here or hereafter, to satisfy the life of the soul."

Sir William expresses it well: psychic and mediumistic phenomena, though invisible, remain in the realm of the external, as opposed to spiritual energies, originating from “within,” via the stillness of the soul, forming the basis of the "communion of saints."

Note, too, "either here or hereafter," for, as we've seen, millions on the other side know nothing of the powers of the soul.

Adrian Smith commented on the above writing plus the "exististential beauty" article: 

"I relate to [these writings] on a very deep level. I have felt for a long time (and written about this in my book), that there is another way of knowing, independent of intellect, reason, or evidence, infinitely more reliable, yet completely illusive when trying to convey the experience to anyone else. Those who speak of it know it not. In this life we can never be completely certain of anything. Jurors are counseled to decide beyond a reasonable doubt but not beyond any doubt. Most knowledge arrives second hand and, as you point out, this is true of the psychic who is only a conduit. Paul preferred this mystic experience above the psychic gifts which were more attractive and glamorous to the uninitiated. The mystical experience by contrast conveys a level of certitude which is beyond any doubt, but this is entirely personal. Nevertheless, true mystics will encounter each other speaking the same language and coming from the same country though separated in space and time. It seems that our love of life is intimately bound up with gender and the experience of romantic attraction illustrates ecstatic union with the Divine. I was just reading about an ancient demon god that compelled its victims to change their gender. Perhaps we are witnessing a return of the old gods."

Restatement:

The following is being written more than a year after concluding the above writing. I had awakened from sleep in the early hours with a thought on my mind in reference to the mystical experience. A phrase clamored for attention:

hardware versus software

The difference between the ordinary variety psychic message and intuitive sense might be explained as a contrast concerning “hardware and software.”

A computer’s hardware, the machine, will process information both of error and truth. It does this in an even-handed way without scruple. But software is not so egalitarian but will produce output only according to underlying programming.

And so it is with psychic versus intuitive.

A psychic-medium message is little more than the brain serving as “hardware” which might relay from other-dimensional entities both error or truth. The process is quite amoral. The brain, in this case, is just a receiver, hardware machinery, by which others send their messages; potentially, “garbage in, garbage out.”

Much different, however, is the intuitional or mystical sense. It’s more like software. If we attune or align our spirits with Source, then not only will we receive impressions which reflect the mind of Divinity, but, in this "purified" (or, as the scripture has it, "holy") sense of things, if the attunement is substantial, it’s not really possible to receive an errant message. The “software” or the “programming” will immediately kick out any vibration which does not conform to the intentions of Spirit. This is absolutely fact, cannot be altered, and our sturdy guidance system, today and a million years from now. Further, those on the other side, not "plugged into" this better connection, will take their place with the "insane 500."

This distinction between “hardware and software” explains, in certain areas of knowledge production, wide disagreement in viewpoint. For example, I submit to you that the surfeit of missives relative to reincarnation, seemingly affirming its existence, is the product of either low-information or malicious entities on the other side communicating with mere “hardware” receivers in this world. But those more intuitive, aligned with Source, immediately, and mystically, sense the error of the reincarnational doctrine.

Editor’s note: The “Course In Miracles” refers to this mystical general sense of things as the “divine abstraction.”