SPIRITUAL CENSORSHIP IN MEDIUMSHIP SESSIONS
A spiritual-psychological and political science essay-study
Based on materials from the "Cassiopeia" and "Alcyone" projects
Censorship is not always a prohibition. More often, it is a form of knowledge about what can be said. A person deeply immersed in the system carries the censor within.
I. Introduction: The Nature of the Question
A mediumship session in an authoritarian state is not merely a religious or esoteric practice. It is a special type of communication where several systems of power intersect simultaneously: political power, institutional power, the power of the archetypal image, and the power of the collective unconscious. It is this intersection that gives rise to the phenomenon we term, in this study, spiritual censorship.
By spiritual censorship, we understand not a mechanism of crude information suppression, but a multi-level process of filtering the content of mediumistic contact, in which external political constraints are translated into the language of inner spiritual experience. The medium does not feel pressure from the outside; they feel the "will of the curators," the "fuzziness of the image," the "inadmissibility of a topic" within the categories of their own spiritual ontology.
This study is based on the analysis of two series of mediumship sessions: the Russian esoteric project "Cassiopeia" (contactee Irina Podzorova, Russia) and the Ukrainian-American project "Alcyone" (contactee Marina Makeeva). The key material is the transcript of the "Cassiopeia" session from June 7, 2023 – a session with the "spirit of Stalin" – as well as a comparative analysis of both projects on the topic of the murder of Archpriest Alexander Men.
The study poses three main questions. First: what is the mechanism of spiritual censorship – how exactly do political constraints transform into the "will of the curators"? Second: is this mechanism the result of conscious manipulation, self-censorship, or a phenomenologically different process? Third: what does the comparison of the two channels – Russian and Ukrainian-American – reveal about the nature of the mediumistic phenomenon itself?
II. The Political Context as a Matrix of Censorship
2.1. The Session of June 7, 2023: The Historical Dimension
The session was conducted in the second year of Russia's full-scale war with Ukraine. This context is not merely a "backdrop" but an active semantic matrix that determines what can and cannot be said by the "spirit" of any historical figure in the Russian media space – including the esoteric media space.
The map of omissions in the transcript precisely reproduces the map of politically dangerous topics of 2023. The Katyn Massacre – a painful topic in the context of Polish-Russian relations and the war – is resolved by reproducing the official Soviet version ("we arrived when the bodies were already there"), even though the USSR itself acknowledged guilt back in 1990. The Holodomor of 1932–1933 is interpreted exclusively as a consequence of "peasant resistance," completely absolving the Soviet leadership of responsibility for the deliberate policy of grain seizure. The repressions of 1937–1938 are discussed without a single specific figure – neither the 700,000 executed in two years, nor the several million who died in the camps.
Conversely, topics that are politically safe or desirable in 2023 receive detailed coverage. The victory in the Great Patriotic War is presented as Stalin's unquestionable merit. Criticism of "oligarchs" and "inequality" – permissible opposition rhetoric that does not target the authorities personally. The demonization of Lenin – safe, as he is not an object of an official modern cult.
This asymmetry – detailed apologetic narratives where it is politically safe, and resounding silence where it is dangerous – cannot be coincidental. It is structural.
2.2. Evidence of Censorship in the Text
Several specific moments in the session directly indicate the work of a censoring mechanism.
The host himself admits: "I don't understand what to ask. Honestly" – regarding the topic of Katyn. This is a surprising admission for a person; he literally cannot formulate the question because he doesn't know a "safe" way to ask it. The question is posed in an extremely cautious form ("a provocation by fascists or the NKVD?"), and the spirit immediately gives the safe answer.
The medium openly states: "I won't relay this. These are unflattering remarks" – regarding the spirit's statements about Lenin. This is an extremely rare demonstration of the censoring filter at work in real-time: the medium consciously decides not to relay part of the "received information." The censorship mechanism is revealed here with absolute clarity.
III. The Psychodynamics of Spiritual Censorship
3.1. The Medium as a Psychic Membrane
From the perspective of depth psychology, a medium in a trance state is not an empty vessel receiving external signals. They are a psychic membrane through which information passes and is transformed according to their own psychic structures, unconscious beliefs, and emotional reactions.
The Jungian concept of autonomous complexes is exceptionally productive here. In the unconscious of any person raised in the Soviet or post-Soviet cultural environment, there exists a powerful psychic "Stalin" complex – an archetypally charged image combining the figures of the Father, the Tyrant, the Sacrificial Builder, and the Victorious Warrior. This complex lives its own life and is capable of "speaking" in a voice perceived as external.
When a medium "channels the spirit of Stalin," they resonate with this collective psychic formation. The messages reflect not "what the real Stalin thinks on the sixth astral level," but the Stalin who lives in the collective unconscious of Russian culture in 2023. This makes the session a far more valuable historical document than it might initially appear.
3.2. Preemptive Self-Censorship as a Systemic Phenomenon
The hypothesis that censorship requires a direct curator – be it a special service or an astral entity – is based on a liberal model of media, where content control presupposes an institutional mechanism of coercion. But authoritarian states have long moved beyond this model.
Political scientist Timothy Snyder and sociologist Lev Gudkov have independently described a phenomenon that could be called preemptive self-censorship: under authoritarian rule, people do not wait for instructions – they anticipate the boundaries of the permissible and do not cross them themselves. This mechanism works more effectively than enforced censorship precisely because it is internal. A person applying self-censorship does not feel external pressure – they feel their own wisdom and caution.
In an esoteric project, this mechanism is rationalized in the language of the system itself: "the curators do not allow it," "the spirit does not show it," "the image is unclear." The subject is not lying – they are sincerely describing an inner experience. But this experience is the psychic transformation of an external political constraint into an internal spiritual experience.
The hypothesis that curators see "branches of the future" and therefore filter dangerous statements is an accurate description of the real mechanism – only the nature of "seeing the future" is different. It is not astral clairvoyance, but social intuition developed within an authoritarian environment.
3.3. Four Levels of Filtration
Level one – socialized knowledge of boundaries. The project organizers are middle-aged Russian entrepreneurs who have lived through the 90s, 00s, 10s, and 20s in Russia. They don't need instructions to know: Katyn is dangerous, the topic of the Holodomor is dangerous, criticism of the war is criminally punishable. This knowledge is not declarative but embodied – it is transmitted not through directives, but through the cultural air.
Level two – commercial motivation. The project is monetized: probiotics, retreats, services. Any conflict with the authorities means the end of the business. This is a powerful censorial stimulus, requiring no external curator.
Level three – the psychophysiology of trance. If the medium indeed enters an altered state of consciousness, anxiety regarding dangerous topics automatically blocks their emergence. Trance amplifies emotional reactions. Fear is one of the strongest emotions. Censorship is embedded into the very psychophysiology of the practice.
Level four – retrospective rationalization. When the medium feels an internal stop signal, it is attributed to an external source. "The curators do not allow it" – this is not conscious deception. It is a psychologically normal way to explain one's own unconscious limitations in the language of the system within which the practice operates.
IV. The Performance Hypothesis: Between Earpiece and Trance
4.1. Differential Analysis of Speech Registers
The strongest argument in favor of the non-trivial nature of the mediumistic phenomenon is the sharp contrast in quality between "Irina speaking as herself" and "Irina in the channel."
"As herself": "MidgasKaus and LiShioni listened to him with interest" – simple syntactic constructions, colloquial register, emotional exclamations.
"In the channel": "When I forbade raising prices, they simply refused to supply bread. A threat of famine arose. And the disobedient, those who didn't want to join the collective farms, had to take their grain and livestock with them to the grave" – coherent historical reasoning with cause-and-effect logic, concrete details, and a rhetorically polished conclusion.
This gap demands an explanation. It is difficult to explain by simple self-hypnosis or a simple earpiece alone. The reality likely lies in a more complex space.
4.2. Spectrum of Intermediate Options
Option A: Sincere trance with unconscious censorship. The medium enters an altered state. In this state, her unconscious speaks, saturated with historical narratives from the cultural environment. Censorship is unconscious and politically motivated.
Option B: Sincere trance with conscious refinement. The medium receives fragmentary images and sensations, then constructs them into coherent narratives, drawing on information she has studied beforehand. The person may sincerely believe they are refining "received" material, not inventing it.
Option C: Structured preparation plus trance performance. A small team prepares basic narratives on the topic. The medium reproduces the material in a trance-like state. No technical earpiece is involved – there is preliminary preparation and a high mnemonic skill in the altered state.
Option D: A full-blown performance with real-time prompting. A team, an earpiece, real-time direction. This option is contradicted by the actual pauses, slips of the tongue, and moments of awkwardness in the text. "Georgian letters, I don't understand" – this is not the behavior of an actress with a prompter. A real performance would yield a smoother result.
The text is best explained by options B or C. These options explain the quality gap between registers, the real pauses, the psychologically plausible details (description of a traumatic childhood, a psychologically accurate portrait of a narcissistic structure), and the geometry of omissions.
V. Cassiopeia and Alcyone: Two Channels – Two Worlds
5.1. One Subject, Different Versions
A comparative analysis of the two mediumistic projects on the topic of the murder of Archpriest Alexander Men is perhaps the most compelling evidence in favor of the institutional nature of spiritual censorship. We have two channels, working with the same figure – the "spirit of Men," using the same esoteric ontology, even providing coinciding biographical data. And yet – fundamentally different versions of the murder.
5.2. Map of Discrepancies
On the question of the murder, "Cassiopeia" works through categories of karma: "karmic knot with the murderer," "spiritual reason for the untimely death," political instigators are not named. This is metaphysics, not an investigation.
"Alcyone" gives a direct political accusation: "the interests of the clergy of that diocese coincided with the interests of the KGB," "the KGB found an executor who had been in hot spots (Afghanistan)," "killed with an entrenching tool, not an axe – the axe was disinformation," "there were three of them: two distracted from the front, one struck from behind," "evidence would periodically disappear from the investigation."
This is not metaphysics – it is a specific version of a political murder with details of the weapon, the number of participants, the mechanism of the order, and the concealment of evidence. A version that cannot be published in Russia without consequences.
The difference is not stylistic – it is substantive and political. "Cassiopeia" produces a version safe for work in Russia: the murder happened, it is tragic, but it's karma, a personal karmic knot. The Russian Orthodox Church and the FSB as institutions do not appear anywhere. "Alcyone" produces a version that implies a specific KGB order with the complicity of a church diocese – a direct accusation of current institutions, since the FSB is the legal successor to the KGB.
5.3. Structural Conclusion
If we accept the framework that both channels operate honestly within their own method, we have a classic example of how the institutional context of the medium shapes the received message. The medium "hears" what they can and are prepared to hear. Cassiopeia is located in Russia, monetized, visible to the authorities. Alcyone operates in a Ukrainian context, where accusations against the KGB/FSB are not only permissible but socially expected.
This does not mean one channel is "true" and the other "false." It means both transmit reality filtered through an institutional position. Censorship here is not an exception to the norm, but the very norm of producing mediumistic knowledge.
VI. Mechanisms of Astral Diplomacy
6.1. The Ontological Framework as a Cage
The most subtle and likely most effective tool for managing the content of a session is not prohibiting statements, but constructing the framework for their interpretation. The entire "Cassiopeia" session operates within an ontology where the "sixth level" is the level of Archons, i.e., fallen beings. The organizers themselves characterize their interlocutor as a demonic entity.
A spirit from the sixth level, appearing within this framework, automatically accepts its language. By using concepts of "level," "karmic tasks," and "archontic state," it unwittingly legitimizes the system itself. This is a classic rhetorical trap: by speaking the opponent's language, you accept their basic assumptions. The curators created the framework not to directly limit the spirit, but so that the audience would interpret everything said through this framework. Neutralization occurs not through censoring content, but through contextualizing the source.
6.2. Channel Management as Bandwidth Management
The fundamental difference is that the curators do not manage the spirit directly, but the channel. Instead of telling the spirit "don't say this," they can narrow the channel's bandwidth at certain frequencies. The medium "does not hear" and "does not understand" certain thought-forms – not because the spirit isn't sending them, but because the channel does not transmit them.
This explains the characteristic phenomenon in the transcript: "fuzzy image," "I don't understand," "I can't make it out" – precisely on the topics that are most politically dangerous. The medium may be literally describing what is happening: the channel is noisy in these places. Whether this "noise" is the result of the curators' astral diplomacy or a psychophysiological reaction of anxiety is functionally indistinguishable.
6.3. Managing Questions as Managing Answers
The host performs a role far more important than it seems. He doesn't just ask questions – he determines the topography of the conversation. "This was the process of dekulakization, right? Am I understanding correctly?" – this is not a question, but a narrative prompt. "It wasn't poisoning. It was a natural illness" – this is a summary, closing the topic before the spirit can add anything undesirable.
Managing questions is managing possible answers. The spirit from the sixth level might have wanted to develop certain topics. But the question has already been switched. In astral diplomacy, as in ordinary diplomacy, the interaction protocol is the main tool for substantive control.
VII. The Historiosophical Dimension: Stalin as a Problem
7.1. Psychological Portrait of the "Speaking Spirit"
Analysis of the "spirit's" speech patterns allows us to construct a psychologically accurate portrait, regardless of the source's nature. A narcissistic structure with paranoid traits: consistent denial of guilt, shifting responsibility onto others ("Trotsky," "the kulaks are to blame themselves"), monopolizing credit. Declaring shame a "feeling of the weak" – a classic narcissistic defense.
The psychologically most credible moment is the account of childhood trauma: abuse by his stepfather, helplessness. Biographically, this is confirmed. The psychodynamics are obvious: a person who experienced absolute helplessness in childhood forms a compensatory structure of absolute control. "God didn't save me – but I saved others, by shooting such monsters" – this is not an apology for terror, but its psychological explanation through the logic of a traumatized child who became an omnipotent adult.
7.2. Stalinism as a Structural Trap
The "spirit" offers a consistent apology: Russia had to undergo rapid industrialization. The peasants did not want to finance it. Therefore, coercion was inevitable. Therefore, violence was necessary. Therefore, the executions were justified. Each link in the chain seems logical. The defect lies in the hidden premise: that no alternative existed.
Historical research shows: alternatives did exist. And the price of the chosen path was excessive even from a pragmatic standpoint: the repressions destroyed a significant portion of military cadres on the eve of the war, costing millions of additional lives in 1941–1942. The "spirit" does not see this alternative history – and cannot see it, being inside its own frame of reference. This is ideological solipsism as a diagnosis.
7.3. Rehabilitation of Stalin as a Sociocultural Phenomenon
By 2023, polls in Russia recorded a record level of positive attitude towards Stalin – around 70% consider his role in history to be rather positive. This is not an anomaly or the result of propaganda in the vulgar sense. It is a psychologically understandable reaction to the experience of the collapse and humiliation of the 1990s: the image of a "strong state" fills the psychological void left by the collapse of the Soviet system.
The mediumship session with the "spirit of Stalin" is thus not a random choice of topic, but a precise hit on a sore point in the collective psyche. The project produces a product for which there is demand. Spiritual censorship ensures that this product remains within acceptable boundaries. This is not a contradiction – it is market logic in an authoritarian context.
VIII. Conclusion: What is Spiritual Censorship?
Spiritual censorship in mediumship sessions is not a metaphor or conspiracy theory. It is a description of a real phenomenon in which the political constraints of an authoritarian state are translated into the language of inner spiritual experience through several simultaneously operating mechanisms.
The first mechanism is psychophysiological: anxiety blocks the emergence of dangerous topics in the trance state. The second is cognitive: socialized knowledge of boundaries guides the selection of narratives. The third is commercial: the motivation to preserve the business fosters the "wisdom" of avoidance. The fourth is framing: the project's ontological system provides interpretative control over the content even without censoring the content itself.
The comparison of "Cassiopeia" and "Alcyone" shows: the same "spirit," the same esoteric language, the same coordinate system – but fundamentally different content on matters sensitive to Russian institutions of power. This difference cannot be explained otherwise than through the institutional context of the medium.
The most profound conclusion is this: spiritual censorship is not an exception to the normal functioning of mediumistic practice, but a structural element of it under conditions of an authoritarian state. A medium working in such an environment inevitably becomes a transmitter not only of "astral information" but also of political constraints, translated into the language of cosmology. The curators "see the branches of the future" precisely to the extent that an experienced entrepreneur in an authoritarian state can foresee the consequences of an incautious statement.
Ultimately, regardless of the nature of the mediumistic phenomenon – whether it be genuine contact, the collective unconscious, or a skillfully constructed performance – spiritual censorship operates according to the same laws. An authoritarian state does not need direct control over every project. It is enough to form an environment in which people themselves know what can be said to spirits.
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