Understanding Mediumship and How it Works

Everyone has the ability to connect with their loved ones in spirit. Almost every client I’ve worked with has had their loved ones come through and talk about the ways that they’re already connecting with them. The problem is usually that my clients aren’t trusting that they’re actually doing so. They explain it off as their imagination, coincidence, or wishful thinking until they sit down for a session with a medium like myself that brings up these experiences and information about their loved ones in spirit that they couldn’t possibly know unless they were, in fact, communicating with them.

We’re all born with a set of physical senses that help us to see, hear, and feel the world around us, but we’re also born with a set of intuitive senses that help us to see, hear, and feel the energy around us that can’t be picked up by those physical senses. Our intuitive senses pick up on the energy of different people, places, or situations and communicates this information to us through flashes of images in the mind’s eye, a voice heard in the mind, and/or “gut” feelings. For most of us, this happens randomly, and we don’t have much control over it. We might have a friend’s face pop up in our mind’s eye moments before they call on the phone, hear a voice that tells us to stop right before we get into a bad accident, or have a “gut” feeling that something just isn’t right about a person or situation. It’s possible, however, to further develop these abilities so that you can use them at will. This is what psychics and mediums have done.

At this point, I should clarify the difference between a psychic and a medium. A psychic uses their intuitive senses to “read” the energy of a person, place, or object. A person would be looking for a psychic reading if they wanted to know about their love life, career, or what their future looks like. A medium uses their intuitive senses to translate messages from people’s loved ones in spirit. A person would be looking for a mediumship reading if they wanted to talk to their loved ones or even their pets in spirit. All mediums are capable of doing a psychic reading, but not all psychics choose to develop their abilities to do mediumship readings. It’s not necessarily that they can’t, it’s just that not everyone feels drawn to do so. Personally, I choose to only do mediumship readings and not offer psychic readings. It’s not that I’m not able to do psychic readings, I just don’t feel drawn to use my abilities in that way.

A medium is called a “medium” because they are exactly that. They’re the middle man between you and your loved one in spirit. I look at it more like I’m a translator. Since those in spirit no longer have a physical body, they’re not able to communicate through the physical senses. However, they can still communicate through the intuitive senses. As I focus my attention on them and become aware of my intuitive senses, I begin to see, hear, and feel them and the messages they’re trying to communicate. It’s almost like a game of charades at times. It usually starts with me feeling if they’re male or female and their relationship to the person in front of me. I feel the relationship through the energy of love. So, I may feel like this is a father even if they were technically a “step” father or if they were an older friend that my client looked up to as a father. Many times, messages come to me in bits to help layer the information. Almost like those “See Spot” books from back in the day, “See Spot” “See Spot run”. They may show me an image of a ring and make me feel this is a wedding ring, to which I’d say “I need to talk about a wedding ring”. Next, they show me an image of a gift box and make me feel a connection with their son, to which I’d say “You’d understand that you gave their wedding ring to your son as a gift”. They then flood me with a feeling of appreciation and love to which I’d say, “they want you to know how much they appreciate this, and they love you so much”. This continues as their story and message unfolds.

It can take a medium years of classes and practice to develop this ability to the point where they can help others. They first have to learn how to connect at will. I’ve heard it described as turning the dial to a certain radio station frequency, and I really like that analogy. I would describe it more like “shifting my awareness” to a different state. I allow my mind to enter a relaxed state of expanded awareness and to those in the spirit world. Which can be very hard to do when you’re in front of a complete stranger (or in some cases a whole room full of complete strangers) that are looking at you to bring forth some amazing information that you couldn’t otherwise know. The brain immediately wants to start searching for the information, but you have to tell it to go sit down while you instead focus on the information coming from the intuitive senses. Once the medium learns to do that, they then have to learn what all the different images, sounds, and feelings mean for them and how to translate that information to the person in front of them. It all works through the mind of the medium and their own personal experiences. So, seeing a rose may mean love for one medium while it may symbolize an upcoming anniversary for another. Through years of trial and error during practices with volunteers and other mediums, the medium begins to build their library of symbols along with a better understanding of when the information is coming from their intuition and when it’s just coming from their own mind. Certain things can throw a medium off and make it harder to connect. If the medium isn’t feeling good physically or is going through a difficult emotional situation, it may be hard for them to keep their focus on those in spirit and maintain that connection. Things can also be confused in translation. The best example I’ve ever experienced was a time when I was connecting a lady with her father in spirit. He showed me a fishing pole so I said, “Your father is showing me a fishing pole, he must have loved to fish”. She replied, “I understand the fishing pole, but he didn’t like to fish”. I wasn’t sure what else that symbolism could have meant, so I just set it aside until the end of our session. At the end she said, “my father didn’t like to fish, but he loved to make fishing poles as a hobby in his spare time.” The information I received was correct; I just interpreted it wrong.

Sometimes the client will understand, and the medium won’t. Sometimes both are left scratching their heads at what it could have meant. Mediums (and/or psychics) aren’t “all knowing” beings as myth and media paint them to be. Being a medium is more like being a translator and sometimes things can get lost in translation.

For those of you that might be interested in exploring your own mediumship abilities but aren’t sure where to start, I’d suggest reading a few books. I have a Recommended Reading list on my site with some good ones to start with. I also offer classes from time to time and One-to-One Mentoring for people of all levels, from complete beginner to professional.

Thanks for reading and as always, please feel free to reach out with any questions!